Smallest Minority

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand 

But they do. The question is how to change peoples opinion of them.

Real Poverty

Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another. - Madonna


This is why property rights are so fundamentally important.

Social Change

The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and well-being. - Emma Goldman 


Oh! If were only so, Emma!


(Other posts on Change)

Augmented Post

Sometimes I have more to say, even if I don't have a quote to bounce it off of.

There is a small (or perhaps minuscule) effort to characterize the current debate over the need for universal health care as the attempt to institute physician slavery. This is a rather unique way of putting it but I think it comes off wrong unless what is being said is understood from a very basic level. I'd like to provide that understanding.

First we need for you to understand that health care is not a right. If you understand then skip this part.

Is Health Care a Right?: No, it most definitely is not. Like food and shelter it is a necessity, but not a right. Please do not confuse the two. To adopt the position that these are rights would mean that some other individual would have to give up their individual rights in order to provide them. You have then violated their true rightful rights. If you declare food to be a right then you just trampled the farmer's rights to do as he (or she) sees fit with their crop. If you tell the farmer, you must provide these crops to the less fortunate then you have just made him (or her) a slave. You are telling them what they have to do at the point of a gun. Now this doesn't mean that the less fortunate individual is forced into starvation. They are welcome to get a job and pay the farmer for the food. They are welcome to start a business; make a profit; spend their profit to feed their family. They are welcome to go to any number of private charities which provide food (and counseling). They can go to family or friends for assistance. If they have no family or friends then they are welcome to change their ways. The alternative is to declare food as a right, or as in the the USA, an almost right, which will lead to the downside you see everywhere here; poverty leads to obesity.

So if health care isn't really a right but we treat it as such what happens? Anytime you declare something a right that isn't then what you are doing is violating someone else's rights (legitimate rights). If you make healthcare a right then you must demand from doctors service which they perhaps would not offer otherwise.Or, you may prevent a doctor from providing a service he normally would provide.

Making healthcare a right will also necessitate compensating all doctors the same for a given service. Does it make sense to pay the best the same as the worst? So much for rewarding excellence.

But, back to the term Physician Slavery. Slavery is a loss of Liberty.  Liberty is being free of governmental restriction. Universal healthcare means loss of Liberty for doctors. The healthcare bills before Congress can all be described as Physician Slavery bills. Perhaps using this terminology will get the discussion back to where it belongs - to a discussion of morality and principles.

You Are Not Safe

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. - Frederick Douglass 


Though I imagine he was thinking about the majority conspiring against a minority the same is true of the majority being oppressed by the concept of the "common good."


(Other posts on Rights) 

Property Rights

Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same thing. - Calvin Coolidge 


Remember this when you vote.


(Other posts on Rights) 

Free Hearing

To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. - Frederick Douglass 


You have a right to not listen but you do not have a right to not be bothered by what you hear.


(Other posts on Rights) 

Doing What You Are Told

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. - Alexis de Tocquevillle  


In other words; "We'll be fair in how we control what you do."


(Other posts on Liberty) 

Do Your Duty or Lose Your Right

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. - P. J. O'Rourke 


If you are not willing to accept the latter then the former is not your right.


(Other posts on Rights) 

Right Luck

Most of us regard good luck as our right, and bad luck as a betrayal of that right. - William Feather 


Understand what a "right" is - then you will not be so easily fooled.


(Other posts on Rights) 

Animal Rights and Wrongs

Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that. - Adam Smith 


The next time someone assumes that animals should have the same rights as a human - think of this.


(Other posts on Rights) 

Who Has a Soul?

It is only to the individual that a soul is given. - Albert Einstein

The collective doesn't; minorities don't; the majority doesn't, only the individual has Rights. Remember that.

Murder is Not Painless

Being murdered is not painless, so why all the hand-wringing about trying to make the execution of murderers painless? - Thomas Sowell



Do you think when the Bible says an eye for an eye they were thinking about one with a stick and the other with anesthetic?

Compromise Between Food and Poison?

In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. - Ayn Rand

In matters of morals, half-steps are not an option; compromise is surrender; conciliation is defeat.

Moral Confusion

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important. - Martin Luther King Jr.

It is true you cannot legislate morality. Law is established by people to help preserve basic human rights. The problem arises when the two are confused. Politicians make their living by creating this confusion.

Slave Masters

Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters. – C. S. Lewis



It's not that you should complain about the way you are governed. It is that you should realize that not even a majority has the right to tell you what to do.

Freedom of Speech

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. - Hubert Humphrey



The old adage "Don't believe everything you read." should be changed to "Don't believe everything you hear or read." By the way, don't be upset because it was said, just don't take them seriously.