"We believe that liberty can be measured by how much freedom Americans have to make their own decisions, even their own mistakes. Government must step in when one's liberties impinge on one's neighbor's. Government must protect constitutional rights, deal with other governments, protect citizens from aggressors, assure equal opportunity, and be compassionate in caring for those citizens who are unable to care for themselves."Our federal system of local-state-national government is designed to sort out on what level these actions should be taken. Those concerns of a national character — such as air and water pollution that do not respect state boundaries, or the national transportation system, or efforts to safeguard your civil liberties — must of course be handled at the national level. As a general rule, however, we believe that government action should be taken first by the government that resides as close to you as possible."
Rahn goes on to illustrate how that principle applies, using health care as an example.
The American left is fond of pointing out the alleged success of the Scandinavian welfare and health care systems. But what they fail to note is the Scandinavian countries all have small, 5 million to 9 million, largely homogenous populations, about the size of the average U.S. state. Almost no one on the left claims that a very large country — Russia, China, or even the United Kingdom — should be the model for a U.S. health-care system.
Thus does it not make far more sense to have each of the states experiment with what kind of health care system is best for their citizens? The more successful models will be copied by other states over time. It is exactly this kind of competition between states that our Founding Fathers had in mind when they set up the federal system.
Have you heard any of the Republican candidates talking like that? Rahn goes on to other examples:
Does it seem rational for Fairfax County, Va., one of the richest counties in the United States, to receive money from the federal government for low-income housing, when some of that money comes from taxpayers in poor counties in Mississippi? Is it sensible for the federal government to tax people in Alabama, a relatively low-income state, to pay for a bridge that collapses in high-income Minnesota? Given that children are educated in their neighborhoods, what value is served by dollars for education being taken from the neighborhood and sent through highly paid Washington bureaucrats to have a portion sent back?When I hear Govs. Huckabee & Romney speak about health care, their arguments are always at the level of resume: I've actually enacted health care, so I'd be the best person to tackle the job nationally. There's no public education: here's the approach we have to take and why. Romney at least knows these arguments. I've seen him make them in interviews. Huckabee, I'm less certain --I haven't followed him as closely.
Anyway, I've been thinking about the spate of challenges to free speech we've seen in the West and wondering why none of our candidates is framing his campaign in terms of defending liberty? It doesn't seem to be on any candidate's horizon. There's so little scope for the human spirit in our public rhetoric.
