Imagine a bill granting every American a free federally delivered ice cream every Sunday morning. Provision 2: steak on Monday, also home delivered. Provision 3: A dozen red roses every Tuesday. You get the idea. Would each individual provision be popular in the polls? Of course.

However — life is a vale of howevers — suppose these provisions were bundled into a bill that also spelled out how the goodies are to be paid for and managed — say, half a trillion dollars in new taxes, half a trillion in Medicare cuts (cuts not to keep Medicare solvent but to pay for the ice cream, steak, and flowers), 118 new boards and commissions to administer the bounty-giving, and government regulation dictating, for example, how your steak was to be cooked. How do you think this would poll?

Perhaps something like three-to-one against, which is what the latest CNN poll shows is the citizenry’s feeling about the current Democratic health-care bills.

One thing is missing from this analysis – job security. The federal worker has his job more secured on at least three levels:
1. he is almost never fired,
2. his department will almost never be closed,
3. his employer will never goes out of business.

The free market values job security. Tenured professors are getting probably a half of what they would get if they worked in private industry but they don’t want to switch to private sector mainly because of the job security.

So the true discrepancy is much higher.

The fault, dear Americans, is not in our stars but in ourselves!

OK, I’ll admit it. I didn’t pay much attention in high school English class. Julius Caesar? Yawn! To be honest, didn’t really get it. I thought that Caesar was the good guy and Cassius and Brutus, the two men who led the plot to kill him, were the bad guys. But it was the ’90s, the Cold War was over and I had prom to think about. To snap up a line from Shakespeare’s play, it was all Greek to me!

Flash forward several years to our new post-9/1 1 America. We are fighting two wars, a global battle against terrorism, low interest rates and cheap money have caused a credit crisis of gargantuan proportions, the Treasury has become a free-for-all, the welfare state is growing quicker than you can say Nancy Pelosi, the government is becoming more powerful and corrupt, rampant inflation is imminent, and corporate-cronyism has replaced the free markets.

Maybe it’s time for us all to re-read history.

You see, many, many years before there was the United States of America, there was a Republic called Rome. Actually, I never realized that “Ancient Rome” as we’ve come to know it existed in three phases that spanned the course of almost a thousand years. It was founded sometime between 758 and 728 B.C. and existed as a monarchy for over two centuries. It then became a democratic Republic, which lasted for 460 years, and finally transitioned to an empire for the final 200 or so years.

The heroic beginnings of the Roman Republic were actually very similar to those of America. In 509 B.C., a rebellious group of rugged individuals, tired of abuses of the monarchy, over-threw King Tarquin and put into place a new system of government. In order to safeguard personal liberties and prevent another monarchy from emerging, these founding fathers replaced the monarchy with two elected magistrates who would each serve a maximum of one year Each magistrate would check the ambition of the other and never again would one man be allowed to rule supreme over the Roman citizens.

The Roman “constitution,” known as the Twelve Tables, was completed in 449 B.C. with an emphasis on individual liberty. The legislation would come from an elected body of officials, also known as the Senate. Under this new system of government, Rome flourished as a fledgling, agrarian republic where citizens were able to vote, hold public office, engage in trade and commerce and own property. Although Roman citizenship, or civitas, was limited to adult males, it was incredibly revolutionary at the time and, therefore, became a source of great pride for the Romans. It meant you were free!

And what does freedom bring? Prosperity!

Rome became the most rockin’ place around. Toga parties, drinking, wrestling, sporting games, bathhouses, you get the idea. Everyone who was anyone wanted to be Roman.

Life was pretty good for a few centuries. Rome grew and prospered. The Romans built roads, bridges, aqueducts, buildings, apartments, stadiums and had the most powerful military in the world. And we all know it wasn’t built in a day! The Roman Republic even had a booming financial sector, with early forms of futures and equities markets. But in 49 B.C., the party finally came to an end as Julius Caesar stood at the bank of a small river in Northern Italy known as the Rubicon.

