1. Communism Kills
2. Culture
3. Don’t Tread
4. Earth Liberation
5. Enjoy Capitalism!
6. Free Trade Now!
7. Freedom: My Anti-Gov
8. Down with Censorship!
9. Hands Off My Home
10. Homeland Tyranny
11. I Am Not a Number
12. ImmiGreat
13. Politics Hurt
14. Progressives Against Progress
15. Smoking is Healthier Than Fascism
16. Social Slavery
17. Stop Rent-seeking
18. Stop Statism
19. Tax Slavery Sucks
20. Teensploitation
21. Who Owns You?

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Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Great Libertarian Memes

The government and special interest groups working through the government claim they are “here to help” you. But no matter how good their intentions, usually they end up violating your rights. For instance, most people would agree that substance abuse is bad, whether that substance is heroin or over the counter sleeping pills. Most people would also agree that the doctor, the lawyer, the nutritionist, the hairdresser and the contractor you do business with should know what they are doing. Yet, the essence of natural rights is that self-ownership and freedom of association are not contingent upon man-made legislation but are inherent in each individual. The real question then, is not whether substance abuse is bad, or whether it is good for a person to have the proper training in their chosen profession, but if anyone should be able to tell you what you can or cannot consume, inhale, drink, inject into yourself, or with whom you can contract. The answer is NO — you are the only one who has the right to make this decision. Any coercion exerted by the government violates your individual rights, grossly misallocates economic resources, and distorts the market. It’s a simple yet powerful concept: you own yourself.

Restrictions or bans on substances violate property rights. In many countries, governments (or as some have called them, “food Nazis”) have taken to banning all sorts of items, such as trans-fats, foie gras, and the smoking of cigarettes — a clear violation of property rights. If a restaurant owner believed her patrons would prefer foods without trans-fats, she would be smart to prepare foods without those fats. A bar owner who sees that many customers would rather have an adult beverage without smelling of smoke would ask his patrons not to light up. But, even if the property owner made a decision that others disagree with, or one that goes against market trends, that is his prerogative. Consumers are always free to spend their dollars elsewhere.

Restrictions or bans on substances are inefficient and impossible to enforce. The war on (some) drugs is a war that cannot be won. After a group of people (i.e. the Drug Enforcement Administration, legislators trying to appear “tough on crime,” etc.) deem a particular substance “illicit,” money is taken from productive members of society to fund what is now a $40 billion per year anti-drug campaign. With 25% of those in state prisons and 55% of those in federal prison incarcerated for a drug-related offense, this failed government policy means the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest number of individuals behind bars in absolute numbers. Not exactly the “land of the free.” Further, making substances illegal does not lessen demand for them but only moves them to the black market where purity is questionable, where contractual disputes are resolved through violence rather than in court, and where the price is artificially high. This allows organized crime to thrive and pushes desperate users into crime to pay for their addiction.

Occupational licensing violates your right to voluntarily make contacts. It is no secret that those who oversee licensing requirements have an incentive to limit their competition. By buddying up with legislators to create and score the tests required for a license to “legally” work in their profession, plumbers, hairstylists, contractors, doctors and others claim to act to “protect” the public from shoddy workmanship or services. This serves only to protect them from competition, which drives up prices for the consumer. By denying consumers the right to hire who they want for a particular job it violates their right to voluntarily reach a contact with another person. And it violates the rights of an individual to choose their profession. If the free market forces of competition were allowed into these professions, it would drive down cost and raise quality because those who do a bad job or defraud people will be exposed for doing so, and cannot hide behind a government-issued license.

The regulation of pharmaceuticals violates individual rights and distorts the market. The Food and Drug Administration, another agency created under the auspices of “protecting us,” is responsible for countless deaths due to the barriers (in terms of time and money) it puts between a drug and the market. In a true free market, consumers would have the right to buy and consume drugs at their discretion. For determining the safety and efficacy of a drug, they will likely turn to their doctors, Consumer Reports-type associations that rank drugs, and other reviews for advice. And if a drug fails to deliver on its promises it will gain a negative reputation and will be avoided, possibly causing the manufacturer to go under. This is your life, not some bureaucrat’s.

