by John Stossel

It’s natural to fear freedom. Tell most Americans that we’d be better off if we clear-cut the regulatory jungle and simply let the market decide what products are sold, and you’re likely to be told how dangerous the world would be. Most people think government keeps us safe. It’s why the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is regarded as absolutely necessary. It protects us from snake-oil sellers. Who could argue with that?

I will, because years of consumer reporting have taught me that the regulators, by protecting us from bad things, protect us from good things, too. When we let the government use force to limit our choices, we deprive ourselves of innovation that makes life better. Even genuinely compassionate officials can literally regulate us to death.

In 1962, the FDA didn’t let American women take the tranquilizer Thalidomide, while in Europe, women who took it sometimes gave birth to children with no arms or legs. The Thalidomide tragedy is cited as an example of how useful the FDA is, and we’re all glad American babies were protected.

But after the Thalidomide success, the FDA grew like a malignant tumor. Getting a new drug approved now takes 12 to 15 years. It takes that long because the FDA wants to be extra sure every drug is safe and effective. That seems reasonable. But this vigilant pursuit of safety also kills people.

Some years ago, the FDA held a news conference and proudly announced, “This new heart drug we’re approving will save 14,000 American lives a year!” No one stood up at the press conference to ask, “Doesn’t this mean you killed 14,000 people last year — and the year before — by keeping it off the market?” Reporters don’t think that way, but the FDA’s announcement did mean that. Thousands will die this year while other therapies wait for approval.

You may want to wait. Many of us want to be absolutely sure a drug is safe before we take it. It’s natural to want the “experts” to protect us. But why isn’t the choice left to us? Why does the FDA get to force us to wait and, in some cases, die, when there are experimental drugs, however risky, that might save our lives?

I interviewed Janet Cheadle, a young girl suffering from a form of cancer that, left untreated, would kill her before she grew up. Her parents wanted to take her to a doctor who claimed he had a treatment that might help her. But the FDA ruled that Janet was not allowed to pursue his treatment because the FDA hadn’t sanctioned it. Maybe the wiser move was not to try the treatment. But shouldn’t that have been Janet’s choice?  She was dying. It was her body and her life. Shouldn’t she have been allowed to experiment if that was what she and her parents wanted? Ultimately, she was allowed — but only after her father testified before Congress.

Thousands of Americans die prematurely because they are too fat. Drug companies have invented fat substitutes — ingredients that taste as good as fat but are not absorbed by your body. This would help the obese, but they are not permitted to try them, because the ingredients are still squeezing through the FDA’s 12-to-15-year pipeline. After all, there’s a tiny chance that something in these innovative products might hurt us.

But what about the thousands of lives that would be saved? Don’t those lives count?

No.

The bureaucrats and reporters focus on the victims of innovation. The fen-phen deaths were on the front pages of most every newspaper. We put Thalidomide babies on magazine covers. But what is not seen often matters more. The fat substitute or the new heart drug might save thousands. But whom would I photograph? We don’t know which of us might be saved.

Am I suggesting we just junk the FDA and let the market take over? That sounds chaotic and threatening, and it’s not about to happen. But there is a better way. That’s next week’s column.

 

Originally published at Townhall.com June 1, 2005.

 

John Stossel - arguably the highest-profile libertarian journalist in the world - joined Fox News Channel (FNC) and Fox Business Network (FBN), effective October 2009, to begin a weekly show that may well be the most consistent, intelligent, ongoing presentation of libertarian views in television history.

AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 30 AND TITLE 31 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE DELAWARE CHILDREN'S TRUST FUND ACT.

PROCLAIMING MARCH 17, 2010, "EARLY CHILD CARE AND EDUCATION PROFESSIONALS APPRECIATION DAY".

PROCLAIMING MARCH 17, 2010, "EARLY CHILD CARE AND EDUCATION PROFESSIONALS APPRECIATION DAY".

PROCLAIMING MARCH 17, 2010, "EARLY CHILD CARE AND EDUCATION PROFESSIONALS APPRECIATION DAY".