Roman law stated that no General could cross the Rubicon and enter Italy with a standing army. If Caesar crossed, he would be declared an Enemy of the State, plunge Rome into a civil war and turn the once shining democratic republic into an empire and himself into Emperor. The Senate was terrified of such an outcome. Even Caesar, himself, hesitated. But he was too ambitious to turn around and give up all that he had worked to achieve. He wanted power, even if it meant ending the Republic. He marched forward and, in his own words, the “die was cast.” He had crossed the point of no return and became Emperor of Rome.

Brutus and Cassius did eventually assassinate Caesar in an attempt to restore the Republic, but it was too late. By then, the problems were greater than one man and had been developing under the surface for many years. In fact, many Roman citizens were happy to have Caesar take the reigns as dictator of Rome to get things under control.

Only a few prefer liberty – the majority seek nothing more than fair masters.

So, what exactly led to the moment at the Rubicon? Why did Rome fall?

Perhaps the malaise began 150 years earlier when Rome’s biggest external threat, Carthage, was defeated in the Second Punic War. While most Roman citizens were ecstatic, many were concerned that, without a common enemy holding the Republic together, a sense of apathy would set in. They were right. Over time, by the consent of the masses, Rome began to destroy itself from within. The citizens ceased to care what the Senate was doing, so long as their needs were being taken care of. The Senate began a policy of expansion, conquering new lands and looting gold and silver for the Treasury. In the early days of the Republic, the tax rate was about 1-3 percent. By 167 B.C., Romans were no longer obliged to pay taxes, as the burden could be carried by others.

There was enough revenue coming in from conquered lands to pay for everyone. As a result, a new brand of crony-corporatist, known as the pubilcani, emerged. The publicani were also known as tax farmers, who were in the business of collecting taxes abroad for a profit. The tax rate was progressive, with the publicani deciding who would pay what taxes. Corruption ran rampant.

To make matters worse, in the middle of the second century B.C., two brothers with great political ambition came to power. The Gracci broth-ers emerged from the Populares Party. They understood that they could gain enormous amounts of political power by making grand promises and using propaganda and charisma to woo the Roman citizens. They promised grain at prices below market and, eventually, for free. They promised to redistribute land, and they put into place sweeping ‘New Deal” like social reforms, which increased the welfare state. Essentially, you name it, they probably promised it. As a result of these progressive reforms, farmers rushed to live in the cities for their free grain and slaves were freed in order to qualify for the dole.

It didn’t help that there was also lots of money floating around the Roman economy from the conquests abroad. Since money was cheap and interest rates were kept very low (and, at one point, even forbidden), individual Roman citizens racked up considerable amounts of debt. The pubIicani were also in the money lending business but eventually cracked down on borrowers so they could invest their money into new markets opening up in Asia. This led to a huge credit crisis in 88 B.C.

The economy continued to crumble as debt increased and more and more hands grasped at the treasury. By the time Caesar came along, more than 300,000 Roman citizens were on the dole and an increasing number were making greater demands on the government. In fact, more legislation was passed during the end of first century B.C. than any other time in the Republic’s history. Politicians were becoming increasingly corrupt and self-interested. By the time Rome became an empire, there were so many obligations that taxes began to rise to crippling levels and emperors began to adopt a policy of devaluing the currency. Rampant inflation ensued. In fact, during the 200 years of the Roman Empire, the Denarius (Rome’s coinage at the time) went from containing 95% silver to containing .02% silver It became virtually value-less!

Roman Emperors, such as Diocletian, began grasping at straws: regulating industry and trade, nationalizing businesses and fixing prices and wages. However, despite all the concerns from the more rational members of the Senate, Rome continued to collapse. Cicero had even warned, “The budget should be balanced. Public debt should be reduced. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome becomes bankrupt.”

So there you have it, the breakdown of the Roman Republic (and maybe the breakdown of the American Republic) in a nutshell. We’ve modeled our government after Rome, we looked at the writings of Roman philosophers like Cicero and Cato to create our Constitution, we got terms like “senate” and “citizen” from Latin. We even designed our nation’s capital after Roman architecture. And, in a way, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and others gave us the ultimate “mulligan” when they founded America. But they also warned us of what happened to Rome and urged us not to go in the same direction. And what did we do? Like sheep and cowards, we didn’t listen, didn’t learn from past mistakes and, eager for security and temporary quick fixes, have been voting ourselves back into bondage ever since.

