Liberty Maven

Vern McKinley made an attempt to unseat Congressman Frank Wolf in Virginia’s 10th District in 2008. McKinley’s no nonsense limited government and free market approach to the issues intrigued me enough to vote for him in the primary. He lost convincingly which was not that surprising given Wolf’s 28+ year tenure as the district’s representative.

McKinley has done policy analysis for the CATO institute in the past and a new analysis he and co-author Gary Gegenheimer collaborated on was recently released by CATO.

“Bright Lines and Bailouts: To Bail or Not To Bail, That is The Question” covers the history of bailouts and aside from being an excellent analysis it is also extremely educational for those of us who lack an economics degree.

Here is an excerpt:

This present crisis has demonstrated that undertaking bailouts of troubled institutions, which involves structuring transactions that attempt to transform the institution into a viable one, while simultaneously projecting the reaction of investors and markets, is a process for which government is ill-suited. These bailout powers should be revoked. Financial angst still hangs over the system as the underlying imbalances that led to the crisis have not been reconciled. The ultimate answer is to place troubled institutions into receivership or the relevant form of bankruptcy—including many of the institutions that have already been bailed out.

The entire analysis is available here at the CATO institute.

For more from McKinley check out the interview with him we did during his Congressional primary campaign to unseat Wolf.

Ron Paul appeared on CNN American Morning to clarify his own position on secession and what the call for such a thing represents. He reiterates that secession is very American. In fact he points out (again) that we seceeded from Britain at our founding.

“Just because people wanna debate and defend the principle of secession doesn’t mean that they are calling for secession. I think it is that restraining element of secession that would keep the government from doing too much.”

The interview goes on to question Ron Paul on the bailouts, pointing to the recent “success” of banks turning profits. Watch the video below for his answer then read my own take on secession, Secession: Great Right Hope or Other White Meat?

The question of secession was more or less settled during the Civil War.  Thanks to that low point in American history the right of secession has been tied to slavery ever since. Isn’t it time again to make an effort of untying that knot?

I will not complicate the untying of that knot by quoting our Founders nor Abraham Lincoln. I will instead make an attempt to use logic. It is up to whomever reads this to decide if I’m successful in this endeavor.

The right of secession is a claim of freedom from the State. It is a rejection of State slavery. It is purely libertarian yet it has always been associated with the “peculiar institution” which was a complete rejection of liberty. Slavery has muddied the secession debate to the point that it is difficult for anyone to sound off in favor of secession without being demonized as a kook (at best) or a white supremacist (at worst).

I want to claim publicly, before I get labeled, I abhor slavery in all forms. It is pure evil. How hypocritical it was for the Confederate States to use States Rights in an attempt to continue violating human rights. It is also quite hypocritical today for those who claim to believe in liberty to marginalize those that support secession as a recourse for combating creeping State tyranny. Such tyranny is nothing more than a form of collective slavery.

How can individual slavery be so wrong and collective State-sponsored, taxpayer-funded slavery be right? The answer, of course, is that it cannot. Slavery in all forms is immoral, whether it be evidenced through the government’s incrementalist approach of freedom reduction or by the sound of a whip gashing a man’s back. The drama of the latter should not minimize the evil of the former.

To be a supporter of secession while denouncing human slavery is consistent and moral in the cause of liberty.

History has shown that one era’s fringe is another era’s mainstream. It is unlikely that secession would be considered a viable option by the masses for combating the ceaseless expansion of government today, thanks in large part to those that feel compelled to associate it with slavery. The secession principle is wholly libertarian and deserves more respect than it is receiving from the detractors.

Ron Paul has been a favorite target of the detractors because of his recently released pro-secession video. In it he focuses on the right message, the principle of secession. Instead of attacking Ron Paul we should be emulating him.

If we make the effort to unmuddy the water of secession in our time perhaps the next generation won’t be afraid to swim in its clarity. After we are gone they will thank us for our eternal vigilance so they still know liberty.

Ron Paul was interviewed by Phil Hendrie recently. They discuss marijuana legalization, Somali pirates, torture, Rick Perry secession comments, and Obama releasing the CIA memos on torture.

Listen via youtube below in two parts. Thanks to Tim Peck for sending us the video links.

If you have not read John Lott’s latest article, you need to.

Lott, a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland and author of well-known works such as More Guns, Less Crime, The Bias Against Guns, and Freedomnomics, to name a few, meticulously dissects the obviously-rigged “experiement” staged by ABC’s 20/20 program.

First, in planning the experiment, it was clear the whole thing was set up to make the student fail.  They put an armed student in a classroom, and had an armed attacked barge into the classroom to gauge how effective the armed student would be:

…It did not resemble a real-world shooting. The same scenario is shown three times, but in each case the student with the gun is seated in the same seat –- the center seat in the front row. The attacker is not only a top-notch shooter –- a firearms expert who teaches firearms tactics and strategy to police -– but also obviously knows precisely where the student with the gun is sitting.

Each time the experiment is run, the attacker first fires two shots at the teacher in the front of the class and then turns his gun directly on the very student with the gun. The attacker wastes no time trying to gun down any of the unarmed students. Thus, very unrealistically, between the very first shot setting the armed student on notice and the shots at the armed student, there is at most 2 seconds. The armed student is allowed virtually no time to react and, unsurprisingly, fails under the same circumstances that would have led even experienced police officers to fare poorly.

