The following is an email correspondence between a 25 year old classical-liberal-in-the-making

and a middle aged self proclaimed social libertarian. The correspondence spanned several
months in 2009 and has been reformatted here for easier comparison of ideas. Enjoy!

Round 1
I’m sure you were expecting to hear from me sooner, but between school and work I’ve been
hard pressed to find the time to write you. Nonetheless I am excited about striking up a
correspondence with you. Padme speaks very highly of you. From what I understand you are
quite intelligent and well informed, which intrigues me greatly given what I have heard about
your political leanings. I don’t know the extent to which she has told you about me, but I’m
guessing you know our politics are somewhat at odds. The purpose of this email, and hopefully
those to come, is to pick your brain and allow you to pick mine so as to identify the source of this
disparity.
I understand that opinions differ and rightfully so. However, I don’t subscribe to the idea that
politics can’t or shouldn’t be discussed in polite company. I also reject the notion that where
differences of opinion arise regarding public policy that we can “agree to disagree.” More often
than not when this approach is taken the result is one idea winning by default. The issues our
country faces today are too important to be left unresolved in the name of political correctness or
expediency. Since neither of us have anything to lose by laying all our cards on the table, it is my
hope that we may have a more candid and productive debate than politicians on either side of the
aisle.
That being said, I feel very passionately about my beliefs, as I’m sure you do about yours. As
such I have been known to come across as abrasive. Since we don’t really know each other, I
hope you can believe me when I say it won’t be personal if I do. Likewise, I will not take it to
heart if you let loose with both barrels. I presume the article Padme gave me (4 Myths About
Free Markets-and Their Demise) was in line with your thinking on economics. I've been working
on a refutation of these "myths" but it is rather long and still somewhat unrefined so I haven't
included it in this email. I figured it would be best to establish contact and confirm that it is in
fact representative of your thoughts before I attempt to refute it. I hope this is the beginning of a
constructive exchange of ideas.

Game on. Sounds like fun. What world problem do you wish to solve first?

You spoke about the article and free markets. Let's start there.

Since you plan to run for office1, I will let you begin with your stand on free markets. What is
your idea of how a free market works and what should the government do or not do to return us
to that point.

I believe the free market is a refinement of the crude "law of the jungle." I believe that it, as with
other pillars of civilization, is an example of mankind first recognizing its basest instincts and
then harnessing them to his advantage rather than wishing them away. We each have a self
preservation instinct that can be characterized as greed. In the wild this greed causes animals to
1
I had expressed frustration with the current crop of supposedly conservative politicians, so I
had decided, for the time being, to run for President in 2020
literally destroy one another for their piece of the pie, so to speak. Humans, by virtue of our
intellect and spirit, have managed to lay some ground rules to minimize this potential for
violence. In effect, by channeling this self preservation and self improvement instinct in a
civilized framework, individual success contributes to societal success by means of the example
set to other individuals and the expansion of the operation to include other individuals. Because
this framework can apply to virtually anything man desires, the free market is not confined by
the finite resources of this planet. The exchange of goods and services provides endless
opportunities for individuals to better themselves and those around them, so long as the terms of
that exchange are determined by those engaged in it.

Admittedly, my historical knowledge is somewhat lacking (which I hope to correct) concerning

where government action may have helped, but all around us are glaring examples of where its
intercession has harmed transactions, from minimum wage (which restricts freedom of both the
employer and employee) to punitive taxes on certain commodities.

As for Rick Newman's condemnation of free markets in his article2, I offer the following
refutation.

Would the free market do it better?

That's one big sticking point for legislators opposed to a huge bailout bill to get the financial
system back on track. Before the failure of President Bush's first $700 bailout bill on Monday, a
memo urged 100 or so conservative Republicans to call for a "free-market alternative to the
Treasury Department's proposal." Republican Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, who voted against the
bill, explains on his website that "renewing our belief in the power of the free market must be our
guide" to a better solution.

Free markets sure sound good--after all, what's not to like, if they're "free"? But the pure and airy
version of free markets that keeps showing up in speeches doesn't really resemble the way free
markets work in reality. A few of the prevailing myths about free markets:

Myth 1: They're fair. The idea that supply and demand always achieve equilibrium, that sellers
always find buyers, and that every good has a price makes it sound as if pure free-market
mechanisms ensure fairness and decency. Not really. In true free markets, there are winners and
losers, and the losers lose hard. The most efficient and ruthless companies drive others out of
business. There's no guarantee of competition, and monopolies form. Prices rise. And the
powerful tend to get more powerful. Consumers take what they can get.

Myth 1: They're fair

Newman proposes that free markets are not fair, that equilibrium isn’t guaranteed. From an
individual’s perspective this is true. Anecdotal evidence abounds to support this claim, but the
economy is more than a collection of individuals and their woes or fortunes. It is an organism
unto itself that defies quantification. The very concept of equilibrium implies the ups and downs
characterized by these anecdotes, and it cannot be observed in microcosm. As such, when the
2
“4 Myths About Free Markets- and Their Demise”
word “fair” is evoked in defense of the free market it is not to imply that every participant will
come away feeling they got a good deal, but that in a world where winning and losing are
inherent to that equilibrium, no individual or collection of 5353 individuals is better suited to
arbitrate “fairness” than the natural ebb and flow.

When “losers lose hard,” as the article puts forth, it is all relative. I imagine the average
inhabitant of, say, Kenya would jump at the opportunity to switch places with even the hardest
hit victim of our current economic woes. In the case of monopolies, it is misleading to
characterize them as the inevitable conclusion of the free market as the article does. The
necessity of a specialized term alone denotes that they are an exception rather than the norm. It is
also interesting to note the sense of entitlement inherent in the objection to monopolies. Consider
the computer. Just because the demand for a commodity grows to be virtually universal doesn’t
mean that its inventor should be punished and his creation becomes public domain. Monopolies
are only deemed as such when society tires of playing by the indelible rules of supply and
demand.

Myth 2: They're unregulated. In theory, the less government regulation, the freer the market. But
the economy we're used to has multiple layers of regulation that have formed over decades, with
general approval from most corners of society. Teddy Roosevelt interfered in free markets by
helping break up mammoth monopolies in the oil, railroad, and banking industries--to great
popular appeal. After the Depression, we got bank deposit insurance and dozens of other free-
market intrusions that most people still favor. The "free market" of just one year ago--before
anybody was talking about a bailout--featured all manner of government intervention, from
unemployment insurance to federal car-safety standards to an activist Federal Reserve able to
pull various levers to keep the economy humming. So when people invoke the power of the free
market, which free market are they talking about? The one of 150 years ago, with very few
consumer protections? Or the one of a year ago, already heavily regulated?

Myth 2: They're unregulated

The article goes on to suppose that few would prefer the truly unregulated market of 150 years
ago. I, for one, would prefer it, and I’m not alone in this thought. When did the phrase “buyer
beware” fall by the wayside? If we write new regulations every time the consumer feels slighted
we’ll be no closer to fairness in the market than if we were to do so whenever the producer feels
the same. At the end of the day the consumer is just as concerned with his bottom line as the
merchant. The consumer will undercut just as ruthlessly as the merchant, haggling or literally
stealing when he feels he can get away with it. What’s fair is when the best man wins, not when
Big Brother steps in and picks one side over the other. Moreover, the fact that we’ve taken that
approach for decades is not a testament to its validity, but rather a testament to our all too
frequent propensity to cede our independence back to our government. When did the citizenry
who took arms against the mightiest empire on the planet to assert its financial and sovereign
identity turn into the citizenry who bites its nails in panic if today’s crowns aren’t there to hold
its hand through every transaction?
3
The original e-mail contains the number 435...whoops.
Myth 3: They're efficient. When it comes to investing capital and running a business, yeah, it's
likely that a company operating in accordance with the profit motive will spend its resources
more wisely than a government bureaucracy answerable to politicians. But when problems
develop across the whole system, markets tend to seize up. That's because all the players who
behave rationally when protecting their own interests don't necessarily agree what's best for the
whole system. In the current crisis, for instance, banks with money to lend are sitting on it
instead, fearful that borrowers might default. And so far, no market mechanism has persuaded
banks to start lending again for the good of the overall economy. Market solutions usually do
emerge, but it can be bloody and destructive getting there, because every participant fights to get
as much as it can for itself. For well over a century, the appeal of government intervention has
been the feds' ability to act as a mediator seeking the best solution for everybody, instead of
simply letting various interests fight to the death.

Newman then contends that efficacy of the free market seizes up “when problems develop across
the whole system.” Looking past the vagueness of this assertion, we’ll analyze the given
example: the burst of the housing bubble. The bubble didn’t form because the free market was
left to its own devices, it formed as a result of the free market reacting to a perversion of its
principles. The market only seized because the terms of loans had become so elastic and
convoluted that banks didn’t know who to trust with their clients’ money. This happened because
misguided idealists decided that the standards that had preserved the banking industry and helped
it thrive need not apply when dealing with the underprivileged.

Newman admits that market solutions do emerge but insists that it can be bloody and destructive.
If banks were assaulting clients and burning down their homes we may have reason to call for
government action, but all they’re doing is looking after they’re [sic] own interests like everyone
else. It’s precisely because the feds thought they knew better than practicing economists and
bankers how to handle banking and the economy that we are in this bind. As for the “appeal of
government intervention,” Newman is woefully naïve if he believes the federal government acts
in anybodies [sic] interest but its own.

It is within human capacity to be benevolent, and an individual may prove to be an exception,

but most people look after themselves first. The same rules apply in positions of power as in the
rest of the world. This is why even the most benevolent autocracies trample liberty when their
rule is threatened. Our system of government fragments power so no one person holds too much.
The founders were careful not to split the power up too much though. They realized that the
more people running the show the more apt we are to have that self preservation instinct manifest
itself into law4.

Myth 4: They're cheap. Would a market solution to the financial crisis cost less than the $700
billion proposed in the failed bailout plan? If we truly had a free market, almost certainly not.
Most economists agree that a pure market solution would allow hundreds of companies to fail,
with no safety net for the suddenly unemployed, bank depositors, creditors, or anybody else
4
This is an idea I meant to flesh out more but haven’t gotten around to doing so. Basically I envisioned a bell curve
with the peak being the optimum number of government decision makers and either extreme being the undesirable
effects of having too few (autocracy) or too many (mob rule).
brought down by widespread economic failure. That would probably kick off a second Great
Depression, which is why there are virtually no free marketeers arguing that we should repeal
layers of existing regulation and return to a truly unregulated market. Plus, with less regulation,
there's a lot less for Congress to do.

Myth 4: They're cheap

The last line says it all: "with less regulation, there's a lot less for Congress to do." How does a
Congressman get reelected? He pretends to be busy. I believe this desire by Congressmen to have
some piece of legislation to show for their terms is convoluting the rule of law and building a
juggernaut of a bureaucracy that is more threatening to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
than any monopoly to have ever come down the pike. If Americans woke up tomorrow with the
realization that no matter what Congress does or doesn't do regarding the economy our country
will still be here, imagine how desperately our elected officials would clamor to manufacture the
next crisis that only they can solve. Only one accustomed to the circus that has become of our
government expects a safety net when things don't go his or her way. In the real world, when we
fall we hurt ourselves. No amount of legislation is going to change that.

I tend to believe that the rupture of the housing bubble is about as devastating as that of dot come
bubble, but supposing a market solution would cost more than the bailout, at least it would solve
the problem rather than exacerbating it by temporarily placating it and hoping that human nature
will spontaneously change. Again we shoot ourselves in the foot by thinking we can assess the
economy on a day to day or even year to year basis. When viewed this way it's easy to throw out
figures and claim that a bailout is the cheaper option, but over the long haul it will only cause
more crises down thre [sic] road with untold costs. The reason its referred to as a bubble is that it
has been slowly inflating year after year, during which time we can point to all sorts of indicators
that things are going splendidly. It eventually pops though, and the lesson to be learned from this
is that no matter how shiney [sic] or big the bubble we blow it won't last, and we'll be left with
the same harsh realities we started blowing bubbles to distract ourselves from.
Round 2
With all that being said, I am still trying to understand your “model” of a free market system.

I don't have a "model" for the market. I believe the free market often defies models.

You made many points, but now let’s string them together into the Shanahan Economic Theory.

Things to ponder:

You said free market is an extension of “law of the jungle5.”

I suppose I misspoke when I said it was an extension of the law of the jungle6. The free market is
a facet of the law of the jungle that achieved definition when mankind became civilized. We
didn't create it. We only gave it a name. While models may help our understanding of it, they will
never contain or control it. We may come close to doing so, but it is when we think we have
control of it down to an exact science that it will surprise and humble us7. Thus, we must
recognize and expect the occasional failures of these models if they are to prove to be assets
rather than liabilities.

You said greed is what causes animals to act in self interest.

I regret that I used the word "greed." I did so to diffuse its possible use, but I suppose I only
invited it. I don't believe greed is what causes animals to act in their own self interest. I observe
self preservation to be an instinct of all living things and I believe that we arbitrarily label it as
greed when we run afoul of the display of such from others. As I said, it can be characterized as
greed.

But at what point do humans give up on greed “by virtue of our intellect and spirit” to establish
rules by which we no longer kill each other for resources (or pie)?

As to when we give up on it, we don't. At some point in our ancient history we began to channel
it into productive endeavors, and it is our intellect and spirit which allowed us to do so where
animals could not

How do humans organize to establish such rules?

We established currency to stand in for the concept of value and allow for the accumulation of
such. Beyond that no rules need exist to govern markets. They will govern themselves just like
any other natural system.

5
Actually I said it was “a refinement of the crude ‘law of the jungle.’” Thus begins a long, sad history of my
collaborator reacting to critical mischaracterizations of my arguments.
6
Thus begins an even sadder, albeit shorter, history of me failing to catch these mischaracterizations and restating
my point as though I had been unclear.
7
This, if anything, would be the Shanahan Economic Theory.
How do we determine the “terms of exchange”?

As for determining the terms of exchange, we don't, unless we are directly involved in said
exchange. If I have no direct stake in the sale of a house or the hiring of an employee I should
have no say in how much money exchanges hands or when the agreement they settle upon is
deemed to have been violated.

I realize I probably sound like an anarchist sometimes, but I assure you I'm not. I am still
formulating my thoughts on government in general, but they're coming along nicely. Whatever
details I have to work out on that subject, I am adamant in rejecting the notion that it is
government's place to control the means of production and the distribution of wealth, which is
exactly what it is trying to do now in this country.

Myth 1: “Monopolies are only deemed as such when society tires of playing by the indelible
rules of supply and demand”. However, monopolies do not work by the rules of supply and
demand. What society is trying to do is to return to a competitive environment where the rules
supply and demand do function8.

You said that monopolies don't work by the rules of supply and demand. How so? Was it not the
demand of consumers for the ease of communication provided by telephone companies and the
short supply of such that caused the Bell Telephone company to be dubbed a monopoly. Was it
not the demand for more convenient travel and more lucrative export provided by railroads and
the consolidation of such in a few companies that earned them that dreaded title? If anything, it
would seem to me that they are the best examples to illustrate the concept of supply and demand,
albeit an unfortunate one to those getting the short end of the stick.

Myth 2: Before you say you prefer the “unregulated” market of 150 years ago, we may need to
revisit just what markets looked like then, why they became regulated. (This will be for a later
discussion)9.

Myth 3: The housing bubble was not formed by “idealists", but by the combination of political
influence (idealism in your words), greed from banks and investment firms, monetary policy
making money cheap, home buyers looking for good deals they could not afford (greed), and
several other factors. We can also talk about this later, but it is way too easy to try and blame one
group for a collaborative venture (or misadventure).