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Who Owns You?

Far from being environments conducive to learning, schools across the world coerce students to conform to the whims of politicians and bureaucrats. Billed as bastions of free expression, intellectual honesty and rigor, administrators have turned schools into prisons for the mind, where one-size-fits-all policies are forced upon youth and where independent thoughts are discarded. It’s a world in which the government will tell a student what they can and can’t think, wear, say, or do. It’s a world that crushes the individual for the benefit of those in power — a practice we’ve dubbed “Teensploitation.”

Teensploitation is intellectual slavery. Government schools, while alleging to perpetuate diversity, are centers of statist thought. Today, in virtually every class, students are taught to turn to the government when confronted with a problem, rather than to think for themselves, take their own initiative and bear the accompanying responsibility. Students are told that it is their duty to pay their taxes, to vote, and to accept regulations as good things, and that government is needed to protect the less-fortunate from the onslaught of capitalism. Students are rewarded not for documenting how entrepreneurs and voluntary transactions create wealth and thus lift people from poverty, but for proposing ever-more-invasive government programs under vague notions of “social justice.” Teachers parrot socialist ideas: that market failure rather than government policies caused and exacerbated the Great Depression; that redistribution is “just”; that students should listen to them and others in government because they “know what is good for them.” And like socialism, this one-size-fits-all education means that all students are treated the same — at the lowest common denominator so that none are left behind. Ever wonder why the brightest students are often bored? As H.L. Mencken stated, “The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all, it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.”

Government schools elevate the good of the collective at the expense of the individual. Teachers tell students that the good of society, or a whole race or ethnicity ranks above that of an individual. That minority rights must be protected at the expense of individual rights. But isn’t the smallest minority the individual? Further, forcing diversity on students through programs such as affirmative action only reinforces prejudices that categorize people based on a factor outside of their control (i.e. their race/ethnicity). Using race to sort people is racist by definition. To escape the epidemic of racial conflict students need only grasp that civil society and free markets are the great equalizers, not the state, as is preached in government schools. For example, a business owner does not need the government to tell her who to hire. If she wants to stay competitive she’ll hire the most qualified person, regardless of their skin color or gender. If she doesn’t, her competitor will, placing her at a disadvantage. The same is true of whom they choose to sell to. If a business owner is racist and he refuses to sell to a certain group of people, he’ll lose business while his competitor, who sees the money to be gained, readily sells to them. But, are students taught this in school? That the market is the great equalizer? That the market, not any government program or mandate, creates the most opportunities? No? And why is that? So bureaucrats can keep their jobs?

Mandatory community service is slavery. Through programs such as Zero Tolerance and mandatory community service, government schools teach individuals to be subservient to the State, to surrender their rights without protest. Government schools are merely a bureaucratic tool—controlling what students learn, blocking diversity of thought, transforming youth into unquestioning supporters of an invasive government that controls their personal and economic decisions. As Benjamin Disraeli stated in 1874, “Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to ensure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.”

Mandatory attendance violates individual rights. Though it varies by jurisdiction, governments decree by law that youth must attend school when they reach a specific age for a certain number of years, akin to a prison sentence. Failure to do so can result in fines (for their parents, whose money is already being stolen to pay for government schools) and if continued, jail. As the great hero of human rights Joseph Stalin once wrote, “Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” Any wonder why it’s mandatory?

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Teensploitation

According to the Tax Foundation, Americans will spend about 30 percent of their income on taxes in 2008. For comparison, in 1900, it was around 6 percent. Put differently, for almost four months out of the year you work just to pay for government. In the current system most types of income are taxed, sometimes twice, and often progressively. These are just some of the taxes levied by government: federal and local income tax, sales tax, property tax, gasoline tax, cigarette tax, liquor tax, vehicle sales tax, utility tax, marriage license tax, inheritance tax, and capital gains tax, etc. On top of that, you pay to compensate for taxes levied on others. For instance, you, as a consumer, pay higher prices for goods and services because of the corporate income tax levied on businesses. The government, if it is to exist, should protect people from force and fraud. Therefore, at most, government should tax only to maintain a national defense, a police force and law courts. But instead, legislators seek to fulfill the so-called “needs” of the constituencies and special interest groups that put and keep them in office. So, the government has tasked itself with providing cheaper prescription drugs for seniors, improving education for children, supporting for farmers by keeping food prices high and paying them for any product they fail to sell, covering the living expenses of the poor, paying for medical research, and so on. The result is not a system that protects our individual rights but a system that provides benefits to some at the expense of others. Typically there will be concentrated benefits and dispersed costs, which makes organizing resistance difficult and leads to even larger government interference.

