The other day I was walking down the street after having picked up my lunch when I saw something entirely repulsive. It was an honest to goodness meter-maid. She was somewhat mannish in appearance, but was nevertheless a meter-maid. Come to think of it, I think she was also rather hirsute. Be that as it may, that is not what caused my repulsion. As I observed her I could see that she had been marking tires and was in the process of placing a parking ticket on some unlucky soul's windshield. So what is the big deal? It was just another case of the government against the people.

GOTCHA! We want your money.

Half of the parking spaces on the street were empty, but the city was zealously enforcing its three hour parking limit. Heaven forbid that someone might spend too much time and money in the city's retail district. They might even want to go to lunch and shopping! They might even go to a show. Then the city (which will remain nameless) will be sure to get a few bucks that they can mismanage. After all, what does a private citizen need all that money for anyway? The point is that there was really no need for the city to enforce this draconian ordinance except to squeeze money out of a few people. It just belies the fact that somewhere some government functionary is out to get you. They hold power over you. If we the people are going to allow people in their function as government representatives to have power over us shouldn't it at least be for something important? But the fundamental premise here really is that the people are a resource of the government. In this specific case the city government wants money which means labor. I trade my labor (my time working) for money. Then the government demands their cut so that among other things it can be used to pay their people to further intrude on my life.

How do you feel knowing that you are a "resource." You are their source of money and, depending on your age, either you or your children are a military resource. The political class has few regrets consuming your hard-earned income as well as the lives of your children in the carnage of war. The political class grows fat in its gluttony- sucking the very marrow out of the common man. And their lust for power is insatiable and feed their pride and arrogance even unto the point when they forget their own kinship in mortality. Almost every elected official from city councilman to president of the USA sees himself as a conductor and all the rest of us as the members of the orchestra. Do I really want to be a resource to be directed by the hand of the state? Not really. And I sure as hell don't really want that for my children either. You also have to think about what this says about what kind of person really has as a goal in life to be the leader and tell all of the little people what to do. A megalomaniac? Maybe. A busybody? Almost certainly.

On Tolerance

Tolerance is proclaimed over and over again to be one of the great virtues of our ostensibly postmodern age. It seems to walk hand-in-hand with the other proclaimed virtue of diversity. If one is accused of being intolerant of people who are, or who behave differently, or who believe differently, then the accused is understood to be some sort of troglodyte worthy of extreme verbal excoriation and social stigma, and perhaps legal action as well! And what is wrong with this? Who could possibly be against tolerance? The issue is, of course, that the American "liberals" who preach tolerance (and diversity) practice intolerance while deriding their opponents as intolerant.

What the modern American liberal doesn't seem to understand is that tolerance is only possible when we vehemently disagree with something or someone. Let us examine homosexuality in the light of our topic. The traditionalist conservative society which enforces anti-homosexuality laws does not practice tolerance in this issue. This case is such that the majority sees homosexuality as wrong and has determined that the power of the state be brought to bare against its practice. Conversely, this modern American liberal (hereafter liberal), in the expression of his social liberalism, might see nothing wrong with homosexual practice and consequently celebrate it as an example of diversity. Neither group has practiced tolerance. The man who sees homosexuals as deviants but who nevertheless believes that they have a right to live their lives unagressed upon by both their neighbors as well as the police power of the state practices tolerance. A person can only be tolerant of something with which he disagrees. What the modern American liberal really has done is confuse tolerance and acceptance. (I chalk this up to sloppy thinking, but it could actually be strategic in its origin.)