Nice hack: Using insider knowledge the two hacked into software that controlled remote betting machines on live roulette wheels, the report said. The machines would print out winning betting slips regardless of the results on the wheel, Peterborough Today said. I'd like to know how they got caught. EDITED TO ADD (4/17): They got their math wrong: However, the scheme...

by Lady Liberty

Do you remember the first real, full time job you ever had? If you’re like most people, that first job coincided with the first time you really went out on your own. I can clearly recall all of the excitement that filled me as I moved into my first apartment. I can also remember how I felt when, for the first time in my life, I had to buy my own groceries and pay my own electric bill. While I couldn’t help but be proud of myself, I also recall being appalled at how expensive everything seemed to be. It didn’t help when I looked at the detailed accounting on my paycheck only to see how much was deducted by the government before my hands ever cashed the rest of it on Fridays.

Taxes have been a fact of life since governments have been a fact of life. While I’m not fond of taxes, I admit that it is the duty and the privilege of citizens to assist in paying for certain aspects of government. National defense comes immediately to mind. Unfortunately, over the course of many years and under the auspices of one power-greedy administration after another, taxes now fund myriad things the government does that the government is neither constitutionally nor rationally entitled to do.

Once upon a time, it was a tax revolt that caused this country to sever its ties with the empire that founded and largely settled it. A well known symbol of that revolt was the Boston Tea Party. Though grown almost to mythic status, the simple facts of the event involved a group of disgruntled American colonists who dressed up in rudimentary Native American costumes and threw numerous boxes of tea overboard the British ships that had transported them to Boston Harbor. Their point? They didn’t want to pay the exorbitant taxes on tea imposed by the King.

Within the last year, a number of Americans have participated in Tea Parties of their own. They’re protesting not just the taxes they believe are too high but some of the things those taxes are intended to fund. Perhaps the most controversial (and by far the most expensive) programs include health care reform and “Cap and Trade.” The Americans who attended Tea Parties are mad, and I don’t blame them.

I went to one of those Tea Parties myself last spring, but when I spoke before the crowd, I said something a little different than most other attendees. While speaker after speaker railed against Barack Obama and his efforts to grow the government to gargantuan proportions, I told the people there that taxes were too high not because of Barack Obama, but because we all had something that we wanted government to do, and we supported what we wanted even as we complained about somebody the things somebody else wanted. I said that if we wanted to curb government spending, we had to curb it across the board. The people applauded, but I don’t think they really heard me.

As we approach local elections in many places across the country, I see something that proves my point. Let me bring it all the way home to you by telling you about my neighbor.

My neighbor has his own business and a couple of kids. His wife works too, but both of them have talked with me about how hard it is to make ends meet. I sympathize! They’ve also both repeatedly complained about government and taxes. The government is too intrusive, they say. Their taxes are too high. Again, I sympathize. But what do I see in their front yard this election season? Signs promoting an increase in a local school levy.

How about the rest of my block? Well, I see a few signs promoting a local municipal tax increase which my town claims it really, really needs if it intends to remain in the black. At precisely the same time, there are reports in the local news that city leaders are spending thousands of dollars on a study here and a consultant there. Don’t even get me started on some of the other nonsense-much of which is expensive, self serving, or both-that’s going on!

One man in my town took matters into his own hands when one of the few cuts the town made involved caring for local parks. He volunteered to take care of a neighborhood park and was soundly rebuffed. It seemed to many of us at the time that he presented the ideal solution to the problem. Why couldn’t our town solicit volunteers to plant and prune gardens, to mow and mulch parks? This same man took his cause sufficiently to heart that he’s running for a spot on the town council. And what does his campaign platform say? That he supports the income tax increase.

A local community group has issued its statement concerning the issues on this year’s election ballot. It offered its support to every single measure that would raise taxes. In fact, the only measure it doesn’t support is one which would permit certain businesses to do certain things which would actually result in increased tax revenue. Huh?