Taxes violate individual rights. Specifically, it violates your property rights. By using taxation to benefit some people, the government says that you have no right to keep what you have earned or how you spend it, as long as there is someone else who needs or wants it, and that it, the government, has the right to seize your property in order to provide it to the person or group they see fit. That’s damn close to making you a slave. As John A. Pugsley stated, “How does the IRS agent who collects our taxes differ from the gunman? He does not. You are forced to pay under threat of imprisonment (the gun). Your money is taken without your voluntary consent. It is used by other people who claim that their need is a just demand of your property. The process is justified because a group of people (voters) decide as a group that you should be robbed and that the money should be used for whatever purposes they deem proper.”

The current tax system creates winners and losers. The government does not create wealth, but only usurps and redistributes it. The winners in this redistribution are legislators and the special interest groups that pander to them. Also, foreign producers win because the taxes levied on businesses increase prices on domestic goods. Tax accountants win because they garner more business due to the complicated the tax codes. And, people who are the least productive win because their income tax is lowest; some do not have to pay income tax at all. The losers are clearly productive individuals, those who have created wealth by providing goods and services to others, who have chosen to voluntarily patron their business. But more than that, everyone who pays income tax loses because they have to spend time and money to complete complicated income tax returns. As Mark Skousen penned: “Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, ‘Taxation is the price we pay for civilization.’ But isn’t the opposite really the case? Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned and totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success.” Taxes trample the idea of virtue. Forcing individuals via taxation to pay for the “needs” of others (often determined by a bureaucrat) does make them benevolent or charitable. What makes people charitable and benevolent is realizing that there are persons in true need and causes well worth while contributing to. Many people do realize this, which is why they give voluntarily. Moreover, excessive taxation discourages charitable giving because people have less money to give, or figure that their taxes already pay for helping the needy.

Taxation is frequently “progressive.” That means that individuals who earn more are forced to pay more. But why? They do not derive any greater benefit from the government by doing so. The underlying assumption of progressive taxation is that wealth is a like a fixed pie from which some people get to take a larger piece, thereby decreasing the share of others. Accordingly, income inequality is the expression of unfair wealth distribution and should be decreased by reallocation from the top to the bottom. Hence, those who make more should pay more because they have to give back in some way what they have taken from others. This depiction of the economy is inaccurate. More production generates more economic progress which leads to an increase in wealth for everyone (at least in a free market system), so that the pie does not remain a fixed size.

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Tax Slavery Sucks

Statists are anti-progress. Statists claim their policies are for the common good. For some this claim is just a front to get more power, but for others it is a genuine goal. Nevertheless, even the most well-intentioned statists, who believe that granting government the power to control individual actions will result in a better outcome, violate rights and cause harm. One need only consider historical fact to disprove this statist belief. For most of history, people were not free to decide how to live their lives because they lived in servitude to a noble or king. The vast majority of people were wretchedly poor, worked from dusk until dawn six or seven days a week, were prone to encounter devastating diseases, and died in their twenties or thirties. Even the privileged few — the kings, nobles and clergy — had nowhere near the standard of living that the ordinary worker in western countries enjoys today. It was classical liberalism — the ideas of British Enlightenment philosophers, Adam Smith, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and the American “founding fathers” — that unlocked the true human potential. Classical liberalism set man free from servitude to another and gave him the right and the responsibility to care for his own life. As a result of the emergence and subsequent dominance of liberal democracy and capitalism in the last two hundred years, the world has seen progress unparalleled in human history: according to renowned economist Angus Maddison, “[w]orld per capita real income has risen twenty times as fast since 1820, than it did in the eight centuries from 1000 to 1820.”