The liberal says that he loves diversity. But this love certainly does not extend to a diversity of thoughts and opinions. The television and print media in the United States march lock-step for the Democratic Party and a left-of-center worldview with almost total hegemony. There is only one center-right television network which is allied with the Republican Party. For this, Fox News is viciously savaged. Fox News may not be totally "fair and balanced" as they purport themselves to be, but more importantly they provide balance to the other networks. The liberals who control the government-media complex are intolerant of the diversity of opinions found in a free society. Because the Democrat Party liberals have controlled the major media for so long and so completely, the non-conforming media has mostly been relegated to the Siberian tundra of A.M. radio. Lo! and behold! Left alone, A.M. radio became strong and viable because of the freedom found there. And as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, the Democratic Party apparatchiks and liberal ideologues find not joy in the diversity of varying viewpoints and tolerance for those who see things differently than themselves. In the name of tolerance they descend as locusts and brand their enemies as purveyors of hate and ignorance to whom no one should listen. In the name of diversity they demand the power of government be used to diminish or silence the voices of their opposition through appeals to the Orwellian "fairness doctrine." How tolerant! To the Democratic Party liberal diversity is one hundred diverse people with exactly the same views. And tolerance is being OK with that.

You still think liberals are tolerant? Black conservatives are Uncle Toms and race traitors. When was the last time you saw Condoleezza Rice or Clarence Thomas interviewed for their sage advice on matters of race? Do you think the Congressional Black Caucus would have welcomed the opinionated Vernon Robinson? No way! Vernon's not willing to toil on the DNC plantation. How about women. We all remember 1992- the Year of the Woman. We were all told to celebrate the gender diversity in the Senate with the election of a number of liberal Democrat women. Fast forward to more recent memories. Why could not 2008 be Year of the Woman part two? After all, Hillary Clinton ran a serious race for the nomination to the presidency in her party and Sarah Palin was actually on the ticket to be Vice-President in hers. But alas, it was not meant to be. The Fourth Estate had already informed those of us on this side of the talking box that that election year was about assuaging the collective national racial angst. It was to be a propitiation for the national sin of racism. The thought-meisters were pulling hard for the Obama-Biden campaign. And what happened to Caribou Barbie? They declared political Jihad on her. Hillary Clinton's plethora of $6300 pantsuits were a passing bit of trivia, but the fact that Extreme Wardrobe Makeover- Sarah Palin Edition cost 150 grand was a multi-week talking point. America liked Sarah Palin. The Democrat media needed to create a reason why people couldn't relate to her. (And besides, no one wants to talk about real issues anyway.)

Tolerance involves respecting others even when I have no respect for their way of life, the choices they make, or how they believe. Tolerance is allowing one father to refuse to let his son join the Boy Scouts because he believes the organization promulgates a Christian worldview, allowing another father to refuse to let his son join the Boy Scouts because he believes it does not endorse a "true" Christianity, and allowing the Boy Scouts to run their organization as they see fit. So what is this ethic of tolerance? It is an American ethic. It is an ethic which, though I may disagree with others vehemently, causes me to never force others to accommodate me. I do not want others to force me to accommodate them. That is not to say that society must tolerate crimes (unlawful aggressions against people), or that I cannot even try to persuade others to abandon their own lifestyles in favor of my own. Speech, discussion and persuasion are integral to human language and cannot be separated from the human experience without the direst of consequences, even in its attempt. The issue then is aggression. When I aggress against others, whether to steal from them, kill them, or silence them, I wrong them. Consequently, the manipulation of the state to aggress against the people with whom one disagrees is a most egregious form of violence. For underlying the regulation of the people is the initiation or threat of force by the police power of the state against others through which its proponent seeks to control his fellow human beings. This is political violence. This is the tool of totalitarians everywhere.

So what is diversity and tolerance. Diversity is all the unique individuals of the world with all their own individual beliefs, talents and desires. Tolerance is my not having to accommodate them and their not having to accommodate me. And freedom loving people everywhere are OK with that.

Why health care is not and can never be a right

Today the public attention is largely focused upon health care, and an animated and vociferous chorus of socialists cheers and demands for health care as a "right." Many millions of people listen and find themselves agreeing, saying that it would indeed be a wonderful thing if nobody went without superb health care. Almost everybody wants the less fortunate to be better off. And millions of others say to themselves what a wonderful thing it would be if the government (meaning taxpayers other than themselves) paid for their own health care costs. Almost everybody wants something for nothing.

