If There Was No Work: A fictional short-short story and thought experiment

A Word With Marty: LIBERTARIAN

A Word With Marty: "POLITICS"

A Word With Marty: "PROPERTY"

What if There Were No Government? A thought experiment

What If There Were No Government: A thought experiment

The Government is Driving Us Out of Our Cars. Foolish and Cruel!

Excerpts from Dave Barry's 2023 Year in Review: "Yes, The Situation is H...

Break-the-Rules Buddies: A short-short story

What if the Minimum Wage were $50 an hour? $0 an hour?

Swarms: A short-short story

Payback: A short-short story

I'll be Introducing the Libertarian Candidate for President

I will have the privilege of introducing the Libertarian candidate for President of the United States, Gary Johnson, at his campaign rally at the University of California Berkeley's Sproul Plaza on Sep 25. Meet and greet is 11:00 to noon. Speeches are from 12:00 to 1:00.  300 to 1,000 people are expected to attend.

Regular readers of this blog know I'm not a pure libertarian. I believe government has important roles. But I do believe that, for most things, the private sector does a better job than does government. Also, I believe government should have no role in people's personal decisions: a woman's right to choose, the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, and a person's right to die.

I'm particularly pleased to be introducing Gary Johnson. Twice elected in a landslide as Governor in a Democrat-dominated state, he moved New Mexico from deficit to surplus.  He was term-limited and thus could not run for a third term. In a presidential debate, Johnson delivered what the Los Angeles Times and Time called the best line of the night: "My next-door neighbor's two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this administration."^[60][61]

Johnson, who by the way, climbed Mt. Everest in 2003, has called for major cuts in government spending, anchored by an immediate end to the War in Afghanistan. America's military adventurism in the Middle East has not only been a failure (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Libya, etc) and a wildly profligate waste of taxpayer money, it shows an utter ignoring of history. From Alexander the Great through Churchill's time (Remember the Dardanelles) through today, western efforts to change the Middle East have yielded failure. A President Gary Johnson would not have demonstrated such hubris.

I was asked to introduce Johnson because my core expertise is jobs, which these days is, of course, Job One, for America  I believe that Johnson's core values: smaller government, less burden on the backs of employers (e.g. ObamaCare), and encouragement of entrepreneurship is the most likely route to creating more jobs or at least to slowing America's decline and fall.

In addition to attempting to give Johnson the inspiring introduction he deserves, I will try to do my part to make the case for why, at this point in American history, the most beneficial, if not sexy, thing our leaders could do is to pull on ropes of restrain and to replace hubris and profligate spending with responsible money management and stewardship, yes, for ourselves but also for our children and grandchildren.

I hope to see you there.

A Proposal for an Almost Anarchist Small Government

I've listened to enough of the Democratic and Republican conventions to make me wonder if we'd be better off in a near-anarchist, truly small government.

So as a thought experiment, here are some of my ideas on what a minimalist government would look like. Some of this is adapted from my new book, What's the Big Idea? 39 disruptive ideas for a better America. 

Retain public schools but eliminate all district, county, state, and federal education bureaucracies and rules. Give teachers freedom to teach what they're passionate about and what they think their kids need to and want to learn. I would emphasize education for citizenship: ethics, empathizing with others, communication skills, and encouraging a cosmic obligation to care about people other than yourself.

Eliminate preventive policing--e.g., cops patrolling the streets. To deter crime significantly, you'd need five cops on every block, roaming through buildings, regularly invading privacy. Feasible-level preventive policing doesn't work well enough to justify the cost to the taxpayer. I would retain a streamlined police force to apprehend criminals.

Cut the defense budget by 80-90%. I'd guess that the additional safety that accrues beyond the most beneficial 10-20% is too small to justify taking all that money from the taxpayer.

Retain government's role in commandeering the building and maintaining of the infrastructure.

