Taxation without Representation

by Tom Rhodes, 5/30/18

A primary driver of the American Revolution was, taxation without representation. Basically the idea that government can tax people and the people have no say in choosing those who create the taxes was not acceptable. Today we have that very problem and if not addressed it will lead to another revolution.

Do you believe that if your parents rack up $50,000 in credit card bills that you, now an emancipated adult living on your own, should have to repay your parents debt? After they die should the credit card company be allowed to force you to repay the dept your parents ran up even while you were long gone from your childhood home?

Even though you had no say in the debt, received little or no benefit from the debt, had no control over how big the debt got, should you have to repay that debt your parents incurred?

You having to repay the debt of your parents is essentially taxation without representation. You had no say in the borrowing but must repay the debt. Today's millennial's are having to repay baby boomer debt, that occurred long before they could vote. They are taxes massively for spending that they had no say. They didn't vote for the congressmen who borrowed and spent like drunken sailors, but do have to pay the tab.

It is immoral and unfair to burden our children with the debt we incurred. We should tax the old proportionate to the debt that was built up while they were old enough to vote. Baby boomers choose to spend money they didn't have, and now expect their grandchildren to pay it back. That is immoral and wrong.

Why should a man take a hard dangerous job to have a third of his pay go to paying off the debt his grandparents borrowed? Why not live at home in his parents or grandparents basement mooching of them, rather than work to repay their debt?

Those who kept electing politicians who, year after year, keep piling up the national debt, now in the untold trillions of dollars, not those too young to vote are responsible for that debt. Let those who borrowed the money have the burden of repaying the debt. Republicans and Democrats have done it and millennial's -- conservative or liberal -- have had nothing to do with it.

It's the parents and grand parents who have been piling debt upon the young, electing politicians who've spent and spent, refusing to cut, spending their children's birthright to get re-elected again and again, until the debt becomes so monstrous that it will crush the young, liberal or conservative, and grind them into dust.

Why should they work hard, and produce excess wealth, to repay the debt of Baby boomers?

If they become "woke" to the fact that they are paying for the excess of previous generations, what if they say, "No!, pay your own debts." and refuse to work, or refuse to pay taxes.

SocSec and Medicare for the elderly must be cut, they voted for all the spending, they should suffer the privation necessary to repay the debt they incurred. To do anything else is taxation without representation and can lead to revolution, and is immoral. The son isn't responsible for the sins of the father.

Moral Decay

By Tom Rhodes, 4/23/2015

America is suffering a moral collapse. This realization is leading more people to realize they are in fact Libertarians in their beliefs. Resent research shows more Americans describe themselves as libertarian than conservative or republican. It’s a moral not an ethical situation. But it’s too little too late.

Ever hear of situational morals? No you haven’t. You have undoubtedly heard of situational ethics. The reason is that morals ? ethics. Ethics are rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture. Whereas Morals are the distinction between right and wrong. Ethics are governed by professional and legal guidelines within a particular time and place Morality transcends cultural norms and time. There are moral truths, such as it is wrong to murder, it is wrong to steal from another, etc.

Lying is a prime example of situation ethics. It is not considered unethical for law enforcement to lie, nor is there a legal constraint saying law enforcement officers can’t lie to you. However it is unethical and illegal for you to lie to a law enforcement officer. Morally lying is wrong. St. Augustine wrote the first extensive treatise on lying (De Mendacio). In it he cites the case of a holy bishop, Firmus of Thagasta, who wished to protect a man who had sought refuge with him. The bishop was so careful of the truth that, rather than lying to the imperial officers who pursued the fugitive, he told them frankly that he would not reveal the man’s location. Firmus maintained this resolve even under torture, with the result that he was eventually brought before the emperor himself. But the emperor was so impressed with the bishop’s virtue that he both praised the bishop and pardoned the fugitive. *

Augustine tells this story to provide a saintly witness for his argument that lying is always morally wrong, regardless of the circumstances, and to note that God is perfectly capable of extricating from trouble those who stand fast in the truth. His treatise has been widely cited ever since, and his viewpoint was endorsed by no less saintly a scholar than Thomas Aquinas. In the monumental Summa Theologiae, Thomas states the same position: "Therefore it is not lawful to tell a lie in order to deliver another from any danger whatever. Nevertheless it is lawful to hide the truth prudently, by keeping it back, as Augustine says"*

To put it in simple Redneck English and less philosophical, the Disney character Thumper sums it up, “If you can’t say nothin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.”

