All societies need a moral foundation, and that is especially true of democracies because they are free. Freedom is a two-edged sword - it comes with great benefits and great temptations. Because we are free to succumb to our lesser angels, most of us need to be reminded and even exhorted to respond instead to our higher angels. Leaving aside the question of moral absolutes, each of us must be guided by some moral standards less we become anarchists. Like everyone else, I live by many standards. Here are some that I believe are among the most important:
• to provide for and protect our families;
• to care for those who cannot care for themselves;
• to protect our environment and use our resources wisely; and,
• to respect the rights of others.
I suspect that most readers will agree that all four of these are a good idea. But I see them as much more than a good idea. I see them as my personal responsibility. I believe I have an obligation, a bounden duty to live by these values; but, I sometimes lack the discipline to do so, and I need my family and my church to guide and remind me – to be my outer vocal conscience when my inner conscience succumbs to temptation. Many of my progressive friends also feel a bounden duty to live by these or other similar standards, but, rather than see them as moral standards, they believe the government should enact them into laws to ensure that everyone lives by them. Whether standards or laws, the issue is not whether morality is important – it clearly is. Rather, the issue is who establishes our morals: the government, or families and churches (temples, mosques, ashrams ... whatever).
So, should morality be legislated? Some legislation does have a moral foundation. For example, laws that redistribute wealth or limit the right to bear arms or require affirmative action are all intended to right perceived moral wrongs. In all three cases, some folks are in favor and some are opposed to the laws. Here’s the problem: many or even most people may disagree with any given moral stance, but once it is pressed into law, all are bound by its tenets. When the government is in charge of morality, everyone has to toe the line, whether they agree or not, and those who do not agree or comply are judged to be evil or corrupt or unethical, if not criminal. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want some professional politician or bureaucrat lecturing me about right and wrong, or censoring my speech, or dictating what food I eat, or deciding whether I should or can have a colonoscopy.
Absent government control, people are free to establish and live by their own standards, which will no doubt differ from those of many others. I am free to eat cheeseburgers even though they are bad for my health, and I am free not to get a colonoscopy even though my doctor thinks I should. Many people will disagree with my choices, but they cannot force me to cater to their judgment about what is the right thing to do. We must learn to get along in spite of our disagreements, remembering Oliver Wendell Holmes’ caution that “the right to swing my fist ends at where the other man’s nose begins”. If my choices, e.g., vulgar tatoos or failure to bathe, are repugnant to others, they are free not to hire or even associate with me. My repugnant choice may condemn me to live apart from others – my choice. Freedom is complicated and unruly, but it is far superior to government interference in our daily lives. I would much prefer to deal with an uncouth or nasty neighbor than a bureaucrat enforcing political correctness. We do not need the government to specify right and wrong.
Traditionally, American children have learned about right and wrong from their parents and their church. This seemed to work well enough for a long time, but America is becoming increasingly secular and the nuclear family is no longer the gold standard. Nowadays, many people rely more and more on laws, regulations, schools and the government to establish, teach, and administer moral codes. As people become increasingly reliant on the government to be their conscience, they become less generous with their time and money, and less participatory in their family and church lives. It’s just plain easier to let the government handle it - you don’t have to get personally involved. The rationalizations are endless: it’s the government’s job to care for the poor; I pay taxes so I don’t have to be personally concerned; belonging to a church ties up Sunday mornings and interferes with other discretionary time; everyone in the family is on a different schedule, so sit-down family dinners and discussions are just not practical; it’s the school’s job to discipline the kids; religion is for the ignorant; I live a modern lifestyle; I’m not stuck in the past; marriage is just a piece of paper; I’m just too busy.
So, how’s it working? As the influences of parents and churches have waned, gangs, violent videos, vile music lyrics, teen-age pregnancy, and poverty stricken single mothers are all on the rise. Cheating in school, in business, and in marriage, are an acceptable nuisance - troublesome, but tolerable as long as they don’t “get out of hand”. Lies and dishonesty are tolerated and even expected from our politicians and our government officials. A sense of entitlement pervades, and any sense of accomplishment is watered down in the name of “self-esteem” or “diversity”. Pride, personal integrity, loyalty, honesty, politeness, manners and decency, are often regarded as naive or even pretentious. Need I go on? Isn’t it time to return to our time-honored reliance on families and churches to establish and bear our moral standards?
We need family and religion. As everyone knows, both can be messy, sometimes unfair, and occasionally a huge pain in the ass; but, family and religion have traditionally provided an excellent foundation and purpose for our moral and ethical being. Families and religion are often problematical, but they are also the source of much of the sweetness in life. They bring us delight, they cause our spirits to soar, and they bless us with profound joy and love. I don’t know exactly how family and religion fit into economic theory and a free market economy, but they damned sure make us nicer people and the free market a nicer place.
17 October 2010
11 October 2010
Government V: Education
Like most folks, I believe that parents are ultimately responsible for the basic (K–12) education of their children. Whether parents choose to educate their own children or send them to public or private school, it is they who are responsible for ensuring their children receive a good education. Even though I recognize that many parents do not live up to that obligation, I remain confident that most parents want the best for their children and care very much about their education.
Parents naturally trust our public schools to deliver a good education, but American public schools are now subject to so much pressure from government agencies, teacher unions, and the education industry (ranging from colleges of education to textbook manufacturers) that parents no longer have much influence on school policies or programs. Government regulation and a pervasive liberal agenda in the education industry have displaced parental judgment on virtually all school matters, including which courses are taught, textbooks, and even value judgments on controversial issues. American parents have slowly but inexorably lost control. Instead of public schools being responsible to the parents, the schools have taken charge, and it is government employees and elected officials, not the parents, who are empowered to make the critical educational decisions.
Nearly 90% of American kids attend government controlled public schools, some of which are public charter or specialty (math, science, music, etc.) schools. The remaining 10% of children are home schooled or attend church or private schools. Home education has always worked reasonably well for those families with the means to hire tutors or a parent who is willing and able to teach, but this option is either out of reach or too overwhelming for most parents. For the most part, church schools provide a fine education, and non-church private schools almost always deliver a good, if not superior, education. Allowing that charter and specialty public schools generally provide a better education than the traditional public school down the street, I conclude that neighborhood public schools are at the bottom of the quality of education scale. With some notable exceptions, they are the least effective at accomplishing the primary goal of all schools – educating kids.
Many intervening forces plague our public schools: a regulated, legally established government controlled monopoly on education; school districts and administrative hierarchies that choke on their own bureaucracies; colleges of education which produce teachers who are committed to a progressive agenda and revisionist curricula; and, teachers unions that are focused more on themselves than the students. The result: our children are being educated by a public school monopoly that is failing to provide even minimally adequate, much less good education. Public schools are not preparing our children to compete in either the local or the global markets. Businesses continually complain that young people entering the work force have poor reading, writing, and mathematical skills. A recent widely publicized report on education concluded that American students rank 25th when compared to kids from other countries, even though American spending per student was the highest in the world. Ugh.
So, nearly everyone agrees that our immediate goal must be to improve education in America, but, what do we mean by a good education? Certainly, education should be open and available to all, providing every student with the same opportunity to excel and succeed. Most of us would agree that a good education must provide competency in core subjects like math, science, reading, writing, history, geography, and citizenship. (Some might argue about the last one, but this is my essay.) A good education should also offer an opportunity for students to explore their own interests and to honestly discuss opposing views on societal issues (without being coerced by their teachers); but make no mistake, education is first and foremost about the core subjects. All other goals, however important, are secondary. In the end, the overriding goal of education is to prepare students to provide for themselves and their families in an increasingly competitive world.
Let’s look at the big picture. The fundamental notion underlying education in America is that all students are equal. How silly. Certainly all students are equally valuable, but they are definitely not equal. Their abilities and interests vary immensely. The problems faced by the top 10% of each class are totally different from those of their peers in the bottom 10%. All the kids have problems and issues, but it is the lowest performing students that capture our attention. For example, consider “No Child Left Behind”. The name itself implies that we will concentrate on keeping even the lowest performing students in school, and nearly everyone seems to concur that this is an admirable goal. Admirable perhaps, but, should it be the primary goal of American education? How about broadening the emphasis to include all the students? How about, “No Child’s Potential Left Behind”? This would suggest that we should educate every child to the best of their individual abilities. It would suggest that top performing students are as important as their less gifted or less motivated classmates (oh, my ...). Of course we need to keep low performing students in school – the alternative is to condemn them to scratching for a living, or even gang life. That having been said, it is equally important to support and celebrate the top performers – our country and our future are in their hands.
Private schools do not ignore the top performers. We often hear that private schools offer the best educations, but they are too expensive for most of us ... or are they? We cannot know how expensive private schools really are because we have never allowed them to compete on the open market. Recent studies have shown that, in open competition, many private schools would be cost competitive with public schools. This is not too surprising considering that inflation adjusted spending for public school students has increased more than 300% in the past 40 years. Think about it. How can anyone reasonably justify a nearly quadruple increase in per student spending while student performance has remained flat or decreased? Any way you look at it, and regardless of the money spent, most public schools are doing a poor job of educating our kids.
