Adam Smith Quote

"Every man is, no doubt, by nature,
first and principally recommended to his own care;
and as he is fitter to take care of himself
than of any other person, it is fit and right that it should be so."

by:	Adam Smith (1723-1790) Scottish philosopher and economist
Source:	The Theory of Moral Sentiments par. III.I.85
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Categories:	Nature, Responsibility, Self-Reliance, Welfare
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How about unconstitutional fascist style health care via Romney; unconstitutional communist health care via the Obamunist; or unconstitutional eugenicist health care via the statist theocracy that now infests this country? hmm. How about if I choose what health care I want (zero to full), comes to mind.  -- Mike, Norwalk
Why provide for yourself that which you can take from another?  -- Justin, Elkland
THE REPUBLIC IS DOOMED FOR THE TREASURY CAN NOT SUPPORT NOR IS OBLIGATED BY LAW TO PROVIDE PERSONS WITH VALUES FROM OTHERS.  -- GUSTAVO, DACULA
Mike I'm up north in Canada. The news here yesterday said that 59% of Canadians polled feel the Americans are NOT being presented with the facts about Canadian style health care. As for the quote: Who better to decide how I should spend my money...than me?  -- J Carlton, Calgary
J Carlton, interesting stats indeed and it also kind of indicates what Canadians think of their own health care. Not such good thoughts I would think.  -- Anon
Adam Smith, a common name and uncommon intelligence..  -- jim k, austin
Anon, its a system frought with bureaucracy (A Stalinist invention) under which people are dying on waiting lists. That, and they are slowly weeding out service for the elderly as unnecessary. Nice! Its all about control...  -- J Carlton, Calgary
Self preservation is what built this nation as Adam Smith would have it. There is no better way!  -- cal, lewisville, tx
All of your comments taken together and especially Mike's insertion of the health care issue it would seem that Adam would prefer a system in which each person doctored and nursed themselves. I have heard of some uncommon folks who have performed their own appendectomies and who knows what other medical procedures. In honor of Adam and the the times maybe our slogan should be "Each man his own doctor and nurse"! Justin is on to something and if anyone thinks that we do not live in an interdependent world they are really smoking some good stuff. I give it a five for poetry but take away three for how it can cause irrational thinking.  -- Waffler, Smith
Waffler, great distortion and absurd conclusion. Freedom is, that an individual voluntarily gets to choose his / her own profession (such as doctor) and, I, as an individual sovereign, get to choose what health care I desire. That was an applied example of the quote. Justin was absolutely correct concerning Amerika's statist theocracy. Carlton, I'm sure Americans are not being presented with the facts about Canadian health care (knowing what stuff Amerika's media puts out). I personally have not researched all the pros and cons but, besides that, I side with the non compliance compelled.  -- Mike, Norwalk
Waff, of course responds to to tangible / logical reasoning as all leftists do. With emotional appeals and a reasoning based on wishful thinking. Waff, Why don't you explain how socialized medicine run by unionized government bureacrats (that can not be fired) who are in a work to rule mode at all times is preferable to one on one medical care from a professional who's personal well being is dictated by his own performance?  -- J Carlton, Calgary
Yes Mike absolutely and free men get to choose together what type of medical system and its distribution they would like to have not to exclude the individuals right to do his own thing. Opinions are great but it would be nice to see facts on occasion. Medicare uses 3% of its income for administration, insurance and HMO's use 20%. I personally know of one HMO in which the CEO received a one million dollar salary. Financial services including and especially insurance is a shell game that most common folk have no knowledge of and can be easily and are hoodwinked. How do you think Prudential, MetLife and all of the rest got so rich? By manipulating actuarial tables, collecting premiums and denying claims. That is the game folks and Canada is not the absolutely best but has some good features. It has 2.1 docs per thousand, Belgium has 4.2. Belgium and Germany I have heard have better health care than Canada. Much of the industrialized world has a different value system than the US. Australia, Japan, Canada, and Europe see health care as a basic humaan right. We see it as a right based on how good of an employer you have (such as IBM. GM or the US Senate etc) If you work for someone else, tough S**t. Of course all of us that buy the products of those great companies pay for their great health insurance in the price of their products. To those companies credit they know that a healthy work force is a productive work force and they attract the best people. We need to get the value systems of those great companies into our public arena so that we can become a happy and productive people.  -- Waffler, Smith
The problem with healthcare in any industrialized nation is government involvement of any kind. ...as in "HI We're from the government and we're here to help"....run for your lives.  -- J Carlton, Calgary
J Carlton brings up a subject concerning who is logical. A study has been conducted that found that the most religious of societies seem to have the least logic amd the most problems. This goes along with the lyrics of Stevie Wonder when he wrote in Supersition - "If you believe in things you don't understand, you suffer.". The so called right wing in the USA led by none other than Rush has the most illogical positions imaginable starting with the stupid construction, "republic not a democracy" and his logic goes down hill from there.  -- Waffler, Smith
No one is about to accuse you of having logic Waffler. You take a clear quote and extract some muddled distorted piece of crap out of it. As Usual you embarrass your self.  -- warren, olathe
I am not in this to look good or come off good or get votes. I am in this only as part of a Truth Squad.  -- Waffler, Smith
Ahh yes, Waffler's Truth Squad. It would be really funny if it wasn't so sad. Waffler changes the definitions to words and concepts to make them fit (never quite accomplishing what he sets out to do), states extreme conclusions to the point of absurdity, forgets the Constitution all together - making stuff up as he goes, tries to sound legitimate by making off topic statements and examples to divert the subject matter, lies when the truth would be better, etc., etc., etc. A question Waffler. How does compelling my compliance, making me a slave to your desires, committing larceny by threat and duress, killing the engine that produces most of the worlds new drugs, mechanical apparatuses for the medical field, medical procedures, etc. all while bankrupting the country and further eliminating any vestige of the Constitution in the process, (unless of course your real goal was social slavery, a statist theocracy, tyranny and desptism)?  -- Mike, Norwalk      1
