Category: Political Opinion

The opinion letter published last month covered the state of the current rail industry and the factors
which would lead to the East Palestine derailment and the “1000 derailments a year” mentioned by the
current DOT administrator. This month I’ll focus on the disaster response and then summarize what this
incident symbolizes for our nation as a whole and its economic health.

Was the East Palestine incident handled properly?

The fiery derailment occurred Friday, February 3rd . On Saturday, February 4th, East Palestine Mayor
Trent Conaway declared a state of emergency, citing a “train derailment with hazardous materials”, and
requested residents evacuate. Air quality was being monitored throughout a one-mile evacuation zone.
On Sunday, February 5th, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine issued an "urgent evacuation notice" to anyone
who had not yet evacuated within a mile of the train derailment. The warning was issued after a
dramatic temperature change was noticed in a rail car in the wreckage of the crash. 1.)

On Monday, February 6 th , fire impingement to the VCM tank car exterior caused the liquid temperature
to rise near the boiling point. To prevent a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion (BLEVE), crews
began a controlled release of the liquid VCM. VCM was released from five rail cars into a trough that was
then ignited, creating a large plume of black smoke over the village of East Palestine. After completing
the controlled release, crews began the "wrecking" process, in which the empty tank cars were moved
off the tracks and relocated to a safe area nearby.

A link to a podcast posted March 7 th with chemist and safety professional Stan Siranovich is included
here: https://rumble.com/v2bh75i-the-truth-about-new-palestine.html. Please take the time to listen
to it when you can. I will try to summarize.

As I understand it, Siranovich is saying that the drastic action taken by the response team could have
been avoided, specifically the act of burning the VCM in a trough next to the tracks, which released it
into the atmosphere and the water table. What should they have done?

The accident happened on Friday, February 3 rd . During that first day, they should have laid out
containment booms and absorbents around the cars to contain the liquids. If they could not get enough
absorbents, they could have used dirt to absorb spilled material and hauled the dirt away later. Then they
should have begun spraying cars with water to get the fire out and the temperature down.

The residents could have been evacuated on Saturday; not wait until Sunday. The one mile radius was
appropriate. They should have told the residents it would be for four or five days before the cleanup
was done. Clean up would have been nearly complete after those four or five days, as opposed to the
long drawn out process it has become now.

Stan Siranovich is implying that the approach taken by the NS and Ohio authorities was taken in haste
with a lack of planning and training in a bit of a panic. The VCM did not have to be released into the
atmosphere or water table because the containment measures and fire mitigation would have taken
place immediately. You do not have to panic from the threat of BLEVE if you understand the basic
characteristics of the chemicals involved and you take the right steps at the right time with a sense of
urgency
.
There should have been a method available to drain the tanks. The best cleanup for the VCM would
have been to haul it away, preferably in rail cars if possible, and either sent to be incinerated or sent
back to the manufacturer to have it processed for future use. Pouring on the ground and burned into
the atmosphere was not the best choice if the right steps taken early on Saturday, In order for that to
happen, a game plan would have had to be already in place, and there needed to be a person on site
who knew what to do. The hot bearing took an hour before anyone noticed, but the disaster happened
quickly. It is not obvious that there was someone on site immediately who had the experience to know
what to do and the authority to do it. The cleanup was more costly and less efficient than it could have
been. The chemicals are now disbursed in such a way that they will stick around in the environment for
years.

Stan makes additional comments that go right to the heart of the matter. It tracks closely with the
actions taken on the ground during the entire East Palestine debacle. He has noticed a degradation of
expertise in the industry as a whole; a lack of quality in professional education, a lack of experience from
the ground up in the leaders of today’s industry.

There is misallocation of resources throughout the American economy today. If we were truly a wealthy
country and we didn’t waste it, infrastructure would be at the top of the list. We do not have logistics
and supply chain operating at 21 st century worthy excellence. VCM is a material of ordinary commerce.
Millions of pounds are shipped every year Unless we want to go back to the stone age, we need to learn
how to handle it and live with it. We also need to train and properly compensate those who will carry
out the mission. We need faith and trust in the men and women who operate the businesses every day,
whether they are union or middle management.

Is corporate greed at play here? It would certainly look like it could be a factor, but let’s not leave
government greed out of the equation. Too often, our government representatives are not public
servants as much as extortionists extracting money from industry and constituents that they spend on
pet projects elsewhere. There is a great deal of simple, sometimes ordinary but sometimes
sophisticated, corruption. Let’s also not forgot that the worst corruption and disasters occur when
corporate greed and government creed feed off of and support each other. This is termed fascism, and
it's not the way we want to describe our country.

I sit here today composing this opinion piece one month after the East Palestine derailment. The story
has stayed in the news. On March 2 nd , it was reported that rail workers involved in the East Palestine
clean up are coming down sick from the toxic environment. This news came after several days of
political stunts designed to ensure people that the water and air is safe. Last night, another Norfolk
Southern train derailed in Springfield, Ohio, in Clark County, less than a four hour drive from East
Palestine. News reports were aired on Columbus television news of a derailment in Delaware County
that happened months ago but which still hasn’t been cleaned up. Norfolk Southern derailments in
Michigan and Alabama have also just been reported. Yes, this story does not seem like it wants to go
away. I don’t think it should. This story should stay in the news and our consciousness as long as it
takes to fix the problems it represents. We need to demand better.

