Tag Archives: Liberty

God or Government?

Posted by Tim on

Our nation was founded on the belief that men and women are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For these rights to live on, our government was set up with a complex system of checks and balances. No one person or party can govern against the will of the people, and even the will of the people is limited by our Constitution and the Supreme Court.

But our founders also knew that in order for our society to prosper our people would need to have good values, a strong work ethic, and a belief in God. Of course, there is a freedom of religion, and there is no national “God”. Our Founding Fathers also weren’t advocating a theocracy. What they were saying is that faith and religion were important. If liberty is limited by government, then we need something else to rule us. Our government isn’t here to tell us what is right and what is wrong. Much of what is morally wrong is perfectly legal. But to preserve the civil society, we need to have some kind of rule in place – God.

It is precisely when people lose their faith in God that they start looking for salvation in other places. Some people find their God in material things; houses, cars, fortunes in offshore bank accounts. Other people find their God in themselves; fame, admiration, power. The masses will many times come to replace God with government. The world is imperfect, and God doesn’t offer solutions nearly as quickly as government does. Many times we feel as if God is ignoring us, but government… government listens to us if we elect the right people.

Our democratic system however is designed specifically to hinder progression. All those checks and balances really get in the way when we’re trying to move things along. Of course this is done on purpose. New laws shouldn’t be passed willy nilly. The government’s power to do bad is infinitely greater than its power to do good. But nevermind all of that. People want their “progress” and they want it now!

F.A. Hayek wrote in The Road to Serfdom,

Yet, agreement that planning is necessary, together with the inability of democratic assemblies to produce a plan, will evoke stronger and stronger demands that the government or some single individual should be given the powers to act on their own responsibility. The belief is becoming more and more widespread that, if things are to get done, the responsible authorities must be freed from the fetters of democratic procedure.

F.A. Hayek

F.A. Hayek

Hayek was talking about people becoming frustrated with the slowness of the democratic process and believing that government’s powers shouldn’t be as limited as they are. In fact, some people may want to give powers to a single authority and count on that person to just “do what is best”. They are ignorant of the fact that they are demanding a dictator.

This is happening today. Cries from both sides of the aisle (although more so from the left) are telling politicians to just “do what needs to be done” without worrying whether they actually have the power to do such things. During the debates over whether or not to raise the debt ceiling, people wanted the president to just issue an executive order that would raise the debt ceiling regardless of what congress says. These people are asking for one person to have all the power – a dictator, a God.

If we want liberty, we need something to govern us other than government. God is the answer. How is it that we survived so long without government passing new laws everyday? We didn’t need all of these laws before. But God has slowly been kicked to the curb, and people are crying out for government to rescue us. The security government gives us is a trade off with liberty. The security God gives us is not.

The battle with overpowering government is not just with Washington. It is a battle of good and evil; of light and darkness. If we live in a world without God, we live in darkness. It is in this darkness where totalitarianism lives. For limited government, and our liberty, to prevail, God must win in America. If God is struck from our schools, from our media, and from our everyday life we have little hope. It is a choice between God or government.

Conservative Hope

Posted by Tim on

I’m a bit of a pessimist. I tend to see the world (and my country in particular) going down the drain right before my eyes. I take a bit of comfort in knowing that everything is a part of God’s plan, and that even the Bible talks about the world becoming more and more evil until the day of reckoning is finally upon us. If we look at history, things have really only gotten worse. Obviously we’ve made tremendous technological advances, but the morals of the world are certainly no better than they were 300 years ago, and many people (including myself) would argue that they’re actually worse.

With all that negative thinking, I still sometimes try to see the best in life, and look for a glimmer of hope. Its hard to find, but I found something. It may not be much, but perhaps its a sign that my country will be able to continue walking in the footsteps laid by our founding fathers for at least another century or so. The hope comes from this – knowing that people change, and that some of the most influential people in Western civilization once had views opposite to what they’re known for.

