Come “together,” right now, it’s the law

As published in today’s Daily Camera:

Do you want politicians to put you “in it together” with others, or would you prefer to reserve that choice for yourself?

Last Tuesday guest editor Clay Evans wrote that one of President-elect Obama’s “great challenges” will be to “bring us together.” While defending Social Security, Obama himself has written that we “need to reclaim the idea that in this country, we’re all in it together. That is America’s very promise…”

When a charismatic speaker says this, it can make you feel hope, that you’re part of a community, or inspire you to voluntarily cooperate with others to achieve great things. Or such talk could make you suspicious and skeptical, as you might react to a snake-oil salesman or an aspiring cult leader. In either case, you can choose either to participate or walk away.

But you cannot walk away from an elected politicians who claim “we’re all in it together.” Politicians “bring people together” with legislation. If you peacefully refuse to cooperate with such legislated “togetherness,” you’re a criminal and can end up in prison. For example, if you think Social Security <a title="nice political cartoon” href=”http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/medicare-explained/”>resembles investing with Bernie Madoff, try opting out. When politicians legislate how “we’re all in it together,” law enforcement can punish us for not cooperating with their wishes.

Instead, politicians should promote policies that respect individual rights. That is, our right to associate with, or be “together” with, others on a peaceful and voluntary basis. Respect for individual rights: this should be America’s promise.

[pdf as published in print edition]

Stossel on deficit spending

John Stossel writes eloquently on the danger and injustice of deficit spending:

Obama must realize that government has no wealth of its own and that commandeering scarce resources from the private sector only stifles the economy. Deficit spending does this two ways. When the Treasury borrows money, it outbids private borrowers who would have put the money to productive use. When the Fed creates money, it depreciates the dollar, shifts purchasing power from the people to special interests, and — by tampering with the price signals — creates an unsustainable recovery that will collapse and throw people out of work when the inflation stops.

Read the whole article here.

Obama: School choice for me, but not for thee

The Daily Camera published my comments on Obama’s school choice hypocrisy couple weeks ago:

“We need to focus on fixing and improving our public schools; not throwing our hands up and walking away from them,” said President-elect Barack Obama to a teachers’ union convention. But when it comes to his own daughter’s education, he and Michelle Obama have walked away.

Obama’s daughters will attend the Sidwell Friends School, which the Washington Post describes as “a rigorous school where many of Washington’s most prominent and moneyed families have sent their children.” “The Obamas selected the school that was the best fit for what their daughters need right now,” said Michelle Obama’s spokeswoman.

But when ABC News asked him about giving inner-city parents a similar choice to opt out of government-run schools, Obama said “it would be overall bad for most kids.” Most kids, but not his own daughters, of course.

Instead, Obama wants to “foster competition within the public school system.” That is, he wants to maintain what is effectively a government monopoly on schools. If this would be good, then why not do the same for, say, cars? As Neal McCluskey, the author of Feds in the Classroom suggests: “While we’re at it, let’s not allow multiple auto producers; let’s just foster competition within General Motors and see how that works.”

[print version (pdf)]

(Thanks to the Advocates for Self Government for the post title.)

AP: News or pro-Obama bias?

The Associated Press reports that president-elect Obama’s proposed economic policies caused the stock market to close higher on Monday.  But do the authors,  Joel Bel Bruno and Tim Paradis, give any evidence for this causal relationship, or do they just assert it?  Here’s how the article starts:

A stock market gaining in confidence shot higher for a second straight session Monday as investors bet that President-elect Barack Obama’s plans to increase infrastructure spending will help lift the economy back to health. The major market indexes jumped more than 3 percent, and the Dow Jones industrials’ nearly 300 point advance gave the blue chips their highest close in a month.

Obama’s plan calls for the largest U.S. public works spending program since the creation of the interstate highway system a half-century ago. That could bolster the economy by putting thousands of people to work building schools and other construction projects.

His weekend announcement gave a lift to a range of companies, from machinery makers to materials producers. Alcoa Inc., the world’s third-largest aluminum producer, surged 18 percent on the news; while heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. jumped 11 percent.

From what I can tell, the only support for the claim is a quote by someone in the financial sector:

I think people recognize that the government is going to throw everything that they can at this market, everything they can at the economy to make it work,” said James Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group.

This says nothing.  Where’s the evidence that Obama’s “weekend announcement gave a lift to a range of companies”?  I am not saying that it did not, but where’s the evidence?  Did they do a survey of people who bought stock today?  Did they collect any information?

Worse, the AP story says Obama’s policies “could bolster the economy.”  But what about mentioning the possible negative results of Obama’s policies, as the New York Times mentions?  (For more on this, see here.)

Even when a survey of journalists shows that they do lean left relative to the rest of the country, this is no excuse for not substantiating claims.

On a lighter note, check out this screenshot from Yahoo!, which shows an image of pork next to the article about Obama’s proposal economic policies.