Some references for this article:
www.trains.com/trn/train-basics/abcs-of-railroading/the-people-who-work-on-trains… Train Basics
ABCs Of Railroading The people who work on trains
https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-crew-size-regulations/#:~:text=No%20Safety%20Justification.
https://www.whas11.com/article/news/nation-world/ohio-train-derailment-timeline-east-palestine/95-
0d89fb7e-c0f6-444e-ac54-c5d50aee39a4

John Stewart, At-Large Member, FCLPO

The derailment of hazardous waste material in East Palestine is a story that will not go away. There are

many who wish it would. Pete Buttigieg, head of the US Department of Transportation, tried to brush it

off as “there are a thousand derailments a year” implying, why is this one special? Tom Zawistowski is

normally a pretty radical guy who airs a political podcast every Saturday. This time he takes, for him, an

unusual position. He states that it is important to support our institutions, without which our country

would disappear. He also contends that the people of East Palestine love their city. They don’t want to

have to abandon their houses. They don’t want to have to start a new life elsewhere. They don’t want

to see the reputation, home prices and economy of East Palestine damaged by politicizing the incident

and blowing it out of proportion. He doesn’t state all the institutions he is trying to protect but suggests

they are people like the mayor and first responders of East Palestine. The governor of Ohio naturally

has a similar position. He has said that the city is safe to live in and the water is safe to drink. Even the

President appears intent to ignore the disaster and hope people eventually move on as the problem gets

lost in the daily onslaught of news stories. I mean damn, there are wars to fight in eastern Europe! Of

course, the Norfolk Southern railroad officials want to assure the public that railroads are safe and

everything is under control.

Who else is trying to suppress the story? It was stated that the two largest shareholders of Norfolk

Southern are the Vanguard and BlackRock investment companies. Certainly it is in their best interest for

the stock not to take a hit, let alone the pension funds that have BlackRock and Vanguard in their

portfolios. There is a lot of money at stake. Vanguard and BlackRock have so far been left out of the

story but the very fact that they are not in the news may lead one to suspicion. These institutions

certainly have enough clout and experience at spinning positive PR. Could they be working behind the

scenes, giving guidance to the Norfolk Southern executives?

Are they right? Should we just move on?

No.

“1000 derailments a year” is not a reason to claim this story doesn’t matter. Quite the contrary. It is a

serious problem. It is in fact, more than 1,000 derailments a year. According to the U.S. Department of

Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there have been a total of 54,570 freight and

passenger train derailments, averaging 1,705 each year between 1990 and 2021.

On December 2nd, 2022, Biden signed legislation passed by Congress stopping railway workers from

going on strike and imposing contract provisions the rail workers had not agreed to. Out of 12 unions

representing about 115,000 rail workers, eight were in favor of the provisions. Four were not, but all 12

would strike in solidarity with the four holdouts. The sticking point with the other four was failure to

approve an increase in the number of days of paid sick leave. One of the four that was not happy was

the group that takes care of the tracks, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees.

Another group of people will not let this story go away.

Sherrod Brown, Senator from Ohio, is an old school Democrat with a network of union support. He is up

for re-election in 2024 and has been keeping this incident front and center in public perception. It has

not been easy for Democrats to win in Ohio over the last few years, but this incident fits like hand in

glove for Brown’s brand of politics. He has been quoted frequently in the press and on television. “My

job is always to fight for the dignity of work, to fight for these workers, to fight for these communities,

to make sure this never happens again”, he says. He and fellow Ohio Senator, Republican J.D. Vance,

have been sponsoring legislation with those goals in mind.

There is a political blogger, a young part time journalist and bartender from West Virginia, who has been

reporting extensively on the East Palestine debacle. The name of his blog is John Russell from the

Holler. His world view is like that of Sherrod Brown. He comes across as a throwback Mother Jones

type progressive who supports unions and blue-collar workers.

Unsurprisingly, his take on the East Palestine train wreck is that it is a tale of corporate greed. His

railroad worker contacts are upset with Norfolk Southern for adopting a new management philosophy

known as Precision Scheduled Railroading, or PSR. PSR was pioneered at the Illinois Central Railroad by

a gentleman named E. Hunter Harrison when he became CEO in 1993. He turned the ICR so profitable

that it was acquired by Canadian National Railroad in 1998. Harrison implemented PSR at the CN

Railroad just as successfully, and then was recruited by Canadian Pacific, where he also implemented

PSR. He was again recruited by another Railroad, CSX, in March of 2017 where he implemented PSR

before his death 8 months later. The Norfolk Southern implemented their own version of PSR starting in

February of 2019.

The old railroad management depended on unit trains, hub and spoke operations and individual car

switching. Unit trains didn’t start moving until they were full. Hub and spoke operations meant trains

were waiting for connecting cars before they could move. Individual car switching was caused by the

philosophy that the more cars hooked to a train the better. This obviously slowed down operations in

switching yards.