But in the real world, a typical shooter is not a top-notch firearms expert and has no clue about whether or not anyone might be armed and, if so, where they are seated. If you have 50 people –- a pretty typical college classroom –- and he is unknown to the attacker, the armed student is given a tremendous advantage. Actually, if the experiment run by “20/20″ seriously demonstrated anything, it highlighted the problem of  relying on uniformed police or security guards for safety: the killer instantly knows whom to shoot first.

Lott, who has made it a major part of his career to study such things and can rattle off statistics from the tip of his tongue, makes plenty of other good points that completely invalidate the so-called experiment.  He points out numerous cases (which ABC failed to mention) in which armed citizens were able to thwart attackers.  Conversely, he points out that “all multiple victim public shootings with more than 3 people killed have occurred where permitted concealed handguns are prohibited. Rather than studying what actually happens during these shootings, ABC conjured up rigged experiments aimed at convincing Americans that guns are ineffective.”

Indeed, as Lott concludes, the keen advice offered by the experts at ABC make things safe for attackers, not victims.

Read Lott’s excellent article here.

President Obama stood before a captive audience at Georgetown University earlier this week and delivered yet another dishonest and misleading speech on the cause of our economic downturn.

He makes a feeble attempt at blaming all our ills on “predatory” lenders and “greedy” people at the GSEs Fannie/Freddie as well as AIG and others. He makes no mention of the actions taken that set the stage for conditions that make such things possible: government intervention. No mention of who caused the bubbles: government.  And of course, like any good puppet, he follows the script nicely by making sure there’s no mention of the Federal Reserve, the main culprit in all this mess.

See additional commentary on this topic by Sheldon Richman at The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Here is the full text of Obama’s prepared speech, if you would like to dissect it further:

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Ron Paul was a guest on the “Brian and The Judge” radio show this morning. Listen to the audio here. The interview is about 13 minutes long.

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Here is a youtube of the interview as well:

Ron Paul will be on with Judge Andrew Napolitano today at 11:06am Eastern. The Judge is doing his radio show by himself this week. It airs from 9am – Noon (Eastern).

You can listen to the show online via foxnewsradio.com and on satellite radio on Sirius 145 and XM 168.

I always love when the Judge flies it solo on his radio show. It’s almost like watching Freedom Watch for 3 hours a day. We’ll try to capture the audio of the Ron Paul interview segment and post it a bit later.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “Government welfare programs — if they should exist at all — should be limited to helping those who really need assistance. They should be safety nets, not dragnets that capture everyone.” — Mark Skousen, “Econopower,” page 55

What politicians call a “social safety net,” isn’t. It’s a dragnet.

• A safety net would catch people when they fall
• A dragnet entangles everyone, even when they don’t need help

Warren Buffet qualifies for Social Security and Medicare. Is Warren falling? Does he need help? Of course not. Why then have the politicians created dragnet programs that provide benefits to people like him, and to millions of others who don’t need help?

One thing is clear — dragnet programs give politicians vast power, foster dependence, and create huge constituencies who will fight to preserve such programs.

Social Security and Medicare are classic dragnets. They ensnare everyone. Everyone pays, but the returns are poor and mismatched to needs. Benefits go to many people who don’t need them, and often those who need the most help get the least.

I know a woman who receives only $400 a month from Social Security. She struggles to survive. She has no safety. She has no net beneath her. For her, and for millions of others, the so-called “social safety net” is a myth.

Meanwhile, all of today’s workers are caught in the dragnet, forced to pay regressive payroll taxes that diminish their ability to save, while fostering a need to cover emergencies using credit cards with impoverishing interest rates.

Dragnet programs usually have one other feature — fraud. For instance, politicians describe Social Security as a retirement plan, or as retirement insurance. It’s neither.

True insurance takes the form of a true safety net. It protects you in the case of unlikely but severe problems. But Social Security gives money to everyone, regardless of need. No insurance program works that way.

Neither is Social Security really a retirement plan. A true retirement plan invests money to create new wealth so that more can be paid back than was paid in. Instead, Social Security works like a ponzi scheme, taking money from today’s workers to pay benefits to yesterday’s workers. It robs capital from the economy rather than adding to it, and will pay future recipients less than they could have earned from savings.

Sadly, the politicians now want to create a new dragnet program that will once again fail as a safety net. And they’re once again using fraudulent claims to con us. The politicians tell us that more than 45 million Americans lack health insurance. But they don’t tell us what their own census surveys show about the un-insured . . .

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It appears by most accounts that the Tea Parties held just about everywhere yesterday were a success. My own measure of success is that they didn’t completely evolve into a GOP lovefest and an Obama hatefest. While there were some reports of anti-Obama rhetoric and signage the majority seemed to stay on the anti-tax, anti-spend, and anti-big-government train.

Glenn Beck, broadcasting from the Alamo backed by Ted Nugent on guitar, allowed a crowd member to plug Ron Paul’s HR1207 (Fed Transparency Act) which drew cheers from the rest of the crowd. See it here:

What I find somewhat amusing about the above clip is that the man holding the microphone is Pat Gray. A talk radio host who subs for Beck on his radio show every so often. Gray (like Beck) denounced Ron Paul during the presidential campaign. Fast-forward to yesterday and he’s holding a microphone allowing someone to plug Ron Paul’s HR1207 to millions of viewers.

Later in the show Beck interviews Penn Jillette. They discuss the Tea Parties with an emphasis on rejecting the two party system. Jillette doesn’t disappoint.

What happens now that the Tax Day Tea Parties are over? We are all about to find out.