Peace
When Russia invaded Ukraine, I was heartbroken to see the images of families crying as warplanes destroyed their villages. Who wouldn’t be? But this is reality in other regions of the world too And not just from Russian weapons of war, but from American weapons as well.
I didn’t want to ignore what was happening, but I also didn’t want to perpetuate this horror. Then not too much later, I saw more heartbreaking images from Israel.
As Americans, what are we to do?
Let’s look at a domestic issue and then go back and apply it internationally. When discussing welfare programs, many conservatives point out that Jesus did not say to tax your neighbor to help the poor. Rather, He said to help the poor. Do it yourself. These conservatives are correct! Jesus never said that our generosity should be conditioned upon paying taxes to Caesar. Instead, we are to graciously share our blessings with others.
Conservatives of virtually all traditions celebrate private charity, whether those traditions are Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, secular moralism, or Christianity.
However, what conservatives get right about domestic welfare spending, they abandon on international spending.
Their argument goes like this: Putin and Hamas committed acts of violence against people. We should support the victims in their resistance to those violent actors. But the “we” to which they are referring is the government, rather than themselves.
If we were to be consistent, we would hold the same attitude toward international spending as we do toward domestic. Yes, it is right and good to help people who are in need. But it is not right to force your neighbor who doesn't agree with you to also pay. That is robbery.
If you want to help people in Ukraine, Israel (or Palestine for that matter) send a check to a reputable supporting charity. Do not rob your neighbor to do what you are unwilling to do yourself. Conversely, if you don’t want to support a particular cause or country, you should not be forced to do so. Nor should your neighbor.
The opposing argument might go like this - “But I am being taxed too much to support them!” The answer is to lower taxes! Charity would thrive if the government were to lift its oppressive tax burden on people.
To that, an astute observer might say, “Even if they cut our taxes to zero, private individuals could not send the billions of dollars to Ukraine and Israel that the US is sending now.”
In that case, you are welcome to take out a home equity line of credit, and go into debt to support the war efforts in far-off lands. You can tap into your child’s educational savings account to buy bombs from an American weapons manufacturer. Sell off your retirement assets to help a foreign government jail dissidents and bomb children.
“But that would be completely insane!” one might argue. “Why would we ruin our future to help support a war in a far away land?!”
Once you get to that question, you are ready to vote Libertarian.
Prosperity
Inflation
Between work, volunteering at church and in our community, and raising a family, my wife and I stay quite busy. One of the things we like to do, just to enjoy some quality time together, is shop for groceries. Yep, I am a hopeless romantic. We actually go on grocery-shopping dates. (For more dating advice, talk to me at one of our rallies!)
Maybe politicians do not see the weight of inflation because they do not make weekly grocery trips themselves. Many have never lived paycheck to paycheck in an inflationary environment. I see inflation, and I know what it can do to a family. To the core of my being, I feel it.
One party says inflation is not a factor. Sometimes they claim that it’s getting better because it didn't grow as much as it did last month. The other party refuses to recognize its causes, because they too are responsible for it. Finding a solution between the two feels like a hopeless cause.
This climbing inflation needs to be rectified. Financial problems destroy our health, our families, and our hope. To correct it, we must recognize what is causing it. We also need to look at what is motivating government to encourage its upward crawl.
You and I hate inflation, because it cuts into our savings and makes it virtually impossible to plan for the future. Government loves inflation though, because it enables them to tax people without being recognized as taxing people. Traditional taxation is daytime robbery. Inflation is covert, nighttime burglary.
Here’s the motivation: They want to send billions to Israel and Ukraine, but they don’t want to be seen raising your taxes. How do they do it? Through inflation. They want to bail out their banking buddies, but don’t want to be caught raising your taxes. How do they do it? Through inflation. They want to give huge contracts to their friends in the pharmaceutical and military industries, but don’t want to be blamed for raising your taxes. How do they do it? Through inflation.
You hate it. They love it. They have more guns, so they win.
Now, let’s consider what causes inflation.
