Hello, Dr. Keith Smith with you, Surgery Center of Oklahoma. Thank you for joining me.

In a recent conversation, an individual told me that, you know, liberals believe this, and conservatives believe that. The left believes this, and the right believes that. Using these terms to group individuals and their beliefs. I informed this individual that I use a tool to discriminate and distinguish between individuals and their beliefs, and that is simply this: do the ideas of people require violence or not? Ideas are either inflicted on people or they are embraced by individuals, and the presence or absence of violence is what I use to distinguish between what groups believe.

I bring this up because there’s price transparency legislation being considered in several states, Colorado the most recent example. The ideas of the free market and price transparency do not require violence, after all. In fact, inviting the government, at any level, to the free market party would simply destroy, I believe, the whole idea of free markets and price transparency. The beginning of every law, begins with a definition of terms. This is the opportunity for legislators, particularly the unscrupulous ones, to redefine price transparency to suit the needs and desires of the price gougers that legislation like this is ostensibly meant to regulate.

It also would afford legislators the opportunity to sell indulgences or exceptions. As many of these price gougers would pay large sums to receive these exemptions. I do not believe the ideas of the free market should be inflicted on people. In fact, most people cling to these ideas and embrace them, and they do not require violence. And I think the violence of the state should not be part of the free market revolution that this country is fortunately beginning to see.

Thank you for joining me. We’ll see you next time.