Libertarianism in One Lesson by Mike Huben

Libertarianism in One Lesson by Mike Huben

One of the most attractive features of libertarianism is that it is basically a very simple ideology. Maybe even simpler than Marxism, since you don't have to learn foreign words like "proletariat".

This brief outline will give you most of the tools you need to hit the ground running as a freshly indoctrinated libertarian ideologue. Go forth and proselytize!

Philosophy

* In the beginning, man dwelt in a state of Nature, until the serpent Government tempted man into Initial Coercion.
* Government is the Great Satan. All Evil comes from Government, and all Good from the Market, according to the Ayatollah Rand.
* We must worship the Horatio Alger fantasy that the meritorious few will just happen to have the lucky breaks that make them rich. Libertarians happen to be the meritorious few by ideological correctness. The rest can go hang.
* Government cannot own things because only individuals can own things. Except for corporations, partnerships, joint ownership, marriage, and anything else we except but government.
* Parrot these arguments, and you too will be a singular, creative, reasoning individualist.
* Parents cannot choose a government for their children any more than they can choose language, residence, school, or religion.
* Taxation is theft because we have a right to squat in the US and benefit from defense, infrastructure, police, courts, etc. without obligation.
* Magic incantations can overturn society and bring about libertopia. Sovereign citizenry! The 16th Amendment is invalid! States rights!
* Objectivist/Neo-Tech Advantage #69i : The true measure of fully integrated honesty is whether the sucker has opened his wallet. Thus sayeth the Profit Wallace. Zonpower Rules Nerdspace!
* The great Zen riddle of libertarianism: minimal government is necessary and unnecessary. The answer is only to be found by individuals.

Government

* Libertarians invented outrage over government waste, bureaucracy, injustice, etc. Nobody else thinks they are bad, knows they exist, or works to stop them.
* Enlightenment comes only through repetition of the sacred mantra "Government does not work" according to Guru Browne.
* Only government is force, no matter how many Indians were killed by settlers to acquire their property, no matter how many blacks were enslaved and sold by private companies, no matter how many heads of union members are broken by private police.
* Money that government touches spontaneously combusts, destroying the economy. Money retained by individuals grows the economy, even if literally burnt.
* Private education works, public education doesn't. The publicly educated masses that have grown the modern economies of the past 150 years are an illusion.
* Market failures, trusts, and oligopolies are lies spread by the evil economists serving the government as described in the "Protocols of the Elders of Statism".
* Central planning cannot work. Which is why all businesses internally are run like little markets, with no centralized leadership.
* Paternalism is the worst thing that can be inflicted upon people, as everyone knows that fathers are the most hated and reviled figures in the world.
* Government is like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearsome master. Therefore, we should avoid it entirely, as we do all forms of combustion.

Regulation

* The FDA is solely responsible for any death or sickness where it might have prevented treatment by the latest unproven fad.
* Children, criminals, death cultists, and you all have the same inalienable right to own any weaponry: conventional, chemical, biological, or nuclear.
* All food, drugs, and medical treatments should be entirely unregulated: every industry should be able to kill 300,000 per year in the US like the tobacco industry.
* If you don't have a gun, you are not a libertarian. If you do have a gun, why don't you have even more powerful armament?
* Better to abolish all regulations, consider everything as property, and solve all controversy by civil lawsuit over damages. The US doesn't have enough lawyers, and people who can't afford to invest many thousands of dollars in lawsuits should shut up.

Libertarian Party

* The Libertarian Party is well on its way to dominating the political landscape, judging from its power base of 100+ elected dogcatchers and other important officials after 25 years of effort.
* The "Party of Oxymoron": "Individualists unite!"
* Flip answers are more powerful than the best reasoned arguments, which is why so many libertarians are in important government positions.
* It's time the new pro-freedom libertarian platform was implemented; child labor, orphanages, sweatshops, poorhouses, company towns, monopolies, trusts, cartels, blacklists, private goons, slumlords, etc.
* Libertarianism "rules" Internet political debate the same way US Communism "ruled" pamphleteering.
* No compromise from the "Party of Principle". Justice, happiness, liberty, guns, and other good stuff come only from rigidly adhering to inflexible dogmas.
* Minimal government is whatever we say it is, and we don't agree.
* Government is "moving steadily in a libertarian direction" with every change libertarians approve of; no matter if it takes one step forward and two steps backwards.
* Yes, the symbol of the Libertarian Party is a Big Government Statue. It's not supposed to be funny or ironic!

