On Friday, September 9, 2022, Kim Monson welcomes Constitution Week organizers Marc Auville and Mike Tompkins to preview Grand Lake’s premier celebration of our founding documents. The show turns to ESG dangers with researcher David Roth, who exposes how environmental, social, and governance mandates threaten free markets. Dr. Keith Smith of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma closes the broadcast with insights on the coming healthcare revolution.
Marc Auville and Mike Tompkins preview the 11th annual Grand Lake U.S. Constitution Week, running September 12-18. Auville explains that Constitution Week originated in 1955 when the Daughters of the American Revolution petitioned Congress and President Eisenhower to set aside September 17-23 for observing the Constitution’s signing. Tompkins highlights the stellar lineup of speakers, including constitutional scholars, military veterans, and former Ambassador Frank Donatelli, who will discuss Reagan’s speech on the Constitution’s 200th anniversary.
The week features daily presentations at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m., a parade with F-16 flyover, dedication of Veterans Memorial Park by American Legion Post 88, and fireworks over the waterfront on September 17th. Tompkins notes that 30 of the 39 Constitution signers were military veterans, including James Madison himself.
“Our founders mutually pledged to each other their lives, fortunes, and sacred honors that we would have freedom. They must be rolling in their graves in anguish almost on a daily basis as these liberties get eviscerated. But once a year, in a little town of Grand Lake, as we honor the Constitution, they look down from above at our event and smile.”
Marc Auville, Constitution Week Organizer
David Roth breaks down ESG, the environmental, social, and governance framework that functions as a social credit rating system for businesses. Roth identifies two pillars driving ESG: global climate change alarmism and equity, the latter meaning equality of outcome rather than opportunity. He traces ESG’s roots to sustainable investment initiatives from the 1950s-60s, but warns that the movement has transformed into a mechanism for transitioning from shareholder capitalism to a stakeholder model controlled by global elites.
Roth points to concrete examples of ESG in action: Colorado’s adoption of California emissions standards, the 22,000 Denver residents whose smart thermostats were remotely controlled during a heat wave, and California’s impending 2035 ban on gas-powered vehicles. He connects these policies to the World Economic Forum’s agenda and the Davos globalist elites who, in his words, “believe they know best how you should live your life.”
The conversation turns to the distinction between equality and equity. Roth explains that equality means equal opportunity before the law, while equity demands predetermined outcomes enforced through coercion. He warns that ESG-compliant countries like Sri Lanka and the Netherlands are experiencing economic destruction as a direct result of these policies.
“ESG is just another way to spell control. What we’re doing is we are replacing a form of governance that we have had and our socioeconomic system for what? For this idea that we have equity over excellence.”
David Roth, ESG Researcher
Dr. Keith Smith, board-certified anesthesiologist and co-founder of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, describes a healthcare revolution emerging despite government and crony capitalism’s best efforts to suppress it. Smith’s facility pioneered posting surgical prices online, and similar transparent pricing models are spreading nationwide. He notes that family medicine doctors are increasingly abandoning hospital employment for direct primary care practices that serve patient interests exclusively.
Smith traces the dysfunction in American healthcare to deliberate government policy. He argues that draconian Medicare fee cuts for physicians in the early 1990s were designed to push doctors into hospital employment, making them easier to control. Meanwhile, hospital reimbursement rates remained profitable, creating the current system where bureaucrats rather than patients drive medical decisions.
The conversation addresses COVID’s impact on healthcare freedom. Smith recounts how his facility continued operating during lockdowns, serving patients from locked-down states who couldn’t access procedures deemed “elective” by their governors. He warns against the Canadian model, where government-run healthcare has led to euthanasia becoming the sixth leading cause of death as treatments are increasingly denied to the elderly.
Smith recommends patients seek out direct primary care physicians, explore cost-sharing ministries like Christian Healthcare Ministries or Samaritan Ministries, and check the Free Market Medical Association’s website for transparent pricing. He believes the market is bringing even resistant hospital systems and insurance carriers to heel as self-funded employers demand better value.
“I consider government not essential. The government that has inflicted Obamacare and the rest of the insanity in this industry, that same government, I don’t believe, should be trusted with the management of any sort of aspect of an infectious disease.”
Dr. Keith Smith, Co-founder, Surgery Center of Oklahoma
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