October 8, 2009
To the Editor
Topeka Capital-Journal

I’d like to comment on Don Baldwin’s letter in the October 8 issue of the Topeka Capital-Journal.

While there is merit in much of what Mr. Baldwin says, he is mistaken on one important point. He states that the “Constitution clearly states that the majority rules,” then goes on to decry the fact that we “don’t live in a democracy anymore.”

A democracy is arguably one of the worst forms of government imaginable. In a true democracy, every person votes on every issue, and the majority rules. In a true democracy, the majority can dictate every detail of your life, including where you work, where you live, and even the name of your next child. It’s called “Tyranny of the Majority,” and has been explored by many writers over the past several hundred years.

In a constitutional rebublic such as ours, the voters elect people to vote for them on state and national issues, and the Constitution specifies what items the elected representatives can control — national defense, treaties with other nations, regulation of interstate commerce and the like. Our tenth amendment makes it quite clear that every power not specifically granted to the federal government is reserved to the states or to the people. Echoing that, the Kansas state constitution leaves to the people all powers not specifically granted to the state government.

In other words, you control every aspect of your life, even if you are a minority of one, except for those very few functions specifically granted to the government by the Constitution.

Sharon DuBois

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I am proud to tell you that the author of this piece is my son.

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Two great bumper stickers from lpstuff.com:

“Vote Libertarian. It Only Feels Kinky the First Time.”
“Vote Libertarian — The Fast-Acting Cure for Electile Disfunction.”

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I am proud to present this as the creation of one of our local Libertarians.