Eliminate government "investment" in energy and other technologies. If all companies, with all their brilliant scientists and bean counters, have all rejected a technology, it is too unlikely to be worth taxpayer money, even in the long-term. Examples: ethanol, a nationwide network of electric car plug-in stations, bus lines that traverse empty. In Napa, taxpayer money was used to create gorgeous trolleys that ran for years from Napa's periphery to the downtown. They were always empty, a moving monument to the absurdity of so much of government's spending of our money.

Eliminate all social programs that haven't demonstrated even marginal cost-benefit. Those include such media and liberal darlings as Head Start, job retraining, and even extending unemployment checks. (That results in so many people saying, "Good. Now I don't have to look for work for another 26 weeks.) Similarly, every time government increases financial aid, colleges think, "Good. Now we can raise tuition more."

Reevaluate well-intentioned but side-effect-ridden government programs. Few could argue with the intent of affirmative action. Yet the result has too often been to move merit to a back seat. That causes enormous damage to America. Increasing home ownership is a reasonable goal but government policies to encourage that triggered the financial meltdown. Banks were pressured to give loans to people who couldn't afford to buy a home and so created Stated Qualifications loans, the so-called "liar loans." It's no surprise that many of the borrowers defaulted.

I believe government should not restrict gay marriage nor a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. I'm ambivalent about legalizing marijuana--Its use would increase, which would take a devastating toll on motivation and memory, and increase traffic accidents. For the same reason, I am ambivalent about alcohol being legal. Of course, prohibition would result in a black market but I'd guess that the horrific societal effects of alcohol abuse would be significantly reduced.

Allow the right to die. It's crazy that millions of dying people must live their final weeks in agonizing (and expensive) pain because the government says they can't ask a doctor to painlessly end their irreversible misery.

My intuition says that those proposals would lead to a better America. But no one could assert that with confidence...except for a politician.

What do you think?

A Libertarian Response to the Republicans' "Pledge to America"

In response to the recent Republican "Pledge to America," Libertarian Party executive director Wes Benedict released the following statement:

Instead of a "Pledge to America," the Republicans should have written an "Apology to America." It should have gone something like this:

"We're sorry, America. Sorry we grew the federal government budget from $1.7 trillion to over $3 trillion. Sorry we added $5 trillion to the federal debt. Sorry we doubled the size of the Department of Education. Sorry we started two incredibly costly foreign wars. Sorry we supported the absurd and costly TARP bailouts. Sorry we created a huge and costly new Medicare entitlement. Sorry we did nothing to end the costly and destructive War on Drugs. Sorry we did nothing to reform the federal government's near-prohibition on immigration. But hey, at least we helped you by shifting a lot of your tax burden onto your children and grandchildren."

There are so many lies, distortions, hypocrisies, and idiocy in this document that it's hard to know where to start.

It is deeply insulting to see the Republicans refer to "America's founding values" on their cover. The Republican Party has no understanding whatsoever of America's founding values. They have proven and re-proven that for decades.

The document talks a lot about "tax cuts." Unfortunately, the Republican "tax cut" proposals would really do nothing to cut taxes. All their proposals achieve is to defer taxes, pushing the burden onto our children and grandchildren. The only real way to cut taxes is to cut government spending, and the Republican document does almost nothing in that regard.

The Republicans say they want to "roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels." In other words, to re-create the situation near the end of the Bush administration, after Republicans had massively increased federal spending on almost everything.

Republicans must love it when Democrats expand government, because it gives them the opportunity to propose small "cuts," while still ending up with huge government.

One shocking aspect of the document is that it actually includes subtle Republican proposals to increase government spending.

The Republicans offer no plan whatsoever to reduce military spending, America's foreign wars and nation building, or our military defense of rich foriegn nations. On the contrary, the Republicans apparently want to increase military spending, promising to "provide the resources, authority, and support our deployed military requires, fully fund missile defense, and enforce sanctions against Iran."

The Republicans also appear to want to increase government spending on border control. They say "We will ensure that the Border Patrol has the tools and authorities to establish operational control at the border," a costly proposition.