As for the housing bubble, if you'll remember I didn't give home buyers, banks, and investment
firms a free pass. I said the free market (in this case embodied by the aforementioned entities)
reacted to perversions of its principles. The banks and investment firms normally wouldn't lend
to people or companies that they couldn't reasonably expect to pay them back or earn them
returns. Home buyers normally wouldn't overextend themselves unless they were reasonably
sure they could get away with it. The reason each of these entities felt they could do so or should
do so was because of the artifice introduced into the market by government regulations.

8
My correspondent is right, but in almost the diametric opposite way of what he intended.
9
I almost wish he would have stuck around long enough to tackle that one. Sounds like fun.
Again, I feel you missed the most pivotal words in my argument. I don't decry idealism. I myself
am an unabashed idealist, as I suspect our countries founders were. I blamed misguided idealists
for blowing the bubble. It was their belief that we could arbitrate prosperity rather than earn it.
Since they were in a position of power and authority, society at large nibbled at the carrots they
dangled and followed them over a cliff. I realize that is a simplification, but as I said at the onset
of this email all we can hope to assess of the economy as a whole is a simplification. I know
more went into the housing bubble than it is within our scope to discuss or understand. I'm not
even saying that a bubble or the resultant collapse wouldn't have happened without government
intervention. To again return to my first paragraph, all models, even those used by the private
sector, are subject to failure. I do contend however that the problem would have been more easily
isolated and solved if government actions hadn't aggravated the situation. Even now, amidst all
the hardship our country endures, I am saddened more by our inability to learn from our mistakes
than my [sic] the misery that we're told is so prevalent. This burst bubble constitutes a national
crisis because we entrusted our government with too widespread authority, so our answer is to
entrust them with even more.

Myth 4: “If Americans woke up tomorrow with the realization that no matter what Congress does
or doesn’t do regarding the economy our country will still be here,” First, if this is true, you are
saying it doesn’t really matter what Congress does, then how does Congress have the ability to
manufacture or unmanufacture [sic] an economic crisis?

As for my assertion that the country would still be here regardless of the actions of Congress, I
didn't mean to imply that it doesn't matter what Congress does. I only meant to say that the
country would still be here because it doesn't owe its existence to some fiat of Congress. It owes
its existence to the Constitution, and it owes its prosperity to the limitations that Constitution
puts on the government. The federal government wasn't formed to make the country run, but
rather to see to it that no forces interfere with the country running itself. Congress doesn't exist
so it can make rules every time it convenes. It exists so it can convene periodically to see if rules
need to be made or action needs to be taken. Career politicians have managed to convince many
people that a deadlocked Congress is a bad thing, that Congress isn't doing its job unless there is
legislation to show for their time. What these people forget is that more legislation, no matter
how noble or well intentioned, amounts to more rules. More rules means less freedom.

Of course it matters what Congress does. It's precisely because it matters so much that I believe
Congressional action shouldn't be a force of habit but should only be brought about by necessity.
Moreover, Congress should confine its actions and intercessions into daily life to the charges it
was specifically given. I included the clause "regarding the economy" because it's entirely
possible that our country could cease to exist if Congress doesn't continue to take steps to ensure
that our enemies don't get their way. Congress can manufacture an economic crisis by believing
itself to be the responsible for the economy in the first place.

If you feel they can influence the economy in a negative way then the opposite must hold true.

I take issue with your assertion that if I believe Congress can negatively impact the economy
then I must also believe they can affect it positively. First of all that logic doesn't hold. If a house
fire or a rape can affect someone's life negatively, must it also be true that these occurrences can
affect his or her life positively? Certainly not. Secondly, since it is not the place of federal
authority to manage the economy, any action taken by Congress to do so is inherently restrictive
of that institution, even if it purports to bolster a facet of it for a time.

SIDEBAR: Economic and competitive equilibrium is a tricky thing. Economist and social
scientist borrowed this term from physical science. Forces of nature are constant (i.e gravity)
which make things like heat, pressure, chemical reaction act predictably since they act
nonrationally. However, people act rationally, irrationally, and nonrationally. People act out of
fear, love, hate, jealousy, pity, guilt, sex, and numerous other human wants, needs, and desires.
This make understanding markets or anything else involving humans difficult since all actors do
not act predictably.

To end on a conciliatory note, I agree with your last statement about the difficulty we face
analyzing systems dependent on human action. I think this difficulty is precisely why no one can
say for certain what should be done to get the economy back on track. Amidst this uncertainty I
believe it is grossly irresponsible to codify into law anyone's theory10.

Historical quote:

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by
inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them
(around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up
homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” Thomas Jefferson.

10
This dovetails with 7 above to flesh out the Shanahan Economic Theory.
Round 3
Mr. President11,

No titles necessary. Even if by some miracle I pull it off and earn that title, I wouldn't expect that
level of formality in this casual of an exchange.

The purpose of me asking for a “model” is for clarity and understanding of thought, not to
control. Of course model and theories fail, that’s why we call them theories and model and not
laws. This was more for me and my simple mind to understand and not to pick a fight.

I understand the use of greed. I see greed, self interest, self preservation, as the same. I
understand what you are saying; living things act to benefit themselves. However, as humans we
do at some point give up on our our self-interest for that of a group.

You're right. To become part of a society an individual must amend some of his self preservation
instincts. I understand your point that a line must be drawn to maintain a level of peace and order
within that society, but drawing that line doesn't erase our instincts. I use the word "amend,"
because I recognize that the group mentality is just as prone to its self preservation instincts as
that of the individual. As I see it, all of all your examples fall under the umbrella of self
preservation.

This can be in the form of a family, that works together of the benefits of all…

A family works together for the benefit of the family, not the neighborhood.

…or a tribe that hunts together to share food and gather resources.

A tribe hunts to sustain itself, without allotting provisions for the other tribes in the region, let
alone preserving the lives of their prey.

There are many examples of humans giving up resources that may hurt them for the benefit of
the group, even their own lives.

Heroes sacrifice their lives, for their community, for their country, but rarely for something in
which they have no stake. These sacrifices only occur when the person has identified themselves
with or invested themselves in a group.

This also extends to free markets. Rules do need to exist to govern markets. Let’s say you know
someone who plays in a band. And let’s say the band writes a great song and you record it and it
hits the airways. Then a band down the street records YOUR song and begins selling it. Would
you not like to have a rule to protect your property rights?

11
Unnecessarily snide, wouldn’t you say?
I fail to see how the ideas of sacrifice and altruism apply to copyright infringement. Who is
acting against self preservation in this instance, the band who stole the song? Is it some great
sacrifice that our society forbids us to steal? You're correct in pointing out the necessity for laws
protecting property rights, but again these laws don't govern the market. They lay the
groundwork for the market to function. By establishing property rights we only reinforce the
concept of the individual. This isn't to discount altruism. To the contrary, altruism is granted its
virtue by the fact that it is a voluntary forfeiting of one's assets. Thus altruism is borne of the
concept of property and not the other way around.

On the subject of monopolies. My point was that once a monopoly is formed the rules of supply
and demand go out the window.

I'm also having trouble understanding how the rules of supply and demand go out the window in
a monopoly.

Monopolies form to control supply and therefore control price

Every business seeks to control supply. If you're the only shop in town to have the new widget,
you'd be a fool to share your source with the competition. Not every business has the luxury of
such a bottleneck of resources, so prices generally remain reasonable. Occasionally, though, a
business has that luxury and prices can get out of hand, but this is still in direct proportion to the
demand for those resources. The rules of supply and demand are still firmly in place in a
monopoly, though it is fair to say they are being abused.

Do you prefer monopolies?

No, I do not prefer monopolies. I find them as repugnant as the next person, but as I said before,
they are not the inevitable conclusion of capitalism. Not every CEO is swimming in gold coins
like Scrooge McDuck, with no concern for society. When someone does abuse the system the
answer isn't to abandon the system. We can't praise supply and demand when we get a good deal
and decry when we don't. In the case of abuse, we use the system against the abuser. If we really
feel it is unfair to pay those prices, we make other arrangements and watch demand shrivel.

Housing bubble: I am not sure just where you see the government’s involvement in the mess.
You said the banks would normally not lend to people who can not repay. What “artifice” was
introduced by the government to cause this? Did the government force banks to make loans? Did
the government force everyone to nibble the carrots or did they have free will to nibble the
carrots? To learn from our mistakes, we must clearly identify just what the mistake was. If we
misidentify it, then we have learned nothing12.

My logic does hold about Congress. It is your logic that doesn’t hold. It is not a matter if rape is
good or not, it deals with the act of sex. Sex forced upon someone is bad; sex in a mutual loving
relationship is good. Fire that burns a house is bad, fire used to cook or power and engine is
good.

12
I hated to do so, but I had to bite my tongue for a while on this so as not to misspeak on the subject. See P.S.
Logic does tend to get skewed within metaphors I suppose. I could have structured the house
fire/rape analogy better. True, fire can be productive and the beauty of consensual sex is the
antithesis of the gruesome spectacle of rape. If we're broadening the metaphor to liken
Congressional action to fire or sex, then the positive sides of each would be Congress acting
within its authority and the negative sides with them overstepping that authority. Admittedly, I
haven't read the entire Constitution13 (I've started,) and I know Congress is granted authority to
set tariffs and such, but I don't recall them being granted the authority to mold the economy as
they see fit, much less nationalize industries.

Funny you say the country doesn’t owe its existence to Congress, the first words of the
Declaration of Independence is “In Congress”. Congress declared our independence, organized
the country to fight and win the Revolutionary War.

If I'm not mistaken the Congress referred to in the Declaration of Independence was the
Constitutional Congress14 not the United States Congress. This may seem to be a technicality, but
it validates my point. You're giving today's lawmakers way too much credit to put them on the
level of our founders. Our founders bent over backwards to minimize their own power while
today's Congressmen do everything they can to preserve and gain power for themselves.

However, that is just to get you going and not to say that the American people must pay homage,
tribute, or otherwise swear allegiance to congress ad infinitum. Just to point out that Congress
has done some really good stuff and that it is not a seven headed beast.

I do realize that not every Congressman or woman is a power hungry sociopath and that the
institution itself is not an evil behemoth. I know some good has come from their actions, but
from where I'm sitting the cons are far outweighing the pros at this point.

By the way, if you dislike Congress so much, why did you vote to reelect your current
Congressman who has been there since 1988?

As for voting to reelect my incumbent, you presume correctly that I did. I don't have disgust for
Congress, only for its tendency to find mandates where none exist. By my assessment, Rep. John
Duncan Jr. (to whom I assume you were referring) was less likely to do so than the opposition. If
a Democrat had been able to point out misconduct by Rep. Duncan and couple that revelation
with reassurance that he or she wouldn't succumb to the same temptation I would have voted for
him instead.

Actions by the government are not “inherently” restrictive.

I didn't say actions by the government are inherently restrictive. I said actions by it to control the
economy are inherently restrictive. Congress can set a budget, the President can command our
armed forces, and the Supreme Court can strike down laws that try to skirt the Constitution (to
name but a few of the valid actions that can be taken without restricting liberty,) but the instant
they decide to micromanage the lives of each citizen they are subscribing to the very same

13
I finished reading the Constitution mid summer 2009...and was promptly given a cookie for the accomplishment.
14
*wince* This is what happens when you forget to do your homework. You look like a fool, and rightly so.
tyranny we sought to liberate ourselves from in the first place, albeit in smaller, more palatable
doses15.

Let’s say there is this Irishman named Shanahan. I run my liquor store and wish not to sell to you
because you are Irish. Do I have that right under a “facet” of the law of the jungle?

In the instance of a business refusing to sell to someone who's Irish, it absolutely has that right. If
the liquor is bought and paid for it is the owner's right to decide what to do with it. He could
decide to sell only to the Irish if that is his wish. We do not have the inalienable right to liquor,
let alone to buy it from a particular store. If one store owner is so closed minded as to not cater to
a minority he punishes himself by losing out on that business, simultaneously allowing
competitors an opportunity to gain an upper hand on him.

In the example of widespread segregation, as I'm sure your mind is straying to, that is a cultural
problem that can't be solved overnight by a piece of legislation. I'm not suggesting that we
backtrack from the Civil Rights movement, only that I believe the its aim should have been to
convince state governments to rescind existing laws that discriminated against minorities (if ever
there were any,) not to trump those laws with another, bigger law that makes it illegal to
discriminate. We can't make somebody break a bad habit by simply making it illegal. If we do
that we only entrench a portion of society deeper within its bad habits while simultaneously
labeling them criminals. If we want them to change, and for that change to stick, we have to hit
at the root of the problem, and that calls for more finesse and flexibility than the federal
government possesses.

Future Mr. President, you tell me you are not an anarchist, but you tell all the things you dislike.
But how would you change things so I will support you in the upcoming election?

My plan for change is this: before any new legislation is proposed or approved we need to clean
the slate on as many things as possible. With so many tangents and "temporary fixes" that have
been held over we can do nothing but grow our government by approaching any situation
without this as our guiding principle. If you've got a barn with faded, chipping paint, you don't
keep painting on top of the old flakes and lay it on so thick that you can't see the cracks. If you
honestly want to make that barn vibrant and good as new again, you must chip away what you
can of the existing paint, sand it down smooth, and then you can pick up the paint brush again. If
we want to fix a problem we must search the exhaustive books we already have to make
absolutely sure that problem hasn't been addressed before. If it has we must see whether its
failure to fix the problem was a result of halfhearted implementation or a fundamental flaw in the
law itself. If the former is true our course if obvious: enforce the law. If the latter is true we need
to rework or repeal the law in question.

In essence my platform is the destruction of platforms, not of parties but of business as usual
within them. We've been building platform on top of platform for two centuries and we wonder

15
I’ve come to the conclusion that the Court doesn’t have this power, that landmark cases and precedents are not
specifically enumerated in the Constitution as binding in any way.
why it's rickety and why it's so devastating when the scaffolding gives in places. I believe
politics is the bane of American government and that is where I hope to make the biggest and
most significant impact. It is my hope, lofty as I know it seems, to remind the country that we
have too much to lose to stand by and let elitists guide our destinies when that affront is what
spurred our country's inception. I know I'm not the smartest guy in the room, and the point of our
government is to take that humility to heart. We don't need to be randomly selecting our leaders
from a hat, but we also needn't go too far in the other direction. Public office isn't supposed to be
a superlatives roster. Our leaders as [sic] supposed to be representative of their districts, not just
in policy but in character as well. We want the best person for the job, but a lot of the time the
best person for the job isn't the smartest or most learned or most cultured. I believe the the
current political climate in this country is primed for an overhaul, as evidenced by the wide
support of a candidate whose only major selling point was the words "change" and "hope."

I didn't mean to elaborate as much as I did on that last part. I don't want to move on to new topics
unless we've found a comprehensive compromise or one side admits conceptual defeat on the
issue at hand.

P.S. I didn't forget about the housing bubble "artifice" question or intend to sidestep it. As it
stands I know just enough about it to potentially stick my foot in my mouth, and I didn't want to
get into it until I had something a little more solid to run with. I know it has something to do with
the the [sic] Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and some reinforcements during the Clinton
administration. More to come on that...
Round 4
I also have not forgotten the housing bubble. I am glad you have reference the 1977 Community
Reinvestment Act. It was passed in 1977 and amended under Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. Good
article on how community banks failed in today’s USA Today. Nothing to do with CRA.

First things first, the housing bubble...

You were correct when you said no one thing can be blamed for the housing bubble. The artifice
I implicated in the matter doesn't manifest itself in just one thing however. It has been achieved
through many things, one step at a time. Some of these steps have been bigger than others, such
as the CRA, but we still needed many other steps to get there; such as, the various amendments
you cite to the CRA, stigma from Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 75 and its amendment in
91, the Boston Fed study in 92. All of these things affected the market, as was their design. In
specific refutation of the CRA as a possible reason for the bubble, the only arguments I have
found are isolated statistics of percentages of sub-prime loans subject to the CRA in one year or
another (see first attachment16 and the following link http://howdidthishappen.org/myths/). I have
yet to come across a comprehensive study that puts yearly percentage data next to each other in
an attempt to discern trends, presumably because such trends don't exist or they don't serve either
argument especially well. This all of course is to say nothing of the rate at which CRA loans
defaulted compared to non CRA loans, another set of statistics that is curiously missing from the
debate.

