As El G Grande observes, Karl Marx would love the popular moves among politicians in various state governments and the federal government to ban so-called “junk” food in schools, and to “put healthy food in” convenience stores and on the tables of those they define as poor.

It’s a very elitist and arrogant mindset that promotes this ideology, and it needs to be addressed. See how economics and freedom run up against statism and the loss of choice, as Gardner Goldsmith exposes the newest move by politicians to inject themselves into the dining choices of Americans!

It’s happening NOW, and we’re here to fight it on every level!

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Dive into the ring of political-philosophical disputation with the Liberty Conspiracy. The Conspiracy fights for the individual and recognizes the primacy of individual liberty. We don’t fool around, and we don’t stop.

We mix intellect and creativity. We combine respect for our neighbor’s right to be free with the knowledge that there are many others like us who need to have their voices heard.

In this production, Gardner Goldsmith, Founder of the Conspiracy, reveals many of the myths and lies behind Barack Obama’s push for medical fascism. Then, he reveals the shocking attitude of Tom Brokaw, who believes government health plans are good, and that those very same medical plans should restrict expenditures on “the elderly.”

Check this out, it’s a pretty powerful presentation from El G Grande.

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Welcome to the Conspiracy, the group of people from around the world who plot and plan for a freer world. We meet at www.libertyconspiracy.com and produce audios that allow people to explore current issues and timeless principles that pertain to freedom.

In this production, Gardner Goldsmith investigates the adoration being showered on Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown, who recently beat the Atty. Gen of MA, Martha Coakley, to take the Senate seat vacated by the deceased Ted Kennedy.

What will Brown do regarding health insurance mandates and economic liberty? Gard has some ideas.

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How does one look at a potential TSA Head who fears Americans more than the terrorists Americans often fear? One views him as more interested in protecting the US government than the US citizenry.

Gardner Goldsmith explains.

Then, listen for the latest news in what could be the most important Senate race in a decade, the MA race for the seat vacated by Ted Kennedy! Even though we abhor all government, this situation could mean either the passage or defeat of the medical fascism bill. Check it out!

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Join Furb and Gardner as they cover more stories of importance for freedom-backers.

In this case, Furb discusses the recent execution by the Chinese government of a man found guilty of — not bringing direct harm to other people. Yes, he was selling drugs. How different is the US government? Only by a small degree…

Then, listen to Gard introduce two older news stories that highlight the dangers of the government-pushed drugs of choice, the amphetamines administered to kids to “control” their “hyper-activity.” Scary stuff, all!

Check it out!

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A special message to Mr. Dodd.

Be Seeing You.

[Sen. Christopher John Dodd (D-Conn.) announced Wednesday that he would not seek reelection. Dodd has been a U.S. senator since 1981, and a representative from 1975-1981.]

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Last week on Christmas Eve, after many backroom deals were made, the Senate passed the healthcare reform bill with a strictly partisan vote. I was pleased that my colleagues in the GOP are on the right side of this bill. Although this vote was a major step in healthcare reform becoming reality, they still have to reconcile the Senate bill with the House-passed version in conference committee. This could prove even more difficult and costly than the Senate vote.

There was a little bit of controversy surrounding one particular Senator who was initially against the bill, but then, coincidentally, a large amount of Medicare funding specifically for his state was tucked inside and he ended up voting for it. One wonders how much more of that will have to go on to achieve final passage.

But this is how politicians in Washington deal with problems: they throw your money at them. Healthcare reform is no different. The Senate version of the bill, at last count, will cost $871 billion. The House version tops $1 trillion. But they tell us this is for the health of Americans, and how dare we count the cost?

Such is the arrogance of politicians. There seems to be no end to the problems they feel capable and duty-bound to solve through legislative proclamation and plenty of your money. To hear them talk, one might think that a few words spoken on Capitol Hill would make problems just disappear. All it takes it good intentions.

But no good can come from 2400 pages of Washington’s good intentions.

I have observed quite the opposite throughout my political career in the House of Representatives, and fear that with this immense legislation, our healthcare problems are only just beginning. Over the last few decades, I have seen healthcare subjected to more and more creeping red tape that only creates bottlenecks and increases costs as new bureaucratic hurdles are put in place.