Furthermore, as expected, the document complains about "massive Medicare cuts," implying that Republicans want to make sure Medicare is kept gigantic.

The bulk of federal spending is in three places: Social Security, Medicare, and the military. The Republicans propose absolutely nothing to reduce spending on these three things, or even to slow down their growth.

There must be a typo in the document where it says "Undeterred by dismal results, Washington Democrats continue to double-down on their job-killing policies." That probably should read "Washington Democrats continue to double-down on Republican job-killing policies."

The best way to restore American prosperity would be to implement the straightforward 28 planks of the Libertarian Party platform, or even just follow the Constitution. I mean the actual Constitution, not the Republican re-write that allows for every federal government program imaginable.

I suppose the one positive aspect of the document is that it finally dispels any illusion that Republicans want to shrink government in any meaningful way.

Apparently the Republicans are hoping they can "fool some of the people all of the time." The Libertarian Party is ready to point out Republican lies and hypocrisy to American voters, and we hope that Americans who actually want small and constitutional government, not just hypocrisy and worthless rhetoric, will vote Libertarian this November.

The Libertarian Party has 21 candidates for U.S. Senate and 170 candidates for U.S. House in the upcoming November 2010 elections.

For more information, or to arrange an interview, call LP Executive Director Wes Benedict at 202-333-0008 ext. 222.

The LP is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971. The Libertarian Party stands for free markets and civil liberties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party at our website.

P.S. If you have not already done so, please join the Libertarian Party. We are the only political party dedicated to free markets and civil liberties. You can also renew your membership. Or, you can make a contribution separate from membership.

Should You Vote Democrat, Republican, or Libertarian?

I've written a number of pieces that make the case that America is in its decline and fall, exacerbated greatly by the Obama Administration and others in the Hard Left. I'll post links to those articles at the end of the following essay.

This essay makes a different set of arguments for why current American policy and media-perpetrated values are disastrous.

As we enter election season, I believe this essay and mine should be kept in mind as you decide whether to vote Democrat, Republican, or Libertarian.

I'm 63 and I'm Tired
by Robert A. Hall

Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs but job-hunting every day, I've worked hard since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary but I didn't inherit my job or my income and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight and I'm tired. Very tired.

I'm tired of being told I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I'm tired of being told I have to pay more taxes to "keep people in their homes." Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I'm willing to help. But not if they bought McMansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the left-wing Congress-critters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act create a bubble and a response to it that bails them out with my money.

I'm tired of being told how bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood Entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In 30 years, if they get their way, the United States will have the economy of Zimbabwe , the freedom of the press of China , the crime and violence of Mexico , the tolerance for Christian people of Iran , and the freedom of speech of Venezuela

I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shari'a law tells them to.

I'm tired of being told that "race doesn't matter" in the post-racial world of Obama, when it's all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of U.S. Senators from Illinois.

I think it's very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less arrogantly of an all-knowing government.

I'm tired of a news media that thinks Bush's fundraising and inaugural expenses were obscene, but think Obama's, at triple the cost, were wonderful; that thinks Bush exercising daily was a waste of presidential time, but Obama exercising is a great example for the public to control weight and stress; that picked over every line of Bush's military records, but never demanded that Kerry release his; that slammed Palin, with two years as governor, for being too inexperienced for VP, but touted Obama with three years as senator as potentially the best president ever. Wonder why people are dropping their subscriptions or switching to Fox News? Get a clue. I didn't vote for Bush in 2000, but the media and Kerry drove me to his camp in 2004.

I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and mandrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America , while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.

I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore's, and if you're greener than Gore, you're green enough.

I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don't think Gay people choose to be Gay but I damn sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I'm tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana.

I'm tired of illegal aliens being called "undocumented workers," especially the ones who aren't working, but are living on welfare or crime. What's next? Calling drug dealers, "Undocumented Pharmacists"? And, no, I'm not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic, and it's been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I'm willing to fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person, who can speak English, doesn't have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military. Those are the citizens we need.