The article you reference holds that desire for growth caused community banks to engage in big
gambles that didn't pan out. Fair enough, that's a contributing factor. However, banking has been
around for a long time, and growth has always been its game plan. Are we to believe that this
unprecedented wave of irresponsibility among lending institutions spontaneously popped up
because people became greedier all of a sudden? Is it out of the realm of feasibility that not only
government sanctioned but government mandated bending of industry standards could have
amounted to the theoretical legitimization of otherwise unpractical business strategies? Could it
not be said that the much maligned banks were actually following the government's example by
promoting home ownership while specifically disregarding fiscal soundness? The essay by Stan
J. Liebowitz in the second attachment explains in more detail this line of thinking if you're
inclined to pursue it.

I am not saying that human instincts are erased, but we do modify, amend, or otherwise alter
them to work within a society. Of course all my examples fall under self preservation, but the
point is we give up some of our freedom, wealth, and even health to benefit a group that we wish
to better. The point is we alter “self” preservation for a type of group preservation (i.e. couple,
family, tribe, community, nation). The big point was, we do not always operation under law of
the jungle, everything for me, attitude.

Clearly we are divided on which camp we hold responsible for the housing bubble, but it seems
on some issues we are closer to agreement then I had thought. For instance, I think we both
understand that self preservation is a big part of human motivation, but neither of us believe it to
16
Gramlich
be the exclusive driving force of our lives. When I referenced the law of the jungle, perhaps it
would have been wise to point out that I'm aware even wild animals form packs and clans. I
wasn't arguing against groups on principle. I was saying that examples of sacrifice and group
motivation don't negate the laws of nature, and that any association we may form still must
acknowledge them and govern itself accordingly. We can't govern ourselves according to
standards we can't reasonably expect ourselves to live up to with regularity.

In your second paragraph you said, “They (laws) lay the groundwork for the market to function”.
Bingo. That’s my point. For free markets to work, we need laws. This is a long way from “law of
the jungle” to law of the civilized. In order to pass, enforce, monitor, etc laws, we, the civilized,
form organizations like…………….wait for it……………wait for
it………………………………. governments (local, state, federal)17.

You said you are having problems understanding how the ideas of sacrifice and altruism apply to
copyright infringement. Me too, because what I said was, “Rules do need to exist to govern
markets.” Even you said laws lay the groundwork. We can go around about the difference
between “govern’ or “lay the groundwork”, but they both mean there need to be rules. That’s my
point. That is counter to your statement, “We established currency to stand in for the concept of
value and allow for accumulation of such. Beyond that no rules need to exist to govern markets.”

We both agree that there need to be ground rules, but I believe the distinction between ground
rules and governance is crucial to the integrity of the free market. I object to the latitude afforded
to our elected officials by the general public's ignorance of or apathy for this distinction. In
retrospect, I guess I let my exuberance for making that distinction cause me to overlook certain
practical applications. The role of governments in laying this groundwork does include more
than establishing currency. It must also determine what is to be considered property and it must
establish a judiciary to settle disputes over such. I'm sure I'm missing something else, but I'm
intentionally erring on the side of minimization. I still stand by my sentiment that beyond the
ground rules any attempt to govern markets will only introduce new problems in place of others
rather than perfecting the system.

I think you have me wrong. I also reject the notion that it is government’s place to control the
means of production and the distribution of wealth, but what supports your thesis that “is exactly
what it is trying to do now in this country.”?

What supports my thesis of current government's intent? As for the distribution of wealth, take
your pick: Social Security, tax credits that account for more than their recipients paid in, the very
existence of a progressive income tax and the many cherry picked manipulations thereof, the
recent stimulus act, food stamps, etc. As for the control of the means of production, how about
the fact that the Federal Government now owns nearly 79% of AIG, a company whose
worldwide economic clout was supposedly too big to be allowed to fail. Or how about the heavy
hand the Obama administration is using with Chrysler and GM? I'm sure a more diligent Googler
could find an exact percentage that the Feds own of these companies as well, but think about the
amount of influence they already have on them without literal majority ownership.

17
Snide comment #2, or was this supposed to be rhetoric?
We keep going round and round about monopolies. My point is a true monopoly, by definition
controls all supply and keeps others from competing. ONCE you reach that point, supply and
demand goes out the window. Since the monopoly controls supply, no other person can produce
and therefore no alternative supply of the product is available. If there where other supply (or
other arrangements), then it is not yet a monopoly.

As for monopolies, I again think semantics are complicating things. The historical instances we
both infer when the word "monopoly" is evoked are real world pinnacles of the objectionable
extremes of supply and demand. You have made clear that you view "monopolies" as examples
of absolute control of supply and demand, continually referring to them in the abstract. I can't
agree with you more that when absolute control is exerted the situation should be rectified, but in
the research I've done I haven't come across any situation where a private company has achieved
100% dominance of their industry without government intervention. Sure railroad tycoons
cornered the market on transportation, but people could still ride in carriages. Sure, Bell cornered
the market on communication, but the telegraph and mail services still existed. My point is,
though the influence they did have and the way they used it may have been unfair, it was not
criminal until new laws were enacted to make it so. Whatever proprietary capital each of these
companies had, however big an upper hand they had on the competition, the deck was never
literally stacked. The competition had just as much right to innovate and attempt to get the upper
hand as those in question had.

But the bigger point is, you say you dislike monopolies. If a true monopoly forms, what do we
do about it?

So what do we do in the event of true monopoly? I honestly don't know just yet, considering that
by my estimation the closest any entity has come to your definition of true monopoly is the
government. An educated man such as your self no doubt knows about the existence of so called
"natural monopolies." These are monopolies that are in essence created by government
regulations on the auspices that competition in certain "economy of scale" industries would
actually drive prices up. I have attached an article by Thomas DiLorenzo that effectively refutes
this theory. If in fact you object to the laws perpetuating natural monopolies, then we're on the
same page, and from our common ground I put to you: Why should government infringement on
competition be stricken in this instance while the same is tolerated and praised in antitrust laws?
If you would defend the concept of natural monopolies, I can't help but wonder if your loyalty is
not to the consumer, but the government that purports to protect him.

You are mistaken; it was the Continental Congress, not the “Constitutional Congress”. The 2nd
Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. I disagree the founder fathers
bent over backwards to minimize their own power. They mostly fought to keep what power that
had. They fought to find a balance, dare I say equilibrium, between powers of the federal
government and the states. This was because at that time, most of their power resided with the
current state governments. It was a struggle to retain power, not minimize it. This led to the
Articles of Confederation. However, they didn’t work. The founding fathers realized that they
could not “finesse”, “convince”, negotiate, or otherwise persuade the states to contribute (mostly
money) to the efforts of the United States if they wished not to do so. So in 1788, they tried again
and adopted the Constitution which gave the new central government the power to tax, levy
tariffs, give land grants, and pay war debts.

I stand corrected about the Continental Congress, or at least the name. I should have cracked a
text book before that one. Again, however I think we're arguing semantics. When I referred to
minimizing their power, I was referring to federal power, and I still maintain that was their intent.
As you said, those organizing our federal structure fought to find a balance. Through the Articles
of Confederation, they erred on the side of minimal federal power. When those didn't work they
invested more in the federal level via the Constitution, still taking great care however to insert
mechanisms designed to keep it on a tight leash. I realize the founding fathers weren't gods
among men. I know there were those among them that were as unscrupulous as many of today's
legislators. Conversely, I know there are probably some in Congress now who as just as wise and
upright as our founders. My point was that the tyranny of a far off capital had still left a bad taste
in the mouths of most of our founders and the people who elected them to their positions of
eminence, and it was their foremost goal to avoid that tyranny wherever possible in their own
governance. I don't feel the same can be said of the collective mindset that is running the federal
government today.

You now say that congress as an institution is not an “evil behemoth18”, and there are some good
things that have come from Congress…..good. But you say from your seat, there are more cons
than pros. Well, let’s get to the details. What are the pros and cons?

As for the cons outweighing the pros, I refer you to my earlier paragraph about government
controlling wealth and production. High taxes, punitive taxes, the estate tax, the war on drugs,
government mandating broadcast switch to digital, Obama cherry picking GM's CEO, stress
tests, affirmative action, the entire "give a man a fish" mentality of the welfare state. Need I go
on? I return the challenge to you. Tell me which government intercessions have made the country
more prosperous or enhanced liberty?

Side note challenge: What specific things has Congressman Duncan done that you like and
dislike? The reason I asked the question is I hear all too often that people do not like Congress,
but love their congressman, it is someone else’s Congressman they dislike. Thus the vicious
circle, we reelect ours, they reelect theirs, and here we go again.

Point taken about Congressman Duncan. I must admit I presumed much of how he'd vote from
the R in front of his name. Upon actually checking into it I found that his votes are pretty
predictably Republican, which is to say that I agree with most of them (most notably the Partial-
Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1995, HR 1833), but some are questionable (Child Custody Protection
Act, HR 1218 for example). In effect, I got what I voted for, but you're correct in pointing out
that I should have made sure by doing this research before casting my ballot. Likewise, I know
the "my guy's alright" attitude contributes to the dysfunction of government, which is dovetails
with my explanation below of my distrust for platforms.

Also you say the government is trying to micromanage our lives,” but the instant they decide to

18
I never said it was. If you give a liberal an inch, he will take a mile.
micromanage the lives of each citizen they are subscribing to the very same tyranny we sought to
liberate ourselves from in the first place, albeit in smaller, more palatable doses.” OK, how are
they trying?

You ask me how the government attempts to micromanage our lives. I fear I sound like a broken
record when I answer: The War on Drugs, punitive taxes on cigarettes, mandating the switch to
digital broadcast, minimum wage, the President coordinating the economic decisions of private
companies, the United States Congress holding hearings on steroids in baseball, section 1464 of
the Communications Act. I'm sure I could rack my brain (and the internet) and come up with
some more, but I feel I've hit enough to keep us busy for a while.

In the next two paragraphs, you begin to scare me. I am not worried about just one liquor store
not selling to Mr. Shanahan, but what happens when others in the area, see this happen, they in
turn say, “Well if he can to do, maybe I will not sell to Irish either. Soon it may be an entire
community, region, or state does the same. You correctly point out the Civil Rights moment. As
pointed out earlier, the government could not “convince” the state government under the Articles
of Confederation, they could not convince them to end slavery, and they could not convince them
to end segregation in the South. No amount of finesse worked. I guess where you scare me is
your side comment about laws that discriminated. “I'm not suggesting that we backtrack from the
Civil Rights movement, only that I believe the its aim should have been to convince state
governments to rescind existing laws that discriminated against minorities (if ever there were
any,) not to trump those laws with another, bigger law that makes it illegal to discriminate”.
What do you mean by “if ever there were any”? It is hard for me to say discrimination or slavery
was a “bad habit”.

On the subject of discrimination, what makes you think that if one liquor store ceased serving
the Irish that would in any way be an incentive for his neighbor to do the same? Do you honestly
believe that all that stands between our country and unbridled racism is the law, and some thin
pretense we each put forth to avoid prosecution? Assuming things are this grim, a community or
a region may succumb to prejudice, but for a state to do so it would require not just the repeal of
existing law but new legislation, which was the point I was making. From my understanding the
issue of slavery was, erroneously, approached as a property issue. There weren't laws specifically
making slavery legal, there were laws written with the assumption that it was legal, because it
always had been. When it was appropriately stressed as a civil liberties issue a constitutional
amendment resulted. After the thirteenth amendment laws did spring up from state to state
discriminating against blacks, but Reconstruction Republicans did a big part to quickly reverse
those trends. It wasn't until the pendulum swung again in the Democrats favor that these laws
caught their second wind which carried them through to the 1960s.

It was callous of me to suggest that these laws didn't exist, without having even done my
homework. Now that I have done some research, I stand by objection to the means of the civil
rights movement. You say the feds couldn't convince states to end slavery or segregation. This
only bolsters my case, as I referred to the civil right movement, not the government. A movement
is what pushed for, rightfully so, the 13th amendment, and the government acquiesced. The
1960s movement certainly benefited from its national appeal, but it should have applied its
weight to local governments and communities rather than the federal government. Moreover, any
appeal to law should have ended with public sector concerns. I maintain that however culturally
repugnant we may feel certain private discrimination to be (not selling liquor to Irish people or
black people for example), the crusade against it should confine itself to the private sector.

Without going into the barn analogy, what makes you think the law maker doesn’t look at
existing laws. I believe there is a great example of how the Tennessee legislature just did so with
the texting while driving law. I am not going to buy such a broad statement without some
examples.

What makes me think law makers don't look at existing laws? First off, my argument wasn't that
they didn't look at existing laws, but that they didn't enforce them or respect them. For example,
Washington has been going hog wild over immigration reform for the last few years when the
only thing that renders our current system ineffective is the fact that we don't enforce it.
Interestingly enough, your "great example" meant to challenge my assertion works better to
illustrate my point. There are already laws against reckless driving, beyond which there are also
laws for distracted driving. Sure they looked at these laws, but did they respect the fact that the
one fatality attributed to texting while driving might have been avoided by better enforcement of
them; or that the driver in question would likely have been as apathetic toward any new law as he
or she apparently was toward those already in existence. No, they just went about their merry
way making a new law that will only be enforced insofar as it can keep the public coffers full
with money from fines. They didn't make any of us any safer, they just restricted my freedom, as
a responsible driver who has texted while driving multiple times without incident, to multi-task.
This would qualify as another example of government micromanagement, albeit on a state level

Now to the future. You wish to destroy platforms, but not political parties. ???? That would mean
you would have parties that stand for nothing.

I disparage platforms because platforms gave us Barack Obama vs. John McCain. Parties are the
natural expression of aggregated opinion in political society. Parties need to exist so a unified
voice can exist when one needs to.

A platform is just a listing of ideals around which people form19. If you read the platform for the
parties, I believe you would see they have been update over time to reflect the current
environment. They did as you suggested, they sanded, chipped old paint, and repainted per your
instructions, now you wish to burn the barn.

Platforms exist because politicians realize they can't please everyone, but they still want to please
as many as they can. So they throw out a laundry list of hot button issues and hope one resonates
with someone. Platforms are election strategies, not statements of principles. In my desire to
wrestle parties away from opportunism and repurpose them toward effective debate, I don't
"wish to burn the barn." Again, maybe this is my fault for cluttering the debate with metaphors. I
find them helpful to illustrate my points, but they're only helpful when they're terms are well
defined and consistent. The barn analogy was about the legal code, vibrancy being harmony
between code and public sentiment. If you wish to extend the analogy to platforms, I would say
that this is where parties have put up vinyl siding--a facade, the appearance of vibrancy to hide

19
No, this is what a party is. A platform is a specific set of policy initiatives on which a candidate runs.
the chipped paint beneath.

Now you are blaming “elitists. Who are they?

Who are the elitists? I consider anyone in government who thinks it's their place to protect the
people from themselves to be an elitist. The people who gave us seat belt laws are elitists. The
people who punish "Big Tobacco," knowing that the pinch will be felt by the consumer, are
elitists. The people who push gun control, assuming access to weaponry is the problem and not
the caliber of person who commits gun crimes, are elitists. The people who gave us the war on
drugs are elitists.

I don’t understand your statement, “We don't need to be randomly selecting our leaders from a
hat, but we also needn't go too far in the other direction.” What do you mean? What hat?

The "hat" referenced was the hypothetical antithesis of what we have now. When our country
was founded we knew we wanted the common man's voice heard in government, but we weren't
foolish enough to hold a random lottery, pulling names from a hat, to determine our officials. I
was saying our current system of vetting our potential leaders by their pedigree (literal or
political), their gravitas, or their articulate presence, is just as asinine as the other extreme of the
random lottery.