Isn’t the answer obvious? If public education isn’t working, then eliminate the government monopoly. Open education up to competition in the free market. Allow public and private schools to compete for tax dollars. To do this, we must remove control of the money from the government and empower those who are responsible for the children – the parents. Instead of giving public schools tax dollars for each student, give the parents an equivalent amount in school vouchers and allow them to spend the vouchers at the public or private school of their choice. In order to be eligible for vouchers, schools would not be allowed to discriminate by race, ethnicity, etc., or to limit enrollment for any reason other than capacity, but they could advance students on different or even individual competitive tracks, based on student performance. Note that I suggest vouchers, not cash, be given to the parents. The vouchers could only be cashed by schools, thus ensuring that the money is spent on schooling. No doubt, some private schools would continue to charge more, some less, than the voucher amount, and parents would be free to pay the extra amount themselves or choose the less expensive school. All schools, public and private, would then be eligible to compete for the tax money. Top performing kids from even the poorest families would have an opportunity to attend the best schools, public or private.
Teachers unions, government bureaucrats, and their progressive friends often become apoplectic at the very suggestion of competitive education. Sadly, their opposing arguments are often more concerned with teacher benefits and teacher issues than with the quality of students’ educations. Their ongoing mantra is that they need more money, even though the last 40 years have clearly demonstrated that more money is not the answer. Even when they do set teacher issues aside and address educational quality, their arguments are related to equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. They prefer to teach all children the same, regardless of gender, drive, intellectual capacity, academic interest, or ability. Hogwash. This is classic dumbing-down.
Another commonly heard progressive argument against educational competition is that all the best students will leave and the public schools will be left with only the most difficult students. What a silly argument. If it is true that the best students will leave, it must be because they are leaving for better schools, including, by the way, some public schools. Yes, there are some public schools that will immediately attract the best students, because they are good schools. Obviously, it can and is being done, so why aren’t all the public schools providing a good education? Could it be because, absent competition, public schools have no incentive to change or adapt or improve? Competition works, and some healthy competition would force the rest of the public schools to adapt and become good schools themselves, to close their doors, or to change their educational emphasis.
Here’s a thought. How about a renewed interest in vocational education? At the risk of committing a huge politically incorrect faux pas, not every kid is college material. Many kids despise classroom academics, but are intrigued by mechanics, electronics, computers, construction, and other trades, and there happens to be an increasing dearth of young Americans who are qualified in the skilled trades. How often do we waste tens of thousands of dollars trying to cram a college education into a kid who hates school, will very probably never graduate from college, and, even if he/she does, it will be with a degree of doubtful value that is unlikely to ever generate enough income to pay back their student loans? Instead, why not convert some of our schools into work-study Vo-Tech schools that will graduate valuable, income producing, skilled trades-persons? They will become productive and enter the workforce at an earlier age, with the potential for a good income, and with no student loan debt hanging over their heads.
As long as our public schools remain a monopoly, and, as long as our teachers are protected by union contracts and tenure, neither the schools nor the teachers have any incentive to improve or even change. It is time to concentrate on every student’s potential, and to match their education to their abilities. It is time to provide access to good academic schools for students with academic potential, vocational training for those who dislike academics, and everything in between. It is past time to:
o institute a voucher system that will allow all schools, public and private, to compete,
o make each school an “open shop” where the teachers have an option whether or not to join the union,
o abolish tenure,
o provide nation-wide access to vocational training, and
o adjust each public school’s educational emphasis to the local demographics.
Call it what you will – our public schools are controlled by a government monopoly that is steeped in a liberal agenda. The result has been a system of “educational socialism” that is failing miserably.
I believe most Americans, given the choice, would chose the free market, thank you, and our children and our country would be so much better for the experience.
Parents naturally trust our public schools to deliver a good education, but American public schools are now subject to so much pressure from government agencies, teacher unions, and the education industry (ranging from colleges of education to textbook manufacturers) that parents no longer have much influence on school policies or programs. Government regulation and a pervasive liberal agenda in the education industry have displaced parental judgment on virtually all school matters, including which courses are taught, textbooks, and even value judgments on controversial issues. American parents have slowly but inexorably lost control. Instead of public schools being responsible to the parents, the schools have taken charge, and it is government employees and elected officials, not the parents, who are empowered to make the critical educational decisions.
Nearly 90% of American kids attend government controlled public schools, some of which are public charter or specialty (math, science, music, etc.) schools. The remaining 10% of children are home schooled or attend church or private schools. Home education has always worked reasonably well for those families with the means to hire tutors or a parent who is willing and able to teach, but this option is either out of reach or too overwhelming for most parents. For the most part, church schools provide a fine education, and non-church private schools almost always deliver a good, if not superior, education. Allowing that charter and specialty public schools generally provide a better education than the traditional public school down the street, I conclude that neighborhood public schools are at the bottom of the quality of education scale. With some notable exceptions, they are the least effective at accomplishing the primary goal of all schools – educating kids.
Many intervening forces plague our public schools: a regulated, legally established government controlled monopoly on education; school districts and administrative hierarchies that choke on their own bureaucracies; colleges of education which produce teachers who are committed to a progressive agenda and revisionist curricula; and, teachers unions that are focused more on themselves than the students. The result: our children are being educated by a public school monopoly that is failing to provide even minimally adequate, much less good education. Public schools are not preparing our children to compete in either the local or the global markets. Businesses continually complain that young people entering the work force have poor reading, writing, and mathematical skills. A recent widely publicized report on education concluded that American students rank 25th when compared to kids from other countries, even though American spending per student was the highest in the world. Ugh.
So, nearly everyone agrees that our immediate goal must be to improve education in America, but, what do we mean by a good education? Certainly, education should be open and available to all, providing every student with the same opportunity to excel and succeed. Most of us would agree that a good education must provide competency in core subjects like math, science, reading, writing, history, geography, and citizenship. (Some might argue about the last one, but this is my essay.) A good education should also offer an opportunity for students to explore their own interests and to honestly discuss opposing views on societal issues (without being coerced by their teachers); but make no mistake, education is first and foremost about the core subjects. All other goals, however important, are secondary. In the end, the overriding goal of education is to prepare students to provide for themselves and their families in an increasingly competitive world.
Let’s look at the big picture. The fundamental notion underlying education in America is that all students are equal. How silly. Certainly all students are equally valuable, but they are definitely not equal. Their abilities and interests vary immensely. The problems faced by the top 10% of each class are totally different from those of their peers in the bottom 10%. All the kids have problems and issues, but it is the lowest performing students that capture our attention. For example, consider “No Child Left Behind”. The name itself implies that we will concentrate on keeping even the lowest performing students in school, and nearly everyone seems to concur that this is an admirable goal. Admirable perhaps, but, should it be the primary goal of American education? How about broadening the emphasis to include all the students? How about, “No Child’s Potential Left Behind”? This would suggest that we should educate every child to the best of their individual abilities. It would suggest that top performing students are as important as their less gifted or less motivated classmates (oh, my ...). Of course we need to keep low performing students in school – the alternative is to condemn them to scratching for a living, or even gang life. That having been said, it is equally important to support and celebrate the top performers – our country and our future are in their hands.
Private schools do not ignore the top performers. We often hear that private schools offer the best educations, but they are too expensive for most of us ... or are they? We cannot know how expensive private schools really are because we have never allowed them to compete on the open market. Recent studies have shown that, in open competition, many private schools would be cost competitive with public schools. This is not too surprising considering that inflation adjusted spending for public school students has increased more than 300% in the past 40 years. Think about it. How can anyone reasonably justify a nearly quadruple increase in per student spending while student performance has remained flat or decreased? Any way you look at it, and regardless of the money spent, most public schools are doing a poor job of educating our kids.
Isn’t the answer obvious? If public education isn’t working, then eliminate the government monopoly. Open education up to competition in the free market. Allow public and private schools to compete for tax dollars. To do this, we must remove control of the money from the government and empower those who are responsible for the children – the parents. Instead of giving public schools tax dollars for each student, give the parents an equivalent amount in school vouchers and allow them to spend the vouchers at the public or private school of their choice. In order to be eligible for vouchers, schools would not be allowed to discriminate by race, ethnicity, etc., or to limit enrollment for any reason other than capacity, but they could advance students on different or even individual competitive tracks, based on student performance. Note that I suggest vouchers, not cash, be given to the parents. The vouchers could only be cashed by schools, thus ensuring that the money is spent on schooling. No doubt, some private schools would continue to charge more, some less, than the voucher amount, and parents would be free to pay the extra amount themselves or choose the less expensive school. All schools, public and private, would then be eligible to compete for the tax money. Top performing kids from even the poorest families would have an opportunity to attend the best schools, public or private.
Teachers unions, government bureaucrats, and their progressive friends often become apoplectic at the very suggestion of competitive education. Sadly, their opposing arguments are often more concerned with teacher benefits and teacher issues than with the quality of students’ educations. Their ongoing mantra is that they need more money, even though the last 40 years have clearly demonstrated that more money is not the answer. Even when they do set teacher issues aside and address educational quality, their arguments are related to equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. They prefer to teach all children the same, regardless of gender, drive, intellectual capacity, academic interest, or ability. Hogwash. This is classic dumbing-down.