In particular, I’m referring to John Locke, the philosopher who inspired our Founding Fathers to create a nation based on the power of the individual and his God given rights to pursue his own self interests. During the Constitutional Convention no man was quoted more than John Locke. The idea that men were created by God with certain unalienable rights – to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; this was John Locke. Men are not tools of the government, nor are they tools belonging to each other to create some collectivist goal. They are individuals, who can live their own lives, raise their families as they see fit, and own their own property.

Recently I’ve been reading up a bit on Locke’s life before he became the man we revere today. Before he was sternly against an all powerful government, he was for it. That’s right. During his tenure at Oxford University in England he agued for authoritarian rule. It wasn’t until years later that he worked and reworked the philosophy that we know and love – Americanism, in many respects. He spent many years working closely with the Earl of Shaftesbury, a man who changed Locke tremendously. The two of them bounced ideas off each other, and Locke developed a keen sense for politics and economics, as well as religion and morals.

So, if the man most responsible for the basic principles that America was founded on was a converted authoritarian, then anyone can be converted. After reading this, I thought about other great minds who were once on one side of the aisle but settled along the side of liberty, property rights, and individualism. Among them are Thomas Sowell, perhaps my favorite author. The strong conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was once a devoted statist, looking for government to “right” history’s wrongs. Ronald Reagan, who is often considered the greatest conservative in modern history, was once a democrat. Even a number of local conservative talk show hosts, Vicki McKenna and Mark Belling, were once democrats.

This all gives me hope. Everyone can change, there is no such thing as destiny or inevitability. America is not certain to fall just because “even Rome fell”. We can change our path, change the morals of our country, and allow America to remain the only beacon of hope and freedom that the world has left. It takes work, and it takes sacrifice, but lets remember that we’re no ordinary population. America is the freest, most prosperous nation in the history of the world. We built this country, and just because it needs a little fixing doesn’t mean that we should let it go in the trash.

Recommended Reading (7/21/12)

Posted by Tim on

The 60s are thought of as an era of progressivism – the hippies, the anti-war crowd,  the civil rights movement. The 80s were of course seen as a decade of strong conservatism. Reagan owned the White House and ran America well; by lowering taxes he raised revenue which he used to build up our military into the most powerful Army on the planet, which hadn’t been the case since a few years after WWII. But if we go back a into the 60s, we see that what Reagan capitalized on was started 20 years earlier.

In 1960, Arizona Senator, Barry Goldwater, wrote his timeless classic, The Conscience of a Conservative. At the time, Goldwater was one of the only true conservatives in the Senate. He gave the guidelines of how to get America back on track. At the time we were a nation weakened tremendously by the days of the New Deal. People were being taxed as high as 90%. Government was growing and spending recklessly. The way back was to embrace the US Constitution and let the free market work.

Goldwater explains the problems with labor unions. He explains problems with the federal government encroaching on state’s rights. He spends considerable time talking about America’s foreign policy towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Showing strength and consistency are extremely important, and aiding the allies we have over the enemies we’d like to turn into friends is vital. Above all – our leaders must not be naive when dealing with people who do not intend to be our friends, and are only looking to destroy us.

Goldwater also makes the case for less taxation. People do not work to serve the government, and the government ought to live within its means. Our money is used most wisely when we use it ourselves, not when the federal government spends it for us. Furthermore, the programs that government spends it money on are often destructive – welfare in particular. There is nothing moral about taking by force from X to give to Y. Charity is best left to individuals, private organizations, and churches.

The principles that Goldwater taught – liberty, limited government, constitutionalism, individualism, and the free market – have impacted countless conservative politicians for decades. Goldwater’s book led him to an unsuccessful presidential run in 1964, but 16 years later, Ronald Reagan would apply his teachings and change America forever.

Santorum and Porn?

Posted by Tim on

NOTE: I’ve held onto this post and resisted publishing it. My home state of Wisconsin is voting soon, and I didn’t want to give any extra negative attention to Rick Santorum. BUT, I’ve decided that keeping posts private for the sole purpose of helping a candidate is something that would compromise my personal integrity. While this post may hurt Santorum, in the end, he hurt himself. Keep in mind, that while I’m ranting about Rick, I’m still voting for him on April 3rd, and I urge everyone else to do the same. 

