Free Medicine For All!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 9:21PM The state, as in the nation-state, or government, is, by its very nature, coercive, violent and anti-free-market.
The fact that anyone wants to live in a nation-state and be governed by a government is unbelievable to me. But, most people don't know that there are other options. Like freedom.
I've spent much of my adult life avoiding living in countries which are heavily statist and replete with rules, regulations, laws, police, prisons and taxes.
This quest has led me to live in Thailand and Mexico for the last five years. Now, before you say it, yes, Thailand and Mexico are far from perfect. I have yet to find the perfect place on earth but I continue searching. I have been to nearly 100 nation-states in the last decade and my travel plans for 2011 include a number of new ones I have not visited including Bolivia, Paraguay and much of Africa. I hold out little hope I will find a completely free place, aside from the odd abandoned island but I will never stop looking.
I still find Mexico to be fairly free but it is changing. The scourge of democracy has heavily infected Mexico now. Within months of any pending municipal, state or federal government election the throngs hit the streets promoting this or that politician who promises to steal from the others and give more to his chosen group. Particularly disturbing is how many Mexican youth have taken a real interest in democracy. I know of countless teenagers and people in their early 20s who spend much of their days working on campaigns for the thief they like best.
There happens to be an upcoming election in Acapulco and the town is littered in advertising for the main contenders. A rough guesstimate of the amount of billboards, newspaper, radio and television advertising taken over by political campaigns is about 80%! When an election is near, here, you can't go anywhere without seeing the advertising, rallies, speeches and other promotions of the politicos.
But this advertisement I managed to snap from my iPhone on the back of a bus the other day in Acapulco has to take the cake... or churro, you might say:
The advertisement is for a man named Manuel Anorve Banos, although he drops his 2nd last name in most of his advertising, probably because it translates to Manuel Anorve Bathrooms. His advertisement, translated, proudly states, "Medicine for all"!
Wow, I thought, what a generous man. He is not only, apparently, offering to buy medicine for everyone in the State of Guerrero but he has even taken up a large amount of expenditure in advertising this pledge!
This man must be quite rich to be able to make such a generous offer, I thought, so I Wikipedia'd him (Wikipedia Espanol: Manuel Anorve). My Spanish isn't perfect but he appears to have his Masters and Doctorate in law (surprise, surprise). He then when straight into "public service" holding all sorts of titles including the Secretary of Agrarian Reform in the state of Guerrero and his present title of Mayor of Acapulco since 2009.
You may be thinking the same thing as I. Since he has never held a private sector job, surely he never made enough money as the Secretary of Agrarian Reform or in the last two years as the Mayor of Acapulco to pay for everyone's medicine.
And there-in comes the simple, pathetic, brutal truth of the state and democracy. He isn't promising to pay for everyone's medicine personally. What he is proposing is to take money from everybody, by force, and then to use it to pay for everyone's medicine.
Sadly, however, as most who have lived in democracies know, there is a very large percent of the population who never even asks the first question that should be asked. When told that he will give them free medicine, the first question he should be asked is, "Where will you get the money to pay for it?"
Many in the population actually assume this money is conjured up from some magical stash (as we pointed out in our "Obama's Stash" blog piece). And the others who will vote for this actually know where the money is going to come from: other people!
Which, without any need to explain, is pure and simply theft. But, for some reason, people don't mind stealing when it is done on their behalf by the state.
And so, if things continue down this path, in a few years, I'll have to consider leaving Mexico as I refuse to live in a place where large parts of the population support theft, not to mention all of the other murders and other crimes committed by the state.
On that note, I recently came across a very interesting video which was brought to my attention from a friend, Louis James, who writes the excellent "International Speculator" newsletter. The video gives a view on how and why we ended up all becoming enslaved by nation states and is well worth the time to watch.
After viewing this video I further researched the author, Stefan Molyneux, and found he has basically all the same beliefs as I do and so I continued to read and watch more of his work. If you found the video above interesting then you will also enjoy the speech he gave at Libertopia 2010, entitled "Living Free in an Unfree World" below.
If you begin to understand the nature of the state and of democracy, through writings and talks given by people such as Stefan, then your eyes will be opened, as are mine and instead of seeing "Medicine for All" and a picture of a happy family on the back of the bus you will see it for what it really is. "I will steal on your behalf" and a picture of a gun pointed at an unhappy and about-to-be-poorer family.
Once we all see that then we can escape the tax farms and live in true freedom and harmony. Until then we will continue with wars, thefts, murders and the poverty caused by the government control of money.
At The Dollar Vigilante all of our writings, research and analysis give you insights and advice on how to free yourself from the nation-states (tax farms) and profit from government manipulation of money and markets. Subscribe today to find out more!
Reader Comments (2)
I guess this information is a necessary evil of the modern age and it has definitely opened newer and brighter vistas in the realm of health information. When it comes to health information the sources used to achieve the objective should be highly user friendly and should provide a robust structure of highly information!
Great post! Thanks for all your great insights and interesting ideas!