Imagine you have a neighbor who counterfeits money. He is good at it. Really good. In fact, he is so good that his money is completely indistinguishable from an actual Federal Reserve Note. Therefore neither he, nor anyone to whom he gives his money, is in any danger of ever being caught.
Now, let's say your neighbor prints $58,000 worth of $100 bills, and buys a new Ford F150.
Next, he prints $12,500 and buys his girlfriend a diamond ring.
Then he prints $450,000 and buys a home.
He now has a truck, a ring, and a home for which he did not contribute anything to society.
From whom did he steal these things?
Was it the car dealership, the jeweler, or the home seller? No, they received compensation that can be used easily throughout the community.
Is the community better off for having this counterfeiter?
Of course not! Because he bought those items, he increased the demand side of the economic ledger in each of those industries ever so slightly. The rest of the community has one less truck, one less ring, and one less home available for purchase.
The additional money he injected into those industries is going to result in a marginal price increase for trucks, rings, and homes. The car dealer, jeweler, and home seller are actually made better off for it, because they have access to the newly printed money prior to the price increases. Those who are harmed would be the people who come to buy a truck, a ring, or a home later on.
What we see on a small scale with your neighborhood counterfeiter, we see on a massive scale when the government prints money. Some people benefit while contributing nothing to the economy. Those who are adjacent to those people printing the money, for example big bankers and people who work in the government sector benefit. The people who suffer for it are further down the ladder. They are not connected to the industries that first see the increased monetary supply.
Most of the time, the first group that can access the money, is the banking sector. Inflation makes the banks quite wealthy, while harming others to a degree relative to their distance from the banking sector. The more distant they are, the more they are harmed by increased prices, because it takes longer for them to access the excess money that has been pumped into the economy. By the time the waitress wiping tables at the local cafe sees the extra money, either through more tips or a higher salary, she has already been dealing with price increases throughout the economy for months.
Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats want to acknowledge the cause of inflation. But it is a direct result of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy. Ironically, the reckless spending in Washington itself influences the Fed.
Because politicians like to spend money they don’t have, they have to borrow it. High interest rates prevent them from borrowing at will, so they pressure the Fed to support artificially low interest rates, which cause inflation. And as we are seeing now, this problem cannot immediately be corrected by raising interest rates.
Republicans don’t want to acknowledge the cause, because Trump was a big spender. Under each year of his presidency, spending grew, culminating with 2020’s cataclysmic increases.
Democrats don’t want to acknowledge the cause because they are big spenders. (One advantage to having a Democratic president, however, is that Republicans finally put a brake on spending when it’s not their guy pushing for it, after all)
Therefore, Republicans will blame Biden, while ignoring the explosion that happened under Trump. Democrats continue to downplay inflation, claiming that it’s getting better. This is despite the fact that we are still seeing groceries, energy, housing, and transportation eating more and more of our paychecks.
Neither dinosaur party will fix inflation because neither will recognize its cause.
Libertarians are the solution. We will fix inflation. We will pursue sound monetary policies and end the counterfeiting regime.
Income Inequality
I am not a wealthy person. I am a member of the disappearing middle class. I own my own home, where I live. It is not a fancy home. It is about 100 years old. It does not have a garage, so I park on the street. It has just one bathroom. But, it’s home, and I love it!
I work a full time job. My wife and I are blessed in that I work from home, so we can manage with just one vehicle. I buy most of my clothes from second-hand shops. And I am happy.
With that in mind, I compared a day in my life to a day in the life of a typical 1%er and a truly poverty stricken person. I suggest doing this from time to time. It helps you to be thankful for what you have.
I woke up this morning and crawled out of my full size bed I share with my wife. The 1% rich person woke up this morning, and crawled out of a king sized bed he slept in alone. His wife has her own bedroom. His mistress has her own home. The 1% poor person did not have a bed in which to sleep, but woke up to the cold ground. I would say I am more similar to the rich than the poor, minus the mistress.
