Below are a few assorted editorial & opinion pieces that reflect my own general libertarian views on various topics. Click on the linked menu below for each piece, and then close each separately.

1. The Legal System is now our Enemy
2. A Tiger Slumbers in Maine's Northern Woods
3. Abolish Government Education
4. Western Democrats have suddenly never heard of the Sierra Club
5. For the NEA, History is Farce
6. Our Crumbling Health Care System: An Insider's View
7. A Police Patrolman Retires Young At A Hefty Pension
8. Her Finest Hour is Forgotten History
9. Millions Spent - 1 Worker Aided
10. Pentagon Purloined Purchases + Growing Government Credit Cards
11. Is Ethanol A Net Energy Loss?
12. Property Rights
13. How the West Grew Rich
14. Disastrous Utopia
15. The COST of Medical Care
16. Get Rid of the Minimum Wage
17. Supreme Court taking on sticky issue of Eminent Domain
18. How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders

Politically, I'm an independent... closer to Libertarian than any other party or dogma. Such a libertarian view is one that stresses limited government -- in order to insure greater liberty and personal freedom for more individuals.

I believe government cannot give, much less guarantee happiness... it can only provide the freedom for individuals to acquire it for themselves, through their own effort and labor. Many people misconstrue the meaning of the founders "the pursuit of happiness." It does NOT mean every citizen will achieve "happiness" or should be guaranteed "happiness." It only means every individual has the natural right to pursue his own dreams (happiness) and to make of his own labor what he will, without the intrusions of government upon him.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man encouraging class hatred.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. --Abraham Lincoln

Beware promises from politicians that THEY can provide happiness. They can't. They can only increase the power of the state, towards socialism... and less liberty.

Our founders realized how seductive political power could be, and ultimately how tyrannical. They desired limiting government so as to protect, but generally leave it's citizens alone. So they formed a Republic to avoid the potential follies that a total democracy would yield with it's tyranny of the majority. Here's a short piece on democracies and republics for dummies, for those who never learned it in school.

The Constitution they drafted, despite many complications that evolved over 200 years, has provided more liberty to more people than any other government before or since. It was written in very specific words to insure "the people" two things:
1/ To limit government to only the very specific jobs of providing (domestic) protection in the form of police and courts for justice, property rights, and international protection in the form of the military.
2/ To list all the specific rights given the people, in the form of The Bill of Rights, so as to limit the government's intrusion into people's lives. Growth of government tends to be self-perpetuating, and the founders knew the absolute value of limiting it's power. In general, the more restrictions, laws, regulations, taxes and hurdles a government enacts, the less choice & freedom is left to it's people, and thus the less economic, technological, and cultural advancement will result for all.

The other (equally important) parallel subject linked with government is economic theory. Libertarian economic policies come from the sound capitalistic principles that have been tested and studied for centuries... from people like Adam Smith, Freidrich Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises.

Libertarians believe in capitalism because of it's inherent moral & philosophical principles -- the freedom (of choice) it gives the individual (via the marketplace). But also because of capitalism's historical track record compared to statist systems -- the technological progress and the raised standard of living it's provided, even for the poorest, over time. Andrew Bernstein, in his recent book The Capitalist Manifesto, explains the basic history of capitalism and how it has helped overcome oppression & poverty. It's actually quite sad that so many people today have little or no understanding of what capitalism really is. But it's not surprising, as other subjects like Civics, History, or Economics are even more neglected.

As to economic theory and some basic principles... Frederic Bastiat's famous parable of the broken window, illustrates the basic hidden economic interaction of costs and prices. It's a seemingly simple subject (costs & prices), yet understood by very few. And (too) many politicians typically exploit such poor understanding of real economic dynamics... and use fear and demagoguery instead of reason and logic. But far worse than the egotistical power such demagoguery brings politicians is the corruption of sound (freedom) economic principles and laws they inflict on the public. Instead of letting free markets & personal choice control economies, they (all too often) resort to heavy-handed (tyrannical) control through taxes, subsidies & price controls.