The opposition to the government takeover of the medical industry is in reality largely missing the point. The social conservatives point out rightly that the government will have to ration health care. To some degree or another this will absolutely be true. The argument then goes that the government will kill old people to save money. While this is certainly a final solution to the issue of the long term financial viability of a socialist America, it is certainly at this time a great stretch bordering on scare tactics- but not totally. The other argument that I have heard is that the government will promote and pay for aborting more children, especially those who will become special needs children, and therefore the government takeover of the medial industry must be stopped on moral and ethical grounds. Again, this may be so, but it is peripheral. The key to understanding the debate on what its proponents are calling health care reform is understanding itself.

The first things that need to be understood are the terms.

What is the big deal that the socialists in the Democratic Party call health care a "right?" What is a "right" anyway? Understood classically, rights involve those functions of my being which no person or group of people may morally or ethically take from me or deny me. I will detail this at length soon, but suffice it to say that health care is not a right as is personal liberty (which includes the right to free speech and the prohibition against slavery), but is in fact a "good." What is a "good?" A good is that which is the creation of some one's labor like televisions, bagels and bottles of beer. Related to goods are services which, though intangible, are also the product, the creation, of some person's labor. These include haircuts and tango lessons. Services then are really a subset of goods. They are merely intangible goods. Health care then is a combination of goods and services- the services of medical staff and the inclusion of goods like medicines and medical equipment. Not one person will argue with me claiming that health care then is not the result of the labor of many people- doctors, nurses, assistants, chemists, assembly-line workers, pharmacists, administrators and various other people.

If I had a right to health care then I could claim the labor of all of these aforementioned people without paying. If I take this health care from them without paying them then I have robbed them just as if I had stolen a loaf of bread. This brings us to another term.

Need. I need food to live. A want is something I desire. A need is something without which I will die. Food and a place to sleep and medical care are all needs. Medical care may not always be a need, but at some point in your life it probably will be. If I have a right to health care then I also have a right to food and sometimes shelter. I will die if I am left in the snow or heat of the desert. I will die if I do not eat. I will also die if I do not have water or air, which brings us to some interesting circumstances. I need air so I just breathe it. Air for all practical purposes is superabundant. This means that there is plenty to go around; no one has to make it- it is just there. Water is abundant but not superabundant. There is plenty of fresh water, but not in all places and at all times. (It is interesting to note that most of the costs associated with water are those of transportation- getting the water to the people.)

Health care, unlike air and water does not simply exist. It must be created by the work of people who do not all wish to work for free. If I claim health care as a right then I am saying that I have a right to the health care worker's labor. Even if I take the health care from the people who have provided it and pay them fifty cents on the dollar I have still robbed them. I cannot force the car dealer to sell me a $20,000 car for $10,000. We all know that the robbing of a person's labor is known as slavery. What then is it if I take the money to pay for my health care from my neighbor without his consent. Well, then I have robbed my neighbor and he will probably not invite me over anymore. Instead of that, what if I take the money out of the safe at the rich mans house on the other side of town. I will just threaten to hold him prisoner until he hands over the cash. Again I have robbed him. What if everyone on my block goes with me to the rich man's house and performs the same action? Now, because we are many and he is just one, I am well on my way to saying that we have taxed him. A point to be made is that health care like any other good is created by labor, and that if it is not stolen outright by the enslavement of health care laborers then it must be paid for either with money I earned or money I didn't earn that someone else did.

This is the heart of the issue. No one would be clamoring for the nationalization of the health care industry if the taxpayer thought that he was only going to get what he paid for. He wants it only because he wants something that he doesn't want to pay for. It is as simple as that. If our elected officials devised a plan that would ensure care as good as what we get right now and then followed up by telling us that everyone in America will be covered and that it would only cost the average taxpayer 30% more than what he spends right now on health care the people would revolt. The problem is that everyone wants something for nothing.

