With Friends Like These, Who Needs Socialists?

On my way home from work this afternoon, I was flipping through the stations on the AM dial, listening to afternoon talk radio discuss the proposed bailout. The majority of callers were against the plan, but many of the allegedly conservative hosts were supporting it, if only grudgingly. For example, Michael Medved stated that although the free market is always superior to command and control economies, he nevertheless believes that the government should absolutely step in and intervene when necessary. He cited the FDIC and the savings and loan bailout of the 1980s as examples of “legitimate” interventions. Similarly, Glenn Beck posted an editorial on CNN.com earlier in which he claims that the bailout package is absolutely required, even though it’s a horrible idea.

But when it comes to sheer economic ignorance, neither Medved nor Beck can hold a candle to local Dallas-area talk show host Jon-David Wells. Wells, who is skeptical of the Paulson bailout but will no doubt get behind whatever stupid plan is inevitably enacted, spoke with a caller who pointed out the fact that these boom and bust cycles are caused by the Fed through its policy of inflationary credit expansion. Wells dismissed the caller, and claimed that anyone who suggested we should do away with the Fed was crazy. He went even further, saying that the economy would completely collapse, à la the Soviet Union! Here is a guy who thinks that the absence of a central bank would be like communism, even though one of the central planks of the communist manifesto is to create and control a central bank. Even though the Fed's raison d'être is to artificially set the price of money, just like a central Soviet economic planning board would arbitrarily set the prices of commodities. Even though Alan Greenspan agreed with Ron Paul that if you have a central bank, you don’t have a free market!

I’m amazed at the rapidity with which even those who believe themselves to be defenders of the free market over big government are jettisoning their principles in order to support this bailout. In effect, what they’re saying is, “Sure, the free market beats command and control economies every single time, but when things get tough, what we really need is socialism.” (For a truly excellent critique of the bailout plan, check out Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty blog).

As I have written in this column many times before, the GOP’s standard bearer, John McCain, denigrates private enterprise and the capitalist system every time he opens his mouth. But not to worry, he’s putting everything else on hold to go back to D.C. to fix the problem, and has challenged Barack Obama to do the same. Although I think McCain got the drop on Obama politically with this little stunt, I’d rather have these two nimrods debating in Mississippi rather than in Washington. They can do much less damage in Oxford.

All of this wailing and gnashing of teeth underscores once again the importance of philosophy, particularly for those on the right. It’s not good enough simply to watch the news and have opinions about the issues. You have to understand why you have those opinions, because if you don’t, you’re liable to be swayed by any passing fad, issue, or crisis.

I think that’s why the GOP is in such disarray right now. If you were to ask a self-described “conservative” if they favored small government or big government, he’d say, “Small government, of course.” But then if you asked why he favored small government, he’d be completely flummoxed. By not having a unified, coherent philosophy based on first principles, conservatives have lost sight of what is was they were supposed to be conserving, which is namely individual liberty with the Constitution as its protector.

And without that bedrock philosophical foundation, there is functionally no barrier to the growth of government. The concepts of liberty which used to animate Americans have been so completely lost that, as Don A. Rich writes, even those on Wall Street applaud as the government moves in to nationalize the financial sector. But as those of us who are familiar with the Austrian theory of the trade cycle understand, further intervention in the markets will only create greater problems down the road. Perhaps the next crisis will be severe enough to get people to stop cheering capitalism’s demise. Who knows? At that point, maybe those who consider themselves defenders of the free market will even start to act like it.

Conversations Overheard Overseas

I just wrapped up a two-week visit to Helsinki. As I was eating dinner in the hotel restaurant one night, I overheard another American businessman having a conversation with some European counterparts. (Just so you know, it wasn’t so much eavesdropping as it was not being able to drown out a very loud voice in an otherwise quiet restaurant).

The American was discussing the upcoming presidential election, and from what I gathered he was a Democrat. I gathered this from his anti-McCain comments (no argument there), but also by his utter lack of concern over the possibility and/or certainty of higher taxes under an Obama administration. After all, he already pays taxes in the US and Switzerland, so what’s the harm in spending even more? In for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose.

