The Stafford Voice

Conservative in a world of Liberals.

libertarian

Libertarians flex their muscle in the GOP – The Washington Post

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Way back in 1975, a Republican agitator named Ronald Reagan had this to say about an esoteric young movement that was roiling politics: “If you analyze it, I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”

Neither the GOP old guard nor the rowdy libertarians ever quite bought that argument.

They both lay claim to the same conservative economic philosophy. But libertarians are more isolationist and antiwar than Republican orthodoxy allows on foreign policy and more permissive on social issues.

Still, in the nearly four decades since Reagan made those comments, the two have managed — at least most of the time — to maintain an uneasy marriage of expedience.

Libertarianism once again appears to be on the rise, particularly among the young. But its alliance with the Republican establishment is fraying, as demonstrated by the increasingly personal war of words between two leading potential 2016 presidential contenders.

The sparring began last week, when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie R posited: “As a former prosecutor who was appointed by President George W. Bush on Sept. 10, 2001, I just want us to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties right now and making big headlines, I think, is a very dangerous thought.”

After Christie made it clear that he was referring to Rand Paul, the Senate’s leading critic of the National Security Agency and its surveillance programs, the Kentucky Republican fired back on his Twitter account: “Christie worries about the dangers of freedom. I worry about the danger of losing that freedom. Spying without warrants is unconstitutional.”

Their feud — which is being watched closely as a possible warmup round for 2016 — has continued, expanded and spilled over into other issues.

On Tuesday, Christie chided: “If Senator Paul wants to start looking at where he’s going to cut spending to afford defense, maybe he should start cutting the pork-barrel spending that he brings home to Kentucky.” After which Paul told CNN that the plus-size governor was “the king of bacon talking about bacon.”

This kind of rancor is pretty much the last thing the Republican Party needs right now as it struggles to broaden its appeal and find its footing in the wake of two successive presidential defeats.

For their part, libertarians are thrilled. They say it is a sign they truly have arrived as a force to be dealt with, rather than dismissed as a fringe element.

via The Washington Post

Libertarian Response to State of the Union

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by John Stossel

Tonight I will watch the President’s endless State of the Union Address.  I will watch Congress applaud.  Again and Again.   I will watch so you don’t have to.

The State of the Union is at least an action of government that is required by the Constitution.  One of the few.  Article II, Section 3 says: “He shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”     Continue reading

More of the Same

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by John Stossel

Last year, I reported that the United States fell from sixth to eighth place — behind Canada — in the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal’s 2010 Index of Economic Freedom. Now, we’ve fallen further. In the just-released 2011 Index, the United States is in ninth place. That’s behind Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Ireland and Denmark.
   
The biggest reason for the continued slide? Spending as a percentage of gross domestic product. (State and local spending is not counted.)
   
The debt picture is dismal, too. We are heading into Greece’s territory.

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Why Do the Poor Stay Poor?

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by John Stossel

Of the 6 billion people on Earth, 2 billion try to survive on a few dollars a day. They don’t build businesses, or if they do, they don’t expand them. Unlike people in the United States, Europe and Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, etc., they don’t lift themselves out of poverty. Why not? What’s the difference between them and us? Hernando de Soto taught me that the biggest difference may be property rights.

I first met de Soto maybe 15 years ago. It was at one of those lunches where people sit around wondering how to end poverty. I go to these things because it bugs me that much of the world hasn’t yet figured out what gave us Americans the power to prosper.

I go, but I’m skeptical. There sits de Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Peru, and he starts pulling pictures out showing slum dwellings built on top of each other. I wondered what they meant.

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Happy Starvation Day

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by John Stossel

Had today’s political class been in power in 1623, tomorrow’s holiday would have been called “Starvation Day” instead of Thanksgiving. Of course, most of us wouldn’t be alive to celebrate it.

Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. But the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn’t happen.

Long before the failure of modern socialism, the earliest European settlers gave us a dramatic demonstration of the fatal flaws of collectivism. Unfortunately, few Americans today know it.