So the focus of the middle of the country becomes reform. Certainly there is a lot that can be done. However, as long as any considerable element of the legislation focuses on the idea of something for nothing there will only be trouble down the road. But who cares? Promising something for nothing is how you buy votes.

Food and Health Care

Food, shelter, and health care. These are arguably the big three needs. I would like to focus today on food and health care. Currently the national debate by the intellectual and political elites favors radical reform of the health care system such that the federal government would seize control of the means of production and distribution of medicine and medical care claiming that these goods and services constitute a special case which is too important to be left to private individuals and the free market. After all, without adequate medical services many people would die. Additionally, it is not right that the best medical care in the world should be so expensive. It needs to be made affordable. The sheeple nod their heads with near perfect conformity- or so we are told by the government-media complex. The only dissenters we are told are a few extremists. Nancy Pelosi has even gone so far as to say that those who protest the nationalization of the medical industry are Nazis and display swastikas. (Madame Speaker: prove your statement or resign from congress. When you accuse you must provide proof. You must stand or fall by those words or you should be granted no consideration, no respect, and no quarter.)

As I was saying, food and medical services are needs without which we will die. It is not, however, always an all or nothing proposition with these two needs. A great part of our national debate is over substandard health care. That's right, some people receive substandard or barely minimal health care, and likewise others do not get enough to eat. If I do not get enough, a minimal amount of nutritious food (not junk food) to eat then I will become less healthy and I will waste away. I will become prone to more diseases and ultimately I will die prematurely. It is estimated that one in six children in the United States is at risk of malnourishment and 3.8 percent of households in the United States had adult members who went hungry in the last year because they lacked the money to buy food for themselves. On the flip side of the food problem, millions of people consume non-nutritious food contributing to obesity and its myriad health consequences. To ameliorate the situation, perhaps our elites would like to nationalize the production and distribution of food. Imagine how much better it will be when congress passes a 1000 page bill outlining how and what farmers are to grow and how said food will be distributed to the people. Schools will not even have to explain the food pyramid to children anymore because central planners can determine not just what you should eat but what you will eat! I can hear it now, "obviously, grocery stores are the villains here because they charge money for food without which people will die. They are exploiting the people and are probably in cahoots with Big Agriculture. Why, food is a right! Food reform now! Food reform now! Food reform now!"

Imagine for yourself if a congressional committee after listening to a panel of experts were to decide how many potatoes to grow, how many chickens to raise, how many acres of green beans to plant and so on. How it is to be done to appease the environmental lobby, etc. Then they will decide how much to charge for it if anything at all. Of course, if food were free for the taking, people would waste food like there is no tomorrow and we would have shortages. But I don't think we would really have to worry about that. They would create another federal bureaucracy. Perhaps it will be called the Department of Nutrition Services. Thousands of new bureaucrats. Of course they will make plenty of mistakes determining what to grow, how to grow it, and what to do with it. There will be shortages. All food will be rationed and we will eat only what shows up in the government grocery store. How do I know there will be shortages? Because this type of central planning of the food industry has already been tried. This is soviet style central planning which produced shortages of nearly everything. No butter, no meat, not much to eat (unless you are a connected party member). In the United States, as with any capitalist country leaving food production and distribution to the free market, food is ridiculously plentiful to the absurd point where even poor people are fat. They may not get caviar and drink Dom Perignon but they do not starve and charity can make up the rest quite well. There is no better way.

The ultimate absurdity in all this is that we all know that food is far too important to let the government seize control of it and screw it up. Our lives depend upon it. Central planners and government bureaucrats and politicians never did anything more efficiently and productively than the private sector except for waging war and killing people. We all know that our food is far to important to let the government run it. Why then do we accept an argument that claims that health care is too important to be left to anyone except the government. There is no logic or reason behind it. I surmise that the real impetus behind it is the desire of the ruling class to seize even more power and control over industries and people.