I’ve been very open about this – I’m voting for Rick Santorum in the Wisconsin primary, and if he’s the nominee I’ll gladly vote for him against Barry Obama. I like where he stands on a lot of issues. He’s a strong supporter of Israel, he’s proposed a great tax plan to bring back manufacturing jobs to America, and he’s a hero among the Pro-Life crowd. All that being said, there are still a few things that make me shake my head about him. The most recent – “ban porn”.

So much for free markets, ey? Rick’s plan to crack down of “hardcore” pornography isn’t real far fetched. He’s a family-man. He’s a practicing Catholic, and is big on family values. I can understand Rick not liking porn and the porn industry. He has strong values, and I can see why he’s against porn. He’s also brought up the fact that porn can cause problems in relationships, and can negatively affect the brain. While I’m not sure these are really “facts”, I’ll give Rick and his researchers the benefit of the doubt.

All that being said – okay. Porn is bad. BUT… that’s his opinion. There are a lot of things that are “bad”. That doesn’t mean we ban them. Cigarettes are bad. They cause so many deaths that we can measure the deaths by the minute. Why aren’t we banning cigarettes? Come on, Rick. This isn’t a path you want to go down. Are you in favor of the free market, or not?

As I discussed HERE, banning a product, whether its drugs or porn, doesn’t eliminate it. It pushes it to a black market, where the dangers are far worse. Instead of a (relatively) clean porn enviroment, we’d have a completely unregulated “black market” of porn. Does this mean little kids getting involved? Doesn’t this mean people who are filmed without their permission? Keep it legal so we can monitor it and regulate it.

This is by no means a pro-porn post. I’m indifferent on the subject. What someone does in their free time is none of my business. Frankly, I don’t want to know. Some people may say that porn is ruining relationships, and that may be true. There might be cases where it actually helps relationships though. In the end, its each individual’s responsibility to make their own choices.

The thing that frightens me about Rick’s stance on this is that its very similar to a utopian mindset. “If only we could pass enough laws and control people’s behavior, we could create a utopia!” Banning things for “people’s own good” is what the left does. Banning porn is no different than banning guns, banning sugary foods, or banning light bulbs. Let the market work, let people make their own decisions. The government has no place censoring the internet, or magazines people get. Come on, Rick.

Free Market = Free People: Debunking Socialism

Posted by Tim on

Compare and contrast. We were taught that when we were little kids. It’s important to compare things to one another, not necessarily to judge them, but to gain a better understanding of the ways the world works. It’s amazing how many people fail to use this basic test towards the biggest issues of today. Compare and contrast private schools with public schools, for instance. If we were honest with ourselves, we might be able to steal a few good ideas from private schools and use them to make public schools better. But no. Compare and contrast isn’t for real world issues, is it?

Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes

The big battle of the last century has been capitalism versus socialism. In the simplest terms – capitalism is businesses and trade being directed by private individuals, while socialism is businesses and trade directed by the state. The idea behind capitalism is that individuals know how to create wealth better than the government. Every person makes their own decisions which impact how much money they make. The “problem” with capitalism is that you end up with some people who have a LOT of money, and other people who have very little.

Socialism takes control of the market, and directs businesses to pay certain wages, provide certain benefits, and produce certain products. When the government takes control of all these things they are able to “spread the wealth” evenly. The chasm between rich and poor isn’t nearly as wide. The problem with socialism is that it completely does away with things like incentives, it limits political freedom, and it completely ignores the role of prices in the market.

And so the argument continues. It is, however, very easy to put an end to any argument that socialism is superior to capitalism. Compare and contrast. As Milton Friedman said, “The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of prediction with experience.” So, with that in mind, let’s compare the prediction of socialism with our actual experience with socialism.

Greece. Like much of Europe, Greece is in an economic crisis. Much of this is due to it’s socialist policies. The young working class pay for and support the retirement of the seniors. Sounds fair right? People who make money give it to help those who aren’t working. The problem? Well, there are too many people collecting money and not enough people earning it. Greece’s unemployment rate is over 20%, and their retirement age is 50. Without incentives for people to earn more (and keep more), the working population continues to go in debt to support socialist retirement programs.