Political Debate Strategy

* Count only the benefits of libertarianism, count only the costs of government.
* Five of a factoid beats a full argument.
* All historical examples are tainted by statism, except when they favor libertarian claims.
* Spiritually baptize the deceased as libertarians because they cannot protest the anachronism: Locke, Smith, Paine, Jefferson, Spooner, etc.
* The most heavily armed libertarian has the biggest dick and thus the best argument.
* The best multi-party democratic republics should be equated to the worst dictatorships for the purposes of denouncing statism. It's only a matter of degree.
* Inviolate private property is the only true measure of freedom. Those without property have the freedom to try to acquire it. If they can't, let them find somebody else's property to complain on.
* Private ownership is the cure for all problems, despite the historical record of privately owned states such as Nazi Germany, Czarist and Stalinist Russia, and Maoist China.
* Require perfection as the only applicable standard to judge government: libertarianism, being imaginary, cannot be fairly judged to have flaws.
* Only libertarian economists' Nobel Prizes count: the other economists and Nobel Prize Committee are mistaken.
* Any exceptional case of private production proves that government ought not to be involved.
.........................................................

Yes, I know this is completely pejorative, but that's kind of the point. How can we properly criticize anything without a little bit of laughing at it? I know some libertarians, and I like most of them, but I'm not one. These were some funny reasons hidden in a bit of sarcasm, so don't get on my case too much, if you are a libertarian, attack the charge, not the messenger.

WiredForStereo

Top Down and Bottom Up

No, this is not a post about porn.

Ok, now that you've wiped your eyes from laughing so hard you cried, I'll continue.

We have in our country a crisis of management and organization and I'll tell you how it works. The bailouts show this well. Who got the first biggest least regulated bailouts? Banks did. Tell me what exactly banks make. Tell me what exactly the big banks make for me that my small local Arvest bank who doesn't need a bailout can't make for me.

Now the car manufacturers are trying to get bailouts. What do car makers make? Pickles. And who eats pickles? I do. Why is it so hard for industries that actually make things to get help? It's because for 28 years now, we have been living under Reaganomics. This philosophy says "free trade solves everything." Never mind that we don't actually make anything here anymore. What is our economy supported by? Not a whole lot, and that is borne out by the economy slumping because the people with the money to spend (that meaning the most people, the statistically significant group,) can't spend it because they don't have it anymore and they don't have it anymore because their jobs get shipped across our borders, and they've run out of credit.

Here's a conundrum. Some are saying that American auto makers have failed to compete with Asian and European automakers. But here's a question? Who do Toyota and Honda have to compete with in their main markets? They only have to compete with each other because Japan has Fair Trade policy. They have policy that protects their car manufacturers from outside influence. The kinds of cars they make are decided by what people want to buy and what people want to buy is guided by high gas prices. This is true in Europe too.

Here's the top down and bottom up concept. We have in American these things called CAFE standards (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) that decide what our car's gas mileage should be. This is a top down approach. What this leads us to is this: We have cheap gas (relatively) which means the Ford F-150 is the most popular selling vehicle. It gets bad gas mileage. But it makes money. Ford loses money on smaller cars because people don't really need or want them, but yet, it is required to make them by law. Reminder: this is top down philosophy. An additional factor is that cars and trucks are defined differently and have different requirements which means if Ford, GM and Chrysler can get you to buy a "truck" (truck, SUV, or minivan) they don't have to worry about CAFE so much and can sell huge unnecessary gas guzzling machines that don't help the world.

In Europe and Japan, gasoline prices are kept a bit higher than in America due to taxes with a great result. Car manufacturers have no problem making and selling cars that get an average of 40 miles per gallon or more. In fact our average fuel economy is around 60% of what theirs is. Their car manufacturers are not forced to do something that the market doesn't support and they get a sweet tax to build roads with. This is a bottom up approach, see how it works better? You can cause something far greater to happen if you make a small change to each of a million people than if you make a large change to one or a few people at the top. And really, the average person doesn't pay any more in total because even the gas costs more, you don't use as much of it. Win win.