Statism is anti-growth. Statists often justify their policies claiming that they want to reduce inequality and poverty. In reality though, statists achieve neither and often exacerbate both because their policies discourage economic growth, which is particularly detrimental to low income and poor people. For one, politicians and bureaucrats are limited in their knowledge, as is any individual. No matter how smart an elected official, bureaucrat, or committee is, there’s no way they could adequately plan and control the actions of millions of individuals to achieve maximal economic growth. Moreover, statism encourages rentseeking and protectionism, the activity of groups seeking government enforced advantages and insulation from the outcomes of free trade. This harms the consumer, who is forced to pay higher prices due to lack of competition and fund the rent through higher taxes. This statist action disincentivizes increases in production and job creation, thus depriving low income and poor people of better opportunities to make a living.

Statism causes conflict. Though statists claim to work for the common good, their actions benefit one group at the expense of another. Nazis favored the “Aryan” at the expense of all other nationalities and ethnicities; affirmative action proponents favor blacks, Hispanics and women at the expense of whites and males; socialists and unions favor workers at the expense of business owners; protectionists favor their native industry at the expense of that in other countries; rent-seekers favor their business, organization, or cause at the expense of other businesses, organizations, and causes at the expense of consumers; many religious people, but especially fundamentalists, favor their followers at the expense of those of another religion and at the expense of atheists; and earth liberation environmentalists favor nature at the expense of humans.

Hence, statists create friction and conflict among individuals, groups, and nations. The long stretch of peace during the mid-19th century was at least in part the result of limited government and laissez-faire economics in places like Britain and the United States. The free movement of people was widespread; Russia, the only country that required a passport, was considered backwards. The bloody wars and atrocities committed by governments during the 20th century were the consequence of a move toward state intervention to control people’s lives, ultimately leading to the emergence of ultra-statist regimes such as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Communist Russia and Maoist China, and many other totalitarian experiments including a United States that interned over 110,000 individuals of Japanese descent, drafted many more individuals, and implemented wage and price controls.

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Stop Statism

Rent-seeking refers to the behavior of individuals or groups expending resources to achieve public policy decisions that transfer wealth to them at the expense of others. Some examples:

• A nonprofit organization might seek for the government to spend taxpayer money on their pet cause, such as protecting the environment or researching a disease.
• A workers’ union might want the government to force employers to provide higher wages, more benefits and greater job security.
• A corporation might seek subsidization to support an unsustainable business model instead of working to become more profitable.

While the rent-seekers should be faulted for the behavior, it is the government granting rent-seekers what they want that is the real problem. As it shells out more benefits and privileges, government has to collect more taxes to administer and pay for them, thus vastly increasing its size and scope.

Rent-seeking is theft. A rent-seeker wants to achieve a wealth transfer in his favor without having to provide value in return. In a mixed economy, companies and organizations find it more effective to petition the government for protection (i.e. subsidies, tariffs, entry barriers, regulations, etc.) than to compete by providing goods and services that consumers want to pay for. Since in a free market the choices of other individuals might not go in his favor, the rent-seeker would rather have the government initiate force against those individuals. The free market, on the other hand, is predicated upon and respects individuals’ free choices. Rent-seekers hinder the dynamism of the free market. When you and I trade in the free market, we each give the other something the other wants more than we want it, relative to what we receive in exchange. By contrast, when the government initiates force in favor of a rent-seeker, it makes everybody but the rent-seeker worse off. It leaves the rent-seeker’s competitors worse off, because the rent-seeker now has a government-enforced advantage, whether in the form of a government-approved monopoly, or stifling regulations faced by would-be entrepreneurs. Because market forces and signals are hindered and distorted, this leaves consumers worse off. They are forced to pay higher prices for poorer quality goods and services.