The Ethics of Lying has changed dramatically in US politics. Consider three famous Presidents caught lying in recent US history: Richard M. Nixon, lied, got impeached by the House, tried and found guilty by the Senate, held accountable for his abuses of power forced out of office ; William Clinton, lied, got impeached by the House, was not found guilty by the Senate, allowed to serve his term; Barrack Obama, lied (caught in several humongous woppers that make Nixon and Clinton look like saints), and was not held accountable for any of his lies and abuses of power. The ethics of lying while POTUS have clearly changed, as a society we no longer hold elected officials to the same ethical standards we once did. Our ethics have changed, the morality of lying has not.

Most libertarians have high moral standards. They believe that, as our forefathers stated, a person’s rights are unalienable. Meaning a person’s rights are not dependent on the government allowing them, but precede the government and by virtue of being a person without any dependence on any other, unalienable rights exist. These basic rights are life and liberty. No other person or group or state has the right to take your life or liberty unless your actions infringe upon the unalienable rights of another. These are moral truths not ethical rules. Your rights to life and liberty, grant you the freedom to maintain both as you see fit. Hence you are at liberty to gather food, shelter, clothing, etc. to maintain your life and other such property to make your life happier. Your liberty to do this does not grant you the right to force others to provide you with food, shelter, and what-not, to maintain your life, nor to take the justly acquired property of another. Your right to life and liberty does not obligate others to provide you with the necessities to maintain that life.

This idea is new and very short lived in human civilization. Implementing the idea that rights are granted by our Creator and unalienable, and that individuals instituted government for the sole purpose of protecting unalienable rights, resulted in the most prosperous society the world ever saw with the highest standard of living for more people in that society ever. That society embraced those ideas so thoroughly that it ended up fighting a civil war, killing off huge numbers of its own men, over the belief that “all men are created equal,” thus ending slavery in that society. Soon after that culture, the former USA, became the most powerful nation in the world.

Abandoning Morals and changing the Ethics of that society over time is bringing back the norm for human civilization. That norm being a few ruling elite live in luxury with different rules and “rights” to the common man, while the common man toils in relative privation. Feelings over situations have resulted in our culture dismissing moral truth and embracing situational ethics, as such we are returning to tyranny.

It is morally wrong to deprive a man of life, liberty, or property without due process. Today’s ethics ignore this: President Obama routinely orders the assassination of citizens without due process. Law enforcement routinely confiscates money and property without even charging the rightful owner with a crime. In Wisconsin, with the approval of district attorneys and judges, the police raided and took the property of people for merely expressing political opinions they didn’t like, they then threatened death and violence and destruction if those people dared talk about it. Even some libertarians are saying that people’s opinions and speech should be silenced because they are offended by it.

The idea that people expressing opinions that others find offensive should be illegal and those people should be silenced is now the acceptable ethic of the day. The moral imperative that all people have an unalienable right to the liberty of expressing whatever opinions they want is being abandoned. Quite recently, a significant number of people claiming to be libertarian, were up in arms and distraught over the arrest of a woman who was so incensed at others exercising their freedom of speech, by walking on an American flag, the took the flag and attempted to stop the expression by others. She aggressed against people exercising their unalienable right to freedom of speech and took their property and for that violation of other people’s rights she was rightly arrested. There are Libertarians saying she should not have been arrested, and that those expressing opinions they don’t like should have been silenced, claiming others walking on a flag they owned, and inviting others to do the same in some way violated their rights. This is a sick perversion of morals to situational ethics. The idea that it is ethical to deprive people of an unalienable right if their exercise that right doesn’t meet some group approval. Political Correctness is situational ethics and devoid of moral consistency.

Ethical relativity, as expressed by refusing to accept Moral truth, has and is leading to the destruction of our culture. If a culture accepts idea that all morals are mere subjective opinions and all cultural ethics are equally valid, such a culture will have no willingness to fight for any value. If all cultural ethics are equal then the ethos that says all dissenting speech should be silenced is just as valid as the ethos that all speech should be protected. If we teach that Morals are not truths, and only the Ethics (or rules) accepted by a society are valid, then beheading a person for not being a Muslim is just as valid as protecting the right of people to believe as they wish. A culture that treats moral truth as mere opinion will rot and fail. I wish I could do more than stand back and watch, but when even in the LP we have people willing to abandon unalienable rights it’s clear there is little hope for modern Western Civilization.