Rumor has it that Congressional Quarterly is reporting what may be as many as 535 cases of swine flu in the vicinity of Capitol Hill.

The Income Tax is a moral tragedy and should be illegal. The philosophical underpinnings of any tax on income necessarily assume that the state owns the people. When someone is owned by someone else we call it slavery. That is, when a private individual is owned by another private individual we call it slavery. What do we name it then when a private individual is owned by the state? Well if we utilize the word "owned" then we must declare that this too is slavery. What is most troublesome is that the vast majority of the people in the United States of America do not even realize that the government owns them. What is the slave to the slave owner? Why did the slave master of old own slaves? He owned them because he wanted their labor. This is the primary component of slavery. If the slave owner "owned" the slave but did not have a claim on or own his labor then the slave owner would be better off emancipating the slave and sending him away. He housed them and fed them and took care of them (usually only as well as he minimally had to) and in return he kept the fruits of their labor. What percentage of the slave's labor was "returned" to the slave in the form of housing, food, clothing, and other necessities I cannot say, but I can say that the slave was only taken care of because he was an asset to the slave owner- an asset which produced labor.

What are income taxes? Simply put, they are a claim on my labor by the government just like the slave owner had a claim on the labor of the slave. The government officials fight over how much of my labor, or income, they should keep. Rare is it indeed that a representative of the people even contemplates eliminating that most spurious of taxes. In fact, the vast majority of the so called "representatives of the people" constitutes in reality the representatives of the government instead- increasingly authoritarian minded and knee-deep in graft and cronyism. Now, if it is merely a question of how much of my labor the government wants, then I do not have a right to my labor at all. For a time maybe I will pay a third. Then later on in life taxes on income will eat up more, maybe half. Someday they may want 60 or 70 percent. The point is that it is not my decision. It is the government's decision. If they have a legal claim (as the law currently allows) on my labor then they have a claim on my person. I do not own my labor and therefore do not own myself. It can be reasonably argued that since I am allowed by the state to keep a percentage of my labor that my status is more akin to being a serf than an outright slave. Rightly so, but the underlying problem persists. The state has a claim on my labor. The only reason that we are not wallowing in poverty from this onus is that modern capitalism has increased the productivity of the average worker to what would have been unthinkable in pre-industrialized society. Productivity, the creation of beneficial products, is wealth. What once took the work of two or three men now takes one. As a result of this people are far wealthier and can surrender a portion of their labor without falling into poverty. But the underlying moral problem remains. I do not have a right to my labor.

Many people will say that if the state takes a third then the state owns one third of my workweek and I own two thirds. This is a fallacious argument. They simply allow me to keep the two thirds at their pleasure out of which I have the pleasure to pay my other taxes like sales tax and property tax. Since they control my income and the percentage I pay to them the state has the right to my labor and I do not have any right to my labor at all.

What then is to be done? We must fight to end all taxes on income. The 16th Amendment must be repealed and income tax must be declared a form of involuntary servitude. There can be no compromise on this matter for it is a moral issue like the right to believe as I might and say what is on my mind without the fear that the agents of the state will imprison me,harass me, or track me based solely on my beliefs or statements. Lastly, the advocates for omnipotent government must be deprived this great source of financial lifeblood from which they will fashion a future of fascism which will for a time abrogate the remainder of human dignity.

Parable of the Cart

Once there was a group of people who were traveling down the road together on a very long journey. They had with them a cart which they used to aid them on their journey. There were no beasts of burden so the people themselves had to pull the cart. They put into the cart those things which were too heavy for any one man to bear by himself and were used for the good of all, while personal effects were carried by the individuals who owned them. The pace at which the group traveled down the road was quick for each man in the group pulled the cart rendering the burden light. The families of each man walked beside the cart. When a man tired he would walk with his family taking a respite from the burden of the cart. Very few people ever rode in the cart, and they were those who were afflicted or otherwise incapable of even walking, as it had been decided by the group that instead of halting the journey each time one person was incapable of walking and needed rest that he or she should ride instead for a short time and then resume walking beside or pulling the cart again.