PSR, on the other hand, is a simple concept similar the techniques implemented by Southwest Airlines to

revolutionize passenger air travel. Trains operate under strict schedules with point to point routing

networks. To maximize volume per train, all cars going from point to point were hooked in to the train,

regardless of type. (This is why the East Palestine wreck had fewer chemical tanker cars than required

to classify the train as hazardous). When sticking to the schedule became the first principle, other

management issues are simplified. Inventories of freight cars and locomotives were reduced and fewer

workers employed for a given level of traffic. Trains could be operated on fewer and fewer tracks with a

higher volume of trains each day. The result is vastly improved operating ratios. Norfolk Southern has

always been known as a profitable railroad, but their profitability was based on connections between

coal fields, power plants and steel mills. However, coal traffic has been declining over the last decades.

PSR provided Norfolk Southern a way to maintain their profitability, providing impressive profits to

shareholders, estimated to be $2 billion in 2022.

What commitment to safety has Norfolk Southern shown since PSR was instituted? Much has been

made of the fact that today’s trains can be a mile and a half long or even longer with only a two-person

crew. For most of the 20th century, freight train crews consisted of five men: a conductor, two

trainmen or brakemen, and engineer, and a fireman. Today, most road freights operate with just two

crew members, a conductor, and an engineer (www.trains.com/trn/train-basics/abcs-of-railroading/the-

people-who-work-on-trains). Surprisingly, this decision is not regulated by the government. Instead, it

is negotiated into union contracts.

The rail-men John Russell knows do not like PSR. A train crew operates on their own without direct

supervision for hundreds of miles. They must be able to handle a broad range of potential problems at

any point in time. Train crews represent a diverse set of skills and experience. For example, a significant

source of train derailments is when an engineer allows slack to develop between cars, which creates a

dangerous condition. Faulty rolling stock is another major cause of derailments, as are issues with the

track.

Remember, there are 12 unions representing rail workers representing a broad range of skills, from

running a train to maintaining track to maintaining operating equipment. Another important safety

concern is faulty running gear on a car. According to the NTSB report, the likely cause of the East

Palestine train derailment was a wheel bearing in overheat failure. Sensors showed the bearing

overheating nearly 30 miles west of the crash site. Surveillance video from a local resident showed the

bearing on fire before the crash. The responsibilities of the engineer and conductor include seeing and

reacting to faulty equipment before an accident. The NTSB has declared that accident was 100%

preventable. A properly run safety program must have a philosophy that all accidents are preventable.

Otherwise, what point is there to having safety supervisors? How was the scheduling for the East

Palestine train crew? Had they been worked to the point of exhaustion for such a demanding job? Was

it an experienced crew? What was their safety record? How effective was their training? How effective

was the maintenance procedure for the equipment on this train? Has the NTSB too soon ruled out

conditions of the track being a contributing factor?

There is a constant pressure from the railroad industry to reduce labor. Management that negotiates

the union contracts is also adamantly opposed to government regulation. Note this quote from the

American Association of Railroads (https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-crew-size-

regulations/#:~:text=No%20Safety%20Justification.), “Efforts to require at least two-person crews,

including via regulation, lack a safety justification; ignore the decades of safe and successful use of

single-person crews at some U.S. freight railroads and in passenger and freight rail systems throughout

the world; upend meaningful collective bargaining, and undermine the rail industry’s ability to compete

against less climate-friendly forms of transportation.” Somehow this demonstrative statement rings

hollow when we know there are thousands of derailments each year.

We know that railroads have been very profitable over the last few years. Profit and cost cutting go

hand in hand. Of course, there are tradeoffs to be considered. All of us in the Midwest are familiar with

tracks being torn up, the railroad ties being sold off as landscaping timbers and the steel being sold off

for scrap. The idea is to run more traffic on fewer tracks. Today’s railroads operate on thousands of

miles less track than they used to. Equipment is operated with less down time. Is Norfolk Southern

sacrificing safety for profit? Does the physical property the railroads are selling off belong strictly to

their stockholders, or does the public have a say in the in the disposition of property that is an essential

part of the foundation of our modern, industrial economy?

The East Palestine disaster is a symbol of something bigger, the de-industrialization of America. Some

have called our period of history “the end of the American Century”. In the Midwest, we are familiar

with manufacturing moving overseas. We have seen entire factories torn down and entire industries

disappear, the machines and parts boxed up in crates and loaded on ships destined for other countries.

It’s a story as old as American business. Buy a company where you see value in selling off pieces, while

running the rest of it into the ground.

So how was the hazardous response? Was it acceptable? In a word, no. Next month, we will compare

the proper hazardous response with the one that took place in East Palestine. We will consider the

implications from this incident and what they symbolize for our nation’s infrastructure as a whole, and

the ramifications to our country’s economic health.

Some references for this article:

www.trains.com/trn/train-basics/abcs-of-railroading/the-people-who-work-on-trains… Train Basics

ABCs Of Railroading The people who work on trains

https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-crew-size-regulations/#:~:text=No%20Safety%20Justification.

https://www.whas11.com/article/news/nation-world/ohio-train-derailment-timeline-east-palestine/95-0d89fb7e-c0f6-444e-ac54-c5d50aee39a4

John Stewart, At-Large Member, FCLPO

As 2023 arrives and the two-year anniversary of the infamous January 6th insurrection approaches, there is plenty to be grateful for as our imperfect nation ventures into the new year. Of course, there is also still much work to be done and more good fights to be fought. Here in Ohio, fascism continues to stand on our doorstep –– and is perhaps even knocking on the door –– especially as a new GOP supermajority is set to be seated in our Statehouse in January and Governor Mike DeWine starts his second term, both of which were decided by a majority of Ohio voters. Because of these recent midterm results, Ohio Republicans have been given a mandate –– and they will likely use it to their own advantage, just as they have since seizing power of every branch of our state government in 2010.