You said, “I believe the current political climate in this country is primed for an overhaul, as
evidenced by the wide support of a candidate whose only major selling point was the words
"change" and "hope."” Are you not also wishing to make changes and have hope for America?
You say we need to change things by evidence of someone promoting change, but you are also
promoting change.

I am wishing to make changes and I have hope for America. I wasn't deriding those concepts,
only how shamelessly they were exploited and how hollowly they were evoked in the last
election.

You promote “overhauling”, but give no way to do so other than destroying the current system.

I didn't get too far into my plan for overhaul because I felt that doing so would distract us from
the economy without a resolution being reached. In short my plan is to wipe the slate clean and
make a new Constitution, keeping what works and needs to be in it (off the top of my head,
amendments 1-10, 13,15, and 19) and ditching what doesn't (again, off the top of my head,
amendments 14, 16, and 17). I believe this is the only way for states to reassert the relationship
the original Constitution settled upon between the federal government and the states within, for
the states to get back the authority that has been systematically wrested from them over the
course of two centuries. I believe this is the only way to keep centralized planning to from
running our country into the ground as it did the USSR.

You say you are an “idealist”, but you are an idealist with no ideals. You want to destroy
platforms, have no politics, no laws, etc.
I feel I've made my ideals fairly clear so far. I believe in liberty, and with that liberty the
responsibility to use or lose it. I want to subvert platforms and politics because they insult the
intelligence of modern individuals by convoluting the big picture. By advocating any
government I am admitting the necessity of some laws, but I maintain that they should be
minimal. I believe each arbitrary, unnecessary law entered into the code diminishes the respect
for that code and thereby its effectiveness to govern.

What will you put in their place. You are starting to sound more like the anarchist you claim not
to be.

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Aristotle20

In the place of excessive laws, platforms, and politics, I propose respect for citizens rather then
disdain. I propose honesty in the face of sugarcoating. I propose a return to the idea that our
freedoms are inherent, granted by an authority higher than any of mankind, and that the purpose
of government is to secure those freedoms--not to dictate fairness or ensure prosperity. I propose
a resurgence of personal accountability among our citizenry, that we may put an end to this
chapter of government holding everyone's hand though everything. I propose that our
government be shown its place, not as our nanny, but as our vigilant protector and representative
arbiter of the bare necessities of the rule of law.

I hesitate to start another tangent, but I'm curious whether your counter arguments are originating
from your actual principles or a desire to play devil's advocate. Do you honestly need me to point
out the common threads between socialism and our governments current actions? Do you really
think the CRA and the regulation being clamored for now falls under "laying the groundwork" as
we discussed? According to Padme, you call yourself a social libertarian. I've not heard the term
before and am curious as to what exactly you stand for. It seems to me that any variety of
libertarian would object to the size and the scope of our current government. Also, beyond this
initial objection one would expect at the status quo, I would expect nothing less than unabashed
outrage at the current agenda being railroaded through congress under cover of AIG bonuses and
Swine Flu.

At the risk of contradicting my desire to come to resolutions before moving on, I suggest we try
to whittle down our lines of discussion, or perhaps distill them into core concepts. I still believe
we should settle one dispute before getting into another, but your method of refutation consists of
diluting the issue with tangent after tangent. We started talking about the economy, and now
we're talking about everything under the sun with nary a resolution to be found on the economy.
If I didn't know any better I would think you don't actually want to resolve anything, but rather
just to keep my efforts busy putting out fires so you can come away feeling you directed the
course of the debate and somehow won. I have stated my principles. I challenge you to state
yours, or else state your objections to mine in no uncertain terms. Every curve ball you have
thrown me I have hit out of the park. If you disagree, stop throwing curve balls and bring the
heat.

20
Ironic quote from a liberal.
Round 5
It may seem I am the advocate for the devil, but my questions are to help provide me clarity of
your positions. I am still having great difficulty in understanding just where you stand. Allow me
to review and comment.

You criticized our president for talking about change and having no ideas to back it, but you
seem to be doing the same thing. What would you do about AIG, GM, Chrysler, banks, the
recession, taxes, budget deficit, national debt, social security, and Medicare (we can talk foreign
policy later). No more “I stand for liberty”, “throw the bums out”, “no tax”, “the government
sucks”, sound bites. What specifically do you stand for and why? You may think you are being
specific, but you are not.

If you haven't seen the clarity in my positions you haven't been paying attention. At the close of
your email21 you deride me for using general ideas and not specific policy initiatives. That is my
objective. I have general ideas, or principles, if you will, that govern my decisions and shape my
opinion of how governmental authority should behave. I can defend (and have defended) these
principles in the face of whatever hypothetical situation you throw at me, whatever hot topic you
choose, or whatever policy initiative you wish to discuss, but I will only be repeating myself as I
have done for five emails.

Ideals: Liberty, OK I can go with that. So you support the right to bears arms, the right to do
drugs (even steroids), the right to not wear a seat belt (seat belt laws are state laws not federal
law. The initial seat belt law in Tennessee was signed into law by a republican, Lamar
Alexander),

Your review of my ideals, namely liberty, starts out fair enough. Liberty does extend to the
following: the right to bear arms, check; to do drugs, check; not to wear a seat belt, check. I
didn't know that seat belt laws were state, but it doesn't change my argument. I oppose them in
Tennessee, but I shouldn't have a say what the voters of Vermont or Kentucky want to do on the
matter. So, Lamar Alexander signed into law the Tennessee seat belt law. All you've done is give
me a reason to regret voting for Lamar Alexander. You haven't done anything to diminish the
crux of my argument: that many government officials presume it is their job to protect the people
of their own pitiful selves.

Your review quickly devolves to presumption and a narrow view of liberty however, as evidence
[sic] below.

…the right for gays to openly serve in the military,

The right for gays to openly serve in the military? Check--if by "openly serve" you mean serve
without restriction. If you mean for gays to essentially cause an unnecessary scene in the
military, where sexuality should be the last thing on anyone's mind, and not have to deal with the
21
The preceding paragraph was originally at the end of my correspondent’s e-mail. I’ve arranged it for clarity.
consequences--count me out. Equality means not granting anyone special privilege, no matter
how wrongly treated a person's ideological forerunners may have been. The don't ask don't tell
policy apparently wasn't too far off the mark. If someone is so aggressively sexual as to disrupt
the proceedings of the military, it shouldn't matter if that person happens to be gay, he or she
should be reprimanded for that behavior. If we're talking about a person who's demeanor leaves
no question as to their sexuality, perhaps we should consider that an overly effeminate soldier is
not an effective soldier regardless of gender or sexual preference.

the right to have sex in the manner and with the person of ones own choosing,
The right to have sex in the manner and with the person of ones own choosing? Check, provided
that sex is consensual and with an adult and it doesn't have to concern anyone but those involved.
I shouldn't have to know what kind of kinky shit happens in anyone's bedroom, gay, straight,
married, single, swinger, or other. Unless your sexual exploits land you in the hospital or jail, no
one needs to know, acknowledge, or much less pass judgment.

the right to marry anyone one may pick,

The right to marry anyone one may pick? Absolutely, check--if you can find a church that will
marry you, do your thing. The debate about gay marriage has nothing to do with the right to
marry, to commit your life to your soul mate before God (or Gaea the Earth Goddess if you
prefer) and family. It has everything to do with activists trying to over correct a perceived social
injustice and legitimize through force of law their own opinions. If the argument is for gay
couples to be able to exist together as a single legal entity, last time I checked contracts could
still be drawn up between two parties. And don't even get me started on joint filing for income
tax, as, surprise surprise, I oppose the very existence of an income tax.

the right to burn the flag,

The right to burn the flag? No, I believe this is tantamount to a mild form of treason. While I
don't believe perpetrators should be put to death as in more serious cases of treason, this goes
way beyond free speech, and calls into serious question a person's loyalty, not to a particular
administration, but toward the very nation in which he or she is currently residing and the
welfare of its people. I believe the first offense should result in a ticket, second offense should be
a week in jail, and the third offense should be understood to be the offender's renunciation of his
citizenship, resulting in immediate deportation to a nation deemed to share similar sentiments
with the offender.

the right to have ones phone calls private and not monitored by the NSA,

The right to have one's phone calls private and not monitored by the NSA? Check. If you're
referring to the NSA's use of Echelon, the signals intelligence collection system which was
allegedly abused by the Clinton administration, I find it by all accounts to be worrisome, if a
little melodramatic. If you're referring to the executive order signed by President Bush in 2002
that authorized interception of domestic calls placed by or received by international terror
suspects, I find it regrettable and deeply ironic that it has come to spying within our own borders,
but it is necessary. Very few people object to the existence of the NSA. Most people know spying
takes place and is necessary. The objection comes when one of our own stands to be scrutinized.
Even then, popular tolerance and endorsement of another agency, the FBI, indicates that most
people believe that even home grown threats need to be monitored when they present themselves
in a substantial way. It would seem the objection is one of jurisdiction rather than moral outrage
to domestic surveillance. The NSA wire tapping "scandal" was/is the Democrats grasping at
straws to demonize Republicans, namely W, knowing full well that a much more intrusive and
pervasive apparatus was already in place and presumably not being abused. The whole ordeal
was over a war time executive order in response to an unprecedented attack on our own soil,
which essentially only modifies jurisdiction in very specific and rare instances, and to the best of
my knowledge hasn't been accused of one specific abuse.

the right to a warrant prior to search,

The right to a warrant prior to search? Check--The fourth amendment is still in place. I assume
you're alluding to the aforementioned executive order, the subsequent NSA activity, and the
allegations that it circumvented FISA warrants. In my research, however, all I have come across
are allegations. I have yet to come across one instance when a citizen's fourth amendment rights
have been infringed upon. If I'm going to get worked up about executive fiat I require an
example of abuse, not just the potential. I believe the jury is still out on the legality of the matter,
but I suspect that, since the Obama administration is currently towing the same line as the Bush
administration on this one, the verdict will be friendly to the executive branch.

the right to publish porn,

The right to publish porn? Check--provided every effort is taken to assure the public of the legal
status of the material’s participants.

the right to go nude,

The right to go nude? This is way too simplistic an interpretation of liberty if you ask me.
Liberty is a concept: the human race’s idealized understanding of the freedom that is built in to
the natural world. It is a hallmark of civilization, not unlike clothing (the practicality of which
begins with utility and protection and ends with decency and the moderation of our animalistic
sexual urges). As such, liberty demands a healthy respect for civilized society, in which you’d be
hard pressed to find unabashed and constant nudity. Some restraint must be exercised by a
society’s inhabitants in the matter.

the right to utter anything on the radio or TV waves (section 1464)……

The right to utter anything on the radio or TV waves? Absolutely, check. If private entities are
manufacturing and operating the means of broadcast and retrieval they should have complete
control over its content and dissemination.

etc. Liberty, baby, liberty. (By the way the root for the word Liberal is Liberty). This is what is
meant by social libertarian (social liberties).
I know the root of the word liberal is liberty. Liberal and conservative are terms meant to imply
respectively to an objection or deference to tradition. To be a liberal a century and a half ago
would have been to be a Republican. To be a liberal now is to reject capitalism and be tolerant of
an ever expanding government, so long as that juggernaut has a donkey as its mascot. Modern
American liberals are fond of the English language only insomuch as they can manipulate it to
suit their ends. Attaching yourself to the sail of liberty in semantics alone doesn’t grant your
positions any more legitimately. When your positions display a narrow view of liberty it ceases
to matter what lip service you pay to it. In other words, actions speak louder than words. Part of
liberty is dealing with the consequences of your actions. I’m free to jump off my roof for fun, but
I must deal the with the broken legs or worse. A gay man is free to plunge into the midst of a
purposeful fusion and mobilization of aggression and testosterone (the military), but he had
better be ready to accept that his feelings may be hurt or that he may be pressured a little harder
to washout. A bank is free to make bad loans for profit, but it must deal with the loss of capital
and reputation when its judgment proves to be disastrous. To expect government to step in and
correct these instances is at best naïve and at worst dependent.

Subverting platforms: Platforms do not insult the intelligence of the people; they are the result of
the people.

Platforms absolutely do insult the intelligence of people. They say if you accept point A you must
accept point B, C, D, E, and F. They preoccupy the debate with divisive issues as a means to an
end, getting elected. They are formulated as the result of endless calculation and polls rather then
core beliefs. They are jerry-rigged amalgams of squeaky wheels and deep pockets.

I am not sure why you hate platforms in general. I could see not liking specific platforms or even
a particular plank, but just saying you dislike platforms means you dislike a process of collecting
ideas and ideals.

I made the distinction between parties and platforms to illustrate that I do endorse a process of
collecting ideas and recognize a need to be able to rally under a common banner. I know the
Republicans and Democrats are bigger than the day to day squabbles that we find ourselves in.
Platforms, by design, are fully immersed in those squabbles. Likewise, the third party route has
been tried and we’ve seen how well it’s fared. I’m not interested in tearing down institutions for
the hell of it. I realize that even the Green Party, or the Libertarian party, are all throwing out an
agenda hoping someone will bite, and that’s my point.

You know of course by you laying out your beliefs is in fact a platform.

I don’t have an answer to every question. If pressed, if necessary, I will find one. My laying out
of my beliefs is not a platform. I’m not insisting that other people rally behind everything I stand
for. I am saying what I believe in and arguing relevant issues.

Platforms did not give us Obama vs McCain, voters did.

You’re right, primary voters are ultimately to blame for Obama vs. McCain, but only because
they too believed that the only way to win was to build a coalition of disparate beliefs in order to
please everyone. I believe I can win by reminding people what they agree on and rallying them
behind the simple yet profound ideas this country was founded upon. I believe people like
myself are the heirs to the GOP legacy.

However, the current GOP seems to be a party in search of a platform since their ideas were
dismissed by the electorate during the election. Bottomline, I believe the parties should have the
freedom (liberty) to form what ever platform they wish22.

I, like many, many others, reject the notion that the ideas of the Republican party were dismissed
by the electorate, because they were never even presented to the electorate by our candidate. All
John McCain offered was a platform, an election strategy. The GOP can’t survive many more
rickety platforms. What we need is principled leaders with backbones strong enough to stand up
against a century and a half of mounting tyranny and the current prospect of a one party
government.

Respect for citizens, Honesty over sugarcoating, resurgence of personal accountability: Great, I
like it. How do we go about it?

How do we go about respecting citizens, practicing honesty over sugarcoating, and promoting a
resurgence of personal accountability? We could start by letting industries that have failed suffer
the full consequences of those failures, like anybody else should be expected to. If the banks who
took unnecessary risks are allowed to go under, the next bank will think twice before adopting
those practices. If a car company promises the world in pensions and benefits to its workers and
retirees, and as a result has to charge higher prices for inferior products, leading to an overall
decline in market share and the company’s solvency, these results should be faced head on so
society can relearn that there is no such thing as a free lunch, no matter how many empty
promises exist to the contrary.

New Constitution: I like the current one.

The new Constitution I proposed was an idea I haven’t quite settled on yet. I’m setting 2020 as
the year I intend to be at full stride in my contribution to public affairs, admittedly arbitrarily due
to it being the first Presidential race I could legally take part in. In the meantime I will continue
to vote for representatives that will either turn out to be disappointments or champion my beliefs,
all the while determining the exact details of how I think I can best return this country to its
roots. If the interim years consist of the groundswell I am a part of making end roads in the
political process I will join the charge and make my contribution, whether in leadership or
support. If they continue as they have, and the political processors continue talking in circles
while our country circles the drain, I will endorse a soft revolution, devoid of violence in all but
self defense where the government would exercise unnecessary force against us. I like the
current Constitution too, in fact I revere it. This is why I propose that, in the event of this soft
revolution, the Constitution remain intact with respect to original principles and articles. I also
believe that the bill of rights and the majority of the amendments should be added as articles of
the new constitution. I still have a lot of research left to know exactly what new safeguards

22
This phrase leads me to believe that he assumed I was proposing to prohibit platforms somehow.
would help and how to reword the amendments that have proven to be missteps, but I have a few
years before I would need to have all those ducks in a row anyway.