Over time a few of the laziest people decided that they would ride in the cart most of the time and rarely, if ever, pull the cart any more. Soon after that a man who was always very opinionated and thought himself quite intelligent said to the people, "Because I am smart and understand such things I will serve the cart by directing it. I will ride atop it and say to those who pull to go faster or slower, go to the right or to the left. Also I will decide who can ride in the cart and for how long." Soon after that The Driver said to the people, "I require the aid of a few to help me with my duties" and so chose his friends to ride with him. Those who pulled noticed the cart getting a little heaver and so it moved a little more slowly.

Since the cart had grown a little heavier some of the weaker men said to The Driver "The cart is heavy and we only have so much strength. Therefore, we need more rest and more time in the cart." The Driver replied "Let it be so. Let the strongest among us bear more of the burden so that the weaker may bear less." And so the weaker men put down the burden of the cart and many decided to ride. The cart now moved even more slowly and the riders began to grumble to The Driver saying "We are not making good progress on our journey. Look at the strong men who pull the cart. Can they not give greater effort?" So The Driver said to the few, the strong men who were still pulling the cart, "What is the meaning of this? Why do you work so slowly? It is not right that you who are blessed with strength should not give greater effort in pulling our cart." Finally, one of the strong men replied, "I am strong because I pull with all my effort. If other weaker men should get down out of the cart and and begin again to pull the cart we will all move much faster. It is in giving effort by which they will become strong." "Nonsense," aspersed The Driver. "You are wicked and selfish for saying this about your compatriots. Henceforth, the strong men shall be bound and yoked to the cart for it their responsibility to the community to bear their fair share of the burden." The strong men groaned and most of the weak men cheered. But those who were neither weak nor strong, who sometimes pulled and sometimes walked and sometimes rode, who knew that what the strong man had said to be the truth, and had hoped themselves to become strong, looked up at The Driver and they were afraid.

Our Separate Ways

Now that the Democrats are in power most of my friends complain endlessly that Pelosi and Obama are going to spend too much money on this, too much money on that, and screw up that other thing over there. When Bush was in the White House I listened to another set of friends and family complain that Bush was taking the country to hell in a hand basket. And yet other friends aren't happy either way. I must therefore conclude that no matter who is in power some group of Americans will be unhappy. But are we not promised the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? The solution then to increasing happiness among the people is not to be found in the struggle to impose our various philosophies of governance upon each other, but rather in choosing how we ourselves are to be governed. We will group people together into a few philosophical groups, each having a different set of rights and responsibilities.

Democrats
These are to include people who identify themselves as progressives, socialists, people who vote Democratic, Green, and Peace and Freedom. They most likely voted for Obama. This group is entitled to social security, unemployment benefits, government health care and all the various social programs. They will begin with a tax rate of 70% on all income. Deductions will be few. Their tax money will be pooled into an account to pay for their programs. If the communal account runs in the black they will have extra money for the following year which can be rebated back for educational expenses. If the money runs out say at the end of October then no one from this group will receive any benefits until the pot has money again. They may of course raise their tax rate if 70% is not high enough. Also, this group will not be allowed to own any kind of firearm. Males of this group will be monitored for alpha-male characteristics and for acting dominant in male-female relationships. Those who exhibit these stone-age tendencies will be subject to hormone therapy to decrease their testosterone, or if that fails, castration.

