Posted by Cosmo on 11/02/08

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The Real Work Begins

            I am writing this letter before the election, but deliberately mailing it after November 4.

            The national election is over.  Somebody won.  One candidate will take residence in the White House, and one will go back to their well-paying career as a US Senator.

            But somebody lost, and lost big: the working, and/or investing, taxpaying private citizen.

            Let’s face facts.  No matter which candidate won, nothing substantive is going to change.  Failing businesses will continue to be propped up by the federal government, until they became “too big to fail.”  Poor executive decisions will be rewarded with government takeovers, funded by working taxpayers. 

            Industry after industry has received corporate welfare for decades now.  Remember $12 billion to the airlines after September 11?  How about $25 billion to the automakers?  Despite this corporate welfare, these industries continue to falter and flail.  When you fly a “private” commercial airline, are you treated as if you were that company’s employer?  You should be, because they operate on your dime.  And now the finance and insurance companies are getting in on the action.

Instead of encouraging more effort on the parts of these failed companies, so that they might succeed competitively in a free market, these bail-outs encourage nothing but the decay of our infrastructure.  Large companies can be as inefficient and rude as they want—it’s impossible for them to lose money.  Why do you think it has become a nightmare to travel anywhere, by plane, train, or automobile, in the US over the last fifty years or so?  And if thought buying insurance or going to the bank was fun before,  wait until you are being “helped” with your finances by federal agents.

            But war needs your tax money, too.  We’ve got troops stationed in 130 foreign countries; Iraq and Afghanistan are just the most recent “additions” to the protective wing of American blood and treasure.  Did either candidate even mention this during the election?  Think about it for a minute: 130 countries being watched over by America’s sons, daughters, fathers and mothers.  Does the world seem safer or more “democratic” to you? 

            Partisanship has gone beyond absurd to terrifying. The cognitive dissonance is surreal; people will bitterly attack “the other” party or candidate and then, as justification, bring up an issue on which both candidates agree! 

Both candidates voted for the obscene “bail-out” that was just stolen from our national treasury against the vocal wishes of 85% of Americans.  The rhetoric has gone beyond empty—it is a vacuum that sucks rationality and critical thinking from the minds of a panicked public. 

There was one candidate who actually represented “stopping the madness” in this election cycle: Ron Paul.  His candidacy is over, thanks to a media black-out, but the movement he represents is in full swing.  We at the Campaign for Liberty are trying to bring together third-party and independent voters from all across the spectrum.  We want your help whether you are Green party, Constitution Party, Libertarian, or even a Democrat or Republican.  We will be in your area soon, and we hope to talk about the things that really matter.  The stakes have never been higher.

Posted 11/02/08 Gabe McGranahan Mogadore, OH

Excellent!

Posted 11/02/08 Caleb Kinley Hot Springs, AR

Nice job!

Posted 11/02/08 Lietrum La Grande, OR

Really great letter Cosmo.

Posted 11/02/08 bethany458 Summerville, SC

Great letter! I will pass this out to as many as I can and spread the message. The freedom movement most continue.

Posted 11/02/08 bethany458 Summerville, SC

I meant to say must continue.....

Posted 11/03/08 coolwise Sun Valley, NV

Excellent letter I must say. I think I will write a similar one and do the same.

Posted by Cosmo on 10/30/08

Since my  goal is to practice law someday, I visited the web site of The Federalist Society, a well-known group of conservative and libertarian legal professionals.  They had a reading list tailored for pre-law undergraduates, so I thought I'd post it to see if anybody has read these titles and, if so, what they thought. 

Introduction to Legal Reasoning by Edward Levi

Law, Legislation and Liberty by Friedrich Hayek

Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life by David Friedman

The 1999 Index of Economic Freedom by Bryan Johnson, Kim Holmes and Melanie Kirkpatrick

An Introduction to Law and Economics by Mitchell Polinsky

Thinking Strategically by Aivinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff

Failure and Progress by Dwight Lee and Richard McKenzie.

A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell

Novus Ordo Seclorum by Forrest MacDonald

A Matter of Interpretation by Justice Antonin Scalia