It's like this. How can you beat a champion boxer? Buy a new set of gloves?, no. Stomp on his toes. He won't be so interested in punching you anymore, at least until he can walk again.

It's the same concept with tax policy. Reaganomics and Bushies say "give tax cuts to the rich to stimulate the economy." The rich are so few, you can give them a sizable tax cut and it won't do much. Give the bottom of the group the tax cuts, and you will have a much larger bang for your buck. Simple math, give one person a million dollar tax cut, or give a million people a thousand dollar tax cut. One case yields $999,000,000 more than the other. Which do you think (long term) is better for the economy? That's why I advocate a return to the tax structure of 1980, adjusted for inflation and the cost of living of course.

This country is built on this type of principle. It is what it is today because of a top marginal tax rate of 70%. But that has been rapidly torn down by the last 28 years of unregulated capitalistic rule that puts most of the money into the hands of those who already have it. The biggest problem with this is the enabler. Christians were duped into supporting this way of thinking simply because they weren't looking out for who Jesus told them to be looking out for. They were looking out for themselves, their comfort, and sold themselves to the gospel of wealth and disguised it as morality.

Jesus was a bottom up guy. You help your neighbor, he helps his, he helps his, he helps his. Jesus never advocated banning or passing a constitutional amendment to ban or restrict anything. It was contrary to the way he worked and still works. He is a bottom up guy. He never used his power or influence to in anyway limit the actions of non-believers. Christians shouldn't either. In case you can't figure it out, what I'm saying is don't use your vote to keep gays from getting married. If you don't believe in same sex marriage, then don't marry someone of your same sex. The constitution should not be soiled by such petty nonsense. It should be a proud and right giving document, not a document that takes away. Marriage is between you and God, not you and the constitution or the law. Give unto God that which is God's, and God gives marriage, not Uncle Sam. Simply said passing a law banning same sex marriage is a top down approach, and Jesus was a bottom up guy. They are incompatible.

And that is my foray in to top an bottom philosophy. Top down doesn't work well, that's why we all hate the government. Try bottom up. It will work better. And stay away from demagoguery. That's a lowest denominator situation and that doesn't work either.

Jesus was a bottom up guy, and so am I.
WiredForStereo

P.S. Those of you who think that everyone wants to come to America, sorry to burst your bubble, but Europeans like their free health care, Canadians do too, that's why we don't have a wall up there.

What do we do about American cars?

Welcome to post number 172 (JOSH!!!) of The Way by WiredForStereo. Here's another post about EV's and Politics (JOSH!!!).

As you may have heard, American car companies are not doing well. GM is asking for a bailout because they say they may not have enough cash to last the year. Obama wants to help, Bush does not.

This is a transcendent problem and one years in the making and multi-causal. Let's start with some of the causes. First, American cars are widely considered to be crap. While this is likely not so true now as it has been in the past, it's something to be taken into consideration as a function of name recognition and reputation. Number two, and I think very important is that our tax and tariff policy makes it favorable for an American company to ship it's manufacturing overseas. Consider this: Japan has made special considerations for its car manufacturers. Japan has high import tariffs which essentially protect its car makers. If it costs you 20% to ship a car into Japan, then you probably won't be shipping many cars into Japan will you? Also, Japan requires that the materials incorporated in such cars be produced in-country, protecting again, not only the car companies, but also other related industries.

The US? We only have a 3% import tariff. That means it has been literally encouraged for many years now that for profitability, you should ship your manufacturing to another country where labor is cheap and then ship your products back, nearly free of charge. Meanwhile, this leaves us high and dry, and strangely enough, the Ford Fusion is made in Mexico while the best selling Toyota Camry is made in Kentucky. Where does Toyota not have a plant? That's right, Mexico.

