RoR: Forum

I like every one of those 10 points.

If implemented, even if not completely, they would take us to a level of growth the world has never seen before.

There would likely be angry opposition, lots of turmoil and sharply falling markets in the beginning. Even if there were, magically, no opposition, a lot of assets and capital are currently held by those supported by bailouts, by government spending, or those who are protected by regulations. Those assets would end up converting to strong, free-market hands - people would be laid off by one company then hired by another. Then as the markets complete their adjustments they would start to soar.

I would add a couple of sub-points to item number 2 - Taxes:
2-a: No taxes on businesses - businesses only collect them from customers in their prices and then pass them on to the government - Thus hiding the tax, and in effect being double taxes since the consumer was taxed on the income used to buy the businesses products or services.
3-b: Income taxes should be replaced with a national sales tax. This conversion from a tax on productive activity to a tax on consumption would encourage savings and make us vastly more competitive globally. Or, at the least, the current income taxes should be converted to a flat tax that is not progressive.

I would include the following items:
11: A balanced budget amendment to prevent borrowing in the absence of a declared war and a vote of 2/3 majority of both houses.
12. End the Fed (no more massive adjustment of the money supply, or government meddling with the interest rate (which should be set by market forces alone).
13. Either find a way to create a new gold standard or convert to a totally private currencies. In either case, the legal tender act would need to be amended to permit competition between different currencies.

Post 1

Friday, August 19, 2011 - 5:30am

It always sounds nice. We all agree, more or less.

One problem is getting others to agree. "French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will propose a financial transactions tax in September." Reuters blog Aug. 14, '11 You say, "We need to cut taxes." And they reply, "No, we need a new tax." Clearly, you are preaching to the choir. They are not going to change their minds, so any new solutions must come from a shift in paradigm. "Going Galt" is such a shift. Imagine if in 1930, hundreds had attended Nazi rallies to laugh at Hitler. We empower Merkel, Sarkozy, and Obama by giving them serious attention.

There is also the problem of The Big Sort . We all preach to our choir here. And I understand. There is a Reason-TV video out with Matt Damon and other left wingers being harrassed by the Reason-TV reporter. It would really be a waste to go to something like that and say, "I understand the problem and I agree with you on that. Here are some ways to fix it..." Once you say, "Cut taxes to the bone..." they stop listening. They have their own choir. That's what a rally is. So, basically, communication is useless because listening (on either side) does not occur.

On my blog, I have two posts about "unlimited constitutional government." The first here and the second here. You say to sell off all government properties that are not military. What about the legislature? What about The Library of Congress? Does Congress not have the power to create its own archives? If Congress is to report publicly, can they not operate a television station or website as they have traditionally had a Government Printing Office? What about the GPO? If the government is to have military bases, can they have their own military colleges (West Point, Annapolis, etc.)? Who maintains all of that? Why not have government-operated skilled trades and crafts, and ultimately government-owned farms and mines, lest the military be without resources?

You might say that they should contract everything, except the military. OK, but even now, with manpower tapped, military bases are guarded by private contractors, not by soldiers. And we know about Blackwater and other contractors, all based on Letters of Marque and Reprisal, an enumerated power. So, then, why allow the government to own even military bases?

I mean, myself, I think they should, but I point out that this is not inherent or a priori. Our common libertarian assumptions allow us to think of alternatives that others would find (quoting Orsini) "inconceivable." It is easy to argue from any side when nothing is really at stake.

I ran for Congress as a Libertarian. I was elected as a Republican precinct delegate. I have been appointed to a couple of non-partisan citizen's commissions, one county (criminal justice), the other White House (libraries). I always found much more success living my own life by my own standards, making my own choices, and doing what I think is best for myself. But getting out in public is a lot of fun, too. ... as long as you don't take it too seriously...

Post 2

Friday, August 19, 2011 - 11:19am

Michael,

There is something I see in so many of your posts, and it has probably been pointed out many times before, but clearly not often enough.