Another commonly heard progressive argument against educational competition is that all the best students will leave and the public schools will be left with only the most difficult students. What a silly argument. If it is true that the best students will leave, it must be because they are leaving for better schools, including, by the way, some public schools. Yes, there are some public schools that will immediately attract the best students, because they are good schools. Obviously, it can and is being done, so why aren’t all the public schools providing a good education? Could it be because, absent competition, public schools have no incentive to change or adapt or improve? Competition works, and some healthy competition would force the rest of the public schools to adapt and become good schools themselves, to close their doors, or to change their educational emphasis.
Here’s a thought. How about a renewed interest in vocational education? At the risk of committing a huge politically incorrect faux pas, not every kid is college material. Many kids despise classroom academics, but are intrigued by mechanics, electronics, computers, construction, and other trades, and there happens to be an increasing dearth of young Americans who are qualified in the skilled trades. How often do we waste tens of thousands of dollars trying to cram a college education into a kid who hates school, will very probably never graduate from college, and, even if he/she does, it will be with a degree of doubtful value that is unlikely to ever generate enough income to pay back their student loans? Instead, why not convert some of our schools into work-study Vo-Tech schools that will graduate valuable, income producing, skilled trades-persons? They will become productive and enter the workforce at an earlier age, with the potential for a good income, and with no student loan debt hanging over their heads.
As long as our public schools remain a monopoly, and, as long as our teachers are protected by union contracts and tenure, neither the schools nor the teachers have any incentive to improve or even change. It is time to concentrate on every student’s potential, and to match their education to their abilities. It is time to provide access to good academic schools for students with academic potential, vocational training for those who dislike academics, and everything in between. It is past time to:
o institute a voucher system that will allow all schools, public and private, to compete,
o make each school an “open shop” where the teachers have an option whether or not to join the union,
o abolish tenure,
o provide nation-wide access to vocational training, and
o adjust each public school’s educational emphasis to the local demographics.
Call it what you will – our public schools are controlled by a government monopoly that is steeped in a liberal agenda. The result has been a system of “educational socialism” that is failing miserably.
I believe most Americans, given the choice, would chose the free market, thank you, and our children and our country would be so much better for the experience.
28 September 2010
Government IV: Free Market Economics
I’ve been reading about economics. My original goal was to be able to discuss economics intelligently, but I am failing miserably and I remain confused. I’m pretty sure I understand the meaning of most of the words, but the econo-speak is apparently a dialect that is beyond my comprehension. I think reading economics is like going to an all-night root canal.
Despite my confusion, I have learned a few things. First and foremost, my lifelong faith in capitalism appears to have been well founded. Milton Friedman (he is definitely my favorite economist) sees a free market as the foundation of capitalism and democracy. Even I get the free market thing.
Here’s how it works: I go to the hardware store and I give the clerk money in exchange for a new drill. The hardware store and I both get what we want. I get the drill and they get the money, and we are both satisfied with the deal. If I think the hardware store is charging too much for the drill, I am free to look for a better deal at countless other hardware stores, which doesn’t bother any of the hardware stores, because there are countless other customers who are also looking for a drill. There are only a few requirements for this free market trade to work. First, both me and the store must be free to do or refuse the deal – no one is coercing either of us – and both of us must have other options, i.e., there are other stores and other customers. Oh, yeah, and we need the government to furnish pieces of paper (money) which we all agree to treat as “legal tender”. That’s it. Except for the money, government is out of the picture.
That’s how the free market is supposed to work, in theory - the government has no power to control any part of the deal. Reality, however, turns out to be much more complicated. The free market is really a simple system, but it has been all bollixed up, mostly by the government. In what I choose to believe is an honest effort to “protect” us, the government has inserted the most complex set of regulations imaginable. Just to name a few: OSHA regulations to protect workers; EPA regulations to protect us and the environment; health, liability, and other insurance requirements to protect us from insurance companies; EEO and other labor regulations to protect us from employers; FDA regulations to protect us from nature and mistakes; dozens of licenses and permits to protect us from each other when we seek to construct, open, and operate businesses; and, of course, unemployment, worker’s comp, payroll, income, sales, telephone, excise, electrical, capital gains, real estate, gasoline, and who knows what other taxes to pay for all the government protection. Every one of these regulations is coercive of either me or the store. Individually, none of them may seem too big a problem, but taken together they overwhelm that first principle of free trade – that neither party is coerced.
A retail business falls under the purview of hundreds, if not thousands, of regulations, all of which are coercive to some degree. By the way, most of those regulations also involve fees or costs which are passed on to the customer. Absent the government, that drill would have cost me a lot less than $260. Oh, yeah, add union contracts and negotiations, consumer safety investigations, the ACLU, class-action trial lawyers, and judges who continually bend and distort the Constitution, and I should be grateful the drill didn’t cost $500!
We didn’t always have all those regulations. However well-intentioned, many regulations are based on the outrageous assumption that Americans are too dumb or lazy to take care of themselves. The purveyors of the regulations never acknowledge this assumption, of course. They may not even be aware of it, but it underlies most of the government’s efforts to “protect us”. In fact, free market forces (if you sell a lousy product, people will stop buying it) and/or individual judgment, provide adequate protection. Nowadays, every time someone gets hurt or buys a defective product we pass a new regulation to “protect” everyone else. The government never considers the negative regulatory impacts: increased taxes, increased costs of products and services, government control of our lives, loss of individual choice, loss of freedom, and God only knows what else. Government can’t seem to resist imposing a 100% solution to every little 10% problem. No doubt some of us are dumb and lazy, but most of us get up every morning and go to work, out of which emerges the strongest and most productive economy on earth. Believe it or not, my progressive friends, we really can take care of ourselves.
Americans thrive in the free market. It is government control that stifles our economy. Even though it is impeded and endangered by increasing government intervention, our free market is still hanging on. Whether we call it capitalism, private enterprise, the free market, or we don’t have a clue what it is called, most of us love it.
But, as the old saying goes, “freedom is not free”. There is no guarantee that our market will remain free. There are many among us who would sacrifice our free market in the name of “fairness” or “equality”. Our Constitution guarantees equality, but it is equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. It does not entitle us to anything - it sets us free to achieve in accordance with our innate talents and willingness to work hard. Our Declaration of Independence proclaims that life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness are rights given to us by God, not the government. Our Constitution specifically limits the powers of the government and places the power in the hands of the governed – us. It protects us from interference by too much government. In many other countries, the government is in control and it is the power of the people that is limited. And here’s the really scary part: every new government regulation takes a little more power away from the people and increases the power of the government. With every new regulation, we get less freedom and more government.
By their very nature, all governments are inclined to grow. Not all of them are threatening or dangerous, but they all have the potential to become so. Nonetheless, we can’t do away with government. Some small, limited government is necessary and beneficial. We need some government to do those things that are impractical for free enterprise and individuals to do, and to protect us from those who would force us to do things we don’t want to do; but, the government should not protect us from ourselves and it definitely should not interfere with the free market. Above all, remember that only we, the people, can prevent limited government from growing into big government and taking over.
Furthermore, it must be the right type of government. The free market only works in a democracy wherein the power of the government is subject to the will of the governed. The people must ensure that the government remains limited and small, less it gain so much power that it is no longer subject to our control. At this very moment, our government has grown so much that it is poised to wrest control away from us. Our Constitution limits the size and power of our government, but the Constitution has been thwarted by guess who – the government and its progressive friends.
My little study of economics has taught me that the free market (capitalism) is messy and often unfair, but it is free, and it works better than any other economic system ever conceived. No one forces you to buy or sell anything. The free market encourages personal responsibility, achievement in accordance with our own talents and willingness to work hard, and cooperation with others – sounds great to me.
Despite my confusion, I have learned a few things. First and foremost, my lifelong faith in capitalism appears to have been well founded. Milton Friedman (he is definitely my favorite economist) sees a free market as the foundation of capitalism and democracy. Even I get the free market thing.
Here’s how it works: I go to the hardware store and I give the clerk money in exchange for a new drill. The hardware store and I both get what we want. I get the drill and they get the money, and we are both satisfied with the deal. If I think the hardware store is charging too much for the drill, I am free to look for a better deal at countless other hardware stores, which doesn’t bother any of the hardware stores, because there are countless other customers who are also looking for a drill. There are only a few requirements for this free market trade to work. First, both me and the store must be free to do or refuse the deal – no one is coercing either of us – and both of us must have other options, i.e., there are other stores and other customers. Oh, yeah, and we need the government to furnish pieces of paper (money) which we all agree to treat as “legal tender”. That’s it. Except for the money, government is out of the picture.