Republicans
These people are those who most likely vote Republican but may include some centrist swing-voters and all those who see themselves as center-right but who are probably socially conservative and economically ignorant. This group most likely voted for McCain. This group will receive a greatly reduced package of welfare-state benefits. Unemployment benefits will be no longer than four weeks. This group sees four weeks really as three and a half weeks more time than needed to get and start a new job unless you are a totally lazy bastard. Additionally, social security will exist only for those who live past 80. Health care will remain as it is now. This group may own an unlimited number of firearms and the tax rate will be set at 15%. No deductions. Members of this group may never associate or do business with or accept money from a practicing homosexual (if anyone is looking). They must also never go to a strip club (if anyone is looking). They must wear a flag pin on their lapels or they will be deemed unpatriotic. When the president decides to send troops off to fight in undeclared wars only this group need send sons and daughters off to fight. This group will also pay for undeclared wars through special levies which only this group need pay. Republicans, if they are ever suspected of any terror related activities will immediately be shipped off to Guantanamo to be water-boarded.

Libertarians
These people could have been Ron Paul supporters and probably stayed home in the general election not wanting to vote for the socialist community agitator or war-monger gramps. This group will receive no benefits from any social programs like social security, medicare, universal health care, unemployment insurance, etc. However this group will pay no taxes on income or property. Neither will their children have to register for a draft nor ever fight in an undeclared war. They may own firearms. This group may use medical marijuana. Members of this group will be free to live their own lives as they see fit and associate with whomever they please. And if the constant barrage of republican and democrat pundits and pseudo-intellectuals becomes too overwhelming the libertarian shall reserve his inalienable right to mock, belittle and expand the use of medical marijuana to render republicans and democrats less irritating and more entertaining.

Californiomics

I was listening to the news on the radio this morning when my brain got into first gear. The announcer on the radio was discussing how some judge had given his approval to Gov. Schwarzenegger's decision to give state workers two days unpaid leave each month to ease the California's financial problems. Eureka! I exclaimed to the man in the car next to me. I think he did not hear me for he drove away heading south on the Pacific Coast Highway. You see, the economy of California will benefit from less money being spent on state workers. The state will save money and everyone except the state workers who get furloughed will be better off economically. I know that you already know this. The poignancy of this is illuminated by asking the comparative question: How is the reduction in hours for government workers different from the reduction in hours for private sector workers? Private workers, insofar as they are productive, add to the wealth of everyone. Government workers create very little wealth overall. Many actually do not create any wealth at all, but only consume the wealth of others.

This leads us to an analysis of wealth. What do I mean by the production and consumption of wealth? The production of wealth is the creation of goods and services which continue or enhance our standard of living. Bread, meat, houses, cars, shoes, movies, novels, medicine, needed professional services from doctors, lawyers, police and courts, et cetera. These are wealth and things that preserve and protect persons and wealth. Production and services must be useful and wanted to be wealth. This is why the more people we have working efficiently producing things that people really need the wealthier we all are. This is why the more government workers we have shuffling papers and telling people how they should live the poorer we all are. Productive private workers as a rule create more than they consume. Government workers, on the other hand, consume more than they create. Ergo, if the government workers produced more than they consumed then California would be poorer for employing them less as would a private enterprise would make less profit for laying off its most productive employees. When a private enterprise trims the fat it lays off its least productive employees, at least in theory. If California will be better off for having some state workers take two days each month off without pay, imagine how much better off we will be if they take four days off each month instead. In fact, we should move to trim the fat even more and encourage the government workers to move from non-productive government jobs to productive private sector jobs providing goods and services that are useful, desired, and actually needed. Ditto for Washington. Now you can take away Paul Krugman's Nobel prize and give it to me instead. Yes, Mr. Krugman the Earth is in fact round; and no, governments cannot spend us into prosperity.

Various Proposals for Fixing the Economy

Number 1

This is the proposal that we hear most often proffered by almost everybody. It goes something like this: First we have the government hire 600,000 new federal employees. Then we print a whole bunch of new money. Then we pass it around so companies and private citizens alike can go on a spending binge and "grow the economy." Washington will pass out lots of new contracts to private companies to engage in public work projects thereby putting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people back to work. We will bridges. We will drain swamps. Scratch that, swamps are now called wetlands; we will hire environmental guardians. A solar panel on every roof! We will build hundreds of billions worth of collective transportation (light rail) and staff it with new union employees. We can conscript the youth into "national service" driving unemployment even lower. And don't forget the bailout for the UAW- I mean the big three auto companies. We have to maintain all those good union jobs and union political power- I mean we have the patriotic duty to protect the greatest automobile industry in the world. We will spend so much that instead of being poorer we will be wealthier.