Cuba. Cuba actually has a number of things going for it. It has a very low unemployment rate, it has small debt (at least in comparison to Europe and the US), and only 1.5% of it’s population is “below the poverty line”. On the other hand, what exactly is the “poverty line” in a country where the average annual income is $9,900? And if the people of Cuba love it so much, why are basic freedoms (like expression, and the press) suppressed by the Cuban government? And why does Cuba have to keep it’s citizens captive? – That’s right. Emigration is pretty much outlawed in Cuba. No one gets to leave, because if they could – everyone would.

At night - one has lights, one doesn't.

At night - one has lights, one doesn't.

But, never mind all of that. I hear the same story from people all the time. “Those countries aren’t true socialist countries.” “True communism has never been tried. We’ve only seen this barbaric form of totalitarianism.” Funny how often communism and totalitarianism go hand in hand. Perhaps that’s because to control a market requires controlling the people who make up that market. One thing people often overlook it that “markets” are PEOPLE. Free market = free people, which is why political freedom and economic freedom are inseparable.

But again – let’s not only compare the predictions with the results. Let’s compare the results with the results of alternatives. The evidence is jaw dropping, and the list goes on and on. I’ll let you do your own research, but here are a few examples -

  • North Korea vs South Korea
  • East Germany vs West Germany
  • Soviet Union vs United States
  • California vs Texas
  • Illinois vs Wisconsin

Like Friedman said, the only relevant test to the validity of a hypothesis, (in this case, socialism) is comparing the predictions (everyone wins) with the actual experience (everyone loses). In the end, the actual evidence does not hold up. The only system to ever greatly increase the standard of living for a society has been the free market system. Unfortunately, the free market creates winners and losers. But even after all the wins and loses, the country as a whole continues to grow.

Adam Smith - Father of Capitalism

Adam Smith - Father of Capitalism

So why do people continue to flirt with the idea of socialism even if it’s failed miserably whenever it’s been tried, and even when there is a clear superior alternative? There are two things that make the modern day socialist tick. A misunderstanding of human nature, and a misunderstanding of economics. Things like money, prices, and incentives are very real and very important, and things like greed and envy are inseparable from humans.

There’s an idea out there that a utopia can be created. If only the economy were under the control of one centralized all-powerful government, everything would work out. Everyone would get what they need, and no one would want anything else. But that’s not the real world. People want more than they need, and they in fact have a right to go after it – the “pursuit of happiness”. The ideal socialist society is a fantasy. It’s been thought of for centuries, by Plato, by Thomas Hobbes, and by Karl Marx. It’s all the same, and it’s all unrealistic. Whenever it’s been tried it’s resulted in a controlled suppressed people, and a stagnant or dying economy.

Another big misconception is what Thomas Sowell calls the “Zero Sum Fallacy“. It’s the idea that wealth is not created, it’s distributed. The idea that there is a set amount of money in an economy, and one person can only get richer if someone else gets poorer. This is the backbone of why people are frustrated with capitalism. They simply don’t understand that even if one person earns millions, it doesn’t affect anyone else. His millions do not take away from what anyone else earns. Envy is understandable, it’s human nature, but envy in a free market is unfounded.

So, we have a group of people who believe that their fantasy can become reality. They disregard the laws of economics, and the laws of nature. Capitalism on the other hand doesn’t do away with human nature. It instead works with it. People are greedy – so why not let money be an incentive for them to invent, produce, think. Prices fluctuate for reasons, and disregarding those reasons in favor of price controls creates shortages and surplusses, neither of which serve anyone. The most people’s needs are met when a free market it truly free. Like I said earlier – free market = free people.

The Lunch Police

Posted by Tim on
Junk Food - It's okay for them, but not for you.

Junk Food - It's okay for them, but not for you.

All first ladies have their little causes. Nancy Reagan had her “war on drugs”. Linda Bush had her crusades against stupid kids (good luck with that one). And Michelle Obama has child obesity. How touching, right? While her hubby deals with important concerns like cutting our national debt (wait a minute), this valuable White House mommy strikes up wars against cultural issues. Oh… how cute!