That’s how the free market is supposed to work, in theory - the government has no power to control any part of the deal. Reality, however, turns out to be much more complicated. The free market is really a simple system, but it has been all bollixed up, mostly by the government. In what I choose to believe is an honest effort to “protect” us, the government has inserted the most complex set of regulations imaginable. Just to name a few: OSHA regulations to protect workers; EPA regulations to protect us and the environment; health, liability, and other insurance requirements to protect us from insurance companies; EEO and other labor regulations to protect us from employers; FDA regulations to protect us from nature and mistakes; dozens of licenses and permits to protect us from each other when we seek to construct, open, and operate businesses; and, of course, unemployment, worker’s comp, payroll, income, sales, telephone, excise, electrical, capital gains, real estate, gasoline, and who knows what other taxes to pay for all the government protection. Every one of these regulations is coercive of either me or the store. Individually, none of them may seem too big a problem, but taken together they overwhelm that first principle of free trade – that neither party is coerced.
A retail business falls under the purview of hundreds, if not thousands, of regulations, all of which are coercive to some degree. By the way, most of those regulations also involve fees or costs which are passed on to the customer. Absent the government, that drill would have cost me a lot less than $260. Oh, yeah, add union contracts and negotiations, consumer safety investigations, the ACLU, class-action trial lawyers, and judges who continually bend and distort the Constitution, and I should be grateful the drill didn’t cost $500!
We didn’t always have all those regulations. However well-intentioned, many regulations are based on the outrageous assumption that Americans are too dumb or lazy to take care of themselves. The purveyors of the regulations never acknowledge this assumption, of course. They may not even be aware of it, but it underlies most of the government’s efforts to “protect us”. In fact, free market forces (if you sell a lousy product, people will stop buying it) and/or individual judgment, provide adequate protection. Nowadays, every time someone gets hurt or buys a defective product we pass a new regulation to “protect” everyone else. The government never considers the negative regulatory impacts: increased taxes, increased costs of products and services, government control of our lives, loss of individual choice, loss of freedom, and God only knows what else. Government can’t seem to resist imposing a 100% solution to every little 10% problem. No doubt some of us are dumb and lazy, but most of us get up every morning and go to work, out of which emerges the strongest and most productive economy on earth. Believe it or not, my progressive friends, we really can take care of ourselves.
Americans thrive in the free market. It is government control that stifles our economy. Even though it is impeded and endangered by increasing government intervention, our free market is still hanging on. Whether we call it capitalism, private enterprise, the free market, or we don’t have a clue what it is called, most of us love it.
But, as the old saying goes, “freedom is not free”. There is no guarantee that our market will remain free. There are many among us who would sacrifice our free market in the name of “fairness” or “equality”. Our Constitution guarantees equality, but it is equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. It does not entitle us to anything - it sets us free to achieve in accordance with our innate talents and willingness to work hard. Our Declaration of Independence proclaims that life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness are rights given to us by God, not the government. Our Constitution specifically limits the powers of the government and places the power in the hands of the governed – us. It protects us from interference by too much government. In many other countries, the government is in control and it is the power of the people that is limited. And here’s the really scary part: every new government regulation takes a little more power away from the people and increases the power of the government. With every new regulation, we get less freedom and more government.
By their very nature, all governments are inclined to grow. Not all of them are threatening or dangerous, but they all have the potential to become so. Nonetheless, we can’t do away with government. Some small, limited government is necessary and beneficial. We need some government to do those things that are impractical for free enterprise and individuals to do, and to protect us from those who would force us to do things we don’t want to do; but, the government should not protect us from ourselves and it definitely should not interfere with the free market. Above all, remember that only we, the people, can prevent limited government from growing into big government and taking over.
Furthermore, it must be the right type of government. The free market only works in a democracy wherein the power of the government is subject to the will of the governed. The people must ensure that the government remains limited and small, less it gain so much power that it is no longer subject to our control. At this very moment, our government has grown so much that it is poised to wrest control away from us. Our Constitution limits the size and power of our government, but the Constitution has been thwarted by guess who – the government and its progressive friends.
My little study of economics has taught me that the free market (capitalism) is messy and often unfair, but it is free, and it works better than any other economic system ever conceived. No one forces you to buy or sell anything. The free market encourages personal responsibility, achievement in accordance with our own talents and willingness to work hard, and cooperation with others – sounds great to me.
10 September 2010
Government III: Racism in America
First the disclosures: I am white, male, protestant, American, and my politics are libertarian. That alone brands me as a racist in the eyes of some people, and that is sort of the point of this essay. Also, please note that although many minorities, racial or otherwise, are subject to discrimination, this discussion is limited to racism against black people. Finally, some of you will probably object that I do not use the term “African-American”. I don’t like the term because any hyphenated modifier in front of “American” suggests to me that the person is somehow not a complete American. We are all Americans, just plain Americans, no hyphenations required or desired.
My first experience with actual racism came in 1961 when I left my home town in Maine for the University of North Carolina. The university had peacefully integrated several years before I arrived, but segregated toilets, water fountains, doctors’ offices, etc. were not uncommon in the surrounding communities, and the civil rights movement was in high gear all around us. When I could catch a ride, I liked to go and watch the civil rights demonstrations – it was history in the making and I wanted to see it (in retrospect, I’m ashamed that I didn’t actually participate, but that’s the topic of another essay). Like many of my classmates, I was a strong supporter of civil rights and the Kennedy/Johnson “great society”. My friends and I thought that poverty would soon be a thing of the past, and our grandchildren wouldn’t have a clue about race, because by then so much intermarriage would have taken place that everyone’s skin would be shades of tan. Sadly, the racial harmony we envisioned remains elusive.
The extensive and wide ranging civil rights legislation enacted in the late 1960s provides ample proof that the civil rights movement was largely successful. By the end of the 1960s, white Americans were mostly on board the integration train (still are). A majority of American white people, including southerners, thought that America was well rid of racial discrimination and the Jim Crow South. Ok, there were still plenty of northern and southern white folks who would have strongly disagreed with that contention, but their numbers were shrinking. Schools, public facilities, college dormitories and other formerly white enclaves were well on their way to being integrated, and many businesses and agencies were also on board. Yet, here we are, 40 years later, and we still have inner city black ghettos with a high drop-out rate, a huge percentage of young black women that are poverty stricken single mothers, and black kids joining gangs and then going to prison. So, what happened?
Few would disagree that the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prime factor in the derailing of the integration train. Most of us were shocked and saddened by the murder of Dr. King, but black people were devastated, demoralized, and furious. Make no mistake, black people were justified in being furious, but I think that Dr. King, the purveyor of peaceful resistance, would have tried to quell the anger and replace it with a measured response. Instead, the immense void created by his loss was filled with an emerging breed of angry, bitter, hate-filled black leaders, and it was they who changed the course of the civil rights movement in America.
Men like Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and Eldridge Cleaver, to mention only a few, led the civil rights movement away from integration and chose instead “black power”. That term is rarely used today, but the devastating effects of the black power movement still pervade. Black power sought to discard the racial harmony that Dr. King had so painfully struggled to develop, and instead celebrated racial discord. Instead of striving to integrate into America’s proverbial “melting pot”, black people were urged to segregate themselves. Many black civil rights groups no longer welcomed white people, universities formed Black Student Unions who insisted on black dormitories – even the Congress formed a Black Caucus. This was and continues to be segregation, prompted not by whites, but by the black leadership.
Look at where it has led. Although many black families have comfortably melded into middle class America, the press and media are still rife with problems in black communities, particularly in the inner cities. Black children learn early to distrust and not to associate with whites, to dismiss school as a “white thing”, to flunk and drop out, and to speak in ghetto dialects; black parenthood is displaced by gang loyalty; black people hurl racial epithets like “honkey” and “whitey” at white people and call each other “niggers”; black rap music is filled with vile racial slurs, is horribly demeaning to black women, and provokes violence and criminal behavior. And the results: a huge and growing percentage of poverty stricken single black mothers, growing ghetto slums, a burgeoning number of black prisoners, and increasingly insular segregation of black communities.
Furthermore, black leaders continue to exacerbate the problems by convincing black people they are victims who deserve to be “taken care of”. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Andrew Young, Jeremiah Wright and other so called “civil rights” leaders, continually extol the plight of black people as victims. They are quick to play the race card and seek every opportunity to identify so-called “victimization” of black people. Much of the loudest victim rhetoric comes from black Christian clergy, some of whom even preach the poisonous hatred called “black liberation theology”. They are too busy casting blame on white people and America to preach the actual Christian message of reconciliation. And many progressive white people are complicit. At every turn, well meaning progressive black leaders are abetted by well meaning progressive whites, all of whom are dedicated to “taking care of the disadvantaged” – terribly misdirected good intentions.
Enough! Poor people of any color do not need to be taken care of! They simply need to be given the means to escape their poverty. They need encouragement, exhortation, education, and, yes, a little help. But they need a hand up not a hand out. They need to learn to stand on their own two feet, to accept personal responsibility for their lives, and to take care of themselves and their families. Instead of supporting generational welfare and warehousing of black families in public housing, why don’t black and white leaders try to motivate poor black people to get an education and escape the ghetto? Some will claim the government is already doing that with its financial assistance and support for schools and teachers in black neighborhoods. But throwing more money at the problem is not the solution. Good schools and teachers are necessary but far from sufficient.