Case in point –– one of the Ohio GOP’s first power grabs after 2010 was to gerrymander Democrats out of relevance, redrawing Ohio’s state legislative and congressional districts in such a way that Democrats would eventually be relegated to obscurity. Consequently, Ohio’s Democrats have been plagued by a lack of funding, infighting and an inability to recruit quality candidates ever since. Then in 2013, when the GOP was gearing up for former Governor John Kasich’s re-election campaign in 2014, Republican power brokers realized the Libertarian Party of Ohio posed a threat to their win numbers, so they passed new ballot access rules to relegate Libertarians to obscurity as well. Consequently, Ohio’s Libertarians have been plagued by a lack of funding, infighting and an inability to recruit quality candidates ever since.

After their landslide victories in 2022, now the GOP is “coming for it all” –– to paraphrase Athens, Ohio’s own Joe Burrow in a less-fun way, when he was asked about the Cincinnati Bengals’ run for the Super Bowl earlier this year. In Ohio Republicans’ case, their next power grab will be to make it harder for Ohioans to amend our state constitution through a direct vote, a procedure that has been in place for over 100 years. This constitutional right ensured that Ohioans had a way to bypass an unresponsive state legislature and was endorsed by principled high-profile Republicans at the time, such as former President Teddy Roosevelt. Perhaps the irony is lost on Ohio’s modern day “Republicans” that their name derives from the term republic, in which power is held by the people and their elected representatives.

In fact, one of the most famous and often cited stories of the founding of our country –– an imperfect representative democratic constitutional republic as it may be, for anyone who needs an even longer definition –– is that as Benjamin Franklin was leaving Independence Hall in 1787, he was asked by a bystander about what kind of government the Constitutional Convention had created. Would it be “a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin reportedly replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Those poignant words still ring true today, especially as the potential tyranny of the supermajority –– or even a vocal minority –– attempts to enact policies that negatively impact millions of individuals’ rights. After all, republics are supposed to protect the constitutional rights of all citizens, not take them away.

Perhaps Ohio’s modern day Republicans need a reminder of this fact, especially considering that the Republican Party was originally founded as a third political party in the 1850s that sought to create a coalition of abolitionists –– those who were vehemently opposed to the practice of slavery in the United States –– as well as disenfranchised Whigs, the only political opposition at that time to the powerful and growing Democratic contingent in the country. Instead, this political party that started as a minor political party focused on protecting the rights of minorities has now turned their backs on both of those groups, while their supermajority only grows. From destroying minor parties’ ballot access to making it harder for poorer Ohioans to vote, Ohio Republicans seem to not understand the basic definition of “republic” at all.

So now it is our job as citizens to remind them. Earlier this month, I was proud to join over 500 demonstrators from over 170 organizations at the Statehouse to remind our elected representatives who exactly they are representing and what they can and cannot do as our elected representatives. We were there to remind them that their plan to make it harder for Ohioans to amend our state constitution would not be an easy fight. Fortunately, the legislature scrapped their plans to pass HJR6 due to a lack of support –– and while it may be gone for now, the effort could come back in 2023. If it does, this same coalition of Ohioans will be ready to fight again. After all, this is still a republic –– if we can keep it.

Travis Irving, 2018 Ohio Libertarian Gubernatorial Candidate 
“This column was also published in The Columbus Free Press.” 

My wife and I recently celebrated the birth of our first child. A few weeks before he was born we were watching a particularly depressing evening news broadcast. We sat through half a dozen stories that evoked feelings of anger, sadness, and despair before looking at each other and asking, “What are we doing bringing a kid into this crazy world?” The question was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I imagine every parent asks themselves that at some point and it’s really not surprising why. Let’s take stock of where we’re at…

We’ve just come out of a multi-year pandemic that resulted in millions of lives lost. The attempt to control the severity of the pandemic has had a myriad of negative consequences. In an effort to save the crashing economy, the federal government initiated trillions of dollars of additional spending^[1] with assistance from the federal reserve, which printed the money out of thin air. This increase in the money supply^[2] devalued the dollar, and coupled with labor shortages, caused price increases that haven’t been seen in decades. Drug overdose deaths are higher^[3], violent crime is on the rise^[4], and home ownership is now even more of a pipedream for millennials and Generation Z^[5].

When the pandemic started, children were sent home from school as districts scrambled to facilitate remote learning. When they were allowed to attend in-person, they were often required to wear face coverings. There is evidence that this response to COVID has saddled our children with a number of issues. We now have stunted personality development of young adults^[6] and a mental health crisis for children^[7]. ACT scores have dropped to their lowest in 30 years^[8]. Two decades of progress in math and reading have vanished^[9]. Our kids are now more obese than ever, with evidence that the average BMI for children have doubled^[10].