I’m not picking on schools or parks here. What I’m saying is that most of us have some government funded program or another we actually support. One of my neighbors who proclaims he dislikes big government and does so passionately proudly showed off his brand new roof that was paid for courtesy of a government grant intended to preserve historic homes. That’s great for him, but how come I-and all of the rest of you-had to pay for somebody else’s new roof?

Meanwhile, a developer from out of town who wants to build something here that would provide jobs as well as make use of some property that’s long been under utilized is being run off thanks to protests and local government red tape. Why? The town and the people want a local developer to do it. The problem? There’s not a local developer in sight who’s even remotely interested, but the out of town developer is being blocked at every turn anyway. Apparently, we want more jobs and more tax money, but not all that much. Another area project that would quite literally bring in hundreds of very good jobs is stalled thanks to two small towns that can’t agree to forfeit even a small amount of government funding in exchange for a facility that would bring in many times more revenue and provide jobs to boot.

Our addiction to government funding for everything from parks to public schools (which, if money actually fixed the problems they’ve got, would be number one in the world and rising instead of just the opposite), and from grants for the study of frogs to the roofing of homes, has got to be broken. If we don’t cure ourselves of the addiction we’ve already got, we’re going to end up a lot sicker before the whole system collapses on us.

Our Constitution really only gives the federal government a few responsibilities: Among them are the national defense, the negotiation of international treaties, and the mandate to jump in if the states start interfering with each other where interstate commerce is concerned. Just about everything else should be the bailiwick of the state and the local governments. Obviously, the federal government has gone a tad beyond that. And we’re in the spot we’re in where states and towns are concerned because they, too, have taken it upon themselves to follow the federal example. Apparently, all of them are now of the firm belief that if it’s not specifically prohibited, it’s required or at least a really good idea.

They couldn’t be more wrong. But neither could we. We’ve let them do this in no small part because there’s something somewhere in all of those taxpayer funded things that we personally favor. And when enough people favor something, all of us are stuck paying for it. We’ve got to not only stop the taxation that pays for the programs that we don’t like, but for those that we do like as well. It’s not up to each of us to suggest that one program is better than another. It’s up to each of us to see to it that government doesn’t fund any of them. If a program is a good one, the free market will jump right in and it will have plenty of support from the rest of us to do so. If a program is a bad one with insufficient support, it will wither away as it should.

I recognize that this is a huge step and one that’s not likely to take place any time soon even though we’d all be better off if it did. But even if we actually had the collective will, it’s impossible to turn an ocean liner on a dime. I get that. But how about we start with refusing to raise taxes until government entities spend the money they’re already getting responsibly? How about we demand government tighten its belt the way the rest of us have to during lean times? How about the government start making gradual cuts like other people and businesses who are trying to save money? Better still, how about the government actually have to perform well to earn its money, sort of like the rest of us?

We like to say that the government works for “we, the people.” And we’re right. It does. Or at least it’s supposed to. Now let me ask you: If you had an employee who embezzled company funds, what would you do? How about if that employee threatened you, or other employees? What if you found that employee slacking off on a regular basis? Lying about what he had done or hadn’t done? Constantly wasting company resources? My guess is that you’d warn him once or twice, and then fire him once and for all. The last thing you’d do is give him a raise, or put him in charge of an even larger budget! Now answer this: Why is it that we have the good sense to run our business better than we run our government? The bad behavior is on the politicians. But the failure to deal with it the way it ought to be dealt with is all yours.

 

Lady Liberty is a pro-freedom activist currently residing in the Midwest. More of her writings and other political and educational information is available on her web site, Lady Liberty’s Constitution Clearing House http://www.ladylibrty.com/. E-mail Lady Liberty at ladylibrty@ladylibrty.com.

AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 9 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE ENFORCEMENT OF AN ORDER TO CONNECT TO A SANITARY SEWER.

AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 16 OF THE DELAWARE CODE BY CREATION OF CHAPTER 80 RELATING TO THE ADOPTION AND ENFORCEMENT OF A UNIFIED HEATING, VENTILATION, AIR CONDITIONING, AND REFRIGERATION CODE AND THE INTERNATIONAL FUEL GAS CODE.

AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 18 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS COVERAGE.

AN ACT TO NAME THE DINING HALL AT BAYLOR WOMEN'S CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION IN HONOR OF HAYWARD ROY JR.

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Reminder from: LPD-announce Yahoo! Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LPD-announce/cal NCC Meeting, LP of Delaware Sunday March 21, 2010 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

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by Tessa Rose

Why — when people almost universally say that they think aggressive violence is wrong — and people almost universally say that they believe it’s better to believe truth rather than falsity — why, when you suggest that human beings could have a society that is not based on violence (via “government” coercion), why do the ones who like you run away with their ears covered, and the ones who don’t like you revile you and call you a terrorist?

This year, contrary to my usual habit, I actually went to my hometown flagpole ceremony on the 4th of July. Some local person always gives a little speech, and I really haven’t wanted to go since the year the speaker implied that people who disagree with the government about taxes are probably going to hell. As expected, I found the whole aura of the celebration revolting and disturbing. Revolting because all those people were openly worshiping violence — and disturbing because many of these people I grew up with and loved, and still love.

People reserve their highest praise for trained killers who obey the orders of politicians. All euphemisms and rhetoric aside, that is what soldiers are. There are other ways to “serve one’s country,” of course, but the very best, and bravest, and most honorable way is to kill people that politicians order you to kill. These people are “fighting for our freedom” as they empower the greedy, bloodthirsty gang that enslaves us all.

If you dare to suggest that our freedom would be better served by getting rid of the greedy, bloodthirsty gang that sends our brave young sons to their deaths to increase its own power and wealth, they look at you as though you just shot Jesus in the head. Which I guess, in a way, you did.

The people of my hometown generally claim to be Christian; but I believe that the true religion of most of them is state-worship with some Christian decoration on top. I believe their Christian god is subservient to their government god. Let’s assume for just a moment that religion really is about love, compassion, and people living together in peace and harmony. Why then — when you suggest that consistent condemnation of physical aggression would serve those ends better than glorification of it — why are people so determined to avoid hearing you?

People seem absolutely desperate to identify themselves with what they perceive to be the greatest power. For those who believe in him, God is the greatest power in the universe. But the government is the greatest power here on earth. People don’t want to admit that they’re siding with the strongest gang because it’s a lot safer to be part of it than to pit yourself against it. I suppose it’s hard to admire and respect yourself if you see it that way. But if you can convince yourself that the gang is good and that you really believe in what it’s doing, then your loyalty to it is righteous and honorable, rather than cowardly and self-serving.

Larken and I have received a lot of disapproval for taking a stand against a very powerful gang called the U.S. government. In this disapproval, there is a strong current of “you got hurt, therefore you were wrong.” It would seem that in this moral system, financial self-interest and personal comfort are the ideals to strive for, and any goals that threaten these ideals are bad and wrong. Never mind that two million people are in prison while we picnic happily with our families and friends in our beautiful little community. Never mind that people are suffering and dying and living in desperate poverty all over the world due to war and other coercive government “solutions.”

People live their lives as if “might makes right.” But don’t they really know, deep down, that truth is independent of power, and that aggression is evil? Why do they refuse to give up this addiction to power?

Perhaps the answer is in our biology. We all come into the world tiny and helpless. The first being to impinge on our emerging consciousness is a seemingly omnipotent, omnibenevolent mother. Perhaps it is imprinted on us so early in our lives that power and goodness are one, that most of us will never be able to reason our way out of this emotional box. Perhaps it was imprinted in our genes before we were even born, and it’s part of our animal nature to bond with the strongest leader we can find.

But it’s clear that some part of the human psyche is not satisfied with this. For hundreds of years, people have schizophrenically wrung their hands over the atrocities of war while glorifying the governments that make them happen. Maybe a better kind of society is struggling to come into being.

 

Tessa Rose is the wife of tax heretic/anarchist writer Larken Rose, with whom many of you are familiar. Find out more about Tessa at http://tessa-rose.blogspot.com/.