How about reaching out to the kids themselves? How about fostering a sense of dignity and personal pride by celebrating individual effort and the accomplishments of the many black people who have worked their way out of poverty and joined the American dream? How about successful black leaders acting as real role models and teaching black kids what they have to do to get out of the ghetto: stay in school, learn to speak proper English, don’t join a gang, dress appropriately for work, and don’t have children until you get married. Convince the kids that, if they do these things, they will be able to get a job and advance like anyone else. Why not reassure them that America is ready and willing to accept them as it has so many others? Why not prosecute so-called “gangsta rap” musicians and record labels for race crimes and inciting violence? Try walking up to a cop and calling him vile names or walking into a public building and exhorting people to rape women and shoot cops – you’ll soon get a close up view of a cell. Yet many rappers get away with doing those things every day, and kids idolize them. Worse, today’s black leadership condones destructive gansta rap and blames the disintegration of black communities on an “uncaring America”. Oh, and let’s not forget the progressive white people who extol the virtues of “black music and black culture”, and encourage more government expenditures, all in an effort to appease the “white guilt” that racks their souls. Oh, please! Will we ever stop flailing ourselves and end this madness?
For the first time in history, America has a black President and a unique opportunity to deal with this seemingly intractable mess. President Obama once semi-jokingly said, “... the brothers got to pull their pants up.” I beg him to do much more. I beg him to look at black youth and say, “Look at me, at Oprah, at Clarence Thomas, at Bill Cosby, at Denzel Washington, at Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, at Condoleezza Rice, and look at the black doctors and lawyers and tradespersons and businesspersons and countless other successful black people – look at the way we speak and dress and interact with others of all races. We achieved success in America, and you can do it too. Boys, pull up your pants, lose the ghetto/gang dialect, work hard, get an education, and you will be able to compete in the American workplace. Get a good job, then find a nice girl, get married, learn to be a good husband and father, and raise a family. Girls, learn to speak and dress properly, stay in school, don’t have kids before you’re married, don’t get married until you’re 21, get a job with a future, and aspire to greatness for yourself and your children.” That’s what we need to hear from black musicians, sports figures, entertainers, movie stars, clergy, and politicians. They need to lead their people out of poverty and into the most productive, successful, and open society on earth: America. They need to celebrate, not blame, America.
Instead, the progressive left cries for ever more government intervention. Government is not the answer, folks. It wasn’t in the 60s and it isn’t now. We don’t need more government. We need real leadership. We don’t need to take care of poor people - we need to teach them to take care of themselves. Individual pride will trump government largess every time.
Look, I know it’s not that easy. There are huge hurdles to overcome, and cultural shifts are extremely difficult to accomplish. Some will properly and proudly argue that inner city blacks have a right to their form of English, and a right to dress in accordance with their own cultural norms. Fair enough, but the cost of exerting those rights is painfully high. You certainly have a right to speak ghetto/gang dialect, dress like a gangsta, and tattoo and pierce your body to your heart’s content. But you cannot do those things and get a good job with the prospect of advancement. Like it or not, workplaces have their own cultural norms. They cater to the expectations of their customers, clients, patients – whomever they service, serve, or sell to. Virtually all organizations and businesses have dress and behavioral codes. There are few good jobs available to someone who looks and sounds like a gang member. President Obama and Oprah dress and speak like most Americans. There’s a reason.
Changing black cultural norms will not be easy, but it has to start somewhere - if not with black leaders, especially the President, then who?
My first experience with actual racism came in 1961 when I left my home town in Maine for the University of North Carolina. The university had peacefully integrated several years before I arrived, but segregated toilets, water fountains, doctors’ offices, etc. were not uncommon in the surrounding communities, and the civil rights movement was in high gear all around us. When I could catch a ride, I liked to go and watch the civil rights demonstrations – it was history in the making and I wanted to see it (in retrospect, I’m ashamed that I didn’t actually participate, but that’s the topic of another essay). Like many of my classmates, I was a strong supporter of civil rights and the Kennedy/Johnson “great society”. My friends and I thought that poverty would soon be a thing of the past, and our grandchildren wouldn’t have a clue about race, because by then so much intermarriage would have taken place that everyone’s skin would be shades of tan. Sadly, the racial harmony we envisioned remains elusive.
The extensive and wide ranging civil rights legislation enacted in the late 1960s provides ample proof that the civil rights movement was largely successful. By the end of the 1960s, white Americans were mostly on board the integration train (still are). A majority of American white people, including southerners, thought that America was well rid of racial discrimination and the Jim Crow South. Ok, there were still plenty of northern and southern white folks who would have strongly disagreed with that contention, but their numbers were shrinking. Schools, public facilities, college dormitories and other formerly white enclaves were well on their way to being integrated, and many businesses and agencies were also on board. Yet, here we are, 40 years later, and we still have inner city black ghettos with a high drop-out rate, a huge percentage of young black women that are poverty stricken single mothers, and black kids joining gangs and then going to prison. So, what happened?
Few would disagree that the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prime factor in the derailing of the integration train. Most of us were shocked and saddened by the murder of Dr. King, but black people were devastated, demoralized, and furious. Make no mistake, black people were justified in being furious, but I think that Dr. King, the purveyor of peaceful resistance, would have tried to quell the anger and replace it with a measured response. Instead, the immense void created by his loss was filled with an emerging breed of angry, bitter, hate-filled black leaders, and it was they who changed the course of the civil rights movement in America.
Men like Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and Eldridge Cleaver, to mention only a few, led the civil rights movement away from integration and chose instead “black power”. That term is rarely used today, but the devastating effects of the black power movement still pervade. Black power sought to discard the racial harmony that Dr. King had so painfully struggled to develop, and instead celebrated racial discord. Instead of striving to integrate into America’s proverbial “melting pot”, black people were urged to segregate themselves. Many black civil rights groups no longer welcomed white people, universities formed Black Student Unions who insisted on black dormitories – even the Congress formed a Black Caucus. This was and continues to be segregation, prompted not by whites, but by the black leadership.
Look at where it has led. Although many black families have comfortably melded into middle class America, the press and media are still rife with problems in black communities, particularly in the inner cities. Black children learn early to distrust and not to associate with whites, to dismiss school as a “white thing”, to flunk and drop out, and to speak in ghetto dialects; black parenthood is displaced by gang loyalty; black people hurl racial epithets like “honkey” and “whitey” at white people and call each other “niggers”; black rap music is filled with vile racial slurs, is horribly demeaning to black women, and provokes violence and criminal behavior. And the results: a huge and growing percentage of poverty stricken single black mothers, growing ghetto slums, a burgeoning number of black prisoners, and increasingly insular segregation of black communities.
Furthermore, black leaders continue to exacerbate the problems by convincing black people they are victims who deserve to be “taken care of”. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Andrew Young, Jeremiah Wright and other so called “civil rights” leaders, continually extol the plight of black people as victims. They are quick to play the race card and seek every opportunity to identify so-called “victimization” of black people. Much of the loudest victim rhetoric comes from black Christian clergy, some of whom even preach the poisonous hatred called “black liberation theology”. They are too busy casting blame on white people and America to preach the actual Christian message of reconciliation. And many progressive white people are complicit. At every turn, well meaning progressive black leaders are abetted by well meaning progressive whites, all of whom are dedicated to “taking care of the disadvantaged” – terribly misdirected good intentions.
Enough! Poor people of any color do not need to be taken care of! They simply need to be given the means to escape their poverty. They need encouragement, exhortation, education, and, yes, a little help. But they need a hand up not a hand out. They need to learn to stand on their own two feet, to accept personal responsibility for their lives, and to take care of themselves and their families. Instead of supporting generational welfare and warehousing of black families in public housing, why don’t black and white leaders try to motivate poor black people to get an education and escape the ghetto? Some will claim the government is already doing that with its financial assistance and support for schools and teachers in black neighborhoods. But throwing more money at the problem is not the solution. Good schools and teachers are necessary but far from sufficient.
How about reaching out to the kids themselves? How about fostering a sense of dignity and personal pride by celebrating individual effort and the accomplishments of the many black people who have worked their way out of poverty and joined the American dream? How about successful black leaders acting as real role models and teaching black kids what they have to do to get out of the ghetto: stay in school, learn to speak proper English, don’t join a gang, dress appropriately for work, and don’t have children until you get married. Convince the kids that, if they do these things, they will be able to get a job and advance like anyone else. Why not reassure them that America is ready and willing to accept them as it has so many others? Why not prosecute so-called “gangsta rap” musicians and record labels for race crimes and inciting violence? Try walking up to a cop and calling him vile names or walking into a public building and exhorting people to rape women and shoot cops – you’ll soon get a close up view of a cell. Yet many rappers get away with doing those things every day, and kids idolize them. Worse, today’s black leadership condones destructive gansta rap and blames the disintegration of black communities on an “uncaring America”. Oh, and let’s not forget the progressive white people who extol the virtues of “black music and black culture”, and encourage more government expenditures, all in an effort to appease the “white guilt” that racks their souls. Oh, please! Will we ever stop flailing ourselves and end this madness?