Another problem. GM has been squandering its time and money getting people to love huge inefficient SUV's and trucks while expending a modicum of effort to develop the kinds of cars any dense prophet (profit?) can see will be needed as the gas goes away. Now when they have one car that may actually change things, they are on the edge of bankruptcy and if things don't go right, that car may not even see the road. Ford on the other hand while not doing well is still doing better than GM and that is due in part to Ford licensing Toyota's hybrid system to put in the Escapes. At the final NASCAR race this season, Ford actually debuted the first hybrid pace car, a Fusion, ever to pace a NASCAR event. In a related note team owner Rick Hendrick begged the politicians to do the right thing for GM in an interview before the race.

What shall we do? This is not about a simple bailout. We've already seen the gross failure of the bailouts already put forth. What needs to be done is a restructuring of the way we think about business in America. We need to think like every other country in the world and that's US (pun intended) first. That's not to say us first in the current "we own the world" way, but in the way that we need not to bleed money because our business leaders are greedy. They get rich while the workers get kissed on the neck and then violated. The first thing that can be done is to raise tariffs to levels that are realistic. If Japan charges us a 20% tariff then we need to do the same. They protect their automotive industry, we must do the same. China too. This won't get rid of Japanese cars, they are already built here, but it will level the playing field. This is should not be a system where we are the consumers and the rest of the world are producers. Eventually the consumers will run out of cash.

Secondly and emphatically, the bleeding must stop. We cannot expect cheap "Made in China" products if we want long term health of our economy. If our workers don't have money because the jobs aren't here anymore, then they won't buy stuff, and we'll live in a perpetual depression while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Believe me, there will be more of one group than the other, and you aren't going to be in the group you want to be in.

This bailout possibility reminds me of the Chrysler bailout in 1979-80. It was a successful one. This one could be successful too if a few guidelines are followed. First, if the government is going to be loaning the taxpayers money, they should expect some stuff in return. The expectations should be a decent interest rate, and most importantly, cars people will want to buy and keep for a long time (read cars that get good mileage, and last long, specifically EV's and series hybrids.) But again, the most important factor is the US protecting its industry by raising tariffs. If everything is on an equal playing field and they still fail, then let them fail. We don't need them. I don't think however that a good solution is to hobble them and then let them fail, which is what has been happening for, oh let's say 28 years now.

Reaganomics needs to die.
WiredForStereo

All American Gettin' Whatcha Deserve, Joe the Plumber.

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh today as I often do to remember why I'm not a conservative and he was whining about what has happened to Joe Wurzelbacher, the guy who caught Obama at a photo op, and who ended up winning the last debate, or so I hear. Not sure how that happened, I don't think he was there.

Anyway, El Rushbo was whining about how Obama's people had torn ol' good American worker Plumber Joe a new one.

Well, I'm a firm believer in getting what you pay for, when you stick something in where it don't belong, yer liable to get it slapped or chopped off, know what I mean? You should know I get that from a Biblical perspective, read Proverbs, it's in there all over, the stuff about fools.

So Joe catches Barry and says something like "I'm gonna buy a business that makes $250,000, and your tax plan is gonna tax me more, huh?

Well, there he went and stuck his nose out there with a loaded dishonest question, and it's his own fault that he got burned. Turns out, Mr. Joe doesn't make that much now, nor has he ever, nor does the business it turns out he's not buying, nor will it ever, and wonder of wonders, he has a lien against him for unpaid income taxes in the past. Additionally, he asked a loaded question, because as everybody who has done tax stuff for their own business (as my wife I and have,) you gotta make substantially more than that much to get taxed for that much because of all the deductions you get to take, so even if this imaginary business does make that much, he won't be paying those taxes, because after deductions, he'll be well under that.

What is making me scratch my head is that McCain responded to Obama's tax proposal with "40% of American workers don't pay taxes so how can they get a tax cut." Wait, wait, wait. What it is that you are telling me right here, your response to the other guy's idea is that 40% of the workers of our country are so poor, poor to the point where they don't have to pay taxes? Is this something you're proud of? You can't give tax cuts to the poor because they don't pay taxes because they don't make enough because your Reaganomics plans have shifted the wealth to the rich? So the rich deserve tax cuts because you gave them the money with which they pay taxes? Did I miss something? So spreading the wealth is in some way worse than what you've done which is spread the poverty?