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This is a slightly edited version of an article I wrote for the September-October issue of TK Magazine.

~~~~~

Since this issue of TK Magazine is focused on politics, I am going to take the opportunity to provide some information about the Libertarian Party, of which I am an enthusiastic member.

The Libertarian Party is the third-largest and fastest-growing political party in the nation. We believe in personal freedom and individual responsibility. We are sometimes categorized as economically conservative and socially liberal.

For many years, American politics has been seen, overly simplistically, as a straight line, with the liberal folks on the left and the conservative folks on the right. The left wants personal freedoms and governmental control of the economy; the right wants economic freedom and governmental control of personal behavior.

It’s far more complex than that, of course. There are a few people who want the government to control almost everything, and a large group who want the government to control almost nothing. In 1971, David Nolan, one of the founders of the Libertarian Party, published the diamond-shaped chart that still bears his name. To see the chart, and to take a short quiz that will tell you where you fit on the chart, visit www.theadvocates.org/quiz.

I am not a spokesperson for the Libertarian Party, nor do I intend to paraphrase the party’s platform here. I was at the 2008 convention for much of the platform debate, and that was enough of that, thank you very much. That information, and much more, is available at www.lp.org for those who are interested.

Rather, I would like to present some of the ideas about libertarianism that I, personally, find compelling. They are in no particular order.

• The function of government is to protect your life, your liberty, and your property. It is not the function of government to provide for you.

• You should be able to live your life as you see fit until you start taking that right away from someone else.

• Voluntary charity works better that any government agency. Contrast the FEMA mess with the voluntary outpouring of help from all over the nation sent to the Hurricane Katrina victims.

• When you control your own charitable giving, you have the right to demand an accounting of how your dollars are spent. As things are now, you are required to contribute under threat of incarceration, and yet have no right to demand accountability.

• Lower taxes encourage and attract businesses, which in turn create jobs and lower the need for government programs. If taxes are low, there is no need to force citizens to ante up to entice new businesses to your town.

• The majority does NOT rule, for which we should be grateful. If it did, the majority could dictate to you where to live, what job you could have, even the name of your next child. It’s called Tyranny of the Majority, and has been explored by other writers. No, you should be in charge of every aspect of your own life, even if you are a minority of one, except in those few cases where the Constitution specifies that the majority, via the government, may compel certain behaviors of you.

• The federal government MUST be required to confine its activities to those allowed it by the Constitution. These are functions, such as national defense, which the states and the citizens cannot reasonably be expected to perform for themselves. All other functions are explicitly forbidden to the federal government by the Tenth Amendment. Education, for example, is forbidden as a function of the federal government, but required by the Kansas Constitution as a function of the state. Kansas, and Kansas alone, should be responsible for public education in our state.

• The government should be afraid of the citizens, not the other way around. The IRS is one of the most oppressive and frightening institutions around, and should be abolished, along with the Income Tax. If government were confined to its Constitutional limits, the Income Tax would not be necessary.

• We must end corporate welfare.

• Not everything that’s a good idea should be compelled by law.

• Not everything that’s a bad idea should be prohibited by law.

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Earlier this year, a tornado removed most of Chapman, Kansas.  Many of the residents rode out the storm in their basements, as Kansans are wont to do, and they survived.

Now the tiny town is rebuilding, with some help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.  But they can have the money only if they rebuild without basements.

FEMA regulations prohibit recovery funds from being used to rebuild homes with basements if they are in a flood plain.  About 95% of Chapman is in a flood plain.

Story here.

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In Shawnee County, Kansas, membership in the Libertarian Party is up 4.8% over the past 2 years.  Democrats are up 3.2%, Republicans are down 2.5%, “Unaffiliated” are up 2.5%, and the Reform Party is about to drop off the bottom of the chart.

In actual numbers, of course, we have a ways to go, but still….

Read the story here.

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Continuing the theme of blogs about my home….

In case anyone out there doesn’t know, I’m a libertarian. I bristle at concepts like “common good” and “collectivism” and “communal property.” It’s not that they are inherently bad ideas, especially for very small groups. It’s just that no two people can agree on a definition, and everyone wants to enforce his or her own definition.

Let me give you a trivial but telling example.

A surprising number of people expect libertarians to live out in the woods growing their own food and shooting anyone who comes on their property. Well, no. The concept of libertarianism is perfectly compatible with the idea of voluntarily giving up some of your freedoms by entering into a contract that suits your needs. I live in a condominium, and I pay monthly dues to the homeowners’ association to cover lawn mowing and other common-area maintenance, snow removal, painting, and roof repair. I have given up my freedom to paint my house any color I want in exchange for not having to paint at all. I can’t plant flowers in the common area, but I don’t have to mow or shovel snow. It suits me just fine, and if there comes a time when it no longer suits me, I can move.

The common area here is very pretty. There is a nice grassy area with trees and plantings. There’s even a little wadi that was put in to facilitate drainage when it rains. The land slopes, so there are retaining walls, and a little walking path.

And bushes. We have bushes.

Originally our homeowners’ dues included bush trimming. Well, not any more, they don’t.

I think it started when some of the homeowners began to consider the bushes up close to their own buildings their personal property, and not part of the communal property. Some of them even dug up the bushes, or replaced them with something else. According to the homeowners agreement they weren’t supposed to do that. But, hey, we’re not supposed to park cars permanently in our driveways, either, and my neighbors have had a pickup truck in their driveway for two years.

Once people started to see the bushes as their personal property, and considering that their dues were paying for getting the bushes trimmed, a number of homeowners decided they could specify whether, how, and when the trimming should take place. Some wanted the natural look, and didn’t want their bushes trimmed at all. Some claimed the bushes should be trimmed in the fall, and some in the spring. Some wanted the bushes cut way back, close to the ground. Others said that would kill the plants.

A few homeowners took to trimming their own bushes, and then demanded a refund of that part of their dues.

One fall we all got a mailing from the homeowners’ association board saying there would be no refunds, but we should let the homeowners association know whether we were each going to trim our own bushes or not. The lawn service company would then trim the bushes of only those who wanted the service. That mailing was remarkably patient and polite.

I can only guess at the response that generated. The next year, the board sent out another mailing saying we could all just trim our own damn bushes, and to heck with us. No reduction on dues, either. Screw us all. (I have taken liberties with the wording, but I could hear the tone.)