Not sure why you dislike the 14th or the 17th amendments?

The 14th amendment was aimed to grant citizenship to emancipated slaves born in this country.
The way it is worded it grants immediate citizenship to anyone who is born on our soil. With the
premium placed on US citizenship these days it seems to me to be a pretty big loophole with the
potential to dilute American culture and undermine our national identity. Also, it harkens back to
making empty promises. The American government can only protect and serve so many people
before it too gets overextended. The more people it makes promises to, the harder it becomes to
keep them, and there are a lot of promises inherent in being a citizen of the US.

The 17th amendment gives the vote for US Senators to the citizens of the state from which they
hail. This sounds wonderful, except that Senators aren’t supposed to be representatives of the
people. We have a House of Representatives for that purpose. The Senate was, until this point,
the house of Congress that represented state governments. With this amendment, the state
governments were effectively castrated and left without representation in our country’s capital.
This also introduced a redundancy that undermines the very existence of a bicameral congress.
The Senate and the House were never supposed to be Varsity and Junior Varsity. They were
meant to be two distinct avenues of self government.

The founding fathers gave use the ability to amend the thing, let’s just amend what is needed.

I wish the situation were as simple as amending what is needed. You misinterpret my proposal to
reboot the Constitution as an objection to the document itself. What I object to is that the federal
government has been operating outside the Constitution for quite some time now, bastardizing its
checks and balances and its divisions of power, and that the people have been too coddled in
prosperity, despite all this, to notice.

If you are afraid of government power NOW, do you trust them to redo the constitution?

Being thusly afraid of and outraged against the power wielded by the federal government, I don’t
trust them to redo the Constitution. My proposal is to build a network of likeminded individuals
to win governorships and legislative seats in the number of states necessary to ratify a new
Constitution, same as the old one for the most part. After rebooting the government it would
come back online with its bare essentials, but without all the superfluous programs that have
caused the system to lag, and without the viruses that have undermined its operation and intent.
This is, of course, a much more formidable goal than even becoming President. At this point I’m
not even sure how the two goals can be intertwined or if one should win out over the other. All I
know is that career politicians have long since asserted themselves as the new oligarchy in this
country, and their thirst for power has dovetailed in the last century with a spoiled and docile
citizenry to place us today on the brink of socialism. The grievances American citizens endure
today are every bit as egregious, widespread, and purposeful as those that prompted Thomas
Jefferson to write,
 “But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object,
evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to
throw off such Government and to provide new Guards for their future Security.”

SIDEBAR: I cannot figure out what your issue is with the digital conversion?

My objection to digital conversion is that government is effectively outlawing analogue

broadcast. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say the government is to be the arbiter of
efficiency and quality. If somebody wants to do things the old fashion way they should be able
to.

Economy: Taxes: I get it, you do not like taxes, who does? But what is the alternative? How
would the government fund itself?

The federal government was able to fund its operation for the better part of 124 years (apart from
momentarily lapses of reason from 1861 to 1872 and in 1894), through 4 of 5 wars and several
conflicts with Indians, and even through its expansion across the continent, without an income
tax. It subsisted during these times on tariffs and very few internal excises on basic consumer
goods. Again, I don’t object to taxes on principle. I know the government needs sources of
revenue. My objection is that as the government gives itself more and more authority and grows
from year to year, the revenues required grow proportionately. So, like so many hidden fees, we
are taxed more from day to day to pay for Departments and expenditures that were never
intended to be part of the federal government.

Tangents: Yes, there were laws legalizing slavery, The Missouri compromise, the Kansas-
Nebraska Act, and even the Dred Scott vs Standford decision from the Supreme Court all in
some way legalized slavery. The civil rights movement did not bring about the 13th amendment,
the Civil War did. The federal government did not acquiesce to a movement in passing the 13th
Amendment in 1865, it led. The Reconstruction Republicans (better know as the Radical
Republicans) did little to quickly reverse the trends of post Civil War racism and discrimination.
The Congress did pass the Civil Right Act of 1875, but allowed the states to pass Jim Crow
(separate-but-equal) laws immediately after the acts passage. Later Jim Crow laws were upheld
by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Fergson 1896. Not until Brown vs. Board of Education in
1956 and later with the Civil Rights Act and the passage of the 24th amendment in 1964, did
“state” sponsored discrimination begin to end. Even after the passage of the act, several southern
governors tired to block blacks from entering school that is until the federal government, under
both Republican and Democratic presidents, finally sent troops to force entry. Passing laws to
preventing discrimination may not be a true free market principal, but I believe we are better
people than that.

It’s interesting that you say with regard to the Civil Rights movement that you “believe we are
better people than that.” My whole argument is that we’re better people than you and your ilk
give us credit for. I contend that we don’t need laws to tell us how think; that the fall of
segregation may have been hastened by the Civil Rights Act and the 24th amendment, but the
very same public sentiment that was rallied to make those changes could have been localized to
repeal the Jim Crow laws, without turning to the federal government to dictate that the sentiment
be shared by all. Every argument you’ve presented, from discrimination to the housing bubble to
the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, has been firmly rooted in the belief that we
are only better people when the government makes us that way

“I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary”. Ronald
Reagan

As for the Reagan quote, I followed the rabbit hole on that one and the only other place I could
find it other than the quotes site you pulled it from was on liberal opinion sites with the stated
goal of besmirching Reagan‘s legacy, where he was quoted as saying “…at the point of a
bayonet…” rather than “…at gunpoint...” On three separate sites I found this version of the
quote, accompanied by the claim that it was from the LA Times, October 20, 1965. I checked the
LA times archives and couldn’t find any article mentioning either Reagan or the Civil Rights act
on that date. That’s not to say that it didn’t exist or that he never actually said those words. It is
just to say that, without verification and context, the quote does little for me. I suggest next time
you wish to make a point by quoting someone I have respect for, you may want to spend more
than 5 minutes Googling it.

Comments:

We have a mixed economy and have for over a hundred and fifty years.

There is no such thing as a mixed economy. There are economies that are free and there are
economies that operate at the whim of the government. The only remaining distinction is to
which degree said government feels it can get away with controlling things. The fact that our
economy has been subject to coercion from the federal government for over a century and a half
only means that we surrendered that battle long ago.

I like it because it is flexible and can adjust with the ebbs and flows of the business cycle.

The economy was adjusting to ebbs and flows of the business cycle just fine before the
government stepped in. Such intervention doesn’t facilitate this adjustment, it impedes and
distorts it by forcing the economy to react indefinitely to the transient conditions of a particular
ebb or a flow.

I see government and business as partners.

The government and business are not partners, and the fact that you see them as such only proves
to me how naïve and/or submissive of a citizen you truly are. Partners have equal say in
decisions--one partner can’t impose its decision on the other, as the government can and does on
business. Partners are engaged in the same pursuit--businesses are out to make money, while the
government has the alternate objective of securing the rights of mankind. Partners share the fruit
of their labor--private endeavors raise the bar of prosperity for the entire nation, from which the
government benefits twofold (a content, docile citizenry and a pretty hefty cut of the profits
through exorbitant taxes) with nary a contribution to its “partner.”23

23
That is unless we consider government subsidies, which is hardly reciprocation.
 Not all solutions are total government nor are they total free market.

You are right about one thing though. Not all solutions are all government or free market. This is
because problems don’t always apply to both government and free market. Some problems, like
foreign policy and wartime strategy, are the jurisdiction of government problem solvers. Some
problems, like downturns in the economy and unscrupulous business ethics, are the jurisdiction
of private sector problem solvers.

Since we will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing in July, let’s talk about NASA.
NASA, a government agency, was the lead in the project, but worked with private contractors to
build the systems required.

You evoke NASA as a shining example of our “mixed” economy. Government subcontracting of
private contractors may have been a collaborative effort, but it’s hardly an example of a mixed
economy. Your point would have been better served if NASA had forced or required private
companies to repurpose their research toward space travel. The fact that it subcontracted them
only indicates that the line between private sector and public sector remained clearly defined in
this instance.

For every $1.00 spent, the economy got $7.00 in return. New technologies were developed that
were spun off to private businesses. I dare to say that no private company had the funds or drive
to run a program of this scope without the government as the lead.24

The impressive return rate of 7 to 1 is a testament to the efficiency of the private sector and the
subcontractors representing it in this case, not to government interference into the market.

There is a balance between government and private sector and this balance swings like a
pendulum.

I don’t know where you get this idea that “balance between government and private sector
swings like a pendulum,” but it certainly doesn’t come from the founding documents or the
history of this country.

During certain times we the people demand less government involvement, and other times we
demand more.

Our country was founded on the demand for less government involvement. The “other times” in
our chronicle when we have demanded more have been in result to perceived crises and the
government involvement we got has never gone away.

Currently the people are demanding more. I have no problem with the TARP program,
government stimulus, nor the bail-out for banks. I believe the government has a role to step in
during bad economic times and then remove itself during good times.

24
Let us not forget that the space race, enterprising though it may have been, was itself driven by foreign affairs vis
a vis the Cold War, and, to some degree, falls under national defense.
The government steps in during bad economic times because misguided people such as yourself
believe the government has the role to do so, but no matter how much you believe its role is to
remove itself during good times, it simply doesn’t. I give you Social Security. I give you the
FDIC. I give you the IRS. I give you the New Deal.25

You mention the “heavy hand” of the Obama administration, but what about the heavy hand of
the republicans. How about your very on Senator (who you voted for), Bob Coker. Let’s take a
quick look at his proposal for GM and Chrysler:

Corker had crafted a three-part plan:

· It would have required the two firms closest to bankruptcy, General Motors and Chrysler, to
reduce their debt by two-thirds. Bondholders would have “plenty of incentive to make sure that
the debt is reduced by two-thirds” or risk losing even more if the firms go into Chapter 11, where
their bonds might be further discounted, Corker said. “We’re going to force them into bankruptcy
if they don’t do this,” he said bluntly.

· He also would have required that the Voluntary Employee Benefit Association, the entity
created by the car firms and the UAW to handle retiree health care benefits, accept stock in lieu
of half the cash payments due. The carmakers had agreed to fund VEBA but can no longer afford
to do so. “If a company goes bankrupt, these future payments are never going to happen
anyway,” he said.

· Finally, Corker’s bill would have forced the UAW to lower its members’ wages to the level of
employees at Honda and the other foreign-owned car manufacturers operating in the United
States. “USA Today”

Looks like Bob wanted to use the power of the federal government to “force” management and
labor to do several things or face his threat of bankruptcy. What happened to free markets in the
Republican Party?

You keep throwing up Republicans who do questionable stuff as if to imply I’ve stuck my foot in
my mouth. So Bob Corker tried to get in on the power play too. You’re correct in assuming that
I voted for Corker in the general election. You’re vastly incorrect in assuming that he had my
endorsement. If memory serves me I voted for Van Hillary in the primary, but alas, the party
chose Corker. I followed the debate between Corker and Ford, and though I had serious doubts
about how much I could trust Corker, I knew I couldn’t trust Ford. As it turns out my suspicion
of Corker was well founded, but I don’t for a second regret that he is in the Senate at the
moment. He may be deluded, as the rest of Congress is, into thinking that they’re doing the car
companies a favor by propping them up for a bit, but the R in front of his name is one of very
few safeguards this country has today. His conditions are downright generous compared to those
agreed to behind closed doors under the Obama administration, but that doesn‘t change my
objection to him even playing ball on this. I‘ve already explained my thoughts on preservation of
party with destruction of platform. Corker and McCain are the liberal wing of the GOP. I hate to
take the wind out of your sail, but this comes as no surprise to me.
25
Are we to infer that we haven’t seen “good times” since these programs were implemented?
The housing bubble was not mandated by the government. Banks and other lending institution
were not forced to make bad loans.

If I didn’t know any better, I would say you aren’t even listening to my arguments on the housing
bubble. I have said since the beginning that the government didn’t force everyone’s hand. While
it did force some hands, I know that some people took advantage of its tacit endorsement of
ultimately unsound business practices. I still maintain that proponents of the CRA and similar
legislation have done little to diminish the fact that these government policies opened the door
for and lead the charge on risky loans for the sake of promoting home ownership.

The Liebowitz article you sent even says this in his summary, “At fault is a mortgage system run
by flexible underwriting standards which allowed these speculators to make bets on the housing
market with other people’s money”. I think the key word is “allowed” not forced.

I forwarded the Liebowitz and Gramlich articles to you with my last email so I couldn’t be
accused of being one sided in my research or logic. The fact that you trot out the one line in
Liebowitz‘s article that vaguely reinforces your case does nothing to disprove the other 37 pages
that strongly reinforce mine.

In the Gramlich article, he says, “The earlier decline of usury laws following the Depository
Institutions Deregulatory and Monetary Act of 1980 certainly played a role. Now it was no
longer illegal for lender to make higher-priced mortgages- if the borrower’s credit history was
not so strong, the lender could just charge higher interest rates. Mortgages denial rates fell
noticeably.” The lenders made the choice to make the loans, and were not force to do so. Later he
says, “To their surprise, most banks found that CRA lending was pretty good business.” So not
only were not forced, but they like it………a lot. Bank stock prices soared. One last point,
Gramlich goes on to say, ”Unlike conservative, staid, prime mortgage market featuring fixed-
rate, long-term mortgages made under tight supervisory conditions, the subprime was the Wild
West. Over half the mortgage loans were made by independent lenders without any federal
supervision.” Ooops. Did he just say “federal supervision”. It looks like he is making the point
that maybe part of the problem was a system that lacked “tight supervisory conditions” and
worked without “any federal supervision”. I tend to agree. Further, bad loans and lack of
oversight were not the only factors. Several things like a liquidity trap, mark-to-market,
derivative trading, and yes federal government failure to recognize the problem also added to the
problem. It is not as simple as saying, “the government made me do it.”

To Gramlich, and to your parroting of his opinions, I say that to blame lack of regulation or
supervision would be to assume that people are motivated to certain tasks by their legality alone.
That’s like blaming alcoholism on the legality of alcohol. There has to be some reason for
someone to abuse a freedom. Suppose the government had said alcoholics couldn’t be held
accountable for drunk driving and made special accommodations for them, and soon after society
was plagued with a sudden influx of drunk driving. When someone challenged these
accommodations on the basis that they might have encouraged the risky behavior, would it be an
effective counterargument to say alcohol is poorly regulated? It’s not as simple as saying “the
government let me do it.”
I believe in balance. Liberties vs. Rules

As for the balance of liberties and rules, you seem to be contradicting yourself. So far I as I can
tell, you don‘t see rules and liberties as opposing sides of a scale, but rather as cause and effect
respectively.

Government vs. Private sector

Your previous arguments also betray your concept of balance with regard to government vs.
private sector. Every example we’ve discussed you’ve come down in favor of government.

Labor vs Management

Though we haven’t discussed labor vs. management at all (this is in no way an invitation to
begin discussing it now), I would venture to say that you’d be hard pressed to find an instance
which you stood with the latter.

Realism vs Idealism

You also fail the balance test with regard to realism vs. idealism. You are an idealist posing as a
realist. You support tenets of socialism on the idealistic hope that America’s version will work
where other versions have floundered or failed, all the while pretending that your sober analysis
of real market forces leads you to believe that these steady increments are justified.

Liberal vs Conservative

Most laughable is your belief in the balance between liberal and conservative. I struggle to think
of one idea you’ve brought to the table in our correspondence that resembles conservative
thought. If this is your idea of balance than I can safely say you don’t fully understand the
concept.

Ying vs Yang.26

I believe the people are smart enough to understand that our society, government, economy are
living things that grow and change with the times.