Rent-seeking harms economic growth. Instead of companies investing their money in new technology, new jobs, offering consumers better products and better prices, or increasing their employees’ pay, the money ends up in the pockets of lobbyists and the politicians able to grant favors. Consumers are forced to pay more for goods and services and taxpayers have to foot the bill for the rent-seekers’ government-enforced advantage. So, over time, as government arbitrarily favors one group over another and expands in size in order to pay for rents, rent-seeking erodes the mechanisms that make economic growth and wealth creation possible: the impartial rule of law, limited government and individual rights.

Statists, whether out of distrust of individuals or faith in the ability of the government, prefer that the state controls people instead of people controlling themselves; they opt for government intervention rather than individual liberty. Statist policies can include regulation of the economy, provision of social goods, and control over personal behaviors. Many political ideologies can be subsumed under the label “statist” — communism, fascism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism. Even a democracy can become statist if it does not create or does not follow constitutional safeguards against the majority imposing its will without regard for the individual rights of the minority.

Statism is anti-liberty. Individuals have property in themselves, also called self-ownership, which entails they should be free to control their bodies, their minds and their lives. The only way to interfere with that freedom is by means of physical force. The job of governments is to defend individual rights by protecting individuals against the initiation of physical force. However, when governments institute statist policies, they initiate force against individuals who are not infringing on the liberty of others and thus violate individual rights. For instance, regulations, tariffs and subsidies for businesses violate the rights of entrepreneurs and consumers, who both are prevented from voluntarily determining the terms of their interactions with others. If I choose to not give my money to a certain business, government has no authority to overrule that decision. It violates my freedom of choice and deprives others of the property they would have gained in the absence of government interference. Immigration restrictions violate the rights of individuals, since they are prevented from peacefully living and working where they choose to. Bans on smoking and the use of other drugs, speed limits and seat belt requirements, and laws preventing the sale of organs violate your rights since you are prevented from making decisions about your own body.

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Stop Rent-seeking

The current Social Security (aka “socialist insecurity”) system is designed as a pay-as-you-go system, in which current workers’ tax dollars pay for the benefits of retirees. And the system is in serious trouble. With increased life expectancy and a declining birth rate, there are fewer workers to support a greater number of retirees. In 1950, there were 16 workers paying for the benefits of one retiree. Today, there are about three workers per retiree, and by 2025 there will only be two. According to the Social Security Administration itself, if unreformed, Social Security will begin running a deficit by 2017, and by 2060 Social Security and Medicare combined will make up 71 percent of the federal budget.

Social Security violates individual rights. It is predicated upon two ideas. One, that the strong should support the weak: in this case, the young should support the old financially when the old cannot do so themselves any longer. Two, that life entails certain basic risks that people either encounter at no fault of their own, such as economic downturns, or simply fail to prepare for. Now, while these ideas might be true, they miss an essential point. Your life belongs to you. Since it is you living your life, and you have the most interest in it, most likely you know your financial situation much better than any politician or bureaucrat. Therefore, as long as you are not violating someone else’s rights, you should be free to control your life and to make the choices that affect your future, even if you end up making mistakes. You are not violating anyone’s rights by planning for your retirement. So, you should be free decide whether you want to save for retirement and how much risk you are willing to take in investing, reaping the rewards or incurring the losses. As for helping the less fortunate, since Social Security is a bad investment with a poor rate of return (see below), it actually disproportionately hurts poor people because they cannot afford to invest additional funds for retirement privately.

Social Security negates choice. By forcing individuals to contribute to Social Security, the government takes away important choices they should be able to make about their own retirement. If you work, you are forced to pay into it but have no choice about how the money is invested. In fact, your Social Security taxes are not even invested at all; they are paid out to current retirees and to loan the federal government money for other government programs. You have no choice over how many years you work or when to retire in order to collect any benefits. You have no choice about what happens to the accumulated money after you die; you cannot pass it on to your family or your favorite cause.