You deconstruct an observation someone makes in a way that rips the observation away from the principle that supported it to start with. Then you imply that what you've done discredits the initial observation itself, or sometimes it's underlying principle - the very one you ignored in your little deconstruction. The pattern that appears most often is you attempting to show that things are more chaotic or complex than we might have thought, which would be valuable if it were true, but you drop the context to do your deconstruction making it untrue.

For example, you wrote, "You [Professor Machan] say to sell off all government properties that are not military. What about the legislature?" The context and principles that Dr. Machan is relying on are clear to everyone but you in this context. The context, or purpose, is to give an example of the direction and degree to which we could and should go to reduce spending and enhance the recovery. It is absurd, except to an anarchist, to argue that congress eliminate itself. No one here was the least confused about that. It was a point that is absurd in context and of no use to anyone except for Michael as he pursues this practice of an absurd deconstruction that is somehow supposed to prove... what?

You go on to find many, many things that from your mention, in the way you mention them, we are supposed to see that the level of complexity makes Dr. Machan's position simplistic or wrong or part of a question that can't be answered? And then are we to see that Michael's understanding is much wiser? I see only a meaningless diversion from the point at hand that comes across as condescending as it is meandering.

The underlying principles in this article are not that difficult, for example: It is government's proper purpose to protect individual rights. For the federal government, this must include a mechanism to defend against the foreign aggression (like a military). That mechanism will need to take some form and that form will be subject to things like the law of identity (it will exist as something). So only someone to whom it makes sense to have the legislature get rid of the legislature to save money, will it make sense to begin questioning how the military is housed, provisioned, transported, etc. Everyone else will assume there are range of possibilities in all of these things and that none of them are pertinent to the discussion beyond saying that no more military than is needed, so as to reduce costs, and as efficiently configured as possible, to save money and be more militarily effective.

I suspect that you don't realize how condescending some of your posts are - you accuse those who take the time to present a position, or explore an idea, as "preaching to the choir" - well, yes, that is what happens when the idea falls within Objectivist principles and is brought out on ROR, but why is that relevant to any argument you are making? The only way I can answer that is to notice that you caution us to 'not take it seriously' and tell us 'nothing is really at stake' - but if we didn't take ideas seriously and believe that a great deal is at stake we wouldn't be here, would we?

Post 3

Friday, August 19, 2011 - 1:19pm

Mike,

For what it's worth, I agree with Steve's courteous and well-reasoned post #2. You seem to have a "better answer"** to life's problems than all of the rest of us.

Ed

**The Marotta Formula
1) Accept the idea that reality is too complex or amorphous to understand very well
2) Resign yourself to the constructing of a microcosm inside of which you will live and make largely subjective choices based on internal passions -- with little or no connection to the external world
3) Take some time to come out of your microcosm to let other folks know that they should be more like you

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 8/19, 1:20pm)

Post 4

Friday, August 19, 2011 - 7:18pm

For a body whose primary product is words, in a digital age where terabytes of gibberish are slavishly recorded for the ages and made available to the public by folks who attend to the task at most in their spare time,... how large a budget should the Library of Congress demand to perform its needed function, which is... recording the words of Congress?

Given the leverage of all of modern technology, should its budget be greater than or less than it was 50 years ago?

"For fiscal 2012, the Library os requesting a total budget of 707.8 million, an increase of 23.5 million, or 3.4 percent, above the fiscal 2011 budgrt."

"After a year-long Library-wide collaborative process, in October 2010, the Library of Congress issued a new Strategic Plan for fiscal 2011 to fiscal 2016. The plan drives all planning and budgeting activities and serves as the foundation for Library-wide management. Its goals are unique to the Library. They reflect a shift in the plan from a management to a program perspective, focusing on what the Library will do rather than how it will do it."

[Wow. Just read that last sentence about three or four times, let it marinate a bit. That last line sounds like something you'd hear at a circle jerk Renaissance Weekend event, gathered around the crab spread.]

