Steve's Camp

Gary Johnson -- my vote in the primary

2012-02-27T19:58:00.000-05:00

A last minute idea for voting in the Michigan primary: Gary Johnson. No, he is not even in contention, but I voted for him today (absentee ballot) because he is the only candidate that even has a rudimentary understanding of individual rights, has a fundamental focus on facts (reality), is truly a fiscal conservative and is not interested in social engineering. I voted for him, but also as a protest vote against the Republican Party failing to run an acceptable candidate and for shamelessly and deliberately excluding Johnson from their debates.

Congratulations Laura Dekker!

2012-01-22T14:20:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Laura Dekker, who yesterday became the youngest person to complete a solo circumnavigation of the world in a sailboat. The 16-year-old Dutch sailor sailed into Sint Maarten after having completed some 27,000 nautical miles. What an adventure and what an accomplishment! I love stories of individuals living their lives to the fullest.

Laura's story might not have happened if the Dutch government had been able to have its way. Feeling its need to be paternalistic, it tried to have her locked up to "protect her". Laura wrote in her online account:

The Dutch government was not kind to me. As a 13 year old girl, it was never my intention to be the center of world news. From the moment my plans became public, Youth Care and other government organizations tried to stop me. During the first court case, in August 2009, (even before Youth Care had ever seen me, or had spoken to me…), they asked the Judge to take me away from my father and to lock me up in a secure clinic! By doing this they tried to stop me from sailing. Another five court cases followed and another five times Youth Care asked the judge to lock me up. I only wanted to go sailing! Fortunately the judge never honored this terrible request. Over a period of 11 months, I was constantly afraid that Youth Care would lock me up. Also during this period, there were intimidating interviews with Youth Care workers. It was all a frightening and traumatic experience. So often these terrible memories come to me. I can’t ignore them. It is painful. Now, after sailing around the world, with difficult port approaches, storms, dangerous reefs, and the full responsibility of keeping myself and Guppy safe, I feel that the nightmares the Dutch government organizations put me through, were totally unfair.

Whatever one might think about her or her parents' decision to commit to such an undertaking, you have to admire what this youngster has accomplished. I, for one, hope her adventurous spirit inspires others to take a chance and live a little.

Veterinary Medicine as a Microcosm of the Greater Economy

2012-01-15T18:21:00.000-05:00

Paul Pion, founder and owner of the popular online veterinary forum, VIN, recently sent out his New Year's greeting, celebrating twenty years of VIN's success. He also lamented the problems that have become prevalent in the veterinary community:

Here is my dilemma. More than any other time in my 32 years in veterinary medicine, I am deeply concerned about the future we are paving for our profession. During the late 1990's and early 2000's it felt like veterinary medicine stood on the cusp of a Golden Age. Specialty medicine and cutting edge technologies were becoming available in most communities. Practice management philosophy promised an era in which veterinarians could practice the highest levels of medicine and raise revenues as never before.

Among the problems he cites are:

Over-dependence upon, and subsequent loss of pharmacy income
Reduced client visits
Changes to work-life balance expectations
Increased numbers of specialists and specialty practices
Mismatch between demand for veterinary services and supply of veterinary graduates
Reduced state and federal funding for higher education
Rising cost of education resulting in an unprecedented debt to salary ratio for our young colleagues

Unfortunately, as I pointed out in a reply to him, these problems are merely a reflection of the problems encountered by the country as a whole, problems caused at their root by the failure of government to stay out of economics.

Just as the housing and debt bubbles were enabled by government policies, so are many of the issues facing the veterinary profession. Any time the government becomes involved in the economy, it distorts it, sometimes dramatically. Central planning has never worked, yet we continue to act as though it will.

In veterinary medicine, (mostly) state run schools provide training to students whose educations are financed by government-backed loans (contributing to the burgeoning student loan bubble). The easy availability of loans and schools provides an excess of veterinarians, who graduate and enter a job market at wage levels too low to repay the loans in a reasonable amount of time. The irrationality is shared by government officials who don't seem to care about the fiscal responsibility of making bad loans and students who fail to investigate their future earning potential.

The veterinary profession, in turn, uses State powers to enforce licensing requirements, limiting pet owners' options when seeking treatments. Meanwhile, the FDA and DEA add incredibly to the expense of providing medications to pets, and OSHA and a variety of other agencies add to the expense of hiring employees. Government involvement in the insurance industry makes it prohibitively expensive for many practices to provide insurance to employees (or for employees to purchase their own policies). There are obviously many more examples of government interference, but suffice it to say, this is not an example of a free market.

On top of all this, the nation's economy recently imploded, destroying a vast quantity of (mostly false) wealth. Many pet owners now struggle to provide veterinary care for their pets (many are also responsible for making irrational decisions to take on the responsibility of pets when they are not economically capable of providing adequate care).

Students, raised during the time their parents thought they were more wealthy than they were, became used to the idea of living a more leisurely lifestyle and become disgruntled at the reality of needing to work longer hours to support their desired lifestyles.