In times like this, we should be able to turn to our leaders for guidance on where to go from here. Let’s check in on them to see where their priorities are: We have governors who are trying to harm the reputation of those in the opposing party by punting immigrants between states like a political football^[11]. They’re sending billions of dollars (that we don’t have) to Ukraine^[12] for a war that doesn’t involve us, increasing the risk of nuclear war with Russia. They’re beefing up IRS enforcement^[13] to try and shake more pennies out of our piggy banks. And they’re arguing over whether Elon Musk should be allowed to buy Twitter^[14].

So we face some large and unwieldy problems, and we have a political class that is either unwilling or unable to tackle them. I’ve always cared about liberty and freedom, but now I find myself asking what sort of country we’re going to be leaving for my son. Should we load him up with a public debt and a tax bill that he has no ability to consent to paying? Should we continue to devalue our currency and inflate the costs of college and home ownership? Am I supposed to be okay with him being obese, stupid, and depressed the next time a public health crisis emerges?

Since we cannot rely on our existing leaders to solve our problems, and since these leaders seem determined to curb our liberties at every step, we must roll up our sleeves and provide solutions ourselves. As Libertarians, we must be the voice calling for sound money, reduced government spending and taxation, and an end to involvement in foreign wars. It is imperative that we never allow the education or the social and emotional development of our children to suffer at the hands of bureaucrats and noisy fear-mongers. The fallout of the response to COVID should be the perfect case-study demonstrating how negative consequences are forced upon people when the government implements top-down edicts.

Fortunately, there is hope to be found in this sea of tears. Public trust in government remains very low^[15]. The CDC has admitted that it got some things wrong^[16]. More and more people are taking their children out of government schools and enrolling in private school^[17] or opting to homeschool^[18]. Homeschooled students tend to outperform their public school counterparts.^[19] [20] And Americans are more willing to voluntarily help others with their time and money than they were before COVID^[21].

The evidence is clear: top-down solutions have a tendency to create more harm than good. Solutions that are local and voluntary can minimize widespread risk and allow for faster error correction. Future generations are depending on us to set things right and we need to be ready to answer that call.

Jordan Bertke, FCLPO Executive Committee At-Large Member

---

[1] https://www.usaspending.gov/disaster/covid-19?publicLaw=all

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=V2aQ

[3] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p1218-overdose-deaths-covid-19.html

[4] https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-statistics-by-state/

[5] https://www.statista.com/topics/4403/millennials-and-real-estate-in-the-us/

[6] https://www.sciencenews.org/article/pandemic-young-adults-personality-development

[7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8445752/

[8] https://leadershipblog.act.org/2022/10/GradClassRelease2022.html

[9] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/us/national-test-scores-math-reading-pandemic.html

[10] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037a3.htm?s_cid=mm7037a3_w

[11] https://nypost.com/2022/09/15/ron-desantis-ships-2-planes-of-migrants-to-marthas-vineyard/

[12] https://nypost.com/2022/10/04/biden-sending-ukraine-625m-in-weapons-from-shrinking-us-stockpile/

[13] https://taxfoundation.org/inflation-reduction-act-irs-funding/

[14] https://ww w.foxnews.com/politics/congress-senate-house-musk-twitter

[15] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/06/06/public-trust-in-government-1958-2022/

[16] https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2022/aug/24/opinion-cdc-finally-admits-it-botched-covid/

[17] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/07/during-covid-more-families-switch-to-private-school-from-public-.html

[18] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/03/homeschooling-on-the-rise-during-covid-19-pandemic.html

[19] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232544669_The_Impact_of_Schooling_on_Academic_Achievement_Evidence_From_Homeschooled_and_Traditionally_Schooled_Students

[20] https://www.nheri.org/homeschool-sat-scores-for-2014-higher-than-national-average/

[21] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-08748-2

Every now and then I go on social media to remind myself why we deserve extinction. My most recent example is something that’s been going asking if people have noticed that every couple that appears in television commercials is interracial. And the typical response is that it’s the work of woke corporations trying to push diversity on the general public. 

And there’s the outcry every time a black actor is cast in a Star Wars project.

Bob Jones University, a Baptist college, used to have rules against interracial dating until they were dropped following a media outcry after George Bush spoke there during the 2000 Presidential Campaign. They now allow interracial dating, provided both parties bring notes from their parents saying they give permission for their adult children to date someone of another race. Without said note, the university will respect the wishes of the parents (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Now what does this have to do with Roe vs Wade? 

When Roe v Wade was struck down on June 24th some people hailed it as a victory; some people decried it as a step backwards for women; others said the issue was merely sent back to the States where it should have been all along. Some states will keep it legal; some states already have trigger laws to criminalize abortion the moment Roe v Wade is overturned.

But does anyone think it will end there. 

Justice Clarence Thomas, in his written opinion, cited several other decisions he would like to see reversed using the same justification used to reverse Roe, these include the the decisions legalizing same-sex marriage, same-sex activity, and contraception. The Texas State Republican Party just condemned all three as part of their State Party Platform. They’re already talking about bringing those issues back before the Supreme Court. 

But there’s a decision Justice Thomas didn’t mention, the decision that legalized interracial marriage. 