What Moral Truths are you willing to fight for, I don’t mean what Morals are you willing to write a letter and complain about, or what Morals you are willing to donate money to a cause. What Moral Truths are you willing to physically battle others to protect, even if it means you might die. Is there a “value” you think protecting is worth more than your reputation, livelihood, or life? There are others today willing to fight to the death, and die, in order to instill their moral values on you and the rest of the world. If you’re not willing to die protecting your moral values, you’ve already lost. We changed our culture to now commonly teache that morals are not truth only opinion, and that our morals are no different or better than any others. Do you expect people raised and taught to believe the morals of all cultures are equally valid to fight and die to protect their way of life? What tyranny would you consider taking up arms?

If you can’t image yourself taking up arms to protect you way of life, then you believe that your way of life is not worth protecting. ISIS and the Muslim world believes that you have no moral character and there is nothing you would be willing to fight for, that’s why they believe they will win. The statists in charge, call them Democrats or Republicans, believe that they have successfully neutered the moral character of the country so that they can do almost anything and there is nothing the people are willing to fight for. The Bundy Ranch standoff, shows the country is not yet totally neutered. How much more are you disposed to suffer, than to right yourself by abolishing the forms of tyranny to which you are accustomed? Do you believe in any Moral Truths?

Income Inequality – a Moral Imperative

By Tom Rhodes, 12/1/2014

Income inequality is said to be a massive problem, I've noted in the past if you compare volume of government regulations to income inequality there is a direct proportionality. More Regulations = More Income Inequality. But correlation doesn't equal causation. There is probably a better determiner of income inequality - family structure.

A couple studies have come out that compare economic status and family status. The results are interesting. The hard fact, without any moral condemnation, is there is an income and wealth premium for people raised in two-parent homes.

Among all married adults who were raised in a two-parent home, the annual average "family premium" is $42,000 more when compared to their counterparts from single-parent families.

One of the reports declares, "The increase in fatherless families is a significant contributor to income inequality." In 2013, the median Massachusetts income for married-couple households with children was $114,376. For households headed by single mothers, it was just $26,999. The data from the National Survey of Children's Health, indicates only 6 percent of children in married-couple homes have no parent who works full-time. While in families consisting of a never-married single mothers with kids, the comparable figure is 46 percent.

Obama declared that income inequality is "the defining challenge of our time." OK then let's stop doing what we know doesn't work. The "War on Poverty" coincides with two phenomenon that dramatically correspond with increased income inequality. The destruction of the two-parent household, and the increase in State intrusion in the lives of everybody, with the State, not the people, determining winners and losers in the market, education, everything.

The reports were careful not to be judgmental, but I'm not politically correct, so I will be. The problem is moral. People who have children out of wedlock should be ashamed of themselves. People who have multiple children out of wedlock should be shunned, ostracized, and publically condemned for their immoral actions. Having one child might be a mistake, oops, lapse in judgment, accident, or whatever, and is rationally forgivable. It is not good but people are not perfect. That said it's still a tough situation that does not bode well for the child both now and in his future (for you SJW’s, when the sex of the subject is not identified the proper pronoun to use when referring to that subject is the male form; he, him, his, chairman, etc. In this case it is not sexist to use his for a generic child which may be male or female, it’s just proper grammar, get over yourselves).

Having children outside of a two-parent family, is morally bankrupt, not because the mother or father shouldn’t have sex outside of marriage, but because it is more than just irresponsible to bring children into an environment that is we know is unhealthy for the child. Don’t take my word, take the word of President Obama who clearly and unequivocally said, "Children who grow up without a father are more likely to live in poverty. They're more likely to drop out of school. They're more likely to wind up in prison. They're more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol." People who have multiple children outside of a married two-parent household, have no excuses. They, not the “selfish” public, carry the sole responsibility for putting their children into a position that will in all likelihood result in privation, and bear the sole responsibility for providing for those children until they are adults.