Politicians cannot solve the problems created by ever-increasing intervention by exponentially increasing their intervention. Similarly, they cannot improve the quality of healthcare and expand access to it for all Americans simply by legislative decree. If only it were that simple! The reality is the free market, when allowed to function, naturally increases access and drives prices down through competition. The free market keeps service providers accountable by allowing people to take their business elsewhere.

This government intervention will eventually create a near monopoly of providers in health insurance as smaller companies are squeezed out and innovation comes to a grinding halt due to formidable barriers to entry. The government will determine prices and levels of service that will apply to everyone, regardless of want or individual circumstances. The true insurance model of healthcare cost management, meaning major medical coverage only, will basically become illegal. Opting out of the system will incur heavy tax penalties.

Expanding government reach so deeply into this very sensitive area of our personal lives and such a major part of our economy means more opportunities for waste, fraud and abuse of the system. One need only remember the recent bailouts for an example of how government handles systemic waste, fraud and abuse.

So while the Senate patted itself on the back last week for delivering a Christmas gift to Americans, time will prove it was instead a great big lump of coal.

We hope you will listen, and give serious consideration to passing on the audio and to taking action to resist these tyrants in government.

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[Editor's Note: The Senate passed its version of the health care reform bill Thursday by a 60-39 vote.]

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Welcome back to the Liberty Conspiracy, the shadowy group of activists who combine intellect, humor and energy to work for a society less fettered by the oppression of government in all its forms.

In this production Liberty Activist Tarrin Lupo discusses how government intervention began to squeeze his private health practice, and how he came to embrace the fight for freedom as an anarchist. Check it out, and tell others that the days of even a semi-market in health care are coming to a close!

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Low-income children on Medicaid are given antipsychotic drugs at a rate four times higher than children covered by private insurance, and for less serious conditions, according to new research to be published early next year.

The research, conducted by a team at Rutgers University and Columbia University and to be published in the peer-reviewed journalHealth Affairs, is already available online.

The question is, do children on government health care get drugged more often because they need it, or because it’s easier for the bureaucrats than counseling and therapy, which can be more expensive?

As it turns out, Medicaid pays much less for counseling and therapy than for drugs, and there are long waiting lists for psychiatrists who accept Medicaid, facts which encourage doctors treating a Medicaid patient to favor the prescription, even if it might not be strictly necessary.

“It’s easier for patients, and it’s easier for docs,” said Dr. Derek H. Suite, a psychiatrist in the Bronx whose pediatric cases include children and adolescents covered by Medicaid and who sometimes prescribes antipsychotics. “But the question is, ‘What are you prescribing it for?’ That’s where it gets a little fuzzy.”

Too often, Dr. Suite said, he sees young Medicaid patients to whom other doctors have given antipsychotics that the patients do not seem to need. Recently, for example, he met with a 15-year-old girl. She had stopped taking the antipsychotic medication that had been prescribed for her after a single examination, paid for by Medicaid, at a clinic where she received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

Why did she stop? Dr. Suite asked. “I can control my moods,” the girl said softly.

After evaluating her, Dr. Suite decided she was right. The girl had arguments with her mother and stepfather and some insomnia. But she was a good student and certainly not bipolar, in Dr. Suite’s opinion.

“Normal teenager,” Dr. Suite said, nodding. “No scrips for you.” — New York Times

The research data showed that 4 percent of children on Medicaid received antipsychotic drugs, compared to 1 percent of privately insured children. But the expected increase in need for the drugs among poor children due to their circumstances was only 2 to 1.

The drugs at issue were FDA approved for disorders such as schizophrenia, autism and bipolar disorder. But the study found that children on Medicaid were much more likely to receive them for less serious conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or “persistent defiance.”

That’s right, a child with his own mind has to be drugged into submission. No social stability without individual stability.

Children on Medicaid are just the tip of the iceberg. Those in foster care are drugged at such high rates as to defy belief: half to two-thirds of foster children in Florida, Texas and Massachusetts are on antipsychotic drugs, thanks largely to discredited scientific theories still being used by the federal government.

Of course, the government generally needs to drug your children when the public school system fails to destroy their souls and turn them into automatons. O brave new world, that has such people in it!