And, if for some unforeseeable reason this does not work- the dollar completely collapses and we face social turmoil and economic upheaval- we can always rebuild the economic infrastructure by cooperating with Canada and Mexico to create a single North American currency. We can then force the average American to jettison his unbridled individualism in favor of a more cooperative spirit. Can't we all just get along.

Number 2

This proposal is a bit more draconian. Let us call it the "trimming the fat" proposal. The goal is to eliminate all non-productive behavior and to stimulate productive behavior thereby raising ourselves to perpetual prosperity. The first thing we are going to do is to end slothful behavior by outlawing unemployment. If you are chronically unemployed you will be subject to military conscription. That will get the lazy bums back to work. Next we take everybody sentenced to more than five years in prison and summarily execute them. No more free ride. And speaking of the indolent, we then criminalize homelessness. The government will gather up all those bipedal eyesores who beg for change and are olfactorily offensive and grind them into hamburger and feed them to the working poor thereby eliminating the need for food-stamps and welfare payments. Of course, we have yet to deal with those who don't work not because they are shiftless, but because they cannot work. The state will have to euthanize persons when it is discovered that they are handicapped or retarded to the point that they burden our emerging great society. Imagine no more special ed, no more handicapped parking, and no more compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. We should probably extend the opportunity of a good death to all youths who cannot meet their public school benchmarks. (Mommy, can I do more homework instead of playing Nintendo?) We will eliminate all people who are a net drag on the economy. Imagine all the money we will save. Imagine all the money we will save when we end social security and medicare. Let the elderly work until they cannot, and then stop using up resources and taking up room. When your car has broken down, is beyond repair and will never drive again you do not wax it and park it in the garage. If you have not saved for the future, and no one else is willing to take you in, then you're in for a measure of tough love. Soylent Green is people!

Number 3

You can call this proposal what you will. It works something like this: Instead of aiming to eliminate all non-productive behavior like proposal number 2 we stop subsidizing non-productive behavior. The government stops paying people not to work. If you want to be paid you will have to do something productive for someone else. In fact, we stop subsidizing any kind of behavior. We let each and every person decide for himself if to work, where to work, how much to work for, what to buy, how much to save, etc. But what about the current state of the economy? What about it? Everyone was happy during the party. Now we have a hangover. It will pass. It is not pleasant, but it will pass. The Fed was the main culprit with its cheap and easy money. Therefore, the solution to our economic hangover is not more cheap and easy fiat dollars, but spending restraint, tax reform and a return to sound money. Washington needs to immediately start spending less than it takes in. This is not the time to take the scalpel and trim a little fat. (Actually, most of the govermentarians don't want to trim any fat at all but to suck the marrow right out of the bones of every tax-payer and productive American.) This is the time for the meat-cleaver. What Would Murray Rothbard Do? Only a return to to the dynamic responsiveness and unmatched prosperity of free-market entrepreneurial capitalism can save this country now.

With the outright plundering of the American taxpayer to prop up the businesses of the politically connected, Washington seeks to chain our children to this behemoth debt and turn us all into indentured servants to the masters of our money. Great change is coming to America. It is uncertain, however, whether this change will be a return to a viable economic system which enhances our personal liberty, or will be a further decent into socialism, the elimination of prosperity, the spread of want, and the emergence of a new dark age insofar as individual liberty is concerned. All things of this Earth must come to an end, and if the United States abandons its heritage of respect for the individual in favor of collectivism, then it is more than likely that this great experiment of self-rule through democratically elected government will, for now, come to an inglorious end as the one-time champions of liberty and human freedom will content themselves with a few scraps from their masters' tables and huddle together in the dark bereft of courage and dignity.