Next, I relieved myself in my porcelain toilet. The wealthy 1% relieved himself in his solid gold toilet. The 1% poor person is happy that a Christian missionary team recently dug a latrine in his area. He waited in line, and relieved himself there.
Next, I did my usual morning exercise. A 5K walk down the beautiful Armstrong trail in Armstrong County PA, while listening to my favorite podcast from my phone speakers. The wealthy 1% went to his personal gym, met with his personal trainer, and had a much more targeted workout than I had, while listening to music on digital surround sound. The poorest 1% could not even fathom exercising for pleasure, or to work off extra calories, as he never had that problem. I am much closer to the rich man than the poor man.
Next, I took a shower. The wealthy one-percenter also took a shower. His shower was bigger and fancier than mine. Two weeks ago, the poorest 1% got to bathe in a creek, where runoff from the latrine flowed. I am much closer to the rich man than the poor man.
Next, I made myself breakfast. I had dozens of different things from which to choose, but I decided upon a microwave sausage sandwich with an egg that I scrambled. I prayed, and then read my Bible while I had breakfast. The wealthy 1%er had ordered the night before from hundreds of different things, and his cook had his dish ready for him. The poorest 1% had rice. It was all he had. It was what he had for dinner the previous day. It was what he had every day. It's all he has. I am much closer to the rich man than the poor man.
Next, I went to work, from my house, where I talked to people and typed to people. (The contents of what I said and typed were unique to my position, but what I was physically doing was typing and talking.) The rich man also went to work, typing and talking. The poor person did back breaking labor for the next 16 hours. I am much closer to the rich than the poor.
At lunch time, I grabbed some food that my wife had made, and ate while I was on the phone with someone. At lunch time, the rich person went to a restaurant to eat with the person to whom he was talking. The poor person did not have a lunch. I am much closer to the rich person than the poor person.
After working through lunch, I was able to take a 15 minute break. Since my daughter does not live far away, she was over with my grandkids, and I was able to visit with them during that break. The rich person was able to take a 15 minute break too, where he drank some specialty blend coffee. His kids were off to an elite school. The poor person was still working. His oldest daughter had recently died of influenza. His youngest son, and his wife, had both died during delivery. His only remaining daughter was working at a shoe factory. I am doing better than the rich person here.
After work, I checked the news on the Internet. After work, the rich person read the New York Times. The poor person was still working, and cannot read. I am again doing better than the rich person.
After checking the news, I had dinner with my family: Chicken and Knorr pasta sides. After checking the news, the rich person sat down with his wife and daughter to a meal prepared by an award winning chef. Finally, the poor is able to eat again. He has rice. I am closer to the rich than the poor.
I sat down next to watch a Netflix movie on my 48 in flat screen 4K TV, on my worn out sofa, next to my wife. The rich person sat down and watched a personal screening of the latest blockbuster release in his personal theater. He had some of the actors from the film over as well. The poor person does not understand what a movie is. I am much closer to the rich than the poor.
Next, I open up a paperback book, and read for a little bit. Next, the rich opens up a leather bound book and reads for a little bit. Still, the poor person does not know how to read. I am much closer to the rich than the poor.
Finally, I brush my teeth, and head back to that full sized bed. Finally, the rich person brushes his teeth, and heads back to his king sized bed. Finally, the poor person cuddles up in a blanket on the ground, and falls asleep.
In no time during his day, did the poor person have time to complain about my lifestyle.
Now, to be sure, there are some people who are extremely wealthy because they have either used government to advance themselves, or they have used government to destroy their competition. These people make us all poorer, and we need to cut the size of government to prevent this from happening.
In general, however, I like to discourage focusing on income inequality. It accomplishes little, and makes people less happy. I try to be thankful for what I have, recognizing that it is a lot more than most people throughout human history have ever had, even if it isn’t even close to what millionaires, like Bernie Sanders, or billionaires, like Elon Musk have.