For the first time in history, America has a black President and a unique opportunity to deal with this seemingly intractable mess. President Obama once semi-jokingly said, “... the brothers got to pull their pants up.” I beg him to do much more. I beg him to look at black youth and say, “Look at me, at Oprah, at Clarence Thomas, at Bill Cosby, at Denzel Washington, at Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, at Condoleezza Rice, and look at the black doctors and lawyers and tradespersons and businesspersons and countless other successful black people – look at the way we speak and dress and interact with others of all races. We achieved success in America, and you can do it too. Boys, pull up your pants, lose the ghetto/gang dialect, work hard, get an education, and you will be able to compete in the American workplace. Get a good job, then find a nice girl, get married, learn to be a good husband and father, and raise a family. Girls, learn to speak and dress properly, stay in school, don’t have kids before you’re married, don’t get married until you’re 21, get a job with a future, and aspire to greatness for yourself and your children.” That’s what we need to hear from black musicians, sports figures, entertainers, movie stars, clergy, and politicians. They need to lead their people out of poverty and into the most productive, successful, and open society on earth: America. They need to celebrate, not blame, America.
Instead, the progressive left cries for ever more government intervention. Government is not the answer, folks. It wasn’t in the 60s and it isn’t now. We don’t need more government. We need real leadership. We don’t need to take care of poor people - we need to teach them to take care of themselves. Individual pride will trump government largess every time.
Look, I know it’s not that easy. There are huge hurdles to overcome, and cultural shifts are extremely difficult to accomplish. Some will properly and proudly argue that inner city blacks have a right to their form of English, and a right to dress in accordance with their own cultural norms. Fair enough, but the cost of exerting those rights is painfully high. You certainly have a right to speak ghetto/gang dialect, dress like a gangsta, and tattoo and pierce your body to your heart’s content. But you cannot do those things and get a good job with the prospect of advancement. Like it or not, workplaces have their own cultural norms. They cater to the expectations of their customers, clients, patients – whomever they service, serve, or sell to. Virtually all organizations and businesses have dress and behavioral codes. There are few good jobs available to someone who looks and sounds like a gang member. President Obama and Oprah dress and speak like most Americans. There’s a reason.
Changing black cultural norms will not be easy, but it has to start somewhere - if not with black leaders, especially the President, then who?
06 September 2010
Government II: Names
This is the second in a series of essays on government.
No reasonable person wants to abolish the government. We need some government in order to function as a civilized society - some problems can only be addressed by government. Consequently, we must let government stick its nose under the great tent of freedom, but I caution that a voracious beast lurks behind that innocent looking nose. The struggle to limit government’s size, scope, and power will never end. Our founding fathers knew that. They wisely created America with a small, limited government whose power was severely restricted, but they were wary of their own creation and feared its powers would expand. Sure enough, during the 230 intervening years, the founders’ worst nightmare has been realized. We have managed to ignore their wise counsel and allowed our government to evolve into a powerful giant bureaucracy that intrudes into every aspect of our lives. Whereas our initial limited government was run by “citizen-politicians” who answered their country’s call, today’s big government is run by professional politicians and bureaucrats. These “officials”, particularly the elected ones, often portray themselves as altruistic beneficent managers, but their actual behavior more closely resembles rulers who govern the masses. Fortunately, they are not fooling very many of us, as indicated by the polls that consistently show how much we dislike and distrust them (more on that later). We are all too familiar with big government officials, whether elected or appointed, who adopt an attitude of superiority and even antagonism toward those who pay their salaries.
Government, by its very nature, divides the population into two groups: the government and the governed - those that run the government and those that are run by the government. Today’s big government officials and advocates (especially academics) typically think of themselves as well-educated, intelligent, and intellectual - the best and the brightest. Given their sense of self-importance and the government’s great power, it is not surprising that big government officials and advocates have increasingly assumed the role of rulers or the “governing class”. Many of them believe in “statism”, a belief that sovereignty lies not with individuals but with the government, and that everyone should subordinate themselves to the needs of the state – statism, socialism ... whatever. But rarely does the media or the press refer to big government advocates as rulers, or intellectuals, or statists, or any of the other terms mentioned above. The big government advocates, including the media and the press, are careful not to use any terms that might suggest they are immodest or arrogant or power-hungry. Instead, they camouflage their actual self images by publicly referring to themselves as optimistic, open minded, and forward thinking liberals or progressives or secularists. The heart of the matter is that, no matter whether they think of themselves as the governing class, rulers, well-educated, intellectuals, best and brightest, statists, socialists, liberals, progressives, or secularists, most advocates of big government see themselves in the top echelons of the big government movement – sort of big government aristocrats. Perhaps they should be called “progressive aristocracy”.
Going back to polls, one important question begs to be addressed: if big government officials do so poorly in the polls, how do big government politicians get elected? By promising free benefits, entitlements, and other goodies. This is the time honored way that progressive politicians garner votes and support, especially from the poor, the unfortunate, and the needy - those at the lower end of the economic scale. To further cement the deal, progressives preach that the only recourse for these “victims” of “forces beyond their control” is to be “taken care of” by government largess (which the progressives of course promise to generously dole out). These promises are not always duplicitous. Many progressives honestly believe that common folks really are victims who are unable to properly care for themselves. The not-so-subtle subtext of this “victim” rhetoric is that, were we not so ignorant and poorly informed, we would all be grateful to be led and cared for by intellectually superior progressives. Listen carefully. Can you hear the unspoken corollary: that we are too dumb and lazy to care for ourselves? In any case, by continually reminding them they are victims, progressive politicians always appeal to the poor. Here’s a radical notion: instead of victimizing them, how about motivating the poor to get an education and escape the ghetto? How about fostering in the poor a sense of dignity and personal pride in their own abilities? How about celebrating the accomplishments of the many that have worked their way out of poverty? How about celebrities (starting with the President) acting like role models instead of saviors?
Another major progressive constituency is Unions. Progressive politicians easily gain Union support by pitting them against their “greedy capitalist employers”, and promising special favors. Consider, for example, the nationalization of GM which ended up with Unions owning 35% of the company they were instrumental in driving into bankruptcy, or Obama-care wherein the Union “cadillac plans” received special treatment.
And how about the other end of the social scale: cosmopolitan urbanites, the press, the media, entertainers and academia – natural progressive constituencies. Who among them would not wish to be seen as intellectually superior, the brightest and the best – selfless, altruistic caretakers of the poor and the oppressed?
Thusly the poor, Unions, and elitists become the three main constituencies of progressive big government politicians.
And what of those of us who prefer limited government, how are we called? Well, based on the fact that progressives see themselves as better educated and more intelligent, that must mean they see us as poorly-educated and less intelligent. We continually hear progressive leaders characterizing their opponents as uninformed or “not getting it” or even as rednecks, hillbillies, hicks, and fly-over people. Sarah Palin and her Tea Party supporters are commonly demonized as angry mobs, racists, subversives, and just plain dumb.
More objectively, those of us outside the progressive aristocracy could accurately be described as the “governed”, or the “ruled class”, and in the case of the poor, the “underclass”. On another note, consider that any country must produce food and other goods and services in order to sustain itself, and, since big government is busy ruling and expanding, all the food, goods, and services must be produced by those that are governed. Therefore, we, the governed, could also be called the “productive class”. So, if we, the governed, are the productive class, I guess that would make those that run the government the “unproductive class” or the “non-producing” class.
In the remaining essays in this series, I’ll use “progressives” for the lovers of big government, and “productive class” for those of us who prefer private enterprise and individual freedom.
The saga continues with Government III: Racism in America
No reasonable person wants to abolish the government. We need some government in order to function as a civilized society - some problems can only be addressed by government. Consequently, we must let government stick its nose under the great tent of freedom, but I caution that a voracious beast lurks behind that innocent looking nose. The struggle to limit government’s size, scope, and power will never end. Our founding fathers knew that. They wisely created America with a small, limited government whose power was severely restricted, but they were wary of their own creation and feared its powers would expand. Sure enough, during the 230 intervening years, the founders’ worst nightmare has been realized. We have managed to ignore their wise counsel and allowed our government to evolve into a powerful giant bureaucracy that intrudes into every aspect of our lives. Whereas our initial limited government was run by “citizen-politicians” who answered their country’s call, today’s big government is run by professional politicians and bureaucrats. These “officials”, particularly the elected ones, often portray themselves as altruistic beneficent managers, but their actual behavior more closely resembles rulers who govern the masses. Fortunately, they are not fooling very many of us, as indicated by the polls that consistently show how much we dislike and distrust them (more on that later). We are all too familiar with big government officials, whether elected or appointed, who adopt an attitude of superiority and even antagonism toward those who pay their salaries.
Government, by its very nature, divides the population into two groups: the government and the governed - those that run the government and those that are run by the government. Today’s big government officials and advocates (especially academics) typically think of themselves as well-educated, intelligent, and intellectual - the best and the brightest. Given their sense of self-importance and the government’s great power, it is not surprising that big government officials and advocates have increasingly assumed the role of rulers or the “governing class”. Many of them believe in “statism”, a belief that sovereignty lies not with individuals but with the government, and that everyone should subordinate themselves to the needs of the state – statism, socialism ... whatever. But rarely does the media or the press refer to big government advocates as rulers, or intellectuals, or statists, or any of the other terms mentioned above. The big government advocates, including the media and the press, are careful not to use any terms that might suggest they are immodest or arrogant or power-hungry. Instead, they camouflage their actual self images by publicly referring to themselves as optimistic, open minded, and forward thinking liberals or progressives or secularists. The heart of the matter is that, no matter whether they think of themselves as the governing class, rulers, well-educated, intellectuals, best and brightest, statists, socialists, liberals, progressives, or secularists, most advocates of big government see themselves in the top echelons of the big government movement – sort of big government aristocrats. Perhaps they should be called “progressive aristocracy”.