["Sheep on Drugs" photo by Lefteris Heretakis; CC BY 2.0]

The U.S. Preventive Task Force caused quite a stir recently when they revised their recommendations on the frequency and age for women to get mammograms. Many have speculated on the timing for this government-funded report, with the Senate vote on health care looming, and cost estimates being watched closely. Just the hint that the government would risk women’s health to cut costs is causing outrage on both sides of the aisle.

Even the administration is alarmed at its own panel’s recommendation. One official, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius told women to ignore the new guidelines, keep doing what they are doing and make the best decisions for themselves after consulting with their doctors.

This sounds like an excellent idea to me. As a physician myself, I understand the importance of ensuring that patients are able to consult their doctors and make their own decisions without interference from government bureaucrats or government-favored corporations.

However, I am confused by the administration’s reasoning and apparent change of heart. Have they reversed their position on healthcare reform and now decided that patients and doctors should be in control of individual healthcare decisions? Or are they still in the healthcare central planning business? The healthcare reform plans currently aim to empower Congress to dictate to insurers minimal standards of coverage. Those government standards will ultimately be determined by politicians and bureaucrats, not individual patients and doctors.

It is naive to think that recommendations by an authoritative government panel will never be used to deny services to people that want them. It is sad to think that people will be forced to spend their hard-earned money for a one-size fits all, government mandated healthcare delivery model, but then have to scrape together additional funds to pay out of pocket for healthcare they really want or need — that is, if the government allows them to at all. After all, the federal government currently forbids Medicare beneficiaries from spending their own money on services covered by Medicare, if for whatever reason they need to. Why wouldn’t the government eventually apply these kinds of restrictions to everyone, if they are successful with this takeover? Beware of the supposed gifts offered to you by government, for when it gives you things with one hand, the other hand takes away your liberty and independence.

It remains to be seen what provisions will be in the final bill. We do know we have no funds to pay for it except for debt and money printed out of thin air. We know that the nation’s creditors are getting very nervous about the government’s continuous spending sprees and bailouts. We know this healthcare bill, like all government programs, will be expensive.

There will be a day of reckoning when the credit stops and the bills for all this spending come due. When that day comes and politicians and bureaucrats have to deal with reality, it will be very uncomfortable to find yourself in their liability column, which is where healthcare reform will put many more Americans.

Raising a child is probably the most important thing a person will ever do in life. Yet we constantly hear stories of child abuse and neglect.

The creators of Survey Magnet recently put this question to me: Should you need a license to parent? After all, many less important activities require a license, such as driving, or even fishing.

My first reaction to the question was something along the lines of: “Hell no, that’s absolutely nuts.” Justifying the answer takes a bit of work, though it isn’t that hard. We know that foster parents and adopters, for instance, already require approval from the state before children are placed with them. Yet this doesn’t prevent child abuse; many of the worst abuses take place in state-approved foster homes by state-approved foster parents.

In answering the question for Survey Magnet, though, I didn’t focus on this aspect. Instead, I looked more at the long-term ramifications of such a licensing scheme. Most people don’t realize that it’s been done before right here in these United States and elsewhere in the world, and the results were horrible. During the eugenics craze of the 20th century, millions were forcibly sterilized, sometimes without their knowledge, or simply killed outright.

Most horribly, Adolf Hitler imported American eugenics to Germany, first sterilizing over 400,000, then engaging in “euthanasia” of 275,000 more through 1945, and during World War II, engaging in the mass executions of millions. Killing the “unfit” as government policy was never implemented in the U.S., but many doctors and mental institutions did it informally anyway through neglect or poisoning. Thus was the lethal injection born. Had it not happened in Germany, it might have happened here.

Read my full response to the question of parental licensing at Survey Magnet.

Many Americans who still support Democratic health care proposals have no idea what would actually happen to health care should they pass, according to theNew York Times, but are turning out in support on an 11-city bus tour anyway.

At the bus tour stops, people were treated to a highly organized “pep rally” atmosphere with few real answers. The answer, it is assumed, is to show up, take one of the preprinted signs the Democratic National Committee has helpfully prepared for you, and support whatever Barack Obama wants you to support, whether it’s a good idea or not. Thinking is not encouraged. Cheering, empty rhetoric, and stories of how the current half-socialized system has failed — and laying blame anywhere but where it belongs — are the order of the day.

