In light of the news of our new hero Jim Bunning, former baseball pitcher and all around swell guy, standing up to Obama's economy of reckless spending, I would like to lead into a discourse about the perfect philosophy for everything that is "Libertarianism."
Dr. Rand Paul, son of the very independent and so NOT Republican Dr. Ron Paul, has come out to support Bunning in his efforts to stop unemployment benefits. Unemployment benefits are a form of government activism that entails too much of my tax dollars and desires to keep people unemployed indefinitely. End of story.
Dr. Rand Paul, as you know, is named after novelist Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand wrote fictitious stories about the plights of those who sought moral objectivism for the world around them. Her fiction ultimately created a real life philosophical following. A philosophy that insists that a man's happiness and free markets solve every single problem, which the Paul's have been strong proponents of. It's like taking Stephen King's novel "Carrie" and creating a philosophy to live by after high school bullies poured pig blood all over you. Sometimes it just takes the imagination of a writer to show you what is right and wrong.Libertarians live by five basic tenants that can never be disputed. First, property is sacred. Above all, a man's home and land are his and his alone. He can do what he wants with them. He can start fires on his lawn if he so chooses or decide to have an elephant as a pet. To deny a man his happiness of fire and large animals is to deny his very being.
Second, any and all government is bad - except cops, the military, and judges. They will solve any dispute anyone has, such as when the man's lawn fire creeps over into his neighbors yard. All the neighbor has to do is go to court and hope the man doesn't have a ton of money for defense lawyers. Usually that is not the case, so problem solved.
Third, capitalism and capitalist are noble heroes. The system of capitalism and those who engage in it create an efficient and fool proof system of economics. When prices on any given product get too high, anyone can simply enter the market, create competition, and voila! prices go down. I mean, it's just that simple. It's only when government sticks their noses in that creates monopolies.
Fourth, worker activism is totally evil. The Corporation creates jobs for people. People should be thankful someone started up a company and gave them a job. End of story.
That brings us to our fifth and final tenant, that the poor are good-for-nothing wastes on society. This is exactly what Bunning and the Paul's are trying to say when they are denying unemployment benefits. Those people are unemployed because they want to be and because they'd rather sit on their fat asses and watch Maury Povich on their big screen TV's all day. This business about unemployment being high right now is just because the Obama Government includes all those people who are no longer looking for work - you know, those who'd rather be lazy! The Bush Administration never included those people in their unemployment numbers because they don't count. That's why unemployment was really low back then.
Whenever someone tries to dispute these five basic tenants of Libertarianism by giving examples of its lack of real world success - like for instance Pinochet's Chile, or deregulation of the financial industry - you must insist that those economies were not free enough. You must inform them that had Chris Dodd and Barney Frank not install Frannie and Freddie, none of the financial collapse would have happened. It was *because* of government interference, that actually caused the collapse. You must insist that because Pinochet was a dictator that he alone caused Chile's huge wealth disparity and annihilation of their middle class. It will only be until there is a completely free market, with absolutely no government interference, that true Libertopia can prosper. This absolutely free and untested economic system has great rhetorical appeal, and will surely win arguments.
So you see why we support Jim Bunning and the Paul's. It's great to have truly independent thinkers like them to change our totally socialist economy.
7 comments:
Ayn Rand, said "I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows." Let's just keep our philosophy simple, folks. As long as everybody is reasonable, everything runs smoothly, which is a reason Mr. Reason himself, Rush Limbaugh likes to refer to her positively. We should just discount entirely the view that she is a pop culture phenomenon rather than a subject for serious study though her writings show they were "written out of hate, remorseless hectoring and prolixity."
You know, I surely would like to own an elephant.
A group of 2nd cousins of mine use to own a bunch of ostriches. They had quite a few of them until the ATF raided their compound.
So I was thinking some more about how libertarianism will absolutely save our economy (and probably the world). Right now, the government collects taxes to repair our roads. But, have you seen our roads? They are a mess after this winter (which, btw, disproves global warming). If the government got out of the road business, we, as enterprising capitalists would be free to collect voluntary donations to send our own crews out to fix up these roads. People would absolutely support such an effort voluntarily and we'd put tons of folks to work! If "Company A" ever fell down on the road-patching job, someone else could just run down to Walker Cat and buy up a bunch of new machinery (which puts people to work!) and start their own road company. That company could then send out another round of folks (who are also now working) to ask for more donations to get the roads right. This sounds like win/win to me!
wfp: You are so right on. I mean, it's just that simple. Plus, those companies will always do a good job because of fear of another company doing it better and making money instead. You should look at the link below of one of my earlier posts about this very kind of issue. Check it out:
http://keepconservativesusingfreedom.blogspot.com/2009/04/join-joe-and-clf-in-abolishing-irs.html
The irs and tax system for such petty things as road repair, is just a socialist plot to take our hard earned money. A prime example of a country with no tax collection is Bolivia. Heck, you can get over those roads in a Honda Hatchback with no problemo!
Pig blood and Any Rand. . . Somehow that just seems like a good combination.
Free market libertarianism is clearly the way to go. I was reading a very smart article that said Chileans weren't as affected by their earthquake as the Haitians because of Pinochet, who implemented all those smart libertarian ideals....privatizing social security, eliminating price controls, etc.
Who cares if Milton Friedman, who advised Pinochet, was virulently against building codes. I am too. Building codes do not do anything to help life, health, and safety, that is for sure. Clearly, the reason the Chilean buildings were built real well was because Pinochet's free market reforms made Chile very rich, and they were then able to spend money. Predictably, they spent it on retrofitting buildings to withstand seismic loads...that is the miracle of the free market at work.
Haiti, on the other hand, had very poorly built structures, which I doubt you can pin on their complete lack of building codes. I mean, Haiti is corrupt, so there, that's all I need to say about that. Plus, I'm pretty sure Haiti had no libertarian ideals there, like privatized agriculture, minimal taxation on multinational corporations, and a lack of a minimum wage. If only Haiti had adopted those smart libertarian policies, there wouldn't have been such a disaster there.
Great points wfp and I'm so sorry we missed you at La Roca. You clearly have a cultivated mind well suited to our blog. Michelle, you need to give that formal CLF invite to wfp ASAP (w/ RSVP).
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