It's your call (Get government out of licensing or lose more freedom)

Bucks County Courier Times ^ | 3/39/02 | BILL O'NEILL

[2banana]

GUEST OPINION
It's your call

Get government out of licensing or lose more freedom

By BILL O'NEILL

Charlton Heston, president of the NRA, lectures to college students: "I submit that you and your counterparts in colleges from coast to coast also appear to be the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord bridge. And so long as you shrug your shoulders and abide by it, then by the standards of your grandfathers, you are cultural cowards."

It takes years of indoctrination to trick kids to sacrifice themselves to government. Public education, i.e., government training of children, always has a pro-government bias. From ancient Sparta, up to the present day, no nation with government schools ever achieved freedom.

In America, the meltdown of the Philadelphia and Cleveland public schools happened with full control by big brother. The state certified teachers, built schools, mandated taxes, controlled budgets, directed accountants and took parental control from mom and dad. It didn't work. The kids, parents and taxpayers were cheated. The education professionals got paid anyhow. Government workers never lose money when they fail. The motto of government is: "If it ain't broke, fix it till it is."

Government has a stunning failure record at everything except the use of force - military, police and courts. Government licensed Enron's accountants, dictated accounting standards and licensed the stockbrokers. All that control was imposed to protect the people. Of course there won't be any investigation of government's role with Enron. That's practically impossible in a culture so dumbed down that people can't figure out that government devours freedom so they demand more government. Look what government did to the doctors.

Medical malpractice is the combination of licensed lawyers battling licensed doctors working in licensed hospitals, using licensed drugs, paid by government Medicare or licensed insurance companies. Government should be named as the agent in charge in every medical malpractice case. After all, doctors are certified by government as competent to practice medicine.

The military provides the perfect example of government - ignore costs, destroy things and kill people. The Constitution was written to control the force of government.

Except in war, oppression doesn't happen all at once. People are too smart to be enslaved outright, but they can be slowly swindled. One of the major swindles is licensing. The cost to the public and to the doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc., is liberty. Government pleads: You need good doctors. We will protect you. We will license them. That trick gave government control of most professions. Cowardly, conformed, dumbed-down citizens never questioned the loss of freedom. Indoctrinated citizens demanded government control of other people and most professions willingly agreed. Here's what happened.

At Enron, licensed accountants didn't stop the fraud. In Philly and Cleveland, licensed teachers couldn't educate. Licensing doesn't stop bad doctors or guarantee adequate medical care. In the case of licensing lawyers, how can anything guarantee a good lawyer when half of them lose? Why should government license anything? Are laws requiring a license so different in principle from laws requiring you to wear a yellow star?

Government learned how to shrink liberty by controlling education. Intellectually confused schoolchildren become socially conformed adults who willingly demand the chains of big brother. They insist government tell them what they can do. They demand police invade kids' lockers without warrants. They cheer on unconstitutional searches of private property by drug-sniffing dogs; no-knock home entries; traffic stops that are fishing expeditions; control of private property by zoning; taking blood from people at DUI stops; and the most gruesome control of a woman's body in the name of some obscure fantasy.

It will get worse.

Taught to be frightened of human nature, to sacrifice their happiness for the community, to value what they don't know over what exists, misguided children become adults who embrace demagogues and demand more control until, finally, what isn't permitted is one's own life.

There is a better way. Since government licensing fails to protect the people, it should be stopped. No one should be forced to knuckle under regulations written by political hacks who keep their jobs by pull, not ability. Each person must be free to work and live according to his or her best judgment, and that includes doctors. At the moment that's too much to expect, but liberty is worth fighting for, especially when the cowardly alternative is more big brother and the increasing slavery of each to all.

Two hundred years ago, Sam Adams, an original American, said: "If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."

Bill O'Neill, Holland, a public analyst-consultant, was educated in Philadelphia religious schools. He favors far less government.

[2banana]

Good Read

[Major Matt Mason]

I agree with the general premise of the article, but it seems a little disjointed. This is probably too big an issue to cover in one short editorial, and in fact might make for an intersting book. Perhaps Mr. O'Neil should consider expanding his ideas into a book.