My response to a lover of govt

Let me first say that if you're referring exclusively to businesses that benefit from collusion with the govt., I'm with you all the way.

But I think you're applying your thoughts to anyone who owns a business, no matter how small. Incidentally, size doesn't matter, as long as the business in question isn't receiving corporate welfare or otherwise benefiting from some regulation or law. A big business is simply a formerly small business that did something right.

But maybe you'd do well to think smaller. I am, or at least I was, a drywall contractor (until the economy tanked.) There isn't a single word in your post that applies to me. Like all non-govt-assisted businesses, I offer to provide a service for a fee. The contract is perfectly voluntary for my customer and me. He doesn't have to accept my bid and I don't have to take the job. This is the essence of capitalism. Capitalism is just another word for freedom. Two people can freely enter into a contract, exchange or association. No third (govt) party is needed. The customer is smart enough to make his own decision without outside help as am I.

There. That's our whole system or at least, that's what it would be, if your beloved govt didn't intervene. That's the system, which you seem to loathe, but which has resulted in the greatest wealth and prosperity, even for the poor, that the world has ever seen. I've just laid it out in a couple of sentences.

Let me now quote a couple of your sentences:

"The citizens factually need to provide for themselves through taxation. Our state officials are obligated to distribute products and "services" equitably throughout society, and especially encourage individual moral growth."

Do you really fail to see the contradiction in that first sentence? They don't "provide for themselves" by hiring a thug (IRS agent, politician, bureaucrat, cop) to mug (albeit, legally) people, at the point of a gun, taking from them what they've earned. "State officials" are just average, ordinary individuals. They're just like you and I. If someone tried to mug me like they do, well, let's just say that's an encounter he wouldn't survive. You write in your post about how the law doesn't apply to corporations. Does the law, "Thou shalt not steal" apply to govt agents? And do you really think that being the recipient of the fruit of someone else's labor "encourage(s) individual moral growth?" Aside from the fact that's it's no one's job to encourage anyone else's moral growth, except parents/their kids.

"Superficially, corporate employment can resemble cushy government jobs. But the social effect is exactly the opposite. Instead of working with harmonious social representatives, we now work for tyrants who monopolize and privatize EVERYTHING they can."

"Harmonious social representatives?" Why do you insist on assigning such virtue to govt agents and such vice to non govt agents? You don't acknowledge that all people are basically the same? Sure, there may be a few angels working for the govt; just like there are a few angels who don't work for the govt. But I've yet to meet anyone in either camp I'd describe in such glowing terms. By the way, "tyrants" have the power to compel. And while govt agents have that power, business owners do not. Any employee is free to quit and make his own job as we business owners have done.

Another thing you'd do well to appreciate is that there's no such thing as "public funds/resources." You've got some sort of chicken/egg thing going with private vs. public money or property or whatever. Nothing is public that wasn't private, first. The govt has nothing it didn't steal, at bayonet point, from the guy who earned it.

Yes, capitalists want to "sell you whatever they want." Try to remember that you're not forced to buy it. Whatever you want, if you don't want to buy it from a capitalist, it's your job to build it/provide it for yourself. For example, if you don't want to hire me to do your drywall job, do it yourself.

Well, that's as brief as I can be. I'd appreciate a response. Notice how I've responded to your specific arguments and refrained from personal attacks and name calling. I'll expect the same from you.

Thanks,
Scott Stuart

Take Your Permit, License, etc. and Shove It

Recently, there was a story in the news about a local govt shutting down an ice cream shop in the name of the safety of the customers because the shop owner was in the middle of a remodel for which he had no permit.

Alright. Several red flags, here. This is the kind if thing that gets me foaming at the mouth. And the fact that many people can't see a problem with this kind of thing tells me all I need to know about their opinion of the constitution and their views on freedom and the principles of personal responsibility and ’live and let live.’

One red flag is that the ‘authority’ quoted seems a nice guy. We’ll continue to have problems as long as good people are willing to enforce or even support such regs. or laws or whatever. I’ve 2 bros. that are IRS agents. Both great guys; yet both aiding and abetting the murder of freedom.

I’m currently doubling the size of my deck. Don’t need no stinking permit. I’ve been a drywall contractor for over 10 years, 100s of happy customers, don’t need no stinking license.

 Lay aside whatever fancy title of the enforcer/lawmaker and the fact that there‘s some silly statute or law and all you’ve got is some dude claiming another dude needs his permission to do something.

Just because things like this have been going on for 150 years or more doesn't make it right.  We have a lot of bad habits that have become bad traditions.  It reminds me of a guy I once knew.  He worked at a dairy.  He actually said he was glad there was a federal regulator looking over his shoulder at the dairy.  This is just the sort of attitude, combined with the attitude of dairy customers who also are glad a fed reg guy is keeping an eye on the dairy, that has gradually diminished the wonderful freedoms our founders sought to protect and enshrine.  This evasion of personal responsibility, combined with voting, sovereign citizens, blithely ignorant and asleep at the switch, too busy to worry about the loss of their unalienable rights is why the constitution hangs by a thread.  And as it falls, so do all our wealth and prosperity.  Truly, we're killing the goose that laid the golden eggs; or at least standing by while the goose is getting it.