And that brings me back to the beginning. 

I’ve seen too many people decrying interracial couples on social media not to think they wouldn’t jump at the chance to have that decision reversed too. I’ve seen too many people jump on the bandwagon of religious extremism to justify their own hates and fears.

We, as a people, need to step up and protect our freedoms from being eaten away by those who always believe they’re doing the right thing. 

Otherwise Roe will be only the first domino to fall.

Ken Holpp, FCLPO Communications Director 

A lot of exciting things are coming in the next couple of months – both the State and National Conventions and the Central Committee elections.  I highly encourage you to participate in as many of these as you can.

As the Republicans and Democrats increasingly turn to their fringe groups for support (and battle their influence at the same time) it is ever more important that we stand up and show people the better alternative we offer.

As the world spins ever more out of control it is important to show people that the cause of liberty is the best path to sanity.

So donate or get involved and help us grow our movement.

You might just have fun doing it.

Ken Holpp, Communications Director – FCLPO

In March of 2003, the US invaded Iraq on the flimsiest of pretenses. 

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, also on the flimsiest of pretenses. 

We hailed our invasion as brave and valiant and necessary for our security. 

We condemned their invasion as barbarous and the work of a power-hungry tyrant.

I’ve been wondering just what the difference is between the two.  The only thing I’ve come up with is, when we invade a country it’s good; when they invade a country it’s bad.

But wait, you say, we were attacked on September 11, 2001.  We were…but not by Iraq.  They didn’t even have the stockpile of weapons of mass destruction we claimed they had.

So, again, what’s the difference between the two?

I see people all over social media praising the Ukrainian citizens fighting against the Russian military as brave and noble.  But some of these same people also condemned the Iraqi people as evil and cowardly for doing the exact same thing against our military. 

And don’t even get me started on Central America. 

If an action is right, shouldn’t it always be right?  If an action is wrong, shouldn’t it always be wrong?

In V For Vendetta, V was the hero for assassinating the leaders of a currupt government and blowing up Parliament.  In The Batman, The Riddler is the villain for doing the exact same thing. 

Is it not the height of hypocrisy to determine the morality of an action based on who it is performing said action?

It seems to me that invading countries that have done you no harmshould always be wrong, and citizens of said countries should always have the right to defend themselves.

Better still, let’s stop trying to play the world’s policemen. 

Ken Holpp, FCLPO Communications Director

Medical Apocalypse – the dramatic climax of a very bad horror movie.

The United States has massive problems to solve.  I believe the collapse or corruption of our health care system, our financial system and our election system are the most important to us as libertarians.  Any one of these three issues could destroy the country.  At the very least, our economy and our ability to compete on the world stage have been severely compromised. These issues feed directly into an unsustainably high cost of production which is in turn caused by an unsustainably high cost of living.  America’s costly and inefficient medical system is a major factor.  The result of a high cost of production is a reduced standard of living.  Our health care system is destroying us.Some would make the argument that the failure of our health care system is a failure of the market.   To them, the government must step in to solve the crisis. This is just flat out wrong.  Our health care system is anything but a free market.  What it represents is the failure of government intervention.  Health Care system reform must be a priority for our communication and our candidates.  We must insist that our candidates are educated about the problems and solutions and can explain them well.    We should be communicating as a political party to get this message out and calling out other party candidates and office holders for not providing leadership.  I think the three books I’m about to highlight can provide a foundation for this knowledge and drive home to all of us why this issue is so critically important.    

Priced Out by Uwe Reinhardt was published in 2019, two years after his death.  Reinhardt was the James Madison Professor of Political Economy and Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton.  He was highly regarded by mainstream participants in the health care discussion. His life’s work, including this book, made a clear case that the U.S. Health Care system is a chaotic mess.  Hospitals have pricing and economics that very few people understand, and that includes administrators, doctors and patients.  Reinhardt is a master at breaking down the key metrics to explain the American system and “why it costs so much more and delivers so much less than the systems of every other advanced country.” If you have a desire to wonk out on the economics of health care in the U.S., Priced Out is an excellent choice.A forward for the book was written by William Frist, MD., a Republican from Tennessee who served in the Senate from 1995 to 2007 and as Senate Majority Leader from 2003 to 2007.  Being a heart and lung transplant surgeon by occupation, and a student of Reinhardt, Frist understood the financial complexities and the ethical considerations discussed by Reinhardt.  In the forward, his respect and admiration for Reinhardt is obvious.  

Reinhardt’s analysis of our health care system made him the darling of Congress and mainstream stakeholders.  His grasp of detail and complexity was impressive, but it gave perfect cover for politicians and members of the health care establishment to avoid changing the system.  There are many that benefit from a needlessly complex and dysfunctional system.  This grasp of detail is actually a central flaw in his analysis.  He made it too easy to for politicians and medical professionals to say, “you know, it’s complicated”, or “we did the best we could” or “you can’t change it over night” and “you can only do so much”.  

The second flaw is a central organizing philosophy of Reinhardt’s life’s work, which he considers the fundamental question: “As a matter of national policy, and to the extent that a nation’s health system can make it possible, should the child of a poor American family have the same chance of avoiding preventable illness or of being cured from a preventable illness as does the child of a rich American family?”