Let me do a few calculations.
Progressive thinking = Spread the wealth. =>Let everyone make money.
Reaganomics = Spread the poverty. => Let those who have money make money. Those who don't, we'll just pacify by telling you that all the money you're giving us will ensure that you have a job, low paying as it may be. But actually, we don't really care if you have a job or not, but we really do like the extra money.

Since the Reagan presidency, wages of workers have stagnated (adjusted for inflation.) We know where wages for CEO's have gone. And who are we gonna give the tax cuts to?

I know one thing, God (at least in Biblical times) has a record on being on the side of the poor.
WiredForStereo

Budget, Rediculous, Crisis, Ludicrous, Debt, Stupendous.

It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases. - Bono

Leave it to a rock star to put it all in perspective.

The national debt is incredibly large. When Bush showed up, the debt was being paid down.

The government is enormous. Bush campaigned on smaller government and then made it larger than ever before, at a rate greater than ever before.

Christians are commanded by Jesus to care for the poor. Bush lowered taxes for the rich. McCain wants to do it even more.

The latest spending bill has slipped under the radar due to the Wall Street mess. It's $634 billion if it slipped under your radar too. Yeah, just like that stupid bailout plan. Do you people understand how much a billion dollars is? Do you understand that a billion is a thousand millions? Do you understand that a trillion is a thousand billions? That's a million millions. Do you understand that the national debt is going up at a rate of around $30,000 per SECOND? Do you know that it's already at nearly 10 trillion dollars? Let me write that out for you with a few zeros. That's $10,000,000,000,000. Do you understand that each and every one of the Americans reading this owes over $30,000 on that bill? Three people in my house nearly equals the entire cost of my house for crying out loud. At normal tax rates, how long is that going to take you to pay off?

I want you to look at something.

Do you see what "trickling down" does to the debt? Do you see what Reagan republicans do? Do we really need another "tax cuts for the rich" republican in the White House? Do you see what happens when we let rich people for rich people run the show?

How long do we put up with this?

I can't run my house this way. Why should the federal government be able to do it?

Reagan Republicans obviously either have no understanding of how economics works, or they play it to their own benefit and ideology.

I'm done with it.

WiredForStereo

“We Want Another Reagan Conservative! What? No We Don’t." A Treatment on Taxes and Other Money Stuff.

Ignore political and conservative biases for a minute, we are gonna try to work this out using simple logic. The Facts as I see them are these.

The United States is neck deep in national debt. None of our thinking citizens wants this.

Many conservatives favor stuff called supply side economics, or Reaganomics, or basically tax cuts for the rich to make more money.

The gap between rich and poor widens.

Celebrity worship and greed fueled a now bursting housing bubble.

Government spends too much money, much of which is wasted.

I’d like to say first of all that I am not one of those dorky single guys that live at home with their mom. I live 2200 miles from my mom. I don’t sleep between Star Wars sheets, I don’t own a video game younger than ten years old. I have two associates degrees and a job. My wife has two bachelors degrees and a job. While I work only part time, my wife and I are paid adequately for the specialties we both have. I’m not trying to brag here. I am just trying to say that I understand fully what it takes to make a life. I am not some moron whose mouth runneth over and has no idea what they are talking about.

On the other hand, guys who come up with supply side economics are guys who have degrees in Political Science. That’s right, not economics, not math, they are fully equipped to be politicians. A few definitions should follow. Supply side economics is essentially the belief that if you make incentive to produce products by lowering taxes on the producers, you will get enhanced economy as a result. It is really saying “we’ll let you keep more of your money, so you should invest it so you can make even more money which we’ll then take our share of.” The past two double term republican presidencies have been big into this, also recessions. The basic problem is this: If you give someone more money, chances are, they’ll just want more money. More money is usually gotten by laying off people, paying people less, and moving production over seas, and likely a combination of all three. If all the money moves overseas, then we don’t get any of it.