The Road to Serfdom: Like Catching Wild Pigs

This parable is does an excellent job explaining how the incrimental growth of seemingly benevolent government programs can result in taking away our freedom.

[A student asks a professor...], ‘Do you know how to catch wild pigs?’ The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. ‘You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again.

You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat; you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught.

Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. While we continually lose our freedoms — just a little at a time.

Paul Hsieh linked to this parable when discussing Obama’s health care plan.  More on The Road to Serfdom here.

Capitalism and Socialism: Who Owns You?

From last week’s Daily Camera Editorial Advisory Board:

The question: “Recent debate on economics and politics has been framing recent events in terms of socialism and capitalism. Is this warranted or a sign of hyperbolic rhetoric?”  My response:

Debating political issues in terms of socialism and capitalism helps address a fundamental question: Who owns you? Who has a claim on your time and the products of your physical and mental efforts?

Under capitalism, you do. Consenting adults have the right to voluntarily associate with each other — in personal relationships or for-profit and non-profit ventures. Others have no right to interfere by mandating or prohibiting such relationships. The purpose of government is to protect our individual rights to freely cooperate and pursue our values.

Under socialism, everyone else owns a piece of you. They use the political process to stake a claim on your time, life, and property, whether or not you consent. In this sense, Socialism is anti-social. Under socialism, you are a means to other people’s ends.

A President, not a Savior (non-partisan)

Cato’s Gene Healy had an excellent article in the Christian Science Monitor last week.  Some excerpts (emphasis added):

What moved Barack Obama to seek the presidency was “the basic idea of empathy” and the notion that if “we see somebody down and out … we care for them.” Republican John McCain explained that he was running “to inspire a generation of Americans to serve a cause greater than their self-interest.”…

Noble sentiments, to be sure, but in the original constitutional scheme, the president was neither Empath-in-Chief nor a national life coach. His role was to faithfully execute the laws, defend the country from attack, and check Congress with the veto power whenever it exceeded its constitutional bounds. …

Should the president “manage the economy”?

No.  And it’s not possible, anyway. But apparently people think that’s part of the job.

Obama: “We’re all in it together”!!

Senator Obama’s op-ed on Social Security begins:

In this country, we have always believed that a lifetime of hard work and honest living should be rewarded with a secure and dignified retirement — and Social Security is the cornerstone of that social compact. Last week, as we celebrated its anniversary, we reaffirmed our commitment to ensuring that Social Security is a safety net that today’s seniors and future generations of Americans can count on.

Reward by whom?  What social compact?  If Senator Obama want to set up some kind of reward program, then he should go out and do it.  Find people like him, find donors, customers, etc.  Set up a charity of some sort that “rewards” people for their years of hard work.  Don’t continue to force everyone into the Ponzi Scheme that is Social Security.  That’s just robbery.

If you work hard for a lifetime, and save some of your paycheck, you’ll have quite a nice savings when you’re done.  How much?  Let’s call is 12.4%, which is the sum of the employer and employee contribution of the FICA tax.  (Yes, your employer passes on his share of the tax to you, so your wages are lower.)   Put that percentage into a compound interest calculator and see how much you’d have after a lifetime of hard work.  It’s quite a bit.

Even a paternalistic forced-savings program (like a mandatory 401(k) or 403(b)) would be a huge improvement over Social Security.  At least then you’re forced to save for your own retirement, and you’d be able to bequeath it those you choose.

Obama also speaks of “mutual responsibility,” rather than personal responsibility.  Nothing new here, but it’s still disturbing.

Obama’s op-ed ends:

We need to reclaim the idea that in this country, we’re all in it together. That is America’s very promise — and Social Security’s very guarantee.

Oh. My. God.  Did he really say that “we’re all in it together”?  Yes, he did.  In what?  Holy Collectivism, Batman!

In terms of social security, I guess this means that people in power (Obama and his pals) can determine how to “reward” people by spending other people’s money.

“We’re all in it together.”  America’s promise?  Is this guy for real?  What about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  On liberty, Jefferson wrote:

Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual. –Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819.

In this context, Social Security is the tyrant’s will.  It obstructs our right to save or spend our money as we see fit, and instead forces us to spend it on what the authorities want.

(Ht, <a href="http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/08/questioning_a_t.html”>Arnold Kling)

Obama will “ask us” to serve

In his speech at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Barack Obama says he will “ask Americans to serve” and “ask for your service.”  But will he ever actually ask?  Sure, he can ask for our vote, and there a point where all eligible voters can choose to vote for him or not.

But when will Americans have the choice to serve or not? In his speech he outlines several new government-run tax-funded service programs.  But when do we have the choice whether to fund these or not?  When does he ask us, and when do we have a chance to say “no”?  Or is Obama saying he wants to take our money without asking, and then with it create government programs that give others the opportunity to serve?  If so, why doesn’t he say that?