The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally.

That’s why they nearly all starved.

When people can get the same return with less effort, most people make less effort. Plymouth settlers faked illness rather than working the common property. Some even stole, despite their Puritan convictions. Total production was too meager to support the population, and famine resulted. This went on for two years.

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Did Freedom Win?

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by John Stossel

What a surprise! Everyone predicted a Republican resurgence. Instead, voters shocked pundits by strengthening the Democratic majority in Congress. President Obama called the result a resounding confirmation of my legislative achievements.Democrats quickly introduced legislation to add a public option to Obamacare; a second, larger “stimulus” bill; a Paycheck Fairness Act; and new card-check and cap-and-trade bills.

OK, I assume that didn’t happen. But it’s tough to come up with a Wednesday morning column. I write this on Election Day. Polls haven’t closed. It might have happened.

Please tell me it didn’t.

This was to be the year of the tea party triumph. As a libertarian, I so want to believe that the tea party marks the beginning a comeback for small government.

But I’m probably deluding myself. I know that big government usually wins. Remember the last time the Republicans took power? They promised fiscal responsibility, and for six of George W. Bush’s eight years, his party controlled Congress. What did we have to show for it?

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Public-Sector Unions Choke Taxpayers

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by John Stossel

“I thought unions were great — until at Chrysler, the union steward started screaming at me. Working at an unhurried pace, I’d exceeded ‘production’ for that job.”

That comment, left on my blog by a viewer who watched my Fox Business Network show about unions, matches my experience. No one ordered me to slow down, but union rules and union culture at ABC and CBS slowed the work. Sometimes a camera crew took five minutes just to get out of the car.

Now unions conspire with politicians to rip off taxpayers.

Steve Melanga of the Manhattan Institute complains that politicians get union political support by granting government workers generous pensions and health benefits. After those politicians leave office, taxpayers are liable for trillions in unfunded promises.

“It’s squeezing out all other spending,” Melanga says. “Where are we going to get this $3 trillion dollars? … When they’re (government workers) allowed to retire at 58 and the rest of us are retiring at 60 and 67 — and by the way we’re living to 80 — it’s crazy. The public sector is the version of the European welfare state which, by the way, in Europe, they’re actually rolling back.”

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Congress Can’t Repeal Economics

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by John Stossel

It’s raining! I don’t like it! Why hasn’t Congress passed the Good Weather Act and the Everybody Happy Act?

Sound dumb?

Why is it any dumber than a law called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which promised to cover more for less money?

When Obamacare was debated, we free-market advocates insisted that no matter what the president promised, the laws of economics cannot be repealed. Our opponents in effect answered, “Yes, we can.”

Well, Obamacare has barely started taking effect, and the evidence is already rolling in. I hate to say we told them so, but … we told them so. The laws of economics have struck back.

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Taxing the Rich

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by John Stossel

Progressives want to raise taxes on individuals who make more than $200,000 a year because they say it’s wrong for the rich to be “given” more money. Sunday’s New York Times carries a cartoon showing Uncle Sam handing money to a fat cat. They just don’t get it.

As I’ve said before, a tax cut is not a handout. It simply means government steals less. What progressives want to do is take money from some — by force — and spend it on others. It sounds less noble when plainly stated.

That’s the moral side of the matter. There’s a practical side, too. Taxes discourage wealth creation. That hurts everyone, the lower end of the income scale most of all. An economy that, through freedom, encourages the production of wealth raises the living standards of lower-income people as well as everyone else.

A free society is not a zero-sum game in which every gain is offset by someone’s loss. As long as government keeps its thumb off the scales, the “makers” who get rich do so by making others better off. (When the government allocates capital or creates barriers to competition, all bets are off.)

Of course, this is not the prevailing view among the intelligentsia. Columbia University Professor Marc Lamont Hill tells me, “Those who have more should pay more.”

But is there a point where they stop producing wealth or leave altogether?

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