So now I own a pair of hedge trimmers, and I whack at the bushes outside my front door and beside my patio once in a while. We never talked about who would trim the bushes that sit exactly between our two houses, but my neighbor has taken to doing it himself, and he really does a good job.

I guess that makes up for the pickup truck.

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I believe in charity. I believe that helping those who truly cannot help themselves benefits everyone involved, donor and recipient.

I do not, however, believe in legally mandated charity, and for many reasons.

For one thing, it’s too easy. Ideally, real charity should involve face-to-face contact between donor and recipient. Each person involved in the transaction should be able to get a good look at the other, to see the need and the compassion, and to see the effect the exchange has on the other. Alternatively, a private and volunteer organization whose judgment and screening process we trust can distribute our donations to good effect.

But when our donations are wrested from us by law and redistributed without our input, it becomes way too easy to believe we’ve done our share with no cost to us except money.

My main objection to coerced charity, however, is that when I choose to (or am forced to) donate money or food or clothing to someone in need, I have the right, even the responsibility, to check and see whether the recipient is a scam artist. I want to have a say in who receives my charitable donations. I want to be able to question the people who are divvying up the money I give. I want to find out what the criteria are for receiving help. I want to be sure that the recipients of my dollars are, first of all, making the best use of their own resources before they ask for mine. I want to know if they’re working at all, and just need some help at the end of the month, or refusing to work. Or maybe unable to work. I want to be able to withhold my contributions from any agency that seems careless or overly lax in doling out my gifts, and give it instead to another group whose policies I agree with.

Do I have the right to that information? Darn tootin’ I do.

I know someone who is really struggling right now. There is illness in her family, minimal support from other family members, not enough money, confrontations with insurance providers, more than one job (which leaves even less time for the other obligations), and her own health is not the best.

I mentioned to a mutual friend that maybe some of us could help her out. There are a number of things we could do, but money seems to be the overwhelming lack, and many of the other problems could be eased with just a little more cash.

The mutual friend spent several minutes telling me why that wouldn’t be a good idea. She had a lot of information that I didn’t know about – wasted opportunities, unnecessary alienation of other family members, wasted resources, lack of understanding of basic information about social services, and a host of other stories that made it pretty clear that the person I wanted to help had brought a lot of her troubles on herself. It was new information for me, and my mind’s (and heart’s) jury is still out on the subject.

And that brings us to what I found so astonishing about the conversation I had with the mutual friend: The person who chose not to help a close acquaintance because she knew that the person in need was not making good decisions and could therefore do more to help herself — this same person predictably and consistently advocates legislation to raise taxes to increase social programs to funnel money to virtually anyone who asks for help.

And I’m pretty sure our needy friend would qualify for those same social programs if she applied.

My liberal friend is willing to pay higher taxes to fund government programs that take away from her the right to direct her charitable contributions, yet insists on exercising that right when presented with the opportunity to help someone close.

I, on the other hand, am willing to help a friend who would probably not be entitled to help from the more stringent private charitable organizations I advocate.

Does all this mean anything?

Honestly, I don’t know.

KsSmallBiz.com, March 14, 2007

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Once there were three very young men. Early in their lives, each of them knew what was important to him.

RichMan valued money, and from middle school on he worked hard to accumulate wealth. Even when he was in school, he always worked two jobs, and never spent any more than was absolutely necessary. He finished college, went on to earn an MBA, and founded a successful business. He never married, since a wife and children can be expensive. He became very wealthy.

FamilyMan knew early in his life that a large family was what he wanted. He married right out of high school, and he and his wife started having children right away. Since he had to support his growing family, he didn’t go to college. He worked hard at his job to provide the best life he could for his wife and children. He spent almost all his leisure time surrounded by the family he loved so much.

GoodTimesMan just wanted to party. He dropped out of high school to have more time to spend with his friends. He worked odd jobs, which suited him just fine – it gave him enough money to live, barely, but left him with more time to do the things he really wanted to do.

Forty years after middle school, each man had a mid-life crisis. They all took a close look at the lives they had created for themselves.

RichMan looked at his stock portfolio and said to himself, “Well, I got what I always wanted. I’m unbelievably wealthy, but I can see now that some of my choices were not in my own best interest. I never had much fun because I was always too busy working to spend time with friends. I have no one to share my wealth with, and sometimes I’m lonely. But I can see that I am where I am because of the choices I’ve made.”

FamilyMan looked at his wife and at the children and grandchildren playing in the yard of his modest home and said to himself, “Well, I got what I always wanted. I have a large and loving family, and, for the most part, we’re happy. I can see that it might have been better if I had waited to get married until I was out of college. We would have had more money, and I would have had a little time to party with my friends. But I can see that I am where I am because of the choices I’ve made.”

GoodTimesMan looked at his shabby apartment and said to himself, “Wow, what a ride! I sure did have some fun! I guess I wish I had finished school and had a real job, so that I’d have something put away for my old age. And a family would have been nice. But I can see that I am where I am because of the choices I’ve made.”

About that same time, Society was taking a close look at the three men, and didn’t like what it saw. So Society called the three men together and set them down at a table.

“The three of you have made some unfortunate choices,” said Society, “and I’m going to relieve all of you of having to live with the consequences. You each have something that the other two want, and I’m going to even things out a bit.

“GoodTimesMan, you are required to share some of the fun you had earlier in your life with RichMan and FamilyMan.”

“How can I do that?” asked GoodTimesMan. “My good times are only memories. I can’t transfer my memories into their heads.”

“Hmm. I guess you’re right,” said Society. “Never mind.”

Turning to FamilyMan, Society said, “FamilyMan, neither of these other two ever had a family, and children would make their lives much richer. You are required to give one or two of your children to each of them.”

“Absolutely not!” cried FamilyMan. “These are human beings we’re talking about here. Humans cannot be given away!”

“I see your point,” said Society, “and you’re right. Never mind.”

“RichMan,” said Society, “these other two men’s lives would be much better if they had more money. You are required to give some of your money to them.”

“That’s not fair!” cried RichMan. “It’s what I spend my whole life earning! I gave up good times and a family for it! How can you take it away and give me nothing in return?”

“That’s too bad,” said Society. “I am going to forcibly take a large chunk of your wealth away for redistribution to these others.”

And so it did.

KsSmallBiz.com, June 15, 2005

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