William Frist certainly thought the answer was yes.  It is clear he was a fan of George Bush’s compassionate conservatism philosophy and proud of his role in it.  In his forward, he claims credit for writing and passing PEPFAR, The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a framework by which the U.S. government provides money for medical programs, mostly in Africa.  It was launched in 2003.  Since its inception, the United States government has funneled roughly 100 billion dollars into various programs using the authorizing legislation of PEPFAR.  This vast expenditure has mostly had the effect of enriching pharmaceutical company executives and others at the top of the world health food chain while leaving death and destruction behind it.  In my opinion, the record of experimentation and blatant exploitation on the people of Africa is well documented in Robert F. Kennedy’s book which I will mention last in this piece.  Frist should be more ashamed of the PEPFAR program than proud of it.  He seems like a good man.  I wonder if he would concur. 

Frist and Reinhardt are both misled by the central organizing question.  It’s the wrong question phrased in the wrong way leading to the wrong outcome.  It allows politicians to make themselves feel good about themselves by imposing their moral compass on other people.  The question uses phrases like “national policy”, “nation’s health system”, “poor” and “rich”.  The question is a shaming device and implies force to make some people pay for other people’s health care.  The question does not raise any consideration regarding individual responsibility for health of themselves and their children.  The question of cost of the “nation’s” health care is only vaguely referenced and left open ended to an unlimited expense.  What is included in a “nation’s health system”?  Does it include agricultural policy and the incentives for more healthy food as opposed to less healthy food choices?  Does it include food as medicine as opposed to only relying on pharmaceutical drugs?  When American political leaders authorize vast expenditures of money for a continent thousands of miles away, does it ever occur to them to follow up to ensure that money has been put to a good use, not to an evil one?

The problem I see in Reinhardt’s book is not intended as a criticism of the whole work.  He does give an unbiased and tremendously insightful look at the data.  It is a great book to study regarding the problems in our health care system. 

The Price We Pay by Marty Makary, MD, is another great work, also published in 2019 (with an update in 2021).  This book is probably more accessible to the average person than Reinhardt’s book.  Makary is a great story teller.  He is not trying to address every aspect of health care.  His primary focus is hospital system billing practices and the shocking abuse of the low-income wage earner.  Many hospitals systems, and especially the not for profits, sue patients for non-payment of invoices and have the courts garnish their wages.   The patients have no way to know in advance what the cost of the service will be and little they could do to avoid them.  Almost no one understands any particular hospital’s price structure.  Makary mentions one hospital that has over 3,000 contracts, each with a specified discount.  That’s 3,000 different prices for the same medical procedure!  

Makary’s mission has been to lobby Congress over the last couple of years to force hospitals to display their prices in a similar way that food labels are required to include nutritional content. He has achieved some success with this initiative, but unfortunately this success is little known due to being drowned out by the tsunami of Covid information.  Marty Makary’s book is relevant today, and maybe more relevant today after the revelations presented in the third book and last book I’m reviewing.      

The Real Anthony Fauci by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was published and released to the public in late 2021.  This is a highly controversial book. It blows the lid off the many individuals using science and medicine for their own selfish or evil purposes.  It pulls no punches in accusing Big Pharma and its supporters in government run Public Health agencies of conspiracy, probably criminal, but at minimum worthy of termination of employment and public disgrace.  The conspiracy described is the push for vaccination at the expense of all other public health measures.  The motive for the conspiracy is simply greed and power.  The amount of wealth gained by the perpetrators is immense. The damage to the world’s health is immeasurable.  Kennedy’s book is comprehensive, detailed and exceptionally well referenced, but whether or not the accusations are true, there is no doubt that the leaders of the CDC, NIH, NIAIA, FDA and the majority of the health care establishment will push back. They cannot allow this attack on their actions, motives and reputation to stand.

However, this opinion piece is not about the conspiracy.  It’s about the reform that was discussed in the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations but never got resolved.  It never got resolved because liberals have made nationalized, government run health care one of their signature goals, while conservatives and libertarians have been adamantly opposed.  It never got resolved because the criminal conspirators are masters at covering their tracks and concealing the true problems.  It never got resolved because the military industrial complex and the medical industrial complex came together as a nearly unstoppable force in public policy.  The mess we are in today might have been avoided if the right discussions had taken place and we had come to the right conclusions.  Unfortunately, a better solution has not been advocated strongly enough.  We have an opportunity to make a difference because at this point it is painfully obvious to many Americans that government involved health care is dangerous and doesn’t work.  

This system deserves a radical destruction/restructure, but it isn’t always productive to be viewed as too radical.  Fortunately, we can play the Jinga game as well.  There are blocks that can be removed which can dramatically bring down the whole system.  

