What is Freedom? Can We Keep It?

As we approach another election season, the temperature begins to warm with each passing day. Tempers flare and the temptation to resort to personal attacks grows stronger. The USA enjoys a high level of freedom of speech, and is just one of many freedoms in America.

Americans are legally allowed to share their opinions on religion, politics, government, and even sports. Can we keep this freedom? In this I'll defer to Frederic Bastiat who explained it much better than I could. The Law was written by Bastiat in France in 1850. I encourage all to read it with the intent to understand it.

Freedom is not inherently immortal. Once established, it can be destroyed. How?

An excerpt from The Law:

"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose — that it may violate property instead of protecting it — then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder."


In today's terms, "special-interest groups" hire "lobbyists" to consistently and persistently "lobby" members of Congress in order to "persuade" them to vote in a certain way that, of course, favors their clients.


Unfortunately, this has become the norm. Every member of Congress receives visits from lobbyists. Whether they "buy-in" or not varies, I'm sure, but the fact remains that the law "may be diverted from its true purpose."


Special interests are not new and neither is lobbying. We do owe it to ourselves, however, to ask "How much longer can the freedom-preserving laws of our Republic withstand the destructive waves caused by the persistent onslaught of competing special interests?" Sadly, the circus of Congress has become a spawning ground for lobbyists who are employed to counter-lobby against other special-interest groups. 


More eloquently and succinctly, Bastiat writes:

"See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law — which may be an isolated case — is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system."

The United States Congress operates in this system today. It needn't be so. I invite you to read the remainder of Bastiat's essay. It's worth the effort.

-Matthew Nielsen

IVLG

Interventionism and the Jobless Rate

The jobless rate has shot up to 10.2% according to a story in USA Today. Now, in the video that covers this story on USA Today's website, AP reporter Mark Hambrick says that if you factor in those people who have settled for part time work or have given up altogether, the rate is 17.5%. So, what is the real jobless rate? Well, we may all agree that the real rate is those who are actually without work and are still looking, that's a fair definition. However, the fact that the other numbers aren't reported to everyone, or aren't widely known seems to be... misleading? deceptive? Here's one person's take on it.

Now the question is: "What does interventionism have to do with the jobless rate, and what does that even mean, anyway?" Slow down, there. One at a time.

First, interventionism is defined by Wikipedia, here. Basically, it's when a government feels an undying need to interfere in an economy. For details on that, just google the word "federal" and add any of the following names of these Fortune 500 companies: AIG, GM, Citigroup, Bank of America, etc. For more interesting information on the history of government bailouts, click here.

Now for how this effects the jobless rate. I'll start with a question: Have you ever heard of the Great Depression of 1920? No? You're thinking of the Great Depression of the 30's, right? There was a Great Depression in 1920-21, but it ended after about 18 months. How did we recover so quickly? I'm glad you asked! Well, listen carefully... The government did nothing. That's right, nothing. Well, that's not entirely true. They cut spending. What?! The government cut spending? That's absolutely absurd, you say? Well, that's what they did. Other than that, they did nothing. No propping up banks, no bailing out large corporations, no TARP, no TALF, no New Deal, nada. Nothing. Does that just defy all logic? Well, then doesn't that make you wonder for a moment, just for a split-second, "Could the Great Depression of the 30's have been much less painful for everyone had the government cut spending and kept out of business altogether?" Now that we've opened that possibility, read this article by Tom Woods (mentioned earlier in the IVLG blog). Then, track down this book by Amity Shlaes, entitled "The Forgotten Man." Both are well worth your time and will help you to get a clearer picture of what is really happening to your country right now.

Doug Hoffman in CT

Hopefully Rep. Doug Hoffman, soon: AP Video on YouTube

Tom Woods

For our first post of substance, we'd like to feature Tom Woods (http://www.thomasewoods.com/). Dr. Woods is an author, educator, and a defender of liberty. We encourage you to browse his website for the many resources that are available there free of charge. In addition, he has written some insightful books that are worth the purchase price (Amazon book list: http://tinyurl.com/yfdp7u9). Tom has libertarian ideas about government and he advocates Austrian economic theory, which we'll discuss further in a later post. For now, take a look at his work and do some reading. A good place to start is with his bestseller, Meltdown.