American, wake up! We don’t want to be Rome! Let’s not forget that this shining city on a hill ultimately burned down with Nero fiddling away!
As our leaders in Washington stand at the bank of the Rubicon, ready to cross, we must remember Cassius’s wise words in Julius Caesar when he said, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings.”

I hope my high school English teacher is impressed.

“When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the State, and calls for an exercise of the power of dissolution.” – Thomas Jefferson

But Cerf offered Rand an alternative: if she gave up 7 cents per copy in royalties, she could have the extra paper needed to print Galt’s oration. That she agreed is a sign of the great contradiction that haunts her writing and especially her life. Politically, Rand was committed to the idea that capitalism is the best form of social organization invented or conceivable.

Giving up her royalties to preserve her vision is something that no genuine capitalist, and few popular novelists, would have done.

So, what do you think capitalism is? Making a buck? Greed is good? Dog eats dog?

The following generally accepted definition, displayed even in Wiki, is equally misleading:

Capitalism is an economic and social system in which capital, the non-labor factors of production also known as the means of production, is privately controlled; labor, goods and capital are traded in markets; profits are distributed to owners or invested in technologies and industries; and wages are paid to labor.

Are you ready for the definition of capitalism? Want to think a little more?
Here it is:
Capitalism is a social system wherein two adults can freely enter into any contract between themselves.

When two people are not able to enter freely into a contract – it’s not capitalism. When one adult can freely pay another willing adult to medically treat him, that’s capitalism. When another person has to be preapproved (licensed) by somebody else, or when the treatment should be preapproved by somebody else (FDA), or when the payment should be received only from another person preapproved by somebody else (insurance), or when either of them has to pay to somebody else for the entering into the contract (taxes), then it is not capitalism.

What Ayn Rand and her publisher did was a true example of capitalistic exchange: both entered freely into a contract. Ayn Rand got something worthy from this contract, otherwise she wouldn’t have entered it. And the publisher did. The idiot who wrote the article doesn’t understand it:

Giving up her royalties to preserve her vision is something that no genuine capitalist, and few popular novelists, would have done.It is the act of an intellectual, of someone who believes that ideas matter more than lucre.

Washington politicians are telling us that the status-quo is not an option, that it’s time for a change, and we should speak if we have a proposal to improve the healthcare. So here it is. This proposal is not as radical as the bill proposed in the Congress, but it’s the only proposal I am aware of that when implemented, will really reduce the price, will really increase the choice and the competition, will really be deficit neutral, will really provide free or almost free cover for all uninsured and all people with preexisting conditions, and will really not raise a penny in taxes on anybody.

The US healthcare is the envy of the world. Most advances in medical technology are made in the US. Most people with the serious illness, if they have a choice and the means, would come to this country for cure. Most Americans are satisfied with the system we have.

Yet, our healthcare has some undeniable problems.

The price of the health insurance is too high and rising too fast.

Tens of millions of people are uninsured. For some people it’s a choice, but many are not able to afford the cost of insurance.

Fear of losing insurance. Many millions of people are fearful of losing their insurance because of the job loss.

Preexistent conditions. It’s hard to get insurance for people with preexistent conditions for a reasonable cost.

Deterioration of services. It’s undeniable that over the years the medical service deteriorated despite the enormous advance of medical technology and computers. Where are the house calls? Where are the family doctors?

Here is a comprehensive plan on how to fix all of these problems.

1. Dump the FDA.

Because of the FDA the cost of bringing a new drug is about half -a-billion dollars and the time to bring it to the patient is about 8 years. If, as often proclaimed, hundreds of thousands of people save their lives every year with a new miracle drug, it stands to reason that hundreds of thousands people die each year while the FDA keep the drug off the market. And it’s just for one drug, for one year. So it’s not an exaggeration to say that millions of people die because of the FDA.