Turns out, that every time someone pushes their nose into our lives, whether it be Barry or his ugly wife, Michelle, a little more of our freedom is trampled on. The latest news story – the lunch police. Here – read up:

RAEFORD – School and state officials say a misunderstanding resulted in a West Hoke Elementary School preschooler’s homemade lunch being replaced with chicken nuggets.

An agent from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Child Development and Early Education was at the school Jan. 30 assessing the pre-kindergarten program, said Bob Barnes, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for Hoke County schools.

The agent examined the lunches for the six students in the class and believed one did not meet nutritional requirements spelled out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Barnes said.

According to the USDA, schools are required to provide lunches that include one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.

The 4-year-old, whose name was not released, brought a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, potato chips and apple juice.

The Department of Health and Human Services declined to say which requirement was not provided in the child’s lunch.

The girl thought she had to go through the lunch line for a new meal, Barnes said.

By the way – that clever little piece was taken from http://www.thetimesnews.com/articles/lunch-52587-barnes-child.html

Now, the article goes on to say “we aren’t trying to be the lunch police”, but if that’s not what they’re doing, what ARE they doing? Why are there federal agents in pre-schoolers’ lunch bags? I know, I know – to look out for the children. Well, apparently, the government knows best, and will step right in front of parents to lead the way. Michelle Obama and her obesity goons now have their hands all over your child’s lunch.

It’s the little things that make up life. Things like taking pride in making your child’s lunch in the morning. Well, parenting is no longer the job of parents. From cradle to grave – the government will take care of you. The government will tell you what to feed your child, what to teach your child, and how to discipline your child. You, as a parent, are being stripped of your rights. Ain’t it great? No responsibility! No concerns! The government will be here to hold your hand…

The Right to Life

Posted by Tim on

Let’s make some waves…

For a number of years we were in the political climate that pushed social issues to the backseat. We had loads of new hybrid ideologies. So called “fiscal conservatives” and “moderates” began to come out of the woodwork. Social issues like immigration and gay marriage were looked over. The important thing was our economy. Well, all that changed recently. Abortion, the Catholic church, and the federal government are all tangled up in a web of confusion.

My take on virtually everything is simplicity. Don’t make issues more complicated than they are. But abortion is an issue that seems to make everything more complicated. It gets people’s emotions going. Women’s “rights” protestors, pro “choice” advocates, and femi-nazis all make a lot of noise over the issue of abortion. To me it’s real simple though. Here’s a way I explain the issue to someone who is undecided.

Imagine for a moment, if you will, that you are married, and that both you and your spouse have decent jobs. You decide the time is right and you want to start a family. You plan everything out, get your budget in order, and read a few parenting books. Your wife is pregnant, and you’re super excited to be a dad. One night while your wife is walking to her car after a late night at work someone pushes her down, and attempts to steal her purse. While she’s on the ground, she attempts to stop him, and he in turn kicks her in the stomach. He actually kicks her so hard that he kills her unborn baby.

Now, what will happen to this man? Does he go to jail for assault and robbery, or assault, robbery AND murder? I imagine most moms would say murder had taken place. Her baby, though unborn, was still a life that he ended. I agree with moms who would take such a position. That man deserves to be charged with murder.

The other end of the spectrum is someone who doesn’t want their baby. This woman is single, still in school, and unemployed. She had a rough week, went out and drank too much, and wound up making a huge mistake. She slept with someone she doesn’t know, and is pregnant. She’s scared, and just wants an abortion so she can move on with her life and forget about her mistake. She goes to a doctor, and he uses some fancy vacuum cleaner to suck her baby out of her – ending the child’s life.

In both cases a child was killed, a life was lost. But only one was called murder, the other was called abortion. Sounds like a twisted double standard, right? What we are in turn saying is that a life is only a life if we say it is. We’re saying that one person can determine another person’s worth. A baby is only a baby only if it’s mother wants it.

Carry this kind of thinking to adults and we’re saying that one person should be allowed to kill another, if they think it’s right. Is that how justice works? No. The circumstances do not determine whether a life has value, whether a child has a soul, or whether God has a plan for a child. We are all God’s children, and to use our own standards to decide whether an innocent life is worth keeping is not only stepping out of bounds, it’s making decisions that only God can make.

