The New Inquisitors

"If you're going to do health-care cost containment, it has to be stealth," said Jon Kingsdale, speaking at a conference sponsored by the New Republic magazine last October. "It has to be unsuspected by any of the key players to actually have an effect." Mr. Kingsdale is the former director of the Massachusetts "connector," the beta version of ObamaCare's insurance "exchanges," and is now widely expected to serve as an ObamaCare regulator...
(WSJ 7/7/10)


Liberty demands the ability to make a free and reasonable decision, and then act upon it. This also implies an atmosphere of truth. Information may be limited. The information may be by the very nature of the question obscure to human knowledge. It may be technically complex and obtuse. But liberty cannot exist without the mutual agreement between the governed and the government that both will be fair and honest with each other. From the governed side, the rules, responsibilities and limits of the government should be clear and concise. From the government side their aims, methods and obedience to the rules should be honest and transparent. Most importantly, the government should never hold its citizens in contempt, never place itself as the censor of the citizen's reality. No servant of the people --no servant or tool--should ever be allowed to define itself.

Power and its abuses come from pride. From arrogance. The leader knows the truth; he knows more than the citizen does or can. This arrogance used to be conferred by God on special families and bloodlines. More recently it grew out of concepts, pseudo scientific notions that elites agreed linked individuals in a human herd of behavior the elites could guide. Now this pride is self conferred; you just come up with an idea and value it because you are so able and everyone else is not.

In any free society, a statement such as Mr. Kingsdale"s above should be the end of his public service. With prejudice.