Social Security is a bad investment. According to the Congressional Budget Office, if you are in your late twenties today, the most optimistic projection for your Social Security return is 0.7 percent! By contrast, historically returns on private investments have been much higher: stock market returns 6.8%; corporate bonds 3.8%; treasury bonds 3.3%; a balanced portfolio (50% stock/30% corporate bond/20% treasury bond) 4.9%. If you were able to invest your money privately, you could choose which type of investment you prefer. Stock markets might be riskier but involve higher returns than money market or plain old savings accounts. And, if you invest your money privately, you have a legal right to any returns on that money.

You have no legal right to Social Security benefits. In 1960 the Supreme Court ruled in Flemming v. Nestor that, “a person covered by the [Social Security Act] has not such a right in benefit payments as would make every defeasance of ‘accrued’ interests violative of the due process clause of the fifth amendment.” Hence, Congress can change or rescind those benefits at any time. For instance, before 1983 Social security benefits were not taxed. Since the 1983 Amendments to the Social Security Act, up to one-half of the benefits received are taxed if the recipient’s yearly income exceeded a certain threshold (generally individuals making more than $25,000 and married couples making $32,000). So, not only does the government forcibly take part of the money you earned out of your control, you also are not guaranteed to derive full benefits. That is legalized robbery.

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Social Slavery

Smoking bans have gone into effect in many jurisdictions, mostly indoors (bars, restaurants, workplaces, casinos, even apartments and condos) but also outdoors (beaches, in front of public buildings, parks and stadiums). Under the auspices of “protecting people” the government tries to discourage individuals from smoking by levying “sin taxes” on the cigarettes they buy and prohibits smokers from lighting up in places they share with non-smokers. To dissuade people—especially young folks—from starting to smoke, the government has banned cigarette advertising from TV and radio.

Why we oppose anti-smoking legislation:

Smoking bans violate property rights. By legislating against smoking, the government initiates force. It initiates force against property owners—owners of bars, restaurants, private workplaces, apartments and condos—by prohibiting them from deciding whether to allow their employees, customers, guests and tenants to smoke. By contrast, none of these people are violating anyone’s rights because they are not initiating physical force. Smokers are not forcing anyone to endure their smoking; people are free to leave a smoky environment. No employer is forcing anyone to work in a place where many people smoke. More importantly, those who choose to work in establishments where smoking is allowed did just that—choose. There is no right to a job, and the employee freely weighed the pros and cons prior to taking the position. The government also initiates force against cigarette manufacturers and broadcasters by banning them from advertising on TV and radio even though an advertisement does not force anyone to smoke. So, the government is unjustly violating citizens’ rights by legislating against smoking.

Smoking bans violate self-ownership. The government does not have the right to protect you from doing what you want with your own body. Smoking may be unhealthy, but acknowledging and taking that risk is your choice. The government uses a gun to prevent you from harming yourself—now that is irony!

Smoking bans only further entrench the Nanny State. Anti-smoking legislation is a blatant example of the government using force to arbitrarily prevent people from doing things that the government deems harmful. Consider, for example, that the government does not prevent you from consuming alcohol, bungee jumping, becoming a fireman or a coal miner, or sky diving all activities that are potentially damaging to one’s health.

Smoking bans distort the free market. Many people realize that smoking can be a nuisance to nonsmokers. Hence, many restaurants had voluntarily become smoke-free absent of government coercion simply because of customer demand. Many workplaces had already made rules about where to smoke to address the needs of their nonsmoking employees. Many home owners ask guests not to smoke in their homes, and many smokers do not smoke in their home because they have nonsmokers living there. Many parents, even those who smoke, are perfectly willing to limit their children’s exposure to smoke if they believe it is harmful; no law is needed when a mother’s protective instinct is already operative.

Smoking bans aren’t supported by science. As for the dangers of second-hand smoke, while it is unpleasant, most studies investigating its effects looked at people who are exposed to it on a daily and prolonged basis, such as individuals who live with smokers, not people who go to bars, restaurants or are outside in the immediate vicinity of a smoker. Those studies did not always find that second-hand smoke harmed anyone.