Going back to polls, one important question begs to be addressed: if big government officials do so poorly in the polls, how do big government politicians get elected? By promising free benefits, entitlements, and other goodies. This is the time honored way that progressive politicians garner votes and support, especially from the poor, the unfortunate, and the needy - those at the lower end of the economic scale. To further cement the deal, progressives preach that the only recourse for these “victims” of “forces beyond their control” is to be “taken care of” by government largess (which the progressives of course promise to generously dole out). These promises are not always duplicitous. Many progressives honestly believe that common folks really are victims who are unable to properly care for themselves. The not-so-subtle subtext of this “victim” rhetoric is that, were we not so ignorant and poorly informed, we would all be grateful to be led and cared for by intellectually superior progressives. Listen carefully. Can you hear the unspoken corollary: that we are too dumb and lazy to care for ourselves? In any case, by continually reminding them they are victims, progressive politicians always appeal to the poor. Here’s a radical notion: instead of victimizing them, how about motivating the poor to get an education and escape the ghetto? How about fostering in the poor a sense of dignity and personal pride in their own abilities? How about celebrating the accomplishments of the many that have worked their way out of poverty? How about celebrities (starting with the President) acting like role models instead of saviors?
Another major progressive constituency is Unions. Progressive politicians easily gain Union support by pitting them against their “greedy capitalist employers”, and promising special favors. Consider, for example, the nationalization of GM which ended up with Unions owning 35% of the company they were instrumental in driving into bankruptcy, or Obama-care wherein the Union “cadillac plans” received special treatment.
And how about the other end of the social scale: cosmopolitan urbanites, the press, the media, entertainers and academia – natural progressive constituencies. Who among them would not wish to be seen as intellectually superior, the brightest and the best – selfless, altruistic caretakers of the poor and the oppressed?
Thusly the poor, Unions, and elitists become the three main constituencies of progressive big government politicians.
And what of those of us who prefer limited government, how are we called? Well, based on the fact that progressives see themselves as better educated and more intelligent, that must mean they see us as poorly-educated and less intelligent. We continually hear progressive leaders characterizing their opponents as uninformed or “not getting it” or even as rednecks, hillbillies, hicks, and fly-over people. Sarah Palin and her Tea Party supporters are commonly demonized as angry mobs, racists, subversives, and just plain dumb.
More objectively, those of us outside the progressive aristocracy could accurately be described as the “governed”, or the “ruled class”, and in the case of the poor, the “underclass”. On another note, consider that any country must produce food and other goods and services in order to sustain itself, and, since big government is busy ruling and expanding, all the food, goods, and services must be produced by those that are governed. Therefore, we, the governed, could also be called the “productive class”. So, if we, the governed, are the productive class, I guess that would make those that run the government the “unproductive class” or the “non-producing” class.
In the remaining essays in this series, I’ll use “progressives” for the lovers of big government, and “productive class” for those of us who prefer private enterprise and individual freedom.
The saga continues with Government III: Racism in America
30 August 2010
Government I: Big Government
This is the first in a series of essays on government. Let’s begin with a few disclosures.
First, to state the obvious, everyone has their own opinions about politics and government, as it should be. These essays are my opinions, based on my own research, understanding, logic, perspective, and outlook on life. The conclusions I have reached seem valid to me, but they are certainly not definitive. I will continue to explore and learn, and my opinions will no doubt continue to modify themselves as I gain more understanding. Whatever your current viewpoint, I believe that these issues are so important that it is incumbent on each of us to search for the best resolutions. Perhaps these essays will help some folks in their quest for answers. Then again ...
My politics are definitely libertarian. That means I believe in free-market economics and small government. I do not believe in an unrestrained free market. We need a small government, by which I mean that government should only undertake those functions that are impractical for individuals or the private sector. For example, government should definitely: interact with foreign governments, protect us from enemies outside and criminals inside our borders, establish a legal system, establish a monetary system, arbitrate disputes between states, construct and maintain some public works, and provide some public services like parks and museums. There are certainly many other functions the government does and should do, but all of them should be undertaken with great care and closely monitored under the assumption that they will have unintended bad consequences. Additionally, I believe that all but the most critical laws and regulations should have a “sunset clause”, meaning that they automatically expire after a certain time unless they are specifically reinstated. This is very difficult to implement because most laws and regulations create bureaucracies which, once established, become entrenched. I believe that government should never protect us from ourselves, meaning that all drug laws and restrictions on marriage should be abolished (those usually please my liberal friends). Bottom line: I believe that much, if not most, of our current federal government should be abolished. I understand that some government is necessary and desirable. I just believe we currently have too much. Our government is simply too big.
I also believe that the traditional left-right and liberal-conservative scales are poor representations of political leaning. Rather than ask if their politics are to the right or left, conservative or liberal, I prefer to ask people how much faith they place in their government, and which functions they think should be relegated to the government? In other words, how do they feel about big government?
Those who prefer big government tend to believe that: government is usually the best solution to public problems; higher echelons of government are more trustworthy than lower (federal better than State better than local); central government planning and control works better than free market forces; and the government’s job is to care for the populace. Folks who believe this way often also believe in redistribution of wealth in order to achieve equality of outcome as opposed to the equality of opportunity envisioned in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Equality of outcome means that everyone is entitled to the same privileges and standard of living, whereas equality of opportunity means that everyone has an equal right to earn more privileges and a higher standard of living.
In my experience, most of the people favoring big government are well-intentioned and honestly believe that the population at large is best served by a large and strong central government whose prime function it is to take care of us. At first glance, this seems like a good idea, even a noble one, but the benefits of big government come at a very high cost: loss of individual freedom and even dignity, being controlled if not subjugated by those who would help us, and a slippery slope toward totalitarianism. This is not to say that advocates of big government do not care about freedom or dignity, or prefer subjugation or totalitarianism. To the contrary, most of my friends who prefer big government do believe in personal freedom and democracy. They simply believe that big government can do the job better than individuals or the private sector, and that government can be controlled to avoid the pitfalls. I disagree.
In the words of Gerald Ford (often mis-attributed to Thomas Jefferson), “Any government big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take from you all you have”. Enough said.
Another problem with big government is its reliance on the benevolence of the ruling party and its leaders. A benevolent strong central government is only attractive while those in charge remain benevolent. But, big government’s power accrues to whomever is in charge, whether benevolent or not, and malevolent parties are especially adept at using lies, deception or other nefarious methods to achieve their goals. The downside is huge. As soon as a malevolent leader assumes control, the course leads directly to totalitarianism and it can rarely be reversed. The only really safe course is to keep a tight rein on government – limit its power to those few activities that cannot practically be conducted by individuals or private enterprise.
All governments are drawn inexorably toward growth. Government is a hungry beast whose appetite can only be satiated by power, and its advocates will capitalize on every opportunity to expand its power. Fortunately, our founders understood the dangers of big government. They carefully crafted our founding documents to control our government and prevent it from growing into a new form of monarchy. The American Constitution limits the powers of our government and instead places the power in the hands of “we the people”. Furthermore, through our system of “checks and balances”, our Constitution attempts to preclude the concentration of power in any one branch – a system that works well, except, of course, when one party controls all three branches. Our Constitution also ensures that government cannot grow without our consent, thus making it very difficult for big government or anyone else to overtly usurp our power. But little did the founders know that the greatest threat would come not from usurpation, but from gradual political evolution. Government grows by small, seemingly inconsequential, steps. At each election, politicians offer a few more individual benefits and corporate favors in exchange for votes and support, but each benefit and favor increases the government’s size, budget, and power. This is seduction, not rape – stealth tactics, not a frontal assault - but it nonetheless poses a potentially fatal threat to freedom. Only we, the people, can counter this threat. We must be ever-vigilant against being seduced by our own government into voluntarily relinquishing the power and control that are constitutionally vested in us.
One of the most successful tactics employed by big government advocates is “rescue and reform”. Beware of statements like: “Only government can save us.” “Only government can protect us from the evil forces that threaten to imprison us.” “Only government stands between us and greedy ‘big business’, and its cohorts in the right wing media, conservative Christianity, and the ‘military-industrial complex’”. “Only government can reform the present system and rescue us from the ‘failed policies’ of capitalism and the free market.” Then comes the great reform: in order to “protect us”, government must be given the power to reform our laws, and our behavior – to change or even discard the core values that have made America great. The reformer professes that we are helpless on our own, but the government is here to save us. In such malarkey lies the greatest threat to our freedom. Beware the reformer.
I should note that another big attraction to big government is that it is so easy to turn it all over to someone else. If the government will do everything, take care of us and everyone else, why not let it? What is the danger in big government?