The nationally syndicated writer Thomas Sowell (see my bio page links for more on him) writes about how these economic realities interact with politics. He's one of many disciples of clear-thinking Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman. Sowell has written many books on historical cultures and how they succeeded or failed, with insights from an economic perspective. His doctoral dissertation about Say's Law and supply side economics explains how real-world markets work. It's about how wages, prices, and employment interact.

"The great Arab historian Ibn Khaldûn (1332-1406) clearly anticipated the Laffer Curve. While most of his political enemies regarded Ronald Reagan as an ignorant fool, Reagan actually majored in economics in college and long remembered Ibn Khaldûn's wisdom. Supply Side economics was nothing new to him."

Sowell's thinking, "Asking liberals where wages and prices come from is like asking six-year-olds where babies come from," reinforces how difficult economic policy can become when politics becomes involved. So his view is generally (today) called a "conservative" view... but it's more accurately a pro-freedom, anti-totalitarian, anti-socialism economic model. It implies that well-intentioned governmental interference (laws, regulations, taxes, fiscal policy) usually make matters worse for the individual.

As all economic liberals (libertarians) like Sowell and Milton Friedman profess: personal liberty and freedom are a direct result of economic freedom. A government that provides the most economic freedom will have the most personal freedoms. Economist Walter Williams has some thoughtful insights into exactly why our economic model of capitalism is superior to the alternative socialism, a system that promises more, but delivers less. Only within a free marketplace can more innovation, more commerce, and more prosperity exist, resulting in more personal freedom to a nation's people.

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Here's just a few of the online resources I like to use:

Real Clear Politics is a site that links a dozen varied editorial & opinion pieces from across the country every day.

WSJ is from the Wall Street Journal. They offer free online pieces there daily, in addition to other content for paying subscribers. They also have 2 free informative daily e-mails you can sign up for.

Virginia Postrel's Weblog is a listing of interesting online articles and her opinions of them regarding various economic, political, and cultural subjects. (She's also listed on my Bio page).

The Marginal Revolution is nice Weblog written by straight-thinking economists Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok.

Tech Central Station is James Glassman's site (TCS- Where markets meet technology) that has many articles on technological and economic subjects. From taxes and economics... to politics and current events... to technology, medicine and science -- you'll get thoughtful original opinion pieces here written by people who are a lot more knowledgable about their subjects than the usual talking-heads in the mainstream media (both television & print).

You can right-click any of the above links and choose "Bookmark This Page" or "Add to Favorites..." to quickly add them to your browser's favorites menu if you'd like to visit them in the future.

The website Common Good (Restoring Common Sense to American Law) has an excellent one page list of books that deal with education, our medical, and our legal systems. Each book listed there has a short synopsis for those interested in more information. The non-partisan group was formed to get a more efficient (less costly) and fairer legal system (if you think it's truly fair now... well). Those skeptical may want to read Michael Fumento's dissection of the high-profile legal case and subsequent movie Erin Brockovich. It's but a small, albeit well-known example of a much larger & more serious problem:

"...Every good story has a moral, of course, and this one is no different. Masry, Brockovich, and their powerful fellow attorneys were not trying to destroy PG&E but just attempting to clip off a chunk of the firm's profits for themselves. But when a nation replaces rule of law with rule by lawyers, the only ones who really win are the lawyers, and regaining control of the nation's civil jurisprudence system may turn out to be much harder than we think."

Before I get to the articles below, here's an online article on the top-10 things people believe about Canadian health care, but shouldn't. It looks at the failures that occur when government gets involved in commerce... a major Libertarian topic.

Finally, here's a fun read by Michael Levin on Capitalism and American Sports. Why most Americans prefer American sports to soccer, and their relationship to freedom & Capitalism.

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"At each election, we vote in a new set of politicians, insanely assuming that they are better than the ones turned out."

- H.L.Mencken

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