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Smoking is Healthier than Fascism

“Progress” is an abused word these days, especially by bureaucrats and the special interest groups that cater to them. Yet such groups, in the name of progress and social justice, support government intervention through intervention in the market, minimum or living wages, and universal healthcare. We find neither progress nor justice in government actions that advance one group at the expense of another. Don’t get us wrong: we are for progress — for economic growth, wealth creation, and the elimination of poverty — but we understand that progress grows from voluntary interactions and respect of individual rights. That which violates the rights of individuals cannot be progress.

Why we oppose “Progressives Against Progress:”

Opposition to free markets is the antithesis of progress. If one thing unites progressives it is their hatred for free markets. Yet it is free markets that can best provide for all the things progressives advocate — the elimination of poverty, quality education, a clean environment, etc. Blanket opposition to free markets is a strange idea indeed. What sense does it make to use the force of government to prevent willing buyers and sellers from engaging in transactions? This simple act, done with someone from across town or across the ocean, creates wealth. And done billions and billions of times, it’s what lifts whole societies from poverty. By turning to government, progressives not only ignore this engine of wealth creation but hinder it, as government must steal the wealth it redistributes from someone that has first created it. Progressives are correct in one related area — objecting to businesses obtaining special privileges from the government. But they are wrong in where they lay the blame. Rather than singling out these businesses, progressives should realize that these special favors were obtained only due to the large size and scope of the government. If progressives take issue with businesses using government to their advantage, perhaps they should reexamine their own tactics and realize that they engage in exactly the same thing — imposing their will on others through the government. Not too progressive.

Support of public education hinders progress and is immoral. As free markets have proven over and over again, when competition is introduced to any industry, consumers are met with more choices and higher quality, less expensive products and services. Education is no different. We all want the same thing — for our children to be educated — but what is the best way to go about making that happen? Progressives would have you believe that schools just need more funding. Perhaps they are unaware that the amount spent per pupil in the U.S. has risen over 300% in real dollars over the last three decades with no improvement in test scores. That may be because much of that increased funding has been siphoned off by the all-powerful National Education Association to create more administrative jobs, increase teacher pay based not on performance but seniority, and fight any bill that threatens their hold on government schools… schools which are sometimes so bad that many parents pay for their children’s education twice — once, when the government takes their money to support public schools, and again by paying for a private school to ensure their child actually receives a good education. Unfortunately, it’s often those children receiving the worst education — those in inner cities — that do not have the means to escape from government schools, which means that attempts by progressives to stop the introduction of competition into the education system actually harms those worst-off. That doesn’t seem like a good ideal to strive for.

The backing of social welfare programs is empirically and ethically wrong. Progressives support social welfare programs like Social Security and Medicare out of concern for their fellow man. Apparently they don’t realize that that money was stolen from productive individuals by government actors who first take a cut for themselves. A less rights-violating and more efficient method of helping those in need would be for those willing to give of their money to do so. Do Progressives not trust in their fellow man enough to believe others wouldn’t be taken care of? Historical examples show that before government intervention, civil society functioned very well — striking a balance between providing assistance and ensuring that access to help was not abused. And militant support of Social Security and Medicare by progressives (programs that will together account for 71% of the federal budget by 2060) is not just alarming but dangerous. Moreover, entitlement programs invite moral hazards; those who don’t want to take care of themselves will simply find a way to make themselves look needy enough. Medicare fraud alone costs taxpayers an estimated $60 billion dollars! Or consider welfare recipients who have several aliases or claim to support numerous children. To be sure, most people abhor suffering and are willing to give to starving children or the local food pantry voluntarily. But no one has grown more benevolent, more virtuous or more charitable by having his hard-earned money redistributed by government.

Progressives oppose progress by demanding universal healthcare. Universal healthcare is based on the false claim that everyone has a right to healthcare. But saying I have a right to healthcare places a duty on others to provide it to me; it means I can force others to serve or pay for my medical needs. In contrast, saying I have a right not to be interfered with when I need medical help simply means that the government cannot prevent me from choosing whose medical services I purchase, or from obtaining medicines and treatments. As occurs in countries that have socialized healthcare, when the government pays for your healthcare, it will tell you what doctor you can go to, what treatments you can receive and what drugs you can buy. This is so because when a resource is “free,” people use it without regard to whether the resource will replenish, so government has to be in control over how it is dispersed, which leads to rationing, long waits, and premature deaths. Further, universal healthcare is not free — it’s paid for with your tax dollars. As with any other good or service, the quality of healthcare will decrease as its costs increase, due to a lack of competition. Progressives should consider just how terrible a job government has done administering other programs — the drug war, the military, the post office, Fannie Mae — and then re-think their stance on government-provided healthcare.

