Liberty Maven

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” — Anthony Robbins

Now that the concept of requiring Congress to read the bills has caught on, it’s being seriously debated.

Some are pretending that they have THE objection that demonstrates how “silly” it is to require members of Congress to pause and read their bills. They write things like,

“Would you also require the legislator to understand the bill? Or is mere reading, with no comprehension, enough? And if comprehension is required, how much comprehension is required, and how would you test that?”

This clever questioner is asking a question to which he already knows the answer. But it has nothing to do with a well-designed law to Read the Bills.

Would this questioner oppose the Constitution because…

* Politicians don’t like to be constrained by it?
* Incumbents have too much important work to do and that document gets in the way?

Sometimes people try to sound clever, and manage to do so, by half. But we should instead ask a better question.

Can we rely on the good nature and intelligence of persons handed the immense power to legislate the lives of others?

No, we can’t. This is not an attack against politicians. No human being can understand all the details they’re called upon to understand. Others will have to help them with details. So let’s ask an even better question:

“Should well-informed citizens be able to help Congress understand the bills, or should Congress only listen to lobbyists?”

Members of the media, watchdog groups, and YOU should be able to view the bill and see what they’re up to — before they get to vote.

DownsizeDC.org’s Read the Bills Act (RTBA) allows citizens to express not only their opinion on how Congress should vote on a bill, but why. RTBA requires . . .

1. A seven day waiting period before a bill is voted on
2. Posting the bill online for every Internet user to read

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If America was one big classroom the teacher should be admonishing students, making them stay after school and repeatedly write “Ron Paul is right” on the blackboard until their fingers cramp up. Of course, that would never happen. We’d never allow political indoctrination into our schools, right? America’s decreasing influence in the world and ultimately its downfall can be attributed to our “failure is not an option” culture which fools you into believing you are winning when in reality you have already lost.

This culture is being thrust upon our nation’s young people at an early age. Young children are constantly being reassured that they are doing a “good job” for the most mundane accomplishments. Those who play sports are presented participation trophies. No, we wouldn’t want any of them to actually excel beyond just “showing up”, do we? While playing games it’s always important to make sure each child gets a turn at winning or at least the game ends in a tie where “everyone wins!” We are beginning to see the effects of this mentality.

At some point these children grow up and the realities of life smack them square in their glass jaws. Everyone can never be equal. Life is not fair. Hate will always exist. Yet they were always taught the opposite so they get “active” and try to fulfill the promise of their youth. Their activity naturally progresses toward the one entity they believe has de facto power to fulfill this promise: government.

Yes, everyone wants to take the government drug to be pain free, but everyone remains ignorant of that particular drug’s evil side effects and addictive nature.

Everyone has become “too big to fail”.

I was once asked in a job interview, “Do you think you learn more from your successes or your failures?” I answered “failures, of course.” Failure forces you to reexamine your premises, think outside the box, and try again. In order for failure to “work” it must not be rewarded. Yet this is precisely what our government is doing and has done for quite some time.

In our increasingly more overt politically-correct society, is it perhaps time to reexamine our premises? If someone is born without limbs it doesn’t mean we should go out and round up all of the “limb-full” and amputate their arms and legs in the interests of equality. Sure it’s an extreme metaphor but this is precisely what we are trying to do when we support plans that attempt to make life “more fair” for the underprivileged at the expense of those who worked to make their own lives better. It is class warfare and all classes lose in the end.

The opposite is true too. We should not be funneling taxpayer money to private banks and auto companies. A bad business is a bad business and we’d know it was bad if it were left alone to fail or thrive. Executives and employees will learn from the failure and move on to try again. Once the crying stops, innovation is a by-product of failure.

Rewarding failure makes it a goal rather than a consequence of poor decisions. Failure should not be shunned. It should not be embraced. It should be accepted as a lesson learned. Trying and failing is what makes trying again and succeeding so satisfying.

We need to channel the Founder’s cavalier spirit, end government mollycoddling, and realize if we fall down we can pick ourselves back up again. Sure we may make a mess of things at times but the most important thing is persistence.

FDR famously said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself!” If he had instead said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear of failure”, we might be in a much better place today.

Originally published October 7, 2009 at http://towneforcongress.com/economy/preparation-time-is-running-out-1

This morning in London the gold price hit an all-time high in non-inflation-adjusted dollars of $1047.

While some who hold gold might be rejoicing, I do not view this as good news at all.  The campaign still has plenty of people to reach in this district, and may run out of time since we certainly do not have the funds to launch a major ad campaign.

The all-time high in the gold price is a warning of dire times to come as it merely indicates that the dollar’s purchasing power is at an all-time low.  The next phase of the dollar crisis may be on the doorstep.

For those of you who would shout “au contraire!!” and are excited about the stock markets gains since the spring, please take a look at the following chart.  Note that maximums in the P/E (price-to-earnings) ratio often precede market crashes, as the stock is overvalued as compared to its dividends/earnings.  This S&P 500 chart is from 1935-present.

Notice anything strange?  We are way out of historical means.  I do not believe that such absurdly high P/E ratios are possible to maintain over the long-term.

And note that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would be far worse if AIG, Citicorp, and General Motors were not removed from this index in the past year.

The campaign is extremely busy and continuing to pick up steam, but we need your help to spread the word.  The above should not be taken as investment advice, merely facts.

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As mentioned previously, the founders of Liberty Maven attended the FFF-sponsored Robert Higgs talk at George Mason University earlier this week.  I agree that this was one of the most intriguing and entertaining speeches I’ve been to. Watch it here:

Robert Higgs from The Future of Freedom Foundation on Vimeo.