It‘s no one’s business but the producer/ice cream seller and the consumer/buyer of ice cream. Each has personal responsibility for his actions in the exchange of money for ice cream and vice versa. And guess what. Just like you can handle the responsibility….so can everyone else. But then if everyone truly believed as I do, the govt would be about a tenth of its size and America would be thriving, not dying.

Forcing People to be Good

All of my arguments for freedom apply to the war on drugs, prostitution, gay marriage, etc. And this is what separates you conservatives from us libertarians. If someone is doing something or there is some kind of association or exchange going on that has nothing to do with me/isn’t hurting me or violating my rights, it’s not my business.
Like you, I have personal, socially conservative feelings about a lot of activities in which many people choose to engage. However, those feelings don’t give me the right to force anyone to do, or not do, anything. Don’t you see how the sword of force/coercion cuts both ways? If you argue for freedom in one case and against it in another, you can’t preserve freedom.
Think about it. If a friend were on drugs (or was engaging in prostitution or gay marriage) and you got everyone together for an ‘intervention.’ Afterward, your friend on drugs says he’s going to continue taking drugs. What? You’re going to chain him to the radiator in your basement? No. You wouldn’t/couldn’t. Yet the govt can and does.  Hmm….the govt gets its rights and power delegated to it from me. And yet it can do things I can’t do. How did it get those rights/that power? Answer that question and you‘ll begin to see how we’re all accessories to the murder of freedom and the constitution.

Closed Open Borders

I may as well weigh in on immigration while I’m at it. I’m for closed, open borders. Let them all in, after we‘ve verified they’re not a criminal in our country or theirs and that they’re not a carrier of some communicable disease and, oh yeah, no free (‘govt provided’) food, school or healthcare…..for them or anyone, American or not. The Declaration says, “all men are created equal,” referring to equal unalienable rights for all. It doesn’t say all AMERICAN men are created equal. Under my scenario, they’ll come and contribute to the economy. Competition is good; good for the producer, but especially for the consumer, which we all are.
Freedom=good, force=bad.

Pleading for Sane, Constitutional Foreign Policy

Help me understand how it’s a bad idea to close all our foreign bases and bring our brave fighting men and women home; to reserve the use of force for defense only.; and to end all foreign aid.

If you personally see injustices, etc taking place overseas and you want to go and help or fight, great! More power to you. But what I’m against is taking money, by force, from those Americans who earned it and spending it to help, protect and defend people outside our country. In addition, I’m against forcing our military to risk and sometimes lose their lives over there. They took an oath to support and defend the constitution. Help me understand how they do that in Iraq, Afgan., and elsewhere. The doctrine of preemptive strikes is wrong. Force is for defense, only.

Freedom, Power and Joy

For pro-govt types, it's all about forcibly equalizing outcomes.

Some would use the phrase, "coerced by necessity," as if that type of "coercion" weren't present in the majority of our voluntary exchanges.

Again, my own highest and best selfish good IS what is best for the common good.

Some complain that ball parks, for instance, "separate wealthy persons from the rest of us." This completely ignores the fact that that separation is what is most keenly desired by most of our politicians; and the politicians accomplish it by the only means available to them, by force.  Everyone wants more money, power and freedom.  The market allows everyone the opportunity to earn those things.  Politics, Ayn Rand's arena of "pull" instead of production and ability, sets up a situation where politicians legally mug and force their way to perceived money, power and freedom.

Indeed, altruism is in short supply.  It's so simple.  Just let freedom reign.  And, if you want, try to be altruistic.  But do it under the law of freedom and live and let live/do unto others...

Great, Unused Potential

Don't speak to me of capacity while remaining empty, unused.
Don't talk a good story before the fact.  Just go, my friend, and do.

Talent, left buried, more harmful than good, takes its toll on him who hides it.
He envies those who go and do.  Whate'er  they're about he derides it.


Show me a warrior who'll wield a twig in defense of hearth and home,
with sword sheathed, spear untouched, leaving cimeter and shield alone.

Neither would bird choose to walk and refuse to spread wings and fly.
Would a fish spurn water and flop on land, choose not to live but to die?

No one can force you to be what you're not; to growl when you're meant to sing.
And no one can do what you came here to do.  No one brought what you bring.

For you were meant for higher heights, for realms of beauty and love.
You came here, not from un-plummed depths.  You came from the stars above.

You're made for the company of angels and gods.  Your Heavenly Parents look on
as you make your way, as you choose your path as a king or merely a pawn.

So choose thou well.  Grow and become the one you were born to become.
Put off idleness, lay darkness aside.  Touch the light and you'll find you've won!