TheTimes told the story of one Denver woman whose 9 year old grandson died of complications from asthma because Medicaid denied him necessary care. It never seems to have occurred to her that she was supporting expanding this sort of “health care” to everyone in the country: “I’m out here if it will help one more kid get medication.”

Confusion runs rampant among Democrats, which may be part of the reason they only come out to events like this when party bosses tell them to. But no point of confusion is more widespread — or more potentially destructive to society — than this one:

Laura Jones, 55, a homemaker and mother of two from St. Louis, said her own personal message is blunt: Old solutions based on free markets and capitalism no longer work, she said, and government must play a bigger role.

“I keep telling my friends, ‘Adam Smith is dead,’” Ms. Jones said, referring to the 18th-century philosopher who famously taught that the invisible hand of the market works best.

“Get over it,” she said. “We have to deal with today’s problems with today’s answers.” — New York Times

Let’s see. Before the government started taking over health care, doctors were easy to find and even made house calls. Hospital stays were inexpensive. The very few people who couldn’t pay got help from within their communities. Not to mention, health care providers actually cared about their patients. Sounds good? That’s what a free market health care system looks like — or looked like before the government destroyed it.

At one of the bus tour stops in Indianapolis, Ind., Rep. André Carson (D-Ind.) made some pretty absurd statements of his own, to cheers from the crowd.

First: “I’m telling you that some of these protesters are paid by the insurance companies,” Carson says. “These are paid actors.” I never saw or heard of any protester (against health care destruction) who was paid to be there. But the Democrats paid travel expenses for many of the people who they called out to their “town hall” meetings, even busing in people from out of state in places like Portsmouth, N.H., to make it appear that their proposals have more support than they actually do.

As opposed to the top-down organizing of the Democrats, the people who showed up in protest to town hall meetings were loosely organized, if at all, most of them hearing about the meetings through word of mouth and showing up on their own. Perhaps that’s why this bus tour was kept under wraps and word spread only through official party channels.

Carson then implies that the Veterans Administration would be a good model for government controlled health care. My readers already know how absurd that is. And finally he blames drug companies for the high cost of prescription drugs, when we already know that government is the reason the drugs cost so much, or aren’t available at all.

With propaganda like we’ve seen on this bus tour, and throughout the health care “debate,” it’s no wonder so many people support a government takeover of health care. Yet government has already partly taken over health care, and with each such takeover, health care in America just gets worse and worse. Indeed, the Democratic health care proposals are designed to make health care more expensive and less accessible, even as they’re wrapped in nice-sounding words about making it less expensive and more accessible. According to Obama’s health care czar, this is supposed to be good for society, and if the government so decrees, the individual — that’s you — can go to hell.

The VA mistakenly sent letters this month to at least 1,200 veterans informing them of disability benefits they could receive as sufferers of Lou Gehrig’s disease, according to the National Gulf War Resource Center. The VA disputes the number, saying that it sent 1,864 letters and only a “small number” were erroneous.

Jim Bunker, president of the veterans’ group, says it stands by its figures, while the VA has said it is still reviewing its files to determine how many people received the letter in error.

According to Bunker, the VA told him that a coding error was responsible. The VA uses codes to represent various diseases in patients’ files and it appears some patients had the wrong codes added to their files.

NGWRC has received numerous calls and e-mails from panicked veterans about the letter, far beyond the 10 the VA claims to have received. “Many of these veterans went to private clinicians to get a second opinion,” Bunker said in a statement on the NGWRC web site. “This second opinion outside of the VA is very expensive and can range from $1000 to $3000 or more.”

The VA has said it will personally telephone everyone who received the letter in error to explain the error and offer apologies. Veterans with concerns about the letter can contact the VA at 1-800-827-1000, according to a statement released Monday.

An Iraq war veteran once told me he thought his Veterans Administration doctor was trying to kill him. It seems the latest VA cost-saving trick is to try to frighten veterans to death. They need the money to pay for employee bonuses and nepotism, after all. Hospitals filled with mold, mice and cockroaches are no problem, veterans distressed by bureaucratic mistakes are no problem, as long as the bigwigs get paid. With your money.