This cost and this waiting period have the chilling effect on the development of new drugs. We are probably hundreds years behind in development of new drugs only because of this.

The argument that people would not know which drug to use without the FDA is ridiculous. To get the drug recommended by the doctors, the manufactures would pay a small part of the half-a billion for the drug to be reviewed by the reputable experts.

2. End the war on drugs.

Alcohol prohibition resulted in the same violence as the war on drugs. Any drug should be available at the drug store. It’s absurd to wait for an appointment, pay for a visit to a doctor a few hundred dollars, to get antibiotics at the pharmacy (and to sign that “yes, I know what to do with these pills” form) before you get them. Making any drug available to anybody will bring the cost of the drugs and the entire medical care down.

It also happens to be a moral and practical decision as well. It’s immoral to prevent people from buying any chemical substance that want for their own consumption. After all, we do own our bodies, don’t we? It’s also impractical. Do we want to restrict access to perfume, gasoline, and other substances that could cause harm if swallowed? Do we want doctors to write prescriptions for anything but organic vegetable? There are cases when people dye after drinking a lot of water. Should we regulate the amount of water bought by an individual as well?

3. Abolish Medicare and Medicaid.

Not only it’ll cut about 20% of federal spending, it’ll stop the inflow of extra money and that will cut the cost of the healthcare dramatically. Seniors will get their insurance the same way as everybody else, through private contracts or charity.

4. Remove the doctors/government monopoly on medical services and medical education.

There’s a myth deeply penetrated into the American psyche that doctors and the government should be responsible for the healthcare design of the nation. We all know that most politicians are corrupt and they look for their own interest not for the interest of the people. Yet, the doctor’s profession is so respectful, that it’s not widely understood that they also look for their interest first.

By the way, as opposed to the politicians, I think that’s the way it should be – the doctors should look for their interest first. I want my doctor to be motivated by a good outcome when he is treating me. I want him to know that he might lose his practice if his patients are not happy with his treatments. I would try to avoid a doctor who does not really care about his interest and therefore doesn’t care about success of his practice, which is the case of all government-run and many of not-for-profit companies.

I am also not afraid of a doctor who prescribes me a treatment or surgery that I don’t feel I should have. I can deal with that. People deal with pushy marketers all the time in all other spheres of life. We can consult with others, but it’s up to us to decide what product or service to buy. I’d rather have this problem of making a choice than a system when I am not offered a certain treatment because somebody else made a decision that people of my age or my condition don’t need it. Just tell me all the options that are out there, make the recommendation and let me make the decision.

What I am against is the notion that the doctors should be in charge of our healthcare – we should be in charge.

The American Medical Association was established in 1847. Almost immediately it merged with the government through establishing medical boards at each state. And then the doctors use the government force to fight the market forces: to make sure to kill all the competition and to keep their salaries high. It was done by achieving two goals.
One, through these boards, doctors made sure that only individual licensed by these boards could deliver medical care. If Jesus shows up now and starts curing people, he would be taken to jail because he doesn’t have the license.

Two, American Medical Association has been able to restrict the number of medical schools. Did you know that because of the AMA we have fewer medical schools in the U.S. now than 1oo years ago even though the U.S. population tripled in size?

Anybody should be able to give a medical advice. If I want you to pay you for your medical advice, why anybody on Earth should prevent you from giving me the advice? And any university should be able to hire experts and offer medical degrees. If there’s enough demand for qualified students who want to became doctors, why anybody on Earth should prevent a university to help them achieve their dream?

5. Stop government regulation of health insurance industry.

Some modest proposals of restrainging certain aspects of government regulations are discussed in Congress once in a while. For example, letting people ability to buy out-of-state insurance, or offering multiple year insurances, and so on. Why don’t we let the market come up with whatever product people want? Why do we want to create artificial barriers and then have lengthy discussion which of the thousands of constrains may be released?

And there should be many different options, for a different price of course, from accidental and basic insurances to the most advanced covering everything plans. It’s absurd to think that a single plan should cover everybody. What about organ transplants? What about treatments that cost millions?