“In a healthy nation there is a kind of dramatic balance between the will of the people and the
government, which prevents its degeneration into tyranny.” Albert Einstein27.

In the quote you provided, Einstein says the balance exists between the will of the people and
the government, not private sector and public sector. He doesn’t warn of economic woes if this
balance is lost, he warns of degeneration into tyranny.Society, government, and economies do

26
Case in point.
27
The quote was originally email’s closing thought. Since it’s placement seemed arbitrary, I’ve relocated it to
preserve the integrity of my argument. Big whoop, wanna fidaboudit?
change with time. This is no excuse for us to accept changes that aren’t beneficial or to stand by
as our government degenerates into tyranny.

It is too easy to yell about liberty until the person next to you exercises their liberty with which
you disagree.

My brand of liberty doesn’t encroach on the liberty of others as you seem to contend it does. I
challenge you to find one instance where it would, without putting words in my mouth or
assuming that I ride the party line on every issue. I contend that your brand of liberty, the liberty
offered by Obama and Sotomayor, seeks to displace misery away from its own interests, with
either indifference or outright hostility toward the plight of those on whom that misery lands.
Yours is a liberty that would force people to accept and financially support beliefs that are
diametrically opposed to their own.

The people exercised their liberty by voting for our current administration and government. Just
because your side lost, does not mean liberty is not being practiced or defended. The majority of
Americans feel good about their current government28.

Some people exercised their liberty by voting in the current administration and government.
Some exercised their liberty in voting against it. Liberty is not being practiced or defended by
our federal government, not because my side lost, but because the side that won has the same
narrow, two wrongs make a right approach to liberty that you do.

If you wish not to run off on tangents, then you need to speak in specific terms.

I have spoken in very specific terms. You asked me about the economy, I stated clearly that I
don’t believe the government should concern itself with the finer points of the economy. What in
the last century has convinced you that the federal government is responsible with its own
finances and should be entrusted with those of the private sector? I’ve stated specific objections
left and right and you’ve sidestepped each and every one of them.

It is hard to have a discussion when all you say is you like liberty, hate the constitution, and
government is evil.

I have explained, through the aforementioned instances, my belief and trust in liberty, but you are
simply putting words in my mouth saying I hate the Constitution. I have read the Constitution,
and have found little in it to object to outside the aforementioned amendments. I cherish the
Constitution and resent how unabashedly it is being deliberately undermined, by the likes of
soon to be Justice Sotomayor. My proposed reboot of the Constitution was in keeping with my
belief in honesty. Rather than repurposing the judiciary under cover of sympathetic life story, I
propose rallying the people of this country into returning to the Constitution as constituted and
having an open discussion and debate over which twists and contortions of it we wish to further
enshrine. I have also made clear my belief that government is not inherently evil, but has the
overwhelming tendency and disposition to abuse its power. Our founders understood this and
went to painstaking lengths to keep it in check. Their successors lost sight of this caution over
28
How do you figure?
the course of roughly a century and a half and the following half century began a steady decent
into socialism. I only object to government insofar as it resembles tyranny, examples of which I
have cited specifically and you have chosen to ignore. It is hard to have a discussion when you
change the subject every two seconds and then can’t keep up with the common threads I’m
forced to weave throughout the disparity of your topics. It’s hard to have a discussion when you
have to resort to grossly mischaracterizing my words and intent to get your points across.

You present many great issues and problems we face, but what are you specific ideas and
solutions. Saying you dislike platforms is no idea or throwing out the constitution just means you
dislike someone else’s ideas without having any of your own. Now the hard part, what are your
ideas for change?

The reason I hadn’t gotten to specific policy initiatives of my potential administration is that it is
still at least eleven years out, and I don’t know the exact mechanics of how things will have to
play out. Moreover, since the change I propose is, dare I say, regressive in nature, my policy
initiatives would essentially be a litany of repeals.

You criticized our president for talking about change and having no ideas to back it, but you
seem to be doing the same thing.

I criticized Obama for not articulating a plan of action because he couldn’t do so even when he
had his party’s endorsement, when he was a matter of months from nut crunching time.

What would you do about AIG, GM, Chrysler, banks, the recession…

What would I do about AIG, GM, Chrysler, banks, and the recession? I would stay as updated
about their circumstances as regularly as was conducive to my understanding of them, but I
would let them fend for themselves. I would veto any attempt by Congress to buy controlling
interest in any private enterprise, especially in the midst of a recession. The balance you
champion between public and private sector relies on each sector representing a distinct aspect of
society. It also implies each sector occupies the same space on either side of the fulcrum, the law.
The actions you point to as balance, the actions of the Obama administration and his rubber
stamp of a congress that make a mockery of checks and balances, effectively shift the balance
board on the fulcrum so that more of it lands on the side of government. If it were a true
balancing act the private sector, when the pendulum swung back in its favor, could force the
hand of the government. The best it can hope to do, even in the most affluent times, is grease the
palm, and even this is recognized to be an underhanded procedure.

…taxes,29 budget deficit…

As for the budget deficit, this puzzle is only as complicated as deciding which superfluous, futile
expenditure to curtail and to what degree. For starters, eliminate or drastically reduce any and all
foreign aid money; you wouldn‘t give a homeless man a few hundred bucks if you were maxed
out on your credit card and the creditors were calling. Budget deficits don‘t just fall out of the
sky, they are called into existence when someone spends money they don‘t have. That this is
29
The Fair Tax would be a good place to start.
even a topic of political debate tells me that far too many Presidents have taken for granted that
we‘re going spend more than we can take in.

…national debt…

For my next trick I’ll shrink the National Debt by ceasing the war on drugs by having the DEA
separated into administrative and enforcement personnel and absorbed into the FDA and the ATF,
respectively, for the time being. Prison populations will drastically fall, resulting in fewer
budgeting needs for their upkeep. Criminal kingpins will be undercut by legitimate businessmen
and a huge sector of the black market will be available to which to apply excises. Revenues go
up, expenditures come down, and after several years of fiscal discipline the debt will be repaid.
Certainly other additional agencies could be repurposed or eliminated. The IRS comes to mind.

…social security…

Social Security has been mathematically proven to be an empty promise. It‘s an Administration
we could do without, and it brands us with a number that follows us all our life and siphons
money from our disposal to that of an out of control federal spending machine. I say, pick a date
past which all Social Security withholding ceases. Anyone who has attained 55 years of age on
this date will receive their benefits when they reach the age required, but benefits will be limited
to 20 years to any new recipients after said date. This gives 20 to 30 years for those whose
benefits will be cut to secure their own retirement. The Social Security Administration will be
downsized to reflect the reduction in payouts as recipients pass away, and will eventually be
dismantled.
…and Medicare (we can talk foreign policy later30).

Medicare: my prescription is much the same as with Social Security. Stop the shell game and
face facts. People are entitled to medical care only insomuch as the federal government decided
they were in an effort to appear sympathetic and win reelection. If all Medicare payments ceased
at this very moment, no matter how many people kicked and screamed, the government would
not be responsible for the deterioration of health among our country’s elderly and ailing. That
blame falls to the natural order. The government would be cast as heartless for ceasing to pay
bills of private citizens, but I would remind the people that if we‘re out to blame anyone but
nature we may as well blame the health care providers who charge such outrageous fees. They
could provide the services for much less (or at their own expense if the Hippocratic oath carries
any weight with the profession these days). We wouldn’t expect them to take this hit, so why do
we expect the government to? Medicare and Social security are prime examples of where I
believe our country has all but abandoned self reliance because of the empty promises of
government.

No more “I stand for liberty”, “throw the bums out”, “no tax”, “the government sucks”, sound
bites.

In the final paragraph of my last email I called you out on your unproductive debate tactics. I
criticized you for ignoring the vast majority of my arguments (when you would or could not
30
Apparently that’s just one tangent too many.
refute them) and picking up new lines of debate as a means of dismissing my well articulated
points. I effectively told you to stop wasting my time trying to pull one over on me, and tell me
what you believe in. Your response has been to continually put words in my mouth, to disregard
or purposefully misinterpret my stances for the sake of prolonging debate, to balloon irrelevant
aspects of certain topics into multiple paragraphs, and to state your principles in mildly witty
little one-liners. Then you have the audacity to accuse me of using sound bites.

What specifically do you stand for and why? You may think you are being specific, but you are
not. Stand up and be counted.

I spent four lengthy emails being very specific and in depth about my beliefs and bolstering them
to your inane tangents. That after such consistent articulation you still claim uncertainty of my
principles leads me to believe that you are either so enamored with your own opinions that you
haven’t been genuinely considering mine, or are purposefully downplaying them in hopes I
won’t notice when you try to flip the script on me. Between condemning me by proxy with
Corker and rephrasing my “state your principles” challenge, your last response has been a very
poorly implemented attempt at saying, “I know you are, but what am I?”

Because you’ve shown that you can’t be trusted to stay on topic, and because I have argued with
your tangents till I’m blue in the face with nary a mention of them again, I am giving you a heads
up: from here on out I will only address one topic at a time. Feel free to respond to any
statements in this email you disagree with, but I will no longer spend days going over your
arguments line by line to refute them when you’ll just disregard the majority of it anyway. I
encourage you to pour over our emails thus far and find the one topic you feel is a winner for you
and present your best case. I look forward to resolving it, win or lose.

P.S. Since you have such an affinity for quotes without context, I figured I’d end on one I found
on the quotes page you hyperlinked.

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our
children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the
same.”

Ronald Reagan
Round 6

Peace be with you.

and also with you.

Round 7
OK, my friend, we have jumped outside of the original intent of this forum, which was to
exchange ideas in a friendly dialog.

I regret that you found my assertions or the vigor with which they were presented objectionable.
Perhaps I did come on a little strong with some of my rhetoric, but if you will l recall I did not
instigate this correspondence to earn a new friend. I suggested we take advantage of the fact that
we were not friends to get to the bottom of issues that friends would just assume avoid for fear of
upsetting the apple cart. I specifically warned you that, though I may come off as abrasive, I do
not mean to insult you--Qui-Gonn Jinn, Jedi Master, soldier, family man, etc--but to impugn,
where I deem appropriate, the policies you endorse. The severity of my words in this most recent
email was deliberate. I don't know you well enough to know whether or not you actually are
naive or submissive or any of the other things I inferred about you. All I have to go on are our
discussions, and the stances you have taken lead me to that assessment of your disposition. I'll
admit, it was my intent to rile you up, to get you to explain to me how you are not what your
politics would imply.

Let us return to our roots.

In the beginning I stated my belief that politics could be discussed in polite company. I did not
mean to imply that every exchange should be polite. I meant that heated debate does not
necessarily preclude civility. I believe it is possible to speak frankly without developing
animosity. That being said, I'll admit the severity of my words did betray this belief slightly. To
be completely honest, I have been getting agitated with you, but not because of your politics or
any stern words. I am at wit's end with you because, whether intentionally or otherwise, you only
register about 20% of what I say.

Let me extend an olive branch by seeing just where we agree on things and maybe then to agree
to disagree.

Let’s focus on liberty in our most recent exchange.

We tend to agree on most things on civil liberties. However, I may go further than you on flag
burning, gays in the military, going nude, and wire tapping.

Your objection to my no holds barred approach and your willingness to agree to disagree reveal
that you missed the entire point of my first email. I had to restate my arguments about
monopolies, the civil rights act, and the housing bubble multiple times, not because you rebuked
them with effective counterpoints, but because you continued to repeat your original argument
regardless of the refutation I offered. I objected to the scattered nature of our exchange and
decided only to address one subject at a time, and you take it to mean you have a one page limit31
in which to discuss four issues.

By pointing this out I am not trying to antagonize you further but to reiterate that I am not
31
See the end of this round.
debating you for the sake of debating. I am doing so to get to the bottom of issues that we
disagree on, in hopes that lasting resolutions can be found. Forgive me for saying so, but you
appear to be skimming over my emails and seizing upon the one or two things you think you can
trip me up on. This may be an effective form of debate if all you care about is being able to
declare yourself the victor when all is said and done, but if you actually want to solve things it is
imperative to digest the opposition's arguments and respond to their content

All that being said, it is entirely possible that we've gotten off on the wrong foot due to
differences in methodology. I accept your olive branch. Perhaps I am underestimating how much
common ground we do have on the subject of liberty. It is good to know that we both are aware
of the unjust impositions our federal government already wages against us. Because I was not
exactly clear as to what constituted a "topic", I will temporarily rescind my one topic limit to
address the four you present. I consider them separate topics because, though they have an ideal,
liberty, in common, they are completely disparate permutations of that ideal. They are only
vaguely relevant to one another and each will generate its own incongruent set of subtopics. I
will present my first rebuttal to each and you can choose which one you wish you pursue. Sound
fair?

I see flag burning as an expression of free speech. Citizens have a right to demonstrate their
disagreement with the government the flag represents by burning its symbol. This seems far
more peaceful than maybe bombing a building in Oklahoma or bombing federal employees.
Citizens burn flags to show anger or they can burn a flag to show respect (when the flag is
retired). The burning is the same, just the intent behind the act. I find it hard to throw someone
out of the country for a peaceful demonstration. If the citizen owns the flag, it is their private
property, they can burn it. If the flag belongs to someone else, then they need to be punished. I
know the flag brings many emotions to many people. When I was in the Middle East, seeing it
flying or displayed on my uniform brought a sense of pride. But I get just as prideful when I see
Americans protesting and our government not throwing them in jail (like in Iran).

Free speech is not some amorphous concept that encompasses all forms of expression. If this
were the case it would not have been necessary to further specify freedom of the press and
peaceful assembly. Freedom of speech is just that: the freedom to speak, to articulate words with
one's tongue and lips. To guess or construe further meaning from this is, in essence, to amend the
Constitution in practice without jumping through all the troublesome hoops of ratification.
Citizens have ample opportunities to voice dissent without resorting to a display of utter hatred
and disrespect toward our nation. The flag is a symbol of national pride, not pride in government
but in the people that government serves. It represents not the politicians and bureaucrats, but the
soldiers and citizens--artisans, laborers, entertainers, entrepreneurs, etc. As tasteless and
primitive as burning an effigy of a particular person would be, that practice is easier to defend
than burning a flag because the source of the citizen's objection is identifiable. The public can
look on knowing the demonstrator reserved his or her animosity for a particular person. You hit
the nail on the head when you say the intent behind the act is of paramount importance. Given
our freedom of speech, and the fact that whoever is burning a flag in demonstration is obviously
choosing not to articulate through speech their objection to certain parties or policies but rather
immolating the most general of symbols, it is a fair question to ask whether this person's
animosity is reserved for the government. I liken it to treason precisely because it reveals intent.
Treason does not require violence, only that one "adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and
comfort within the United States or elsewhere." When our citizens demonstrate their disapproval
of our government, not in any substantive way, but in direct emulation of our nation's self
proclaimed enemies, the case can certainly be made that the intent is to demonstrate more
solidarity with those enemies than with the United States. I have mitigated somewhat my
thoughts on this issue after having read the majority of Title 18, Chapter 115. I still feel it is a
mild form of treason, but in keeping with my belief that new laws should not be enacted if there
are already laws to cover a given offense, I don't believe it is necessary to make a specific crime
out of burning a flag. I do however feel that if an intentionally public display is made in which an
American flag is being burned, law enforcement has the duty to determine, to the best of its
ability, whether the intent of such display is to adhere to enemies of the United States. If this can
be determined to be the case, the penalties ascribed to treason should apply. Bottom line: I too
am proud to live in a country where dissent is allowed to permeate without fear of recrimination,
but the line must be drawn somewhere to distinguish dissenters from traitors. The literal
destruction of a symbol of the country is as logical place as any to do so.

Gays in the military. Gays are not looking for special privileges in the military, just not to be
thrown out or passed over for promotions if they are gay. I have served in the Army for 25 years
and I judge my soldiers based on performance and not on race, creed, or sexuality.

