Rise up, anti-interventionists!

 

Barack Obama may be the best president we’ve ever had. He’s got conservatives criticizing the surveillance state. He’s got liberals wondering what happened to civil liberties and peace.

 

Mistrust of government is growing and Obama is primarily responsible. Mistrust of government is privately universal because it is deserved. But in the public sphere, trust in government is tolerated because we are all addicted to this despicable tool of theft. As Bastiat said, “Government is the great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.”

 

Because we are so widely dependent on this great fiction, little mention is made of an alternative. In recent election cycles it was mentioned, but in a way that categorized it in a combative realm that didn’t allow further discussion. This place was interventionism as opposed to isolationism and was linked to patriotism as opposed to anti-Americanism. That’s a lot of isms but bear with me.

 

Intervention is the culprit in every aspect of government failure. A recent Des Moines Register article had an ISU professor stating the food stamp program has been “effective.” This is a perfect example of Jan Mickelson’s description of an uncivilized society; short term results at the expense of future security. This ISU professor, paid with my tax money, legitimizes this program as effective. But the long term effects are a broad acceptance of theft as a new moral standard.

 

For example, when I shared a big house with several people in Oakland, California. A couple moved in from Boston whose employment was basically gaming the government trough. They even had a way of losing their food stamps, reporting them stolen and being issued more.

 

To take my argument further, there should be no public colleges. That would solve the problem of idiot professors paid by people who disagree with them. This may seem like a radical concept but the situation we deal with today is the radical one. Public colleges are just a part of a huge network of corporate welfare. And it can be rightfully called interventionism. This interventionism skews the labor market by spreading the cost of training to taxpayers instead of having that cost reflected in a simple business decision. This results in jobs that needn’t be done and products that never should have been produced. We have a society full of stuff nobody needs.

 

In another editorial, The Farm Bill was touted as beneficial because it provided nutrition to under privileged families and funds for crop disasters. My folks are dead now and along with them is the idea they taught: Money doesn’t grow on trees.

 

Vladimir Lenin said, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” Apparently the truth ignored long enough can cease to exist. The intervention that saves the under privileged from hunger or the farmer from drought also deters the businessman from investing in new machinery or new employees. Once again from Bastiat, the seen is beneficial to some but the unseen has a larger impact in the long run.

 

In the realm of the elections non-interventionism was used in the context of foreign policy. Conservatives consistently called it isolationism, as a slur. But with Obama in the driver’s seat, conservatives are starting to see empire for what it is; a spending free-for-all that is draining our productive capacity and making us less safe and less free.

 

Politicians see interventionism as wrong for others but alright in their own constituencies. So they tolerate their comrades’ bribery to protect their own.

 

I can’t imagine anyone defending the First Family spending one hundred million dollars on an African vacation. Even though this is a tiny fraction of the waste produced by empire, farm bills or silly regulations, maybe it will put a burr under the saddles of the people who eventually see it as their money and not Obama’s. Maybe it will make people realize that government is full of people who don’t qualify for jobs in the private sector so they should have no power to intervene in any part of our lives unless we are causing harm to others.

 

Limited government is the friend of liberals and conservatives alike. A coalition of anti-interventionists would be a beautiful thing. But there are too many snouts in the trough, on either side.

 

Fans and enemies are encouraged by Fritz to share at 4selfgovernment@gmail.com.

 

Please send on, respond or refuse future emails as you see fit. And have a great week as we remember those who resisted their government 237 years ago so we could start out as a nation of free men.

The artist would be starving, if not for capitalism

I have a friend who, when I mentioned public radio, said he wouldn’t ever listen to it. He said he just listens to Rush Limbaugh to know how to think. I told him he’s missing out on some in-depth reporting that merely needs to be listened to while considering the source.

Well, I’ve given public radio a long trial period and they just get worse. I refer to the so-called news shows, not the music programming (especially Bob Dorr’s music history shows which are excellent).

I believe it was Ben Kiefer on Iowa Public Radio who was interviewing an artist who put up a sign that said, “Capitalism works for me,” with buttons for public input marked true and false. Neither man seemed to have any idea what capitalism was, or else they thought if their lies were repeated often enough they would come true.

The artist claimed we live in a democracy where The Constitution defines the government we have and we have the right to vote for our economic system, as if the government was one thing and the economic system was something separate. The host, Kiefer, just talked on like the artist had not made a totally false statement. If anything is a great argument against democracy, this is it. This is the kind of garbage that is supposed to inform the public so we can make informed decisions required in a democracy?

Then there’s Talk of the Nation, hosted by Tom Ashbrook. The good news is it has ended, replaced by a show that seems more focused on the workings of politics, as if we must be umbilically connected to the latest directive from government or we might just stand still and starve.

I happened to be listening last Thursday, which was the last day for Talk of the Nation. Even though the show was canceled, various government radio celebrities came on to sound the praises of the so-called civil discourse of Talk of the Nation. They accepted calls too.

One caller pointed out how Talk of the Nation has filtered out any discussion of the benefits of private ownership of property or entrepreneurial endeavor without funding from public (stolen) sources. When the caller mentioned building number seven in relation to the September 11th attacks, Tom Ashbrook exploded into a rage calling him a truther. Seeking the truth is something NPR (National Public Radio) brags about but avoids like the plague. Civil discourse, my foot.

This is where I have to temper my criticism of public radio because they are not alone. Anyone who listens to that joke called The Big Show on WHO knows this. How many billions of dollars have been wasted in this worship of the pagan idol, ethanol? And when Debra Medina, who was in the Republican primary for Texas governor, admitted she lacks enough information to pass judgment concerning 9/11 and building seven on Glenn Beck’s show, she was childishly ridiculed as a truther too. Commercial radio can misinform as well.

The truth is elusive in a world where we are so distant from an eye witness account. By the time any news arrives it can go through enough changes (like the old telephone game where the story changes as it is passed around a circle) that there is very little resemblance to the original.

Besides the fact that minority rights don’t exist in a democracy, the lack of well-informed voters should be the last nail in the coffin of democracy. A republic, as defined by our Constitution, limits the power of government to protect us from abuse by monied interests or “social justice” advocates, alike. But the exceptions brought about by each side for their own interest have been exploited by the other side so now CEOs and socialists are vilified by the people who enabled them.

I used to be an art student and I realize what art is. It is a product that is useless as a sustenance of basic life. It enriches our lives but it is not biologically necessary. It exists because we are so wealthy through the benefits of private ownership (capitalism), we have capital left over for pleasure. The artist who put up the capitalism sign would be spending every waking hour supporting his own physical existence, if not for capitalism. If he were living in the fabled democracy he spoke of, there would be no one left to produce the necessities of life because the vote would be the source of all wealth. We can’t vote food and shelter out of thin air. They must come from a selfish will to survive and voluntary exchange that distributes scarce resources most efficiently.