But he had another reason for opposing McCain. He said he didn’t want McCain to win because he didn’t want his daughter to grow up in a country where she wouldn’t be able to have an abortion. And then it got really interesting. He asked rather indignantly, “When did we start telling women what they could do with their own bodies?”

Well, let’s see. There have been laws against prostitution in most societies since at least Biblical times. Women have been told what substances they may or may not ingest ever since the dawn of the progressive era about a hundred years ago. These days cities all across the Land of the Free tell women that they can’t smoke, eat trans-fats, or enjoy goose-liver pate. And despite the recent Heller decision, Washington DC continues to tell women that they’re not allowed to defend their own bodies with a gun.

So it seems to me that “we’ve” been telling women what they may or may not do with their own bodies since at least the dawn of recorded history, and “we’re” still doing it. And in most cases both liberals and conservatives have cheered these government intrusions into the private sphere and demanded more to boot. So I find it amusing that anyone from either camp should now express shock and outrage that the government is telling women what they may or may not do with their bodies.

Not to delve too deeply into the abortion issue, but it seems bizarre that a woman’s “right to choose” should allow her to terminate her unborn child’s life, but does not extend so far as to allow her to eat a Big Mac if she happens to get hungry later. If the liberals really care about defending a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her body, then surely that takes all the other paternalistic programs that they do support right off the table.

So here’s a hint for the pro-choice crowd. If you don’t want the government dictating what a woman can do with her body, then don’t ask the government to dictate what women may do with their bodies. Just a thought...

The Benedict Arnold of the Reagan Revolution

“[G]overnment is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
- Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981

“If you're disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. Enlist in our Armed Forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier. Because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself.”
- John McCain, September 4, 2008

John McCain, in what may well have been the creepiest political speech in history, recounted his harrowing experience as a POW in Viet Nam. It was there that the future senator from Arizona learned an important lesson - no, not about the folly of an interventionist foreign policy and undeclared offensive wars. He learned that, “I wasn't my own man anymore. I was my country's.” And now he’s witnessing to all Americans, hoping that we, too, will discover the joy that comes from surrendering our individuality and turning our lives over to the state. Based on this and previous speeches, it is clear that McCain believes that the only way for man to serve his fellow man is to pass the civil service exam first.

Perhaps this attitude should not be surprising. After all, the McCain men have been government employees for at least three generations. John McCain’s disdain for the private sector may be understandable given the fact that he’s never actually worked in it. Nevertheless, it is troubling when someone who claims to have been “a footsoldier in the Reagan Revolution” so obviously accepts the very liberal notion of government as the prime mover in society, rather than the individual. I think it’s safe to say that if the Reagan Revolution were still alive in today’s GOP, Footsoldier John McCain would be court-martialed for desertion. Not to worry, though, the GOP raised the white flag long ago and surrendered to the Coalition Forces of Big Government.

Aside from all that, though, it would appear that McCain simply has not done the math associated with his call for all those dissatisfied with government to come work for it. The approval rating for Congress hovers around 18% these days. According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s “Report on the American Workforce,” there are roughly 143 million workers in the US workforce. If 82% of them abandoned the private sector to pursue their dreams of working for the U.S. Department of Labor, there would only be about 26 million of us left working to pay their bloated salaries. McCain seems completely unaware of the simple fact that every additional government employee is another burden on the productive members of society – those of us who work for “profit, not patriotism.”

So what does it say for freedom in America when the standard-bearer of the allegedly small government party wants everyone in America to take a job with the government, and the admittedly big-government party’s great new agent for change is still preaching the old liberal gospel of a chicken in every pot? Sadly, nothing good.

But perhaps all is not lost. After all, I just spent the weekend in Estonia, where I freely strolled the streets of what used to be part of the Soviet Union. Estonia, of course, was able to throw off the shackles of totalitarian rule, and its citizens are now enjoying the tremendous improvements in their standard of living that can only be achieved through greater individual liberty. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be able to do the same thing here in the United States one day.