Also, a single, universal health insurance plan will stiffen medical advance. Who eill be interested in developing new and expensive treatments if there’s no chance for them to became a part of the universal plan?

And any new treatment is expensive at the beginning.

Uh, but what about preexisting conditions and uninsured… That brings us to the last step of this program.

6. Make medical insurance charity 100% deductible.

The effect will be immediate. People will gladly allocate their taxes to private charity. It’ll be enough money to provide basic insurance to those who need it and to the people with preexisting condition.

What is incometax?
Would you consider giving me a hand or at least some advice based on your experience? Any help appreciated.
Thanks. Warmest Regards, Tim

It looked weird. One tip off that it is likely not a real person is that he signs a different name (Tim) than is on the email address (Andri), and his email address also includes an apparent title (Manager), which is odd.

So I asked a few of my friends what it could be. They told me it was an email from an IRS agent. The point is to entrap me into giving the agent provocateur advice not to pay income tax, which after a quick search I understood to be a criminal offense.

This is what I found in Google search here:

Criminal Penalties
Agents of the IRS’s Criminal Investigation Division investigate criminal federal income tax cases. The following are some of the more common tax crimes:…
Aiding and abetting: Section 7206(2) is generally used against tax preparers. This section makes it a crime for any person to willfully aid, assist in or advise the preparation or presentation of a tax return, claim or other document that is fraudulent or materially false, whether or not the person who is required to present the return or other document knows about or consents to the fraud or falsity.

Why would the IRS go after me?

I’ve written a fiction book, Publicani, that is based on the idea that the government is able to transfer intellectual ability from one person to another. It’s not a book against the income tax, but it could be interpreted as such. In various interviews such as here and here, I have indeed interpreted it that way.

Also, in this blog, I’ve written in the past some posts arguing against redistribution and the income tax, such as here and here.

With the trillions that Obama is taking from us in order to redistribute to unions and banks, is he really worried about fiction authors and bloggers changing America’s perception of whether taxes are evil? To be sure, taxes are his lifeblood: after all, Obama and other politicians produce nothing. But why fear an author? Is Obama becoming paranoid already?

Perhaps not. Perhaps he realizes the effect that good fiction can have. Look at Archipelago or Atlas Shrugged. And think of the chilling effect on future authors who would write bad things about the government. If he can silence his critics with a couple of fake, entrapping emails, from his perspective, it’s probably worth the cost.

Now, there is a small chance that there is a real person named Andri “Tim” Manager out there who would like to get help on income taxes. If so, then I feel very sorry for him, because he can’t! Poor guy. Because of all of the IRS regulations, it is impossible to even ask around for advice – everybody involved will go to jail. It is exactly like what happens to the people in Publicani who have nowhere to turn for help against the government.

And the word Publicani itself, by the way, means an IRS agent during biblical times.

Added August 11, 2009

Two things happened today that strengthened my belief that Obama administration is hiding behind this entrapment operation. First of all, I’ve got a letter from IRS, accusing me of some code violations. It never happened before because I don’t respect and don’t trust that agency, and thus I am always very conservatives in satisfying all their requirements to avoid any direct confrontations with them and to keep our disagreement on a moral and philosophical level only.

The fact that some private company may be a front for this andri.manager doesn’t mean that it’s not a government operation. With Acorn, Government Motors, Banks, Unions, Pharmaceuticals, and maby others, Obama administration proved convincingly that it does not hesitate to use, intimidate, and take over a private company. These emails ask about taxes, real estate, international travel, international communications, foreign students – all relatively narrow field, clearly of interest to IRS, Homeland Security, the bank regulators, and the like. If it were a private company, just collecting emails. why not ask arbitrary questions, about divorce, for example?

The second thing that happened today was this article published in Washington Post on Obama web-tracking plan.

There is a long-standing ban in place forbidding the government to track people on internet with “cookies” and other technologies. Obama administration is asking to end the ban. In the mean time, it goes around it by partnering with public companies (such as Google) and using their data.

People, who defend Obama in the comments, what do you think about flag@whitehouse.gov?