It is not so much a danger as a dangerous progression. In a democracy, the citizenry must agree to any governmental growth. Therefore, if limited government is to evolve into big government, the government must gain the support of a majority of its citizens. In order to secure that majority, big government politicians promise increasing levels of pay, benefits, free services, and entitlements. The big government politicians also gain the support of unions and certain industries by promising favorable treatment, e.g., exemptions from certain restrictive regulations, tax loopholes, government support or contracts, etc. Using such tactics, the government gradually continues to grow in size and power. At some point, the democracy morphs into “democratic socialism” (some suggest that the USA now functions as a socialist democracy). Eventually, so many people become dependent on the government, and the government has assumed so much control, that the citizenry have effectively lost their control over government. They no longer have much say over how much they are governed. As an increasing percentage of the population becomes dependent on the government, the number of people whose productivity and earnings actually pay for all this dependence decreases. Eventually, the nation can no longer sustain itself and its economy and government collapse. This is what happened in Soviet Russia and is close to happening in Greece and other European countries today.
The big government saga continues in the other essays in this series.
First, to state the obvious, everyone has their own opinions about politics and government, as it should be. These essays are my opinions, based on my own research, understanding, logic, perspective, and outlook on life. The conclusions I have reached seem valid to me, but they are certainly not definitive. I will continue to explore and learn, and my opinions will no doubt continue to modify themselves as I gain more understanding. Whatever your current viewpoint, I believe that these issues are so important that it is incumbent on each of us to search for the best resolutions. Perhaps these essays will help some folks in their quest for answers. Then again ...
My politics are definitely libertarian. That means I believe in free-market economics and small government. I do not believe in an unrestrained free market. We need a small government, by which I mean that government should only undertake those functions that are impractical for individuals or the private sector. For example, government should definitely: interact with foreign governments, protect us from enemies outside and criminals inside our borders, establish a legal system, establish a monetary system, arbitrate disputes between states, construct and maintain some public works, and provide some public services like parks and museums. There are certainly many other functions the government does and should do, but all of them should be undertaken with great care and closely monitored under the assumption that they will have unintended bad consequences. Additionally, I believe that all but the most critical laws and regulations should have a “sunset clause”, meaning that they automatically expire after a certain time unless they are specifically reinstated. This is very difficult to implement because most laws and regulations create bureaucracies which, once established, become entrenched. I believe that government should never protect us from ourselves, meaning that all drug laws and restrictions on marriage should be abolished (those usually please my liberal friends). Bottom line: I believe that much, if not most, of our current federal government should be abolished. I understand that some government is necessary and desirable. I just believe we currently have too much. Our government is simply too big.
I also believe that the traditional left-right and liberal-conservative scales are poor representations of political leaning. Rather than ask if their politics are to the right or left, conservative or liberal, I prefer to ask people how much faith they place in their government, and which functions they think should be relegated to the government? In other words, how do they feel about big government?
Those who prefer big government tend to believe that: government is usually the best solution to public problems; higher echelons of government are more trustworthy than lower (federal better than State better than local); central government planning and control works better than free market forces; and the government’s job is to care for the populace. Folks who believe this way often also believe in redistribution of wealth in order to achieve equality of outcome as opposed to the equality of opportunity envisioned in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Equality of outcome means that everyone is entitled to the same privileges and standard of living, whereas equality of opportunity means that everyone has an equal right to earn more privileges and a higher standard of living.
In my experience, most of the people favoring big government are well-intentioned and honestly believe that the population at large is best served by a large and strong central government whose prime function it is to take care of us. At first glance, this seems like a good idea, even a noble one, but the benefits of big government come at a very high cost: loss of individual freedom and even dignity, being controlled if not subjugated by those who would help us, and a slippery slope toward totalitarianism. This is not to say that advocates of big government do not care about freedom or dignity, or prefer subjugation or totalitarianism. To the contrary, most of my friends who prefer big government do believe in personal freedom and democracy. They simply believe that big government can do the job better than individuals or the private sector, and that government can be controlled to avoid the pitfalls. I disagree.
In the words of Gerald Ford (often mis-attributed to Thomas Jefferson), “Any government big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take from you all you have”. Enough said.
Another problem with big government is its reliance on the benevolence of the ruling party and its leaders. A benevolent strong central government is only attractive while those in charge remain benevolent. But, big government’s power accrues to whomever is in charge, whether benevolent or not, and malevolent parties are especially adept at using lies, deception or other nefarious methods to achieve their goals. The downside is huge. As soon as a malevolent leader assumes control, the course leads directly to totalitarianism and it can rarely be reversed. The only really safe course is to keep a tight rein on government – limit its power to those few activities that cannot practically be conducted by individuals or private enterprise.
All governments are drawn inexorably toward growth. Government is a hungry beast whose appetite can only be satiated by power, and its advocates will capitalize on every opportunity to expand its power. Fortunately, our founders understood the dangers of big government. They carefully crafted our founding documents to control our government and prevent it from growing into a new form of monarchy. The American Constitution limits the powers of our government and instead places the power in the hands of “we the people”. Furthermore, through our system of “checks and balances”, our Constitution attempts to preclude the concentration of power in any one branch – a system that works well, except, of course, when one party controls all three branches. Our Constitution also ensures that government cannot grow without our consent, thus making it very difficult for big government or anyone else to overtly usurp our power. But little did the founders know that the greatest threat would come not from usurpation, but from gradual political evolution. Government grows by small, seemingly inconsequential, steps. At each election, politicians offer a few more individual benefits and corporate favors in exchange for votes and support, but each benefit and favor increases the government’s size, budget, and power. This is seduction, not rape – stealth tactics, not a frontal assault - but it nonetheless poses a potentially fatal threat to freedom. Only we, the people, can counter this threat. We must be ever-vigilant against being seduced by our own government into voluntarily relinquishing the power and control that are constitutionally vested in us.
One of the most successful tactics employed by big government advocates is “rescue and reform”. Beware of statements like: “Only government can save us.” “Only government can protect us from the evil forces that threaten to imprison us.” “Only government stands between us and greedy ‘big business’, and its cohorts in the right wing media, conservative Christianity, and the ‘military-industrial complex’”. “Only government can reform the present system and rescue us from the ‘failed policies’ of capitalism and the free market.” Then comes the great reform: in order to “protect us”, government must be given the power to reform our laws, and our behavior – to change or even discard the core values that have made America great. The reformer professes that we are helpless on our own, but the government is here to save us. In such malarkey lies the greatest threat to our freedom. Beware the reformer.
I should note that another big attraction to big government is that it is so easy to turn it all over to someone else. If the government will do everything, take care of us and everyone else, why not let it? What is the danger in big government?
It is not so much a danger as a dangerous progression. In a democracy, the citizenry must agree to any governmental growth. Therefore, if limited government is to evolve into big government, the government must gain the support of a majority of its citizens. In order to secure that majority, big government politicians promise increasing levels of pay, benefits, free services, and entitlements. The big government politicians also gain the support of unions and certain industries by promising favorable treatment, e.g., exemptions from certain restrictive regulations, tax loopholes, government support or contracts, etc. Using such tactics, the government gradually continues to grow in size and power. At some point, the democracy morphs into “democratic socialism” (some suggest that the USA now functions as a socialist democracy). Eventually, so many people become dependent on the government, and the government has assumed so much control, that the citizenry have effectively lost their control over government. They no longer have much say over how much they are governed. As an increasing percentage of the population becomes dependent on the government, the number of people whose productivity and earnings actually pay for all this dependence decreases. Eventually, the nation can no longer sustain itself and its economy and government collapse. This is what happened in Soviet Russia and is close to happening in Greece and other European countries today.
The big government saga continues in the other essays in this series.
24 July 2010
Obama vs. America
The Obama Administration has now sued the State of Arizona. It is interesting that the suit makes no claim about the merits of the Arizona immigration law – it simply claims that immigration is the purview of the federal government and not the states. A slew of other state legislatures and governors, as well as polls throughout the U.S., have strongly supported Arizona.
Now seven South and Central American countries have joined with Mexico in filing “amicus” briefs agreeing with the Obama Administration and are entering the case as “friends of the court”. The U.S.A. gives each of these countries more than $100 million a year in foreign aid, and they certainly would not want to aggravate the golden goose, so there is little doubt that they entered this case with the approval of the Obama Administration.
And that, my friends, says it all. The Obama Administration is siding with foreign countries against Arizona and the other states that support Arizona. President Obama has thrown his support in favor of illegal immigrants and their Latin American homelands against American state governments and a strong majority of the American people. That should tell you everything you have to know about what kind of American Obama is and where his sentiments lie.
Now seven South and Central American countries have joined with Mexico in filing “amicus” briefs agreeing with the Obama Administration and are entering the case as “friends of the court”. The U.S.A. gives each of these countries more than $100 million a year in foreign aid, and they certainly would not want to aggravate the golden goose, so there is little doubt that they entered this case with the approval of the Obama Administration.
And that, my friends, says it all. The Obama Administration is siding with foreign countries against Arizona and the other states that support Arizona. President Obama has thrown his support in favor of illegal immigrants and their Latin American homelands against American state governments and a strong majority of the American people. That should tell you everything you have to know about what kind of American Obama is and where his sentiments lie.
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