The debate over health care reform has turned violent in the last week as protesters on both sides of the issue clashed in cities across the country, revealing a long-simmering civil unrest.

As Congress failed to pass a health care reform bill before its August recess, members have gone home to their districts to try to shore up support for the legislation. During this time of year, members of Congress typically hold meetings with their constituents in their home districts, but in many places they were greeted instead with crowds heckling, booing and hanging them in effigy.

The protests, while largely spontaneous, were at least partly driven by conservative media figures encouraging people to attend their Congressional representatives’ constituent meetings and make their feelings known. Many of them, however, were drawn by messages sent to them via e-mail and social networking sites.

In the town hall-style meetings which were open to the public, the people who asked questions were planted, their questions pre-approved by staffers, drawing the ire of conservatives and leading to at least one call to “Yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

(Of course, pre-screened questions is pretty standard for these meetings, on both sides, but the so-called liberals only challenge it when Republicans do it and ignore it when “their side” does it.)

Democratic strategists countered this outpouring of grassroots opposition to their plan by calling out their own Astroturf counter-protesters, and then the protests turned ugly, with fights breaking out in several cities and many people arrested.

As it turns out, it was the so-called liberals, actually union thugs, instigating the fights. In Tampa, SEIU goons attacked senior citizens who came out because they quite rightly feel that the health care reform proposal threatens their ability to obtain health care.

TheNew York Times has gone so far as to admit the necessity of rationing health care in a government controlled health care scheme. Under this model, your life is considered worth less as you age, and the amount of medical care you will be allowed to receive declines over time. Ultimately, you will die of something which could have been treated, either because the government did not want to pay for it, or because you had to wait for months or even years to get the procedure. This is what happens in Canada, Great Britain, France, and everywhere else that the government has seized control of health care.

Some try to deny this obvious truth despite all evidence. Yet doctors and hospitals right here say that they will have to compromise their quality of care, or go out of business entirely, if the government creates public option health insurance. What doctors and hospitals remain will then be overcrowded, with their costs skyrocketing, and reimbursements from the government plan coming nowhere near covering their costs. This has already happened in Massachusetts, where “universal” coverage was passed in 2006, threatening such venerable institutions as Boston Medical Center.

Were this sort of scheme expanded to the entire country, it would jeopardize health care for everyone. Those who see this clearly justly feel their very lives threatened, and perhaps that is what it takes to rouse Americans from their apathetic stupor and get them to take to the streets in protest. Perhaps the only good news here is that the unrest has made the health care reform bill unlikely to pass.

But make no mistake, the civil unrest brewing here is not exclusively over the health care issue. That is simply the spark which made it visible. A deep division runs through this country along ideological lines, with one group believing they have the right to the labor of the other, and that other group, after having lived with the parasites on their backs for so long, finally beginning to perceive where it must end. The parasites are obviously unhappy about the possibility that their hosts will finally say “Enough!” and cast them off, and they have become violent. Thus labor union members viciously attack senior citizens, and the media parasites pretend not to notice who threw the first punch.

The parasites, masquerading as saviors of the human race and offering “free health care for all,” along with all of the other “free” stuff which has nearly cannibalized the productive workers who are forced to pay for it, are not likely to give up their ideology, since it benefits them by giving them power and control in addition to “free” stuff. The workers, now seeing their very lives placed in jeopardy by the policies of people like Ben Bernanke and Barack Obama, seem indisposed to continue quietly suffering. Unless one side or the other gives up, this state of affairs can only end one way.

Compounding the problem is, of course, the economy. It continues to decline despite the talking heads’ insistence that the Great Recession is over. To be fair, it’s declining more slowly than expected, but that was bought with massive inflation to come. That will hit when the Federal Reserve finally starts unloading all of the junk it bought trying to bail out companies that should have failed and trying to stimulate the economy by throwing money around indiscriminately.

As the economy continues to decline, it will further galvanize the workers, many of whom will then be unemployed. And no one fights like one who fights for his life. I fear at this point that civil war is inevitable. The parasites seem unlikely to give up their ways, even if it would ultimately save themselves. And the workers will not die quietly. I can only hope that the parasites lose such a conflict; otherwise we all may die.