Unfortunately, most of the proposals to "solve" this crisis in veterinary medicine amount to the AVMA and other veterinary organizations trying to pressure government schools to limit enrollment or the government to develop alternative methods to allow students to repay their debts. Economic advisers continue to try to persuade practice owners to raise rates in an attempt to pay students more than they are worth so they can repay debts that were too large for them to responsibly take on.

When asked if I would want to work with colleagues to develop solutions to these problems, I replied:

If I thought I could find a group ofcolleagues that were approaching the issue properly, I wouldenthusiastically join them. As it is, I work with organizations onthe national level that do fight for the proper ideas. I have nostomach for political action committees, lobbyists or any otherpush-pull peddlers, even if that is what the current politicalenvironment requires.

The proper solution requires a return to the proper concepts of government, namely that it exists solely to protect our individual rights. The only way to improve the situation is to get government out of our economy and allow the free market to operate.

Things I've Learned

2012-01-08T11:46:00.003-05:00

I've learned a lot in life, and hope to learn a lot more. Some things are more important than others, and I thought I'd share a few:

It's the experiences and relationships in life that are important, not the things. The "things" are only important insofar as they contribute to the adventure of living.
Simple is usually better than complex; complexity usually brings too many complications that get in the way of what you want to do.
Too many things also get in the way; that's when possessions become like too much ballast.
There's a difference between a traveler and a tourist; I like to be the former.
Reality exists and it's discoverable; the discovering is hard, necessary, fascinating and worth it.
Ideas matter.
Character matters.
Diet, exercise and rest are important, but cheating occasionally is also important to fully enjoy the adventure of living.
Attitude really does make a difference.

Prayer study finds the obvious

2006-04-01T15:58:00.000-05:00

In a large study designed to determine whether there was any evidence that prayer could influence illness, heart disease in this instance, religious leaders were only able to demonstrate the obvious--it makes no difference. Of course, they didn't see it that way, instead deciding that the results only showed that science couldn't measure religious dogma. I think instead, they've done an admirable job of demonstrating once again how mystics are capable of evading the truth.

Hero watch: Wafa Sultan

2006-03-20T16:09:00.000-05:00

Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American psychologist at UCLA, is gaining quite a lot of attention lately. She appeared on Al Jezeera debating an Muslim cleric in an interview. She is excellent at discerning and presenting the basic concepts involved in the clash between East and West:

The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century...It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand.

One can only wish our political leaders could understand and communicate these ideas so clearly. Wafa Sultan is putting herself in a precarious position being so outspoken against those known to stifle opposition with violence, but boldness and moral clarity are exactly what is required to defeat those who would destroy us. She clearly deserves the title of hero. May she succeed in her mission.

Gregory Forbes: Defender of science

2006-03-11T18:49:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Gregory Forbes. A Michigan expert in evolutionary science, Mr. Forbes passion "is to make sure this society is educated in modern science." He's taking his crusade directly to the enemy, religious leaders and their flocks, trying to educate them on the difference between fact and fantasy. He's a hero for reason.

The Evolution Education Institute

CEO with guts

2006-02-27T19:36:00.000-05:00

Finally, a CEO worth mentioning. TJ Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation, is one principled leader. He stood against fellow businessmen in speaking out against corporate welfare, faced down a nun who complained about diversity in his corporation and warns about government intrusion in our personal lives and the erosion of rights. Read this business giant's views here.

More businessmen need to stand up for the principles that make capitalism work, the same principles that will guarantee our success as a free society.

Torture

2005-12-18T15:50:00.000-05:00

There has been much discussion lately about the role of torture in the interrogation of prisoners of war. Actually, it would be more accurate to say there has been much hand-wringing about the subject from the press and our politicians. The vast majority of what I've read is an attempt to shame our forces for abusing Iraqi terrorists.

While I will agree that it is immoral to torture anyone, just for the sake of torture, or even as a form of retribution, it is far from immoral to employ the use of torture as a technique to obtain relevant information about enemy tactics. If the use of torture results in information that saves American lives and advances the war on the enemy, then there is no limit to the type or degree of torture involved. It is moral to undertake whatever actions are required to win a moral war.

That, of course, calls into question the morality of the war in Iraq. That is a topic for another discussion.

Intelligent Design

2005-11-12T08:11:00.000-05:00

It would be funny, were the consequences on Man not so significant. Religion has reared its ugly head again in Kansas, where the courts decided to allow the teaching of creationism, this time wrapped in a package called Intelligent Design, as a theory disserving equal treatment with evolution. Galileo must be rolling his eyes from his grave! Remember, he was the brilliant scientist placed for years under house arrest and threatened with torture by the Catholic Church for asserting that Copernicus was right about the earth revolving around the sun. Then there was the famous Scopes Monkey Trials, and now this latest humiliation for Kansas.