I suppose you would know better than I would the procedures for promoting or discharging
soldiers, so my argument regarding gays in the military is somewhat tentative. From what little
I've read, I glean that the discretion of such is left to either the Secretary of the military
department concerned or a selection board. In either case there seem to be no guidelines as to
what factors can be considered in making such decisions (admittedly I could have missed them,
having just glanced over it). Whatever decision is reached and however it was reached is no more
subject to scrutiny or inquiry than any other order handed down the chain of command. In effect,
homosexuals who question their discharge or lack of promotion on the basis of discrimination
are looking for special privileges: the ability to second guess superior officers, as well as
immunity from consideration of certain aspects of their character. A person is no more
accountable for being timid as for being gay, but it would be perfectly reasonable for those
entrusted with making decisions about discharge or advancement to deliberate this aspect of his
personality. Why, then, should it be off limits to deliberate sexuality? If a Secretary or selection
board deems that a person is a fully qualified soldier, but has reason to doubt that his potential
troops would follow his lead, it should not matter whether it was the disposition of the soldier in
question or the other soldiers in the unit that lead to that decision. All that matters is whether the
decision was what best prepared the unit for the defense of the nation. Bottom line: The efficacy
of the military trumps hurt feelings or offended sentiments any day. If a homosexual soldier
honestly feels his promotion and/or continued service in the military would best serve national
defense, perhaps he should swallow his pride and not endanger that service by asserting an
irrelevant, highly controversial aspect of his personality.

Going nude. After living in Europe for three years, I have no problem with nudity. It is legal to
go topless in many places and totally nude in many others. I give citizens a choice. You didn’t
see nudity in restaurant, schools, churches, just at the beach, swimming pools, etc. Even though
they were nude, there is still a presumption of privacy. It was not an invitation for anything.
Everyone respected the person’s privacy (no picture taking).

I think we actually have a misunderstanding when it comes to nudity. I took "going nude" to
mean you objected to all regulation regarding nudity. If you believe there should be designated
places in which this freedom can be exercised, I'm with you. I believe these ordinances should be
left up to the states and counties, however, and not regulated federally. Oddly enough, in
researching public nudity laws I found, unless there was some exemption I missed, that in TN it
is technically illegal even in adult oriented establishments to appear in a state of nudity. This,
coupled with the existence of a number strip clubs in our area, implies to me that laws regarding
nudity are not the most widely or strictly enforced in this state. Given this leeway, I find it
curious that this avenue of liberty, which is ultimately of little consequence, is one you decide to
champion.

Having worked with 1st Information Operations Command at Fort Belvoir and coordinated with
the NSA, I have seen first hand what is possible and in limited cases, just what we do listen in on
phone calls, emails, and any other form of electronic communications. I fully understand the
need to keep ahead of the bad guys, but have a hard time seeing just where the line needs to be
drawn to protect civil liberties. I have run up against the lawyers on occasions only to later see
abuses of the system. I am still searching for an answer, but did not like the attitude that when we
are at war anything goes. Sometime we lose ourselves in the process.

Again, your military experience undoubtedly provides you with closer perspective than me to the
NSA wiretapping issue. So I don't have to extrapolate, would you please divulge what you can of
"just what we do listen in on phone calls, emails, and any other form of electronic
communications" and the observed "abuses of the system?" Even without that specific
knowledge, I have some fundamental arguments worth advancing. The fourth amendment
secures our "persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and siezures."
Even if external communications are construed to be either "papers" or "effects", which, again,
would effectively undermine the amendment process, they are only secured against
unreasonable searches. If external communications are conducted with an avowed enemy of the
country, is it not within reason that the NSA should intercept them? Furthermore, "search and
seizure" is an intrusive concept. It's inclusion was meant to prevent disruption of innocent
people's lives, homes, and property. In the event of wiretapping, as appalled as we are to see our
perceived privacy intruded upon, nothing is disturbed or taken, only observed and perhaps
documented. Anyone who has actually reads the privacy agreements of one's phone plan should
know that someone is privy to one's personal information and call records, and that it is within
the scope of the law to obtain these records. The NSA shouldn't be held accountable for people
failing to thoroughly read contracts before signing them. At the end of the day, no one has the
inalienable right to a phone, internet connection, or the ease of communication provided by
either of them. Even if we purchase a phone or computer we must still agree to the terms of
network usage specified by our phone or internet provider, most of which (Verizon, AT&T, U.S.
Cellular, Sprint/Nextel, NetZero, Charter, etc) contain language to provide for information
sharing with government agencies. I'm not saying anything goes during wartime, just that we
should not let our entitlement mentality (the expectation of complete privacy in quasi public
forum) interfere with the successful execution of a war.
I have reached my one page limit.

“What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul.” Jesus

I hope I haven't given you further reason to be upset with me. I have learned a great deal in
carrying on this exchange with you, and it would be a shame for it to wither on account of a
miscommunication or two. Please know that, though I have no compunctions in saying where I
disrespect your politics or argumentative techniques, I do respect your service to this country. I
trust we can come back from this precipice.
Round 7
Maybe I could ask you a favor. We seem to go around in circles plowing up old stuff, how about
a change? Let me check my bet and pass to you this round. I am curious on your position to the
current health care debate. I am not looking for a fight, just really interest in the opinion. I have
talked to several folks lately and always find it interesting to hear different view points. This may
be fun since it is in the news daily. You can even focus in a specific piece. I want to make this
more of a series of quick hitters than the multiple page events from our past.

On the subject of health care, I am relieved that H.R. 3200 is facing such staunch opposition. I
also find the extent to which its proponents have to misrepresent the debate surrounding it to be
quite telling of their true intent and tactics. To my knowledge, H.R. 3200 proponents have done
nothing to quell legitimate concerns, nor to respond substantively to allegations arising from the
text of the bill itself, of which most congressmen somehow remain willfully ignorant or
intentionally deceptive. To the contrary, they have done everything in their power to dismiss,
intimidate, marginalize, ostracize, and (if current reports prove accurate) literally accost
dissenters, from among the ranks of the very people the bill supposedly champions.

Even without these troubling developments, I find it astonishing that anybody is willing to
debate the issues of "health care reform" or even "health insurance reform." We're accustomed to
the word reform in politics. A policy, program, or department is flawed and operates inefficiently
so we reform it. This is not what is being proposed in Congress. Congress is, at best, proposing
to insinuate their authority into a thriving public market, on the auspices of some largely
fabricated "crisis". At worst it is laying the groundwork for state monopoly of health insurance
and with it an unprecedented degree of sustained intrusion on the human condition. Though the
old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," certainly applies to this legislation, it fails to capture the
most significant aspect of the push.

Given the context of the first six and half months of the Obama administration, and the host of
fascist and socialist policies attempted and enacted therein, I believe it is critical to recognize
H.R. 3200 as a calculated, deliberate attempt to nationalize yet another significant chunk of the
private sector. To frame the debate as anything less is to trust more in the arbitrary statistics of
crackpots and eggheads, to believe more in the parroting of DNC talking points that passes for
journalism these days, than the reality that stares us in the face more menacingly each day.

Also I would like to take a few posts to go over some out of the ordinary things. Birth
certificates, FEMA concentration camps, and flag@whitehouse.org. If you want to go with one
of these first, please do so.

From your last response, I think you may have misunderstood my outreach. I was not upset or
offended by anything, I took from your tone that you were.

I am going to try to keep my posts short and to a point and respond in a few days and not weeks
so we can keep the line fresh and fast(er) pace.

Its good to hear we're back on the same page again. I'm hesitant to move on to a new subject with
so many unresolved issues still the table, but I believe it's for the best in this instance. We can
always come back to them later if we wish, and it will be refreshing to deal with topics more
immediately pertinent to the course our country is on. I too would like our emails to be more
concise and frequent.
Round 8
Well, I am not one to believe everything from the Democrats is fascist, socialist, communist or
any other ist as much as I do not believe all Republicans cheat on their wives and are in the tank
for the big health insurance companies.

Lets test the logical integrity of your first statement: "Well, I am not one to believe everything
from the Democrats is fascist, socialist, communist or any other ist as much as I do not believe
all Republicans cheat on their wives and are in the tank for the big health insurance companies."
This disclaimer attempts to establish you as reasonable, above the fray, and skeptical of absurd
claims on either extreme. While failing in this attempt, as I will detail momentarily, you
conveniently dismiss my argument that the Obama agenda is undeniably socialist and wreaks of
fascism. You insinuate that to recognize the practice of socialism (government's essential
purchase of AIG, Chrysler, and GM, the dogma of "fairness" that guides the administration's
heavy hand with said companies, and the frantic dash to assert government control over general
health care and health insurance) is tantamount to making the unsubstantiated claim that all
Republicans are for sale or are philanderers. To follow your comparison to its reasonable
conclusion, not all Republicans are crooks and cheats just as not all Democrats are socialists or
fascists, but some of them are. Try as you might, you cannot dismiss this as an absurd claim.
Thomas M. Magstadt defines socialism as "an ideology favoring collective and government
ownership over individual or private ownership," and fascism as "A totalitarian political system
that is headed by a popular charismatic leader and in which a single political party and
carefully controlled violence form the bases of complete social and political control." The
Democrats in question (Obama, Pelosi, and Reid) have taken great strides toward turning public
sentiment toward the former and with each new legislative initiative inch closer to the latter.

I wish we (the American people) could have an honest open debate.

I, too, wish that the American people could have an honest, open debate. The best way to go
about doing so, as I believe you and I personally have been over a time or two, is to digest the
opposition's argument, look for holes in logic, and build your counter argument as both a
refutation of the opposition and an endorsement of your own thought. The surest way to
guarantee the absence of an honest, open debate is to be habitually dismissive of structurally
sound arguments by way of clever witticisms and/or wispy filaments of logic that snap at the
slightest tug, or to repeat yourself ad nauseam as though emphasis will bolster a flimsy
argument.

Scaring people with untruths like death boards and forced abortions is no way to have an adult
discussion of issues.

You cannot dismiss concerns about rationing and the effect it would have on the advanced care
planning consultations proposed in Sec. 1233 of the bill. To my knowledge the only person to
have referred these provisions as "death panels" prior to the President on Tuesday was Sarah
Palin. The context is a little hazy, considering I haven't read the any of the facebook posts
leading up to this, but here is what she said:
"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome
will have to stand in front of Obama’s 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a
subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health
care. Such a system is downright evil."

Admittedly, her use of quotations is suspect, but only a fool would come away from this thinking
she is telling people there are going to be literal death panels. Her critique, though perhaps
sensationally worded, is that, by Barack Obama's own admission, efforts to keep spending down
for the public option could very well lead to the government recommending through these
consultations to forego life saving operations. More troubling than these consultations is that, in
its proposed capacity as health insurance provider, the government will necessarily have to make
decisions regarding coverage of high dollar end of life treatment. To reject Palin's critique of the
bill on anything deeper than poorly chosen rhetoric is to make the impossible claim that all such
decisions will end with the patient getting the needed care.

To my knowledge, opponents of H.R. 3200 haven't made the claim that there will be forced
abortions. Many are concerned about the possible reintroduction of the so called "Freedom of
Choice Act" into the 111th Congress, which if passed and signed into law could lead to Medicaid
and Medicare funds being revoked for hospitals that refuse to perform abortions. I, who have
been immersed in the debate over H.R. 3200 since the details began trickling out, have only
heard fleeting mention of these concerns from opponents of the bill. The other concern to pro-life
voters is that tax-payers would be forced to subsidize abortion through the public option. This
concern arises from the latitude granted in Sec. 122, Subsection (b) "Minimum Services to be
Covered" which include, rather ambiguously "(3) Professional services of physicians and other
health professionals." It is no stretch of the imagination to conclude that this will be construed to
provide for abortions. A greater leap of logic is to derive from these concerns the notion that
opponents to H.R. 3200 are, by and large, "Scaring people with untruths like... forced
abortions." I find it curious that you hold up forced abortions as one of only two examples of
supposed untruths said to be distracting from substantive debate, considering potential effects on
abortion haven't been in the forefront of debate anyway.

The two sides need to talk the issues and points on which they may disagree in a more civil
manner.

Playing up people's fears may be wrong when those fears are unfounded or overblown, but there
is no substantive response to the current fears about H.R. 3200 that convinces me or others that
is the case. My side is talking about the issues and points on which we disagree, and though their
fervor may push the limits of civility, as you and I have seen, fervor is nothing a little tough skin
can't handle. These people wouldn't be driven to shouting over their congressmen if the
congressmen had likewise talked about the issues and points on which they disagree rather than
continually sidestepping them. Avoiding the nuts and bolts of a subject and pretending to be
baffled when the opposition doesn't just accept it and move on is no way to have an adult
discussion.

I do think the healthcare/health insurance industry needs some work.

You say you think health care and insurance need some work. Fair enough. I can't fault you for
an opinion, but I can pose the question: What warrants your position, and the non sequitur that
it is any responsibility or right of government to do the needed work?

I do not support a single payer system. I do support a government option. Good competition
should drive prices down.

You say you are for a government option. Your reasoning that competition should drive prices
down betrays your subsequent objection to single payer. There is already plenty of competition in
the health insurance field. The only way a government option is capable of driving down prices
is to undercut the free market value. Presuming that widespread price gouging is the norm,
which in itself is a bold claim to make and shaky ground from which to launch an argument, the
insurance premiums may decline slightly for a time as profit margins taper off. Government
would then have to display an unprecedented level of self restraint and unparalleled economic
savvy to determine a profit margin for these companies that was suitable to continually motivate
them to provide their service to the public, and then it would have to sustain this level in the face
of constituents clamoring for even lower prices.

I tend to favor the health insurance exchange as proposed by the bill. It seems to give the states
the ability to run the exchange if they wish.

I've been meaning to bone up on the exchange program, as I am sure I would find objection to it,
but in the interest of timeliness and succinctness I leave it to you to elaborate on your support.

I support covering pre-existing conditions.

You say you support covering pre-existing conditions, but to take this stance illustrates a
fundamental lack of appreciation for how insurance works. Insurance companies don't deny
coverage to people with preexisting conditions based on some inexplicable disdain or
indifference for their plight. They do so because any insurance industry sustains itself by
maximizing enrollment while minimizing and mitigating risk factors. Their operating funds are a
function of the number of people paying in to number of people drawing out. The whole concept
hinges on this ratio. As heartless as it may seem to deny coverage to someone with preexisting
conditions, it is the nature of the beast. Preexisting conditions equal high risk of frequent and
chronic claims, which drive the price up for everyone else in the kitty. If private companies are
prohibited from exercising these criteria, premiums will rise, leaving many with no option save
the public option.

I like the fact that if you have insurance currently, you can keep it. There seems to be a little
confusion on this point.

Good. Now that we both have laid our cards on the table, let’s try to tackle these things one at a
time32.
32
All preceding italicized text was omitted from the actual dialogue in attempt to mend the tenuous state of the
You say, "I like the fact that if you have insurance currently, you can keep it. There seems to be
little confusion on this point33." I honestly don't know where to start with this one. You put this
forward as though its [sic] a positive effect of the bill and not the current state of the free market.
Is the American public supposed to be beside itself with gratitude and excitement because we get
to keep what is already ours?! That this is held up as merit of H.R. 3200 only suggests further
that the rest of the bill is understood to be intrusive, confiscatory, and superfluous.

Moreover, inspection of the actual bill reveals that this is an empty promise. Sec. 102, which
purports to protect "THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE," consists of three
subsections, (a),(b), and (c). Subsection (a) defines "grandfathered health insurance coverage" as
"individual health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the first day
of Y1 if the following conditions are met:... the health insurance issuer...does not enroll any
individual...on or after the first day of Y1... the issuer does not change any of its terms or
conditions..." Subsection (b) provides for a grace period for employment-based plans to fall in
line with the standards imposed by the bill. Subsection (c), under the heading "Limitation on
Individual Health Insurance Coverage," states that "Individual health insurance coverage that is
not grandfathered health insurance...may only be offered...as an Exchange-participating health
benefits plan."