You see, humans have certain unalienable rights, and among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Notice which one came first – life. And the reason we have the right to life is not because some person gave us that right, or because our government grants us that right. It’s a right that comes from God. If God knew us before we were in the womb, doesn’t it make sense that we were given the right to life before we were born? Yes. And to take away that right, the right to life, is without a doubt wrong.

Not a lot of people will come out and say that. It’s not always easy to say what you believe. Sometimes its not easy to know what you believe. But people talk, people ask questions, and people want to know. I’m a fiscal conservative, but where do I stand on abortion?  There you have it. You know where I stand, and more importantly I know where I stand. Where do you stand? Think about it.

Trade-Offs and Entitlements

Posted by Tim on

It’s my position as a conservative that there is no utopia that humans will ever attain. Life is a series of trade-offs. You trade one thing for another, and try to get the best deal. This is true not only for big government agencies, but also for individuals. That’s why it’s best for each individual to make their own decisions about virtually every aspect of life. The obvious exceptions would be actions that hurt other people (murder, for instance).

When we control these decisions for ourselves we are free. Whether it be simple things like whether you want ethanol in your gasoline or not, what type of lightbulbs you want to use, or what kind of guns you want to buy. It pertains to more complex things like what (if any) health insurance you want or how much of your check you want taken out for social “security”. When it comes down to it, it’s being free to chose what’s best for you.

But along with freedom comes responsibility. If you are free to decide whether you want health insurance or not, then that means that it’s also your responsibility to get it for yourself. It’s no one else’s job to provide it for you. Since FDR’s Raw Deal, I mean New Deal, our country has begun buying into the entitlement ideology. All of a sudden people became entitled to retirement funds (social security). Soon after elderly people became entitled to medical care (medicare). Then poor people were entitled to a helping hand (welfare), unemployed people were entitled to a safety net (unemployment benefits), and poor people were entitled to medical care (medicaid).

But with each of these programs people’s freedom slips away. Little by little, as our responsibility fades, so does our freedom. We no longer can chose whether or not we want social security; it comes out of our check automatically. The bummer for me is that by the time I’m old enough to cash in on what I’ve paid into social security, it’ll be bankrupt and gone. I’m getting screwed and so are a lot of other people!

And the new entitlement – Obamacare. Suddenly these supposed 40 million people who don’t buy their own insurance are entitled to it. But as soon as they become “entitled”, I become responsible for them. I already pay for my own health insurance, and now I have to pay for someone else’s? But who are these 40 million people? Well, a lot of them actually qualify for medicare and medicaid. A lot of the rest are illegal immigrants, and a bunch of the other people just don’t want health insurance. So, 40 million is quite the exaggeration.

And wait – if these people already qualify for medicaid, why do they need something else? Are you telling me that government run “medicaid” isn’t working? Are you telling me that “medicare” is broke? That’s right. These programs are not only failing in countries around the world, but they are actually failing in our own country. Medicaid is supposed to take care of the people who can’t afford health insurance, and guess what – it’s bankrupt. It failed. Care is not provided, many medical procedures aren’t covered, many medications aren’t covered. Exactly what’s happening in Canada and in Britain.

You see – there is no magic solution to our problems. We live in a flawed world, and a dream-world utopia is impossible. We just make trade offs. We trade price for quality and quantity. Lower the price of medical care, and you get less of it. People often wonder why US medical care costs so much. The reason is simple – we get more for what we pay. We have more doctors available, more medicines available, more beds available, more hospitals available. Compare that to countries like Britain where wait time for surgery is 6 months. Where you wait in a ward instead of in a private room. And where doctors aren’t available for appointments in a few days notice. Are these luxuries we’re willing to give up? A 6 month wait for surgery can be the difference between life and death. And it’s not a myth –  people are dying in countries with “universal” government-run healthcare.

It’s simple. Trade-offs. It’s economics. It’s reality. And when you start believing in some alternate reality, and ignore the laws of economics, which are the laws of scarcity, you don’t get to a utopia. Instead, ever-so slowly you drift into tyranny.