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Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Progressives Against Progress

When confronted with a problem most people today turn to the government—but in reality, it’s often the government that created the problem and its continued involvement only exacerbates the problem. Politics distorts free market signals, quashes rights, and, quite bluntly, kills individuals.

Why we believe politics hurt:

Politics is force. The violation of an individual’s rights, whether the aggressor be a mugger in an alley or a politician in a comfy office, is simply that: a violation of their rights. Some contend that because a group of people express their preference for one candidate to rule them that the politician is exonerated. But, to take a page from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, to be governed is to be regulated, indoctrinated and commanded by beings who have neither knowledge nor virtue. To paraphrase Benjamin Tucker, he who attempts to control another is an aggressor and the nature of such aggression is not changed, whether it is made by one man upon another man (i.e. an ordinary criminal), or by all other men upon one man (i.e. via an elected official).

Politics centralizes state power. It only confers more power on the state. As more and more people look to the state as the instrument to enact their agendas, centralized state power allows for more successful rent-seeking. As expressed by Public Choice scholars, when the scope of the state is large, companies find it easier and more beneficial to lobby Congress than to compete in the market. It’s a classic case of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. A small group, like farmers, will put enormous resources into lobbying the government for a handout, subsidy, or protective tariff, while the individuals bearing the costs—that is, hundreds of millions of consumers now paying more for each gallon of milk or pound of meat—don’t find it worth their time to organize and push for a repeal of such handouts. As Voltaire astutely noted, “[t]he art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.”

Politics is a zero-sum game. Government does not create wealth; it only steals it from those who create it and then distributes it to those who lobby the government (after keeping some for themselves). Conversely, the free market—the sum of voluntary interactions between consenting individuals—creates wealth and protects rights. Politics is a fixed pie whereas the free market is an ever-growing pie. A free society cannot be organized or centrally planned by one person or group of people, no matter how well-intentioned or smart they may happen to be. Just as it’s impossible for a politician, committee, or agency to have the tacit knowledge of subjective value present in a free market, so too is it impossible for them to act without violating the rights of individuals.

Politics illegitimately grants others “authority.” There is no such thing as a “social contract”. For a contract to be legitimate, it must be knowingly and freely signed by all parties. Have you signed a contract stating that each particular politician who claims authority over you does in fact have the right to pass legislation that impacts your freedoms? I sure as hell know I didn’t. In the U.S., some have stated that the Constitution is the fountainhead of legitimacy for political actors. But, like any contract, that document only binds those who signed it (39 men). Only those men are beholden to the act of signing—not others alive at the time, nor their descendants, and certainly neither you nor I, over 200 years later. According to Lysander Spooner: “To call such a contract a ‘Constitution’ does not at all lessen its criminality, or add to its validity….Legitimate government can be formed only by the voluntary association of all who contribute to its support.”

Politics hinders the workings of civil society. We all want people to have enough to eat, to have shelter, and to be educated. But far too often people look to the government as the sole provider to ensure this happens. The massive scope of the state has overshadowed the role of organizations in civil society that help those struggling get a leg up. You may already give some of the money you earn to such charities to help remedy these problems. Wouldn’t you give more if you weren’t taxed so heavily? Starkly differentiated from the incentives present in politics, these organizations seeking your contributions will work to be as transparent and effective as possible since they’re competing with other organizations for your dollars. Already, we see charities note that they only spend a fraction of the money they raise on administrative costs as evidence that your donation helps those it was intended to. This is not true with social welfare programs administered through the political process. It’s not so much that politicians and the programs they oversee are evil (though some no doubt are), but that they’re insulated from the incentives present in the market—incentives that truly help to lift people out of poverty.

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Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Politics Hurt