I'm tired of latte liberals and journalists trashing our military (MN: with the obligatory throw-away line about how wonderful our men and women in uniform are,) who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad-mouth better people than themselves.. Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years and still are? Not even close. So here's the deal. I'll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo if the critics would let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims, who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the girls were Christian. Then we'll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear.

I'm tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers; bums are bipartisan. And I'm tired of people telling me we need bipartisanship. I live in Illinois, where the "Illinois Combine" of Democrats has worked to loot the public for years. Not to mention the tax cheats in Obama's cabinet.

I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful indiscretions, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

Speaking of poor, I'm tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn't have that in 1970 but we didn't know we were "poor." The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.

I'm real tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination, or big-whatever for their problems.

I'm damn tired. But I'm also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughter.

* * * * *

Here are links to articles I've written that offer different reasons why America is in its decline and fall.What Happens After America's Decline and Fall

Why High U.S. Unemployment Will be Permanent

Why America is Dying...and What to Do About It

Will Health Care Reform Kill You?

The H1N1 flu non-crisis is long over--just in time for the government to roll out a massive "get vaccinated" campaign. Until now nothing, but in the last week, I've seen countless "Get Vaccinated" ads and billboards.

And when you or someone you love has a heart attack, stroke, etc., you're going to trust a heavily government-regulated, incomprehensibly complicated system with tens of millions of patients not paying into the system, to save your life?

We Are All So Damn Fallible

If something's excellent, there's nothing to fix. So I tend to look for problems.

In recent years, I've trained my sights on the U.S. government's failings:

• Going into such great debt that we've mortgaged our children's future, with China the main bank that will decide whether to modify our loan or leave us hanging.
• How despite repeatedly being told, the government let Bernie Madoff rip off billions of dollars from people. How despite being repeatedly told of dangerous conditions in a peanut processing plant, the warnings were ignored. How despite the Christmas bombers' father credibly warning the CIA about his son, he was allowed to fly--while the government spends a fortune to screen all of us at airports. The most recent report said that despite spending billions, we are utterly vulnerable to terrorist attacks, especially biological.
• The major federal "entitlement" programs: Social Security and Medicare teeter on the brink of bankruptcy despite ever increasing funding from us.
• Since the Korean War more than a half century ago, the big mighty U.S. military has a poor won-loss record let alone cost-benefit record: Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan. We can't even capture the person we say is our highest priority: Osama Bin Ladin.
• Our public schools, despite our spending ever more, near the world's top in per capita spending, are near the bottom in international comparisons of student achievement. The main way we seem to be able to reduce the racial achievement gap is by stunting Whites' and Asians' achievement rather than by improving Blacks' and Latinos'.

Yet my friend Warren Farrell made an on-point criticism of me: He urged me to come to grips with the fallibility of the human condition--that there is ample fallibility not just in government but in nonprofits and for-profits, as well as, of course, in individuals. I also need to remind myself that the world simply hasn't been around long enough for us to solve many problems: for example, cancer, slow learners, and getting the warrior to resolve conflict peacefully.

I'm trying to be more accepting of the human condition.

Today You Start Keeping What You Earn (It's Cost-of-Government Day)

Did you know that you worked for the government from Jan 1 to today, Aug 12 (224 days) to pay all the taxes, fees, and regulatory burdens the govt. imposes on you?

In other words, in 2009, the cost of government consumes 61.34 percent of national income, by far the highest percentage since this figure has been calculated. (See the chart.) HERE's the link to the report, which includes the calculations.

And remember that President Obama's big-government schemes are just now getting enacted.

A Liberal vs Libertarian Approach to Homelessness

This comes from the San Francisco's Libertarian Party website, posted by Steve DeKorte.

I recently asked my friends' little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day.

Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, "If you were President what would be the first thing you would do? " She replied, "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people." Her parents beamed.

'Wow...what a worthy goal." I told her. "But you don't have to wait until you're President to do that.. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and rake my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house. "

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?"

I said, "Welcome to the Libertarian Party."

Her parents still aren't speaking to me.