Civil Liberties
Government’s Response to Covid
On March 10, 2020, three days prior to Trump issuing his state of emergency declaration about COVID, The Atlantic ran a headline, “There Are No Libertarians in an Epidemic.” Among our ruling class, this unfortunately proved to be far too truthful. There were no “limited government conservatives,” nor “civil rights liberals.” They all disappeared.
The government forced long-standing family businesses to “temporarily” close. Unable to survive without revenue, those “temporary” closures became permanent realities.
Government-run schools shut down. Kids couldn’t interact with other kids. A brief period of time for an adult is an eternity for a kid, and that temporary isolation has left permanent mental health scars.
Under force of government, medical providers suspended health screenings, and “elective” procedures. This led to chronic physical health conditions and even death for many Americans.
Yes, among the ruling class, “there were no Libertarians in an epidemic.”
However, among the regular working class,we were there. We were pointing out that one-size-fits-all policies not only made us less free, they also made us less safe.
By keeping everyone locked away, both the young and healthy, and the old and infirm, we were prolonging the virus. By their own admission, the elites told us we were “slowing the spread,” not “stopping the spread.” This merely delayed the inevitable.
Unfortunately, among the ruling elite, “There were no Libertarians in an epidemic.”
The ruling elites told us that they were preventing hospitals from being overrun. But many of our friends who worked in the medical industry were furloughed during this period, because there was not enough work for them to do. They lost income, and we all lost access to medical care. Many of us were clamoring that this shutdown needed to end!
But, among the ruling elite, “There were no Libertarians in an epidemic.”
The ruling elites insisted that all hospitals follow the same protocols. They ordered doctors to withhold therapeutic medication until patients were knocking on death’s door on ventilators. Meanwhile, throughout the country, doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals, who were more libertarian oriented in their views, were begging to be able to at least try to treat the virus earlier. They were denied that right.
But among the ruling elite, “There were no Libertarians in an epidemic.”
This does raise the question of how a libertarian society would handle an epidemic, and the answer, put simply, is a lot better than what we saw in 2020!
A Libertarian policy maker would provide no top-down solution based on some vague notion of “The Science.” Recall that nobody was allowed to question it, including other scientists! With libertarian policy, everyone would be free to make their own treatment choices. If the virus were truly severe, many would choose to isolate themselves.
But how do we protect our elderly and infirm friends and family if we don’t lock down? Wouldn’t the continued activities of the lower risk groups endanger them?
In a libertarian society, those who choose to could lock themselves down. The virus would make its way relatively quickly through those who choose to brave the storm. Within a short period of time, most people would have natural immunities and less deadly variants would replace deadlier variants. At that point, it would be safe for those who chose to isolate themselves to come out. This is far more preferable to the way it was handled by the ruling elite, who asked that we all come out of isolation at the same time, leading to unnecessary death.
During the last epidemic, there were no libertarians among the decision makers. I pray that during our next epidemic, there will be.
Civil Liberties and Antidiscrimination Laws
Legislation is like a drug. Politicians identify a problem and then pass legislation to correct the problem, just as doctors identify an illness and prescribe medication to address it. Like drugs, legislation tends to have side effects. We can easily predict some of these side effects prior to passing the legislation.
However, like a fast-tracked vaccine, legislation sometimes has side effects that don’t show up until after it is law. In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in an attempt to cure the disease of racism. While the Civil Rights Act primarily applies to government practices, and continues to ensure that the government avoids discriminatory behavior, part of it applies to businesses. Like most other pieces of legislation applied to businesses, it had a profound unforeseen side effect. It stifled civil liberties.
Freedom of association is a fundamental civil liberty. People can choose why, how, and to what extent they associate with others. Prior to the 1960s, many people chose not to associate with others based on race. This is a horrible reason to choose not to associate with another person. However, civil rights are not about protecting what we think is right, but rather protecting people’s rights to do what the majority views as wrong.