We poor people (read “middle class”) don’t understand this. Why? Because it doesn’t make any sense. If you want more money, you take more taxes. The reason why the conservatives tell us that it is working is they cut taxes in one area, then look at all revenues to see the result. Sure, the US is taking in more money than ever before, but it is not coming from the area where they cut taxes, which as you might imagine is bringing in less money. It makes sense. It’s like saying “I’ll plant less corn in the garden this year” and then taking the gross weight of the production of the whole garden and then saying “Wow, look at all the new corn we have by planting less.” You aren’t making more corn. You are making less. The difference is, you can distinguish corn from peas, dollars all look the same. So when a politician tells you there are more dollars, you automatically think, “Well, I don’t understand it, but it seems to be working!” Additionally, it doesn’t matter that we are taking in more money than ever, we are also more in debt than ever, go figure.

I have a friend in our church small group who always brings up the “punishing productivity” argument whenever we have this discussion. He says that keeping taxes high on the rich punishes them for working hard and making more money. Since we are making sense today, I’ll admit, that does make a little sense, but only a little. However, every dollar has two sides. If you lower taxes on the ones who can afford it, you punish those who cannot. What it says is “Oh, you have money, here, have some more,” and “You over there don’t have much, give me some of it.” Do you see the problem? You may be rewarding productivity, but you are punishing misfortune. Most physically hardworking families whose jobs are strenuous but not well paying are not there because they don’t work hard. They are not being supported by welfare, they are not popping out kids left and right so they can get tax rebates and welfare checks. The whole “working hard” paradigm is completely meaningless. Working hard does not equal more money. The hardest work I’ve ever done paid well less than $10 an hour, and the easiest work I’ve ever done pays more than that. What’s the difference? Education, skill, perseverance, paying dues, work ethic, opportunity, and actually enjoying the work I’m doing. I would also like to say from a spiritual perspective that giving tithe, offerings, and works of service to God makes a ton of difference as well because he is the one who makes that whole list up there possible. See the book of Malachi.

This Supply Side Economics, or Reaganomics, or Trickle Down Economics stuff is just bogus. I don’t remember who it was that said this, but it is not the rich who are owed because of their success, it is them who owe us who made them successful. You can’t get rich by yourself but you need underlings, people whose work you profit from. No one person can have the skill or more importantly time to be every employee of a multi-million dollar company. There is almost always someone profiting from someone else, and the some ones who make more money should have to pay taxes at no less a percentage rate than the person from whom they are profiting.

It is not like buying toilet paper bulk, so you actually pay less per roll. In fact it is the reverse. Let’s just assume a 10% tax because it is easy to calculate, in reality it is much higher. A person making $20,000 is not very able to pay $2,000 in taxes, while a person making $2,000,000 is very easily able to pay $200,000. In the same way, a person is more able to pay $10,000 if they make $100,000 that if they make less. It is very simple. In fact, if a person making $2,000,000 can live like a person making $100,000, which anyone can, then they can afford to pay far more. Of course, I am not suggesting that we force people who make a lot of money to live as if they don’t, but I AM suggesting that they do it themselves.

The big overriding problem above all this is the problem of people with money, oh, I mean people with our money. If the government wants to cut taxes, please do, but you must also cut spending. I don’t have any credit cards, so I really can’t spend more than I have without immediate consequences. So we live what most of us would call “within our means.” Why can’t our government do the same? All of the presidential candidates right now are proposing new spending when we already are having a deficit every year. And all the republicans are proposing tax cuts. What nonsense! All of it is nonsense!

The solution.

As far as taxation goes, I can see no better option than the Fair Tax. The more you can afford to buy, the more you can afford to pay, and there are no arbitrary percentage rates for anyone. If you buy a $20,000 car, $4,600 of that is taxes, if you want to buy a $100,000 car, $23,000 is taxes. So simple. Please, buy a $10,000,000 house, we need the $2.3 million in tax revenues. It works everywhere. If all you can afford is a $2 box of macaroni, then all the tax you’d pay is $.46, but if you want a $40 steak meal, then you pay $9.20. It is just like giving a tip, only slightly more than we would often give, but hey, it’s taxes! I know it is hard to really work out the math, but, you must stop to calculate that the value of money will be different. If you were to make $40,000 a year, right now, that is something like $28,000 after taxes. With the Fair Tax, if you were to make $40,000 a year, you would be making $40,000 a year. Wow, that was easy, and there wasn’t any stress in April.

Tax this!

WiredForStereo