The latter two subsections expressly alter current coverage, leaving only subsection (a) to redeem
the section's heading. The promise that you can keep your current coverage is patently false
when concerning employment based plans, and while true by technicality alone with regard to
individual coverage, its implication of noninterference is certainly betrayed by this language.
Moreover, as private insurance premiums go up due to the preexisting conditions clause and
other "consumer protections," and as market forces pull the opposite direction in face of unfair
competition from the public option, private insurance issuers will not be able to sustain
themselves. Something, as they say, has got to give, and it sure as hell won't be the government.

Honestly, I cannot fathom how you could make the statement "There seems to be little confusion
on this point" without being informed about this point solely by listening to Obama speak on the
matter. Simply repeating the phrase, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health
care plan," doesn't make it so, nor does it even attempt to clear up any confusion. The President's
refusal to stray from this mantra, even to address and bolster its shortcomings, is telling of the
lack of intelligence and abundance of malleability he expects from the American people.

I think it needs some work on the parts for small business. The exchange should be modified to
be a little more small business friendly. Most small companies can not offer health choices.

I am still looking at the time line for the phase in of the program. It is scheduled to take until
2018.

I do have a little trouble on the individual insurance mandate. This is a tough one. I know it is

conversation and to adhere to my tactic of not biting off too much to chew at once.
33
Unfortunately, I misread this passage and allowed my incredulity at the resultant phrase to steer the conversation
in a particularly circuitous, unproductive direction. In the end I believe it cost me my collaborator.
like the mandate for auto insurance and that the more folks in the pool the better. I guess on one
side, one should have the right to be stupid and not have health insurance, but if they show up at
the emergency room, do we turn them away? Like I said, I am still pondering this point.

I would still like to see some more work on how to pay for things. The savings on Medicare and
Medicaid would pay for part (about half), but there seems to be a tax hike on folks over
$350,000.00.

Since I've already made this longer than I intended, I'll reserve my comments about your mild
reservations until you flesh them out in more detail. I would, however, like for you to explain to
me where specifically the cuts to Medicaid and Medicare would be made and how those figures
are reconciled with those of the Congressional Budget Office.
Round 9
The meaning of section 102 is in the eye of the reader.

I respectfully disagree. The meaning of section 102 is not in the eye of the reader, but in section
102. The intent may be up for discussion, but what is in the bill is in the bill. If codified into law,
the illusion of interpretive equality vanishes before the rigidity of enforcement.

I agree the section needs more specificity, but I believe sine qua non of the section is to price all
plans on a common standard of benefit.

The problem is that the bill is too specific to support Obama's general claim that you can keep
your coverage. When speaking to crowds of thousands, while being broadcast to millions more,
he continues to reiterate this matter-of-factly, without reference to the specificity already within
the bill that narrows the applicability of his remark. He doesn't say you can keep your health care
plan, if you are part of the minority who have individual coverage.

Shouldn't the whole point of a section whose heading is "PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO
KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE" be to protect the choice to keep current coverage, and not to
attempt to impose new standards upon that very coverage?

This allows all plans, to include the public option, to compete on a level playing field.

These standards may attempt to level the playing field, but as so many Democratic proposals do,
they come from a refusal to consider that the playing field could already be level, that maybe the
other team is winning because they're just a better team. Maybe they trained better, had a more
diverse or creative playbook, or were just born athletes. Granting handicaps or penalizing the
winning team only illustrates how little faith the referee truly has in the underdog. The intent of a
law to be fair isn't what goes on the books. What is enshrined in the US Code is the mechanism a
law utilizes to attempt to achieve that intent. It is little comfort for future generations to marvel at
intent when they face rigid laws that restrict their freedom. Here I return to my first point, that it
doesn't much matter what you or I take section 102 to mean. If it becomes law all that will matter
is what it means to those who were empowered and authorized by it (and hopefully to the
Supreme Court someday).

I understand the restriction to keep plans from changing after Y1 is to keep companies from
providing grand benefits to gains clients prior to Y1 and then lower those benefits afterwards. I
would say the provisions do not “expressly” alter the current coverage; they keep current
coverage from altering until the grace period is up. Once the grace period is up, to be “qualified”
plans they must meet basic coverage levels. (i.e pre-existing conditions, nondiscrimination,
guaranteed issuance, etc).

By virtue of the fact that subsection (b) refers to a grace period, it necessitates that this "grace"
be granted in relief of an obligation. A grace period is when an entity, to which one has prior
obligations, decides to waive those obligations for a time. To frame it as a grace period is to
establish obligation on the part of employment based policy holders and issuers to conform to
new standards. As a health care plan is defined by its standards, and the effect of subsection (b) is
to alter those standards after a designated time, it is, in the best possible light, putting an
expiration date on your policy. This, combined with the lack of any qualifiers to the, "If you like
your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan" rhetoric, make for an intentionally
misleading, blatant distortion of the proposed bill. I hesitate to use the word lie, because that
word tends to bog conversations down in grammar and definitions, and though I am usually a fan
of linguistic dissection, I believe in this instance its use would be no more incriminating.
Whether he literally lied or not, his intent was to deceive the vast majority of his audience into
thinking that their coverage wouldn't be tampered with when he knew perfectly well that it
would.

The fact that the web is full of varying opinions illustrates my use of “a little confusion”.

I apologize for misquoting you in my last email, and for the context I assumed from misreading
your statement, "There seems to be a little confusion on this point." As you may have surmised, I
overlooked the pivotal article and took it to mean you considered the point to be settled. Though
it's no excuse for misinterpreting your argument, I hope it explains my incredulity.
Round 10
The meaning of 102 IS in the eye of the reader. Both intent and meaning are up for discussion,
the words of the bill are not. We both read the same words and come away with different
meaning and intent of what the author envisioned.

Correct, the words of the bill are not up for discussion. They are there as plain as day. You and I
didn't read the same words and come away with different meanings. We both understood it to
mean the same thing: (a) that once the law went into effect individual coverage would only
remain unaffected by the law if the issuer didn't enroll any new people (with the exception of
dependents) or change policy terms in any way; (b) that employment based insurance providers
would have to meet new federal standards 5 years after the law's enactment; and (c) any coverage
not considered "grandfathered" under subsection (a) must be an Exchange-participating plan.
That these will be the effects of H.R. 3200 is not up for discussion. We don't derive different
meanings from the bill, just different opinions about its merit or necessity. Whether these
changes sit well with us or not, the fact remains that they are changes.

The point of “PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE” is to protect

the choice to keep current coverage. The bill proposes two things. 1: Once a insurance company
has a plan in place, it can not change it. This protects employers and employee from having a
company make grand promises to get them on the books before Y date, only to drop certain
coverage or reduce benefits later.

If the purpose of section 102 were to protect choice to keep current coverage it would delineate
ways the government was not allowed change your coverage. Instead it takes for granted that the
government will in fact change people's coverage and establishes a very narrow avenue for
consumers to retain their plans, which they can be easily knocked off through no choice of their
own. The one thing that could possibly qualify as protection of choice is the supposed intent of
subsection (a) to keep insurers from pulling a bait and switch. If this were actually intended as a
measure of consumer protection, wouldn't it stand to reason that it would punish the insurance
issuer for pulling such a trick, rather than disqualifying the policy from grandfathered coverage
as it does? As the bill is written, it would funnel those whose policies were disqualified into the
Exchange, which would necessitate new policy terms..

2: After five years, the insurance company must meet the minimum standards as stated in section
122. The insured can keep their plans with the comfort of knowing that in five years, the
insurance companies must new minimum standards.

Subsection (b) doesn't even give employment based policy holders (the vast majority) any choice
in the matter, let alone attempt to protect that choice. Though there is a delayed reaction, the
policy changes will take place nonetheless. Requiring insurance companies to meet new
standards will result in different policies, which the current policy holders will have no choice
but to accept

I do not believe the President is attempting to deceive or lie, just telling what his intent of the
bill. Maybe he should say “You can keep your current plan and in five years have one that may
be even better”.

Whether you believe it or not, the President is being deceitful on this point. In the face of
concerns over the stipulations of section 102, he chooses not to address them but to repeat a
hollow mantra. He doesn't even go into as much depth as you just have. He just recites his
mantra, implies that anyone who doesn't immediately believe him is simply misinformed
(without telling them just how this is so), and attempts to move on as though the point is settled.
If he has read the bill he is aware of these stipulations. To fail to bring them up at the onset of
debate is disingenuous, but could be written off as attempting to put your best foot forward. To
refuse to even acknowledge them after they have been accurately read and objected to by
constituents is nothing short of deceitful. Even if he shares your favorable opinion of the bill, his
pledge for transparency certainly would require him to divulge why he felt the changes would be
beneficial rather than implying repeatedly that changes won't be forced.

I understand that you trust Obama and find it hard to believe that he would intentionally attempt
to mislead America on this point. I, however, believe that a man who said on June 30th, 2003, "I
happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program," and then on August
11, 2009, "I have not said that I was a single payer supporter..." is not to be trusted.

The deception may be more in the opposition making things up about the plan such as death
panels, forced euthanasia, forced abortions, Nazi health plan, evil plan to fake a war to justify the
building of a Clone Army.

Though I am fully prepared to explain how opponents of H.R. 3200 are not "making things up
about the plan," I refuse to acquiesce to your attempt to change the subject without first resolving
the issue at hand: whether or not the blanket statement about being able keep your current
coverage is accurate. You have provided no logical progression that supports this broad assertion.
Instead you have illustrated the degree to which one must suspend logic to reach this conclusion.
By contrast, I have illustrated how even the mechanisms supposedly in place to protect choice
are virtually impotent in this regard and actually work to limit choice. If you are willing to accept
this assessment, I'd be happy to discuss the deceit inherent in the mischaracterization of the
arguments of the bill's opponents.
Round 11
You say that I have suspended logic, OK give me some clarity.

I say you suspend logic because your method for proving the veracity of the "you can keep you
health care plan" statement is to admit that, in actuality, you can't keep your health care plan, but
the new one will be even better.

You said,” If the purpose of section 102 were to protect choice to keep current coverage it would
delineate ways the government was not allowed change your coverage. Instead it takes for
granted that the government will in fact change people's coverage and establishes a very narrow
avenue for consumers to retain their plans, which they can be easily knocked off through no
choice of their own.”

The purpose is to keep the insurer from changing the plan.

I understand that the alleged purpose is to keep the insurer from changing plans. I happen to
believe there would be ways to accomplish this without revoking the one shred of credibility
section 102 has to its name. For this and many other reasons, I believe it to be a way to diffuse
objection to mandated changes in coverage by blaming anyone but the government (Damn
insurance company, changing my policy like that! Dang calender! Is it 2018 already?) All that is
beside the point though. You keep bringing up the purpose or intent of the bill, as though my
argument hinges on this. I have not been analyzing intent or purpose. I have been analyzing the
text of the bill and the effects it would have on our society. I do surmise nefarious intent from
this analysis, but I do not build my argument upon it.

You are correct, the government will make changes in five years, but which of these changes hurt
the insured? Which do you not like? Which of the new minimum standards would the insured
NOT want in their plan?

Whether the changes hurt the insured, whether I like them, or whether the new minimum
standards would or would not be desirable is irrelevant to whether or not Obama and those who
tow his "you can keep you health care plan" line are being misleading or disingenuous. I'll be
happy to discuss these issues once we've settled the one at hand.

What is the narrow avenue and how are plans “knocked” off?

The narrow avenue is the confinement of grandfathered coverage to individual insurance plans,
which account for only 4.9 percent of U.S. health insurance policies. If a new person (other than
a dependent) is added to a policy or any of the terms are changed, even for the better, the policy
is no longer considered grandfathered coverage and must then be an Exchange participating plan
and must meet the standards that this entails.

Later you said the insured is punished, how? You said if the employer fails to meet the new
standards, then the bill would funnel those polices into the exchange and necessitate new policy
terms. So?
I didn't say the policy holder is punished. I said that, rather than punish insurance companies who
bait and switch, thereby providing disincentive for the practice, section 102 rescinds the
protection of the choice to keep current coverage by disqualifying policies from grandfathered
coverage in the event of these infractions. Again, I'd be happy to explain what is wrong with the
federal government funneling policies into the Exchange and necessitating new terms, when we
get around to discussing the underlying philosophies and ideologies permeating the debate

You also said, “Requiring insurance companies to meet new standards will result in different
policies, which the current policy holders will have no choice but to accept.” What choice do
policy holders have NOW? If their employer changes the plan, they have no choice but to accept
the changes.

What choice do policy holders have now? They have any choice their financial situation will
allow. If employers change plans, employees currently have the choice to opt out of that plan in
favor of individual insurance. If their employer won't let them opt out, they are free to seek
alternate employment with an optional health insurance plan or none at all. Currently, there are
not federal laws interfering with these choices so far as I know. The hurdle today is a financial
one, which is nobody's responsibility to bear but the person making the choice. If H.R. 3200
becomes law the few remaining alternatives to these new standards (non-electing employment
based planes) will be taxed into either compliance or bankruptcy.

As for the last paragraph, well, there you go again. Always thinking there is an evil plot to
change the subject. (These are not the droids you are looking for). I thought the purpose of our
dialog is to gain clarity, to exchange ideas, to see if we can bridge the gap, but you just want to
go back to the old ways of personal attacks.

I don't believe you change the subject because of some evil plot. I believe you change the subject
because you cannot refute the content of my arguments, and throwing up other tantalizing
subjects allows you avoid being cornered. My attempts at gaining clarity, exchanging ideas, and
bridging the partisan gap have all been means to an end: the resolution of modern political
issues. I for one don't engage in political discussions to observe the diversity of ideas, but to
determine the best policy for this country, in keeping with its founding documents. I have gone to
great lengths not to make this personal. I haven't attacked you personally in any way. All I've
done is point out where you attempt to convolute clarity, where the logic of your ideas falters,
and where you attempt to bridge the ideological gap with intangible platitudes rather than solid
girders of reason.

You like to make a statement and then declare victory.

I am not making a statement and declaring victory. I have laid out my case—that the actual
effects of the bill don't jive with Obama's rhetoric. Since you readily agree that changes will be
made, choosing to explain their intent rather than deny or ignore their existence as our President
does, I inferred that you agreed with my assessment that Obama's remarks weren't reflective of
the true nature of the debate. Since you were attempting to segue into other topics I took it to
mean you wanted to move on. From the very beginning, I have expressed a desire to avoid
agreeing to disagree. As such, I only wished to state that I feel I have proven my point and that
you have reinforced it rather than disproved it. The abundance of non sequitur in your line of
argument leads me to believe you are struggling to steer discussion away from the specifics of
my reasoning. I infer from this that you cannot refute them, which is why I too, having said my
piece on this particular matter and not wishing to reiterate it, am eager to move on to more
substantial aspects of the debate over H.R. 3200. I'm not trying to twist your arm and get you to
say "Uncle." I just want to know my argument hasn't fallen on deaf ears before we move on.
Since none of your attempts at refutation of my point actually address my point, I can't help but
feel that way now.

If your goal was to make a statement and declare victory, you win. But if you truly want to
discuss the issues of the day, then let’s discuss. You keep seeing this as a debate. It is not. If you
do wish to have one, then find a new collaborator.

I think I have been pretty clear from the onset of our correspondence that I was in this not for
idle chatter but for substantive progress on the pressing issues of the day. This goal cannot be
accomplished without having a great number of debates. Moreover, it cannot be accomplished if
we debate until we get tired of it and move on, despite having no resolution either side can agree
on. The express purpose of this exchange has been to press past the point where most participants
in casual discussions or election campaigns drop the issue for fear of being viewed unfavorably.
If you wished not to debate, why haven't you expressed that desire before now, rather than
engaging me for months in rigorous debate?