"The first goal is to provide authoritative research, analysis, and information to the Congress."

Yeah, those gladhanders are constantly hitting the books.

"The second goal is to acquire, preserve, and provide access to a universal collection of knowledge and the record of America�s creativity."

Yeah...run a library.

"The third goal is to sustain an effective national copyright system."

Meant to protect the livlihoods of a tiny handful of authors and writers who are not starving to death as we speak, no doubt.

"The fourth goal is to lead and work collaboratively with external communities to advance knowledge and creativity."

Ok...the bullshit alarm is starting to go off.

"The fifth goal is to manage proactively for demonstrable results."

That's it; the bullshit alarm is blaring now.

I wonder what these guys budget is? http://www.worldcat.org/

Source:

http://www.loc.gov/about/reports/budget/fy2012.pdf

Post 5

Friday, August 19, 2011 - 8:30pm

I'm up for someone to be responsible at the federal level for protecting intellectual property rights - not that the Library of Congress is the automatic choice. Beyond that and maintaining a simple legal record of the congressional acts and the minutes of the sessions... I don't see any other use that would arise from the constitution or government's primary purpose to defend our rights.
-----------

Fred, that was a fun analysis you did! Clearly you bullshit alarm is well tuned :-)

Post 6

Saturday, August 20, 2011 - 7:42am

Fred,

For what it's worth, I agree with Steve's courteous and well-reasoned post #5. You seem to have a better "bullshit detector"** than most people do.

Ed

**The Bartlett Formula
1) Accept the idea that much of what passes for "enlightened" goals and aims today, is actually some pretty serious, altruist-collectivist bullshit
2) Resign yourself to the work of illluminating the connection of the bullshit to the external world as we know it
3) Take some time to come up for air after swimming in the bullshit, and let others know which types of ignorance and evil you have found -- so that reasonable folks are better prepared to deal with the unreason that is often found in the world

:-)

I like this formula even better than the Marotta Formula!

Post 7

Saturday, August 20, 2011 - 10:02am

The trouble with governments in general is that they are never interested in true prosperity, because it would make them pretty much obsolete. Governments exist through creating crises, be it war, environmental hysteria or bank insolvency, and then propose to "offer radical solutions" which the mostly unsuspecting citizenry accepts. If the citizenry were not so gullible it would vote in Objectivists or Libertarians. That would be the day!

Post 8

Saturday, August 20, 2011 - 12:40pm

Vladimir, I certainly agree with what you've said about most of the governments today, but not all. Look at Singapore, Hong Kong and a few others that have shown a strong and persistent interest in avoiding crisis and pursuing prosperity.

And where you say, ...true prosperity... would make them pretty much obsolete" I disagree. True prosperity doesn't make the need to protect individual rights disappear. To get to 'true prosperity' requires a proper government - one that protects individual rights and nothing more. And when that state of 'true prosperity' arrives, it will continue to need protecting.

What you have said about gullible citizenry voting in these tyrannts because of their manipulation of crisis and their phoney solutions is certainly true of what we have been seeing in the United States recently. But humans have the capacity to learn and to make good choices. This progressive march towards socialism is becoming so obvious that it is one of the best lessons the voting public could have. Obama will have been the best teachers we could ask for in raising the peoples awareness of basic economic principles - by his clumsy, but persistent violation of those principles.

We are actually seeing Libertarians in goverment now. For the first time we have one in the Senate, and with power far beyond his freshman status. And we have a number of Libertarians in the House and we have two Libertarians running for President. Compare that to just three or four years ago. For the very first time Libertarians occupy a tiny edge of the MAINSTREAM political platform. Things can move quite fast from here.

Post 9

Saturday, August 20, 2011 - 2:43pm

Ed:

It's a dirty job, but it pays poorly, and nobody has to do it.

regards,
Fred

Post 10

Saturday, August 20, 2011 - 3:45pm