Mike thy name is hypocrisy. Instead of using the common every day expression of "law obidence" or "law enforcement" he uses the term "compelled compliance". After all that is what law is. Then he accuses others of changing meanings. I have asked him if he means by his terminology that he is against LAW in all or any of its manifestations and he just so to speak sits there apparently dumbfounded. I point out the failure of the above quote to be appropos or universally true by responding to Mike's off topic remarks concerning health care. As any elementary or rudimentary student of American economics and industrial history knows is that our succes came from the interchangeability of parts, separation of labor, and specialization rather than one man building the entire edifice or a custom made gun. Thus we became interdependent rather than independent in the realm of industry and medicine. The problems with health care Mike is the American Greed of the insurance industry. Explain this one. I take Propecia for hair loss. My local Rite Aid Drug store charges me $68 a month. I get a generic version in Mexico for $28 a month. I just received a three month supply from Cheapodrugs.com for $15 dollars a month. This last shipment was sent from the UK. Why do you abhor being ripped off or compelled or having your money ceased by "government" but can't see anything else. You read the Bible. You "see the mote in others eyes but cannot see the log stuck in your own". I hope you have a wonderful day, poor chap.  -- Waffler, Smith
Waffler, for an extremely terse example: 'law' or 'natural law', as was constitutionally understood, was most fundamentally based on Blackstone's definition (there were other authors and slight modifiers involved) with a significant modification that all law was eternally consistent (i.e. physics, gravity, fiscal, larceny, nobility of life, etc.) with any / all code, ordinance, regulation, rule, statute, etc. that was inharmonious, inconsistent, or contrary therewith would be ab initio invalid and unenforceable (by way of example, any code - statute, etc. that was inharmonious or contrary to the original intent of the Constitution, such would be ab initio invalid and unenforceable) . Man can not make / create law, he can only define it (code - statute, etc.). Only God can create law or if you don't believe in a god such law had no beginning and has no end as it concerns this perceivable existence. Waffler, so as to end your most currant lie, I may be the most ardent believer and supporter of law that you have ever communicated with. Waffler's definition of law differs from the original Constitution's and is consistent with the current unconstitutional's statist theocracy; i.e. man can create law and has the right to enforce what ever tyranny, despotism, slavery and compelled compliance it desires. Waffler's definition of law is an unconstitutional definition consistent with tyranny, despotism, and compelled compliance. I am somewhat dumbfounded that anyone would choose slavery over freedom, liberty, and an eternally lawful existence. Again, Waffler's off topic cost of drugs attempts to justify unconstitutional compelled compliance.  -- Mike, Norwalk
Further, any nation that forms its codes - statutes, etc. to violate law will eventually fail and end in violence and chaos. Any people that believe they can create law and enforce it are doomed to failure. A nation's rules can not support LARCENY (theft of the noble laborer's fruit, substitute debt for money, etc.) SLAVERY (any form of compelled compliance), LICENSE, or VICTIMLESS CRIMES (punish those that have in no way infringed on another's right(s) or harmed in anyway person or property) and long endure. Man can call his codes - statutes law but, they are not. Man can outlaw not stopping at a traffic sign when no one else is in the near proximity as well as outlawing gravity or physics but, all are equally unlawful. I do not use the common every day expression of "law obidence" or "law enforcement" because it is unlawful, unconstitutional, and historically proven to create violence, death, destruction, chaos, and misery. I prefer the definition of law that promotes truth, freedom, liberty, prosperity and was sought by the Constitution's founders.  -- Mike, Norwalk
Mike, you are right on point. Law can only come from the law giver, GOD. Have you ever read Frederick Bastiat's book, "THE LAW"? This whole government healthcare idea is nothing more than 'equal plunder under the law", rather than equal protection.  -- Howard, Bangkok
Government made law is usually to further the plunder of the nation and enforced with violence. Completely immoral on every imaginable level.  -- J Carlton, Calgary
You guys are flakes!  -- Waffler, Smith
If Mike and his hangers on are correct that law can only come from GOD then how do you explain your defense of The Constitution and its creation of a law making body called Congress. As I said before Mike is a hypocrite and a liar, one of the worst I have known. He claims that our framers and fvounders were acting and creating a repuclic based on "natural law". How do you explain the fact that they included the right and power of the governed to Amend The Constitution. The right to Amend did not come with any caveat that "any amendment must be in accordance with natural law".  -- Waffler, Smith
As far as the quote, I say Adam Smith is right (*****) because he says "first and principally", he does not say "always" or "only" or "totally". As far as the arguments (also *****). You are all so good at setting forth your arguments that I almost (just almost) forgot which side I am. But I'll stay Jeffersonian. More freedom and competition is the best way to go with Health Care so almost everyone can have access. And too many laws withdraw the precious gift of consciousness from people's minds. But antitrust and anti-cartel laws must exist and be enforced. That's what I think.  -- Elisabeth, Astoria, NY
Oh come on! Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is tryinig to con you out of your labors and money!  -- E Archer, NYC
Hey Waffler, ever actually GET your prescription from Cheapodrugs.com?  -- drgoodwrench, San Diego
How Waffler can disagree with this quote is a mystery.  -- jim k, Austin
Could not be more clear or true. Ten stars. Scotland should know and does. As they fight for Independence again also. Consider, the KJB1611 was translated and compiled in Scotland.  -- Ronw13, Yachats Or

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