It seems odd that people can turn a blind eye to the suffering and misery of the Dark and Medieval Ages or the present day Middle East, both under stifling religious oppression, and not see what happens to man, the rational animal, when he is not permitted to think.

At least one Pennsylvania town seems to have gotten the message. Dover, PA residents ejected local board members who tried to encourage such foolishness in their schools, much to the chagrin of mystic Pat Robertson, who threatened that God might bring natural disaster to their life-affirming town.

Cultural awareness or catering to irrationality?

2005-08-28T18:32:00.000-04:00

In the Grand Rapids post today, there is an article titled "Cultural awareness a priority for service workers". It's a great example of how multiculturalism leads to wringing of hands and paralysis when faced with the irrational behavior or beliefs of others. In one example, a Chinese woman refuses treatment in a hospital because her bed faces the wrong way in the room. In another, a teacher gets in trouble for making cute little pig name tags because a student is muslim and has been taught that pork is unclean.

Get a life! The way to deal with irrationality is to identify it as such, confront it as necessary, and, if people persist in being irrational, let them suffer what it brings them. If reason is one's only means of dealing with reality, then why would anyone want to compromise it? One need only look to our coddling of Iraqi irrationalities to see a concrete example of how it can cost lives.

Potter versus the Pope

2005-07-15T21:07:00.000-04:00

The latest edition of Harry Potter goes on sale at midnight tonight. This is, no doubt, of some consternation to the Pope. Two years before he became the head of the Catholic Church, he complained that Harry Potter eroded "Christianity in the soul." Apparently magic is to be reserved only for those characters approved by the church.

The Harry Potter series is a delightful story that clearly depicts the fight between good and evil. It shows heroic characters using their minds (and a little magic) to fight evil and win. I think children and adults are far better following their example than the altruistic commandments of the authoritarian Church. The former offers a brilliant future designed by men's minds, the latter a return to the desperation of the Dark Ages.

Religion in America

2005-06-12T12:35:00.000-04:00

In a recent AP/Ipsos poll, Americans were found to be significantly more religious than other polled countries, with the exception of Mexico. Even there, a smaller percentage of the population believed religion should play a role in government than in America, where 37% thought it appropriate. One might think that the only country in the world founded on the rational principle of individual rights would be the least influenced by faith. I wonder if, when the principles of the Enlightenment were abandoned in other countries, the principles of socialism were adopted, but, in America, socialism was distasteful enough to be rejected. In the ensuing ethical vacuum, religion stepped in.

Fewer doctors accept Medicaid

2005-05-26T20:42:00.000-04:00

The Grand Rapids Press reports that fewer doctors are accepting Medicaid patients in Michigan. "Two of every three doctors surveyed in January said they participated in Medicaid. That is down from 88 percent in 1999 and 77 percent in 2001." Apparently they refuse to be slaves, losing money each time they see a Medicaid patient. Governor Granholm, in a fit of collectivist-style thinking, is proposing taxing doctors' incomes to try to increase available Medicaid funds!

It absolutely amazes me how politicians can be so blind to the failures of government intervention in the economy, no matter what field. Then, when their policies fail, their answer is to impose more government.

Supreme Court lifts ban on wine sales

2005-05-24T17:02:00.000-04:00

OK, so this news is a week old, but it a Supreme Court decision I can agree with, so it merits mention. The decided that States could not discriminate against out-of-state wineries by banning direct sales to consumers, if in-state wineries could sell directly to their consumers. Free trade wins a battle!

Of course, Michigan Liquor Control Commission Chairwoman Nida Samona said she will ask state lawmakers to ban all in-state as well as out-of-state shipments of wine. Politicians never seem to tire of trying to impose their will on others. It will be most interesting to see how Governor Granholm (who lost the case) will respond. Will she join the prudish religious right and try to limit access, or the more moderate Republicans who favor free trade, or the protectionists who believe any law is justifiable if they can protect their specific contributing constituents? Of course, one of her fears (probably unsubstantiated) will be potential loss of tax revenue to fund her massive government spending. She has already hinted at passing other "sin" taxes to shore up funding. Funny, I never heard the far more logical proposal to cut spending.

President Bush speaks at Calvin College

2005-05-23T13:31:00.000-04:00

President Bush gave the commencement address to the graduating class at Calvin College here in Grand Rapids this weekend. True to the setting (a private religious college) and his orientation (Religious Right), the theme of the talk was service to the community. He repeated the Religious Right's mistaken belief that the country was not founded on individualism, but service to others. To his credit he did denounce collectivism, but fails to understand how "radical individualism" does not mean trampling on one's neighbors.

The root of his misunderstanding of the nature of individualism, individual rights and capitalism is his acceptance of altruism as a moral primary. This fundamental mistake leads to many dangerous final results, including the Republicans' inability to morally defend capitalism and denounce the Welfare State. If only President Bush and his followers could see how much better we would all be served if they would just protect our rights and leave us alone to follow our dreams and pursue our own individual happiness.