Intelligent Debate

An intelligent liberal associate of mine, made a comment on a note of mine in which he declared his support of universal healthcare. The reason I bring this up is the response I made to his comment, I believe, should become in a manner of speaking our manifesto. The essence of his comment boiled down to What is so good about small government and so bad about government intervention? I would like to share with you my response, and hope that it inspires all of you to maintain your beliefs in small government, personal freedom, and the freedom of the open market.

"There is nothing wrong with helping people. But smaller government means more freedom. It creates the drive and determination to succeed, to become that which you are capable of becoming. If the government started handing everything out to everyone, where is the American Dream at that moment? In that instant, in that second it becomes nothing more than a memory.

"Private organizations drive the world, they drive the market, they drive discovery. Samuel Broder, former director of the US National Cancer Institute, once said, 'If it was up to the NIH [National Institute of Health] to cure polio through a centrally directed program instead of independent investigator driven discovery, you'd have the best iron lung in the world, but not a polio vaccine.'

"That's where the problem is. The innovation, the freedom to create and discover is gone. Sure we could become more like Canada with a more socialized healthcare system, and maybe drugs would be cheaper, because the governmentcontrols the price. But how many life saving drugs are invented in Canada? None. Because the government controls the price.

"The free market is what makes America enviable. The government didn't make the Prius the hottest selling car in Hollywood, the market did that. You add in government, you take away freedom. You take away the very identity America has created since 1776, when we broke away from more government interference to more disolved control."

And that, my friends, is what small government is all about.