Time for Emergency Freedom
The nonstop spending, whether labeled “stimulus” or “quantitative easing” (a.k.a. inflation), has pushed the nation’s liabilities to unimagined levels and created an overarching long-term uncertainty. In the process, Obama has destroyed the country’s once pristine credit rating, spooked private investors and businessmen, drawn rebukes from foreign investors, and driven consumer confidence to 30-year lows.
The sum of all these interventionist policies has been to inculcate an atmosphere of fear, withdrawal, and uncertainty among private businessmen. No one wants to expand or hire new employees, given that they have no idea what Washington will do next. Hence the latest crisis that politicians now supposedly have to solve: chronically high unemployment.
For decades, the principle underlying our economic policies has been: in any crisis or quasi-crisis, let the government spend a little more of our money, control a few more of our choices, further regulate our businesses, and then all will be right with the world. This is unadulterated socialist theory, in which government intervention is a panacea for every ill.
Yet ever since the writings of Mises, Hayek, and Rand, we’ve known the nature and outcome of such intervention, economically, politically, and morally. Seventy more years of its practice, both here and abroad, has only served to confirm and reinforce that knowledge.
So rather than continuing a pattern by which every increase in power and every instance of intervention precipitates more calamities, why not break the cycle?
Let’s no longer accept the politicians’ claim: “We can’t just sit here, we have to do something.” (Where “doing” always means increasing the scope and size of government.) Instead, let’s do the opposite. Let’s restore liberty in general and in principle. In times of crisis, rather than imposing emergency controls we should enact emergency freedoms.
Given the past century of interventionist policies, we’re admittedly short of examples in implementing such freedoms — but that shouldn’t stop us. For even if we don’t know the exact form that government deregulation, repeals, or rollbacks should take in any given sector, we know their ultimate outcome (think West Germany vs. East Germany, or South Korea vs. North Korea). And while the transitions necessary to achieve long-term prosperity may cause short-term discomfort, we can use the lessons learned from each experience to make further transitions easier.
If we’re to finally solve — not exacerbate — our economic problems, we must replace our interventionist theories and mindset with pro-liberty principles and policies. We’ll know we’ve succeeded when our immediate reaction to any economic crisis is: “Time for emergency freedom!”
_____
[1] The frauds were properly prosecuted under pre-existing statutes, which were more than sufficient for the task.
Lots of luck, though. It all boils down to one simple thing:
¡Leave People Alone!
And all shall go well.
Government has the Merdas Touch- everything it handles turns to crap.
Great idea!
I propose the following temporary emergency measures:
Suspend EPA, NLRP. OSHA
Defund the Departments of Agriculture, Labor, Education, Homeland Security, Interior, Commerce
Furlough all staff at Departments of State, Justice, Treasury, HHS, HUD previously classified as ‘Non-Essential’
“Furlough all staff at Departments of State, Justice, Treasury, HHS, HUD previously classified as ‘Non-Essential’”
I’ve just had an idea, instead of furlough, send them to law enforcement school and put them to work for the Border Patrol as junior officers of course. We would get thousands of new agents and save a fortune by reducing their pay to entry level. At the very least it would give the cartels some target practice and at the best would give us the man power needed to secure our borders.
It’s We The People vs. We The Elite People of Washington DC. Simple.
The ‘uber’ class in Washington DC have enslaved Americans into a “huddled mass” of mindless consumers. Add to this, various pages of Tax Codes, Legislative initiatives, and State laws and their inititives, We The People are corraled and held captive to an Unjust minority in Washington DC AND Our state Capitols.
Gee! This is just like a guy called Marx wrote about in Das Kapital. Hummm! Top down political and economic governance…now, who would of thought this possible in America? Hummm? Started out as a Representative form of government, now is the exact opposite.
We The People let it happen. We’re at fault. We let this grand experiment called American Capitalism, and unfettered individualism, fluorish, boom and be snuffed out. 2012 is Our last chance…after that, Katy Bar The Door!
Socialism as never before seen in the US will soon be all around us. Vote massively for massive fraud is all around us. God Bless America.
Sad, but true. Even Our military and the UCMJ is being rewritten as we speak to allow Islamist garb and their “Blasphemy Laws (which lead to Sharia), as every day military garb…can you imagine that? What next, Seikhs?
Folks, We The people are under attack from within and from without. Vote!
“Folks, We The people are under attack from within and from without. Vote!”
That’s the problem, we do vote, just in the wrong places. What would happen if a few million conservatives suddenly decided that “California is the place to be”. Move in, establish residence, and vote. Maybe a few million more decide to move to New York. They would, of course, have to be from the states with the least amount of electoral votes so that it wouldn’t hurt too much but it could be done. While we’re at it, maybe a million or two down here in Florida just to reinforce our votes.
I know it’s a pipe dream but wouldn’t it be wunnerful?
Regarding California: Perhaps it would be easier to:
1. Offer the few remaining conservatives safe haven and relocation assistance to Arizona or Texas.
2. Give California back to Mexico, since that’s what the Mexicans seem to want.
3. Strictly enforce the border. Nothing goes in. Nothing comes out.
Make it an object lesson on what happens when you kill the golden goose.
You are correct about what we should do. But if if and but were candy and nuts, we would all have a merry Christmas.