Because it is impossible to know what a person is thinking, the government needed to find a way to measure discrimination. They began looking at disproportionate representation in workforces as evidence of discrimination. However, disproportionate representation does not mean that a business is practicing discrimination. For example, most garbage collectors are men. Perhaps this is because every waste disposal company in the world practices sex discrimination. But, more likely, it’s because it’s much more probable that men will pursue a career in waste management than women would.
America is full of various subcultures. Different cultures have different values. Some cultures are going to be more likely to encourage their children to be engineers. Some will be more likely to encourage their children to be lawyers. Some will be more likely to encourage their children to be educators. This is obviously going to lead to disproportionate representation in each of those industries, and this disproportionality has nothing to do with racial, gender, or religious discrimination. It has to do with discrimination based on merit, which is ideal. We want the best person for the job to be performing the job.
Too often, when a doctor sees a patient suffering side effects from a drug the patient was prescribed, rather than trying to get the patient off of the initial drug, the doctor will prescribe another drug to counter the side effects. This started to happen with antidiscrimination laws as well. More and more groups were added to the list of “classes” of victims.
As people began winning lawsuits based on disproportional representation, America had a new class of success: The successful victim. Claiming victimhood became a badge of honor. As America embraced this victim mentality, new categories of victims began to arise. Today, almost everyone can claim some “intersection” of victimhood. Those who are not born into a “victim” class, can become a member of a victim class by claiming to be “gender-nonbinary.” It should be of little surprise that we see an increasing number of people choosing to identify themselves with victim groups, despite the long term psychological harm caused by doing so.
With untold numbers of “intersections of oppression” at their businesses, companies began employing teams of Human Resource personnel to protect them against lawsuits. These HR personnel increase the costs of goods and services, and diminish the amount of funds companies have available to pay their productive employees.
Additionally, holes appeared in antidiscrimination laws. For example, a business could get around the laws by not discriminating in hiring based on race, but make the business so uncomfortable for minority groups that they would choose not to work there. Therefore, new regulations needed to be added, prohibiting “hostile work environments.”
As is so often the case, these band-aids had their own sets of unforeseen consequences.
Speech has always been regulated in the workplace. Business profits are threatened when employees associated with their business begin to make unpopular statements. This falls well within the civil rights of people to choose with whom they associate. If a business does not want to associate with someone making unpopular or hateful comments, whether it be from a place of moral values, or it be from a place of profit incentive, that business has every right to sever that relationship. The issue arises, however, when the government steps in and mandates that businesses sever these relationships. At this point, it becomes a violation of the First Amendment.
Just as businesses do not want, in general, to be associated with those who say or do unpopular things, they also do not want their business environment to be hostile. People are more productive when they are more comfortable. This is why almost every office space in America has air conditioning. It’s not out of the benevolence of the business that you can work in a cool, clean environment. It’s that you’re more productive that way.
Now that victimhood is treated as a badge of honor, people have an incentive to find areas where they are being victimized. This gives rise to the concept of “microaggressions.” Afraid of committing a “microaggression,” people begin walking on eggshells at work. They keep their heads low, and do just the bare minimum to avoid interacting with others. This destroys innovation, and makes our economy less prosperous.
Perhaps the greatest side effect to this dangerous drug, however, is that it ends up doing the exact opposite of what it is supposed to do. It can make it harder for people who are in “oppressed groups” to find work. A business does not want a hostile work environment. If they suspect that someone will go around seeking “microaggressions,” they will be less likely to hire that person, because they do not want to face the consequences of lawsuits. This gives them an incentive to discriminate. The very laws that were designed to prevent discrimination, due to their side effects, cause discrimination.
If someone has cancer, it might be a good idea for that person to undergo Chemotherapy to kill the cancer, despite its side effects. However, once the patient is cancer free, the chemo should stop. America is not the same place as it was in the 1960s. We have grown. Some of that growth might have been a positive effect of antidiscrimination laws. Much of it was likely due to education. It is time we rethink how we treat each other, and to once again embrace a world where freedom of speech, which includes the freedom to associate, is protected.
Peaceful and prosperous work environments in Pennsylvania, require that we are not all walking continually on eggshells.