My favorite goal advocating a small change with big potential to upset the system is to remove any tax advantage for insurance provided by an employer.  This hoary chestnut of a health care policy has been around since right after World War II.  It was promoted by employers to counter union organizers who were advocating health care benefits for union workers.  It has become a Frankenstein monster.  It has enabled insurers to reduce cost by marketing primarily to businesses while only offering crappy, expensive products to individuals.  Over time, this system has created a barrier between the individual and the health care system while HIPPA laws have created a barrier between the health care system and the employer to hide the true cost of the medical from the employer and the employee.  While allowing the insurance fox to guard the medical establishment hen house was in their best interest for a while, it has even begun to work against them.  The medical insurance industry has eaten all the chickens.  Costs have gotten so out of control that insurance companies have nearly destroyed themselves.  Removing the tax advantage for the employer provided insurance over insurance provided to individual will over time put the individual back in charge of his or her health care.  Medical providers will not be able to hide the cost of their services and patients will be enabled to negotiate the price of the services they receive before the service is provided.

The health insurance industry will need to be deregulated in an additional way. Private enterprise would normally elect to offer insurance against events over whose outcome the insured possesses no control. One cannot buy insurance against suicide or bankruptcy, for example, because it is in one’s own hands to bring these events about.

Because a person’s health, or lack of it, lies increasingly within his own control, many, if not most health risks, are actually uninsurable. “Insurance” against risks whose likelihood an individual can systematically influence falls within that person’s own responsibility.

All insurance, moreover, involves the pooling of individual risks. It implies that insurers pay more to some and less to others. But no one knows in advance, and with certainty, who the “winners” and “losers” will be. “Winners” and “losers” are distributed randomly, and the resulting income redistribution is unsystematic. If “winners” or “losers” could be systematically predicted, “losers” would not want to pool their risk with “winners,” but with other “losers,” because this would lower their insurance costs. I would not want to pool my personal accident risks with those of professional football players, for instance, but exclusively with those of people in circumstances similar to my own, at lower costs.

The current laws take none of this into account.  Laws, mostly state but some federal, place legal restrictions on the health insurers’ right of refusal — to exclude any individual risk as uninsurable — so the present health-insurance system is only partly concerned with insurance. The industry cannot discriminate freely among different groups’ risks.

As a result, health insurers cover a multitude of uninsurable risks, alongside, and pooled with, genuine insurance risks. They do not discriminate among various groups of people which pose significantly different insurance risks. The industry thus runs a system of income redistribution — benefiting irresponsible actors and high-risk groups at the expense of responsible individuals and low-risk groups. 

To deregulate the industry means to restore it to unrestricted freedom of contract: to allow a health insurer to offer any contract whatsoever, to include or exclude any risk, and to discriminate among any groups of individuals. Uninsurable risks would lose coverage, the variety of insurance policies for the remaining coverage would increase, and price differentials would reflect genuine insurance risks. On average, prices would drastically fall. And the reform would restore individual responsibility in health care. 

It is good news for libertarians that this initiative is primarily a state issue, an arena in which libertarians can compete on more equal footing.  It is state legislatures that have succumbed to pressure from special interest groups to force insurance carriers to provide coverage for the special risks of their constituency.  This is precisely the reason most conservatives want to remove laws that prevent companies from buying insurance across state lines.  If individuals or companies could buy out of state insurance, it would make the legislators pay attention to what anti-competitive restrictions they are proposing that hurts the insurance companies in their own state.  Not a bad idea.  As our contribution, we can provide the platform upon which state legislators are evaluated.

All licensing requirements for medical schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and medical doctors and other health care personnel must be eliminated. Their supply would almost instantly increase, prices would fall, and a greater variety of health care services would appear on the market.

Competing voluntary accreditation agencies would take the place of compulsory government licensing — if health care providers believe that such accreditation would enhance their own reputation, and that their consumers care about reputation, and are willing to pay for it.

Because consumers would no longer be duped into believing that there is such a thing as a “national standard” of health care, they will increase their search costs and make more discriminating health care choices.

Government restrictions on the production and sale of pharmaceutical products and medical devices must be eliminated. This means no more Food and Drug Administration, which presently hinders innovation and increases costs.

Costs and prices would fall, and a wider variety of better products would reach the market sooner. The market would force consumers to act in accordance with their own — rather than the government’s — risk assessment. And competing drug and device manufacturers and sellers, to safeguard against product liability suits as much as to attract customers, would provide increasingly better product descriptions and guarantees.

Eliminate all subsidies and special privileges to pharmaceutical companies and hospital systems.  Without a doubt, this means eliminating all liability protection laws currently in place for the pharmaceutical companies.  This liability protection and subsidies from Congress given to the NIH, CDC and others seems to only have encouraged them to make people more sick than to try and cure them, if Robert Kennedy’s book has any truth within it.  Subsidies create more of whatever is being subsidized. If you subsidize ill health you encourage ill health.  Subsidizing ill health promotes carelessness, indigence, and dependency. If we eliminate them, we would strengthen the will to live healthy lives and to work for a living.    

We will have to take a hard look at Medicare and Medicaid and highlight any provisions that seem to encourage carelessness with one’s health.  Money should be spent on programs which educate people on healthy living, such as providing it to social service agencies to help the poor navigate the new insurance and health care landscape.  However, force should never be used to make individuals do things which they do not believe is in their own best interest.  We need to take a hard look at agricultural regulations to be ensure that individuals have the information and freedom to make healthy food choices.

The solutions section of this article borrowed heavily from one that originally appeared on Mises.org: https://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/hans-hermann-hoppe/a-four-step-health-care-solution/

John Stewart – FCLPO At-Large Member