Because currently the State provides for the children of a man who has more multiple children from different women, if he is single and not paying FULL child support for all his children; he should be forcibly castrated, and have his wages garnished to poverty levels until those kids are fully supported and adults. Such a man has proven to be of low moral character, has proven not to take full responsibility for his actions, and is a cad. Society should condemn him and his actions. Conversely, because currently the State provides for children of any woman who has children, if she is not married and is on any kind of government income assistance, she should be forced to have a tubal ligation. She has proven herself to be of low moral character, and unwilling to take full responsibility for her actions. Society should condemn her and her actions.

Being poor isn't bad or evil, there is no morality associated with poverty. Being rich isn't bad or evil, there is no morality associated with wealth. However, purposefully creating conditions that lead to poverty, and make creating wealth more difficult is immoral. Promoting, encouraging, condoning, even merely accepting without condemnation, single parents with multiple children is immoral. It is purposefully creating conditions that lead to poverty and that make generating wealth more difficult.

The most significant driver of income inequality — the biggest impediment to upward economic mobility — isn't hard to identify. The higher the fraction of children not being raised by their married parents, the more of our fellow citizens for whom the American Dream is likely to remain beyond reach. Having children outside of a two-parent household has overwhelmingly proven to be bad for children, and is proven to be a drain on society. It is immoral by any rational standard.

The libertarian solution to this moral problem is far more humane, would be more just, more effective, and more palatable than forced sterilization. End the government intrusion into the family that created the increase in single parent families. The current system rewards immoral behavior and punishes moral behavior. It’s backwards. The above idea of forcing sterilization on those who behave immorally, is tyrannical and draconian. However it is no more tyrannical and draconian than forcing those who are responsible, who created environments where they and their children prosper, to have their prosperity confiscated and redistributed to those who choose to be irresponsible. Let those who live irresponsible lives and their children suffer the consequences of their actions. Let’s be clear, I’m saying that women who have multiple children outside of marriage, and are dependent on the government to support them and their children, are unequivocally immoral and irresponsible. They are not hero’s, they should not be praised for being single mothers, they are examples of moral rot. They should not be given any government support. They and their children’s privation will be examples to what happens if you choose to live an immoral lifestyle.

Current government assistant programs let a woman substitute the government as provider for her and her children instead of their father. The government is a poor substitute for a husband and father. As Obama noted, when the government not the father, is the protector and provider of children, they are more likely to be poor, to be dropouts, to be addicts, and more likely to be criminals. Because the government will and does act as protector and provider the sacrifices necessary by women to stay with fathers, and not have babies without a father no longer exists. The feminist idea that women don’t need men to be complete ignores reality. The evidence is clear, the data doesn’t lie, it doesn’t make moral judgments, the fact is women and children need a husband and father, without one they are far more likely to live and remain in poverty.

In the USA income inequality isn’t a sign of an unjust system that holds some people back, it is the direct result of people who choose to live immoral lives and abandon the traditions and morality that created the wealthiest most prosperous society the world ever saw. Our society cannot survive the moral rot that has created laws that punish moral behavior and reward immorality.

Many economists, like Dr. Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, etc. have said for years, the path to success and living in relative prosperity is simple. 1) Finish high school, 2) Get a job, 3) Get married, 4) Have children, and do those things in that order. What that reflects is traditional family morals. Condoning, empowering, helping, or in any way promoting people who choose to live outside of that simple plan isn’t just wrong, it’s immoral.

The Moral Value of Effort

By Tom Rhodes, 12/7/2011

Imagine you are a mildly disabled couple with no employment, if you apply you are currently eligible to receive more than $1,200 a month in public housing vouchers, plus state and government disability checks and food stamps. Not only is there is no requirement to show your net worth and assets, but they are not considered, the only thing considered to be eligible is your income. Wages not wealth are what we tax, and use measure a person's ability to pay.

Wages are not considered a person's own but your labor is considered the government's who determines what part of those wages you are allowed to keep. Our whole system is based on taxing the labor of those who work; it is assumed if you don't work you have no access to money. This is why the average person living on welfare has color TV, Cable, AC and Heat, Microwaves, a car, and lives in an apartment or house with more square feet per person than the average middle class European. Significant numbers of people on welfare are better off living on the dole than trying to live on the wages commensurate with their skills, and can and do live without working better than if they worked, the incentive to work and increase their skills is not there. We reward those with no skills or ambition. This is not to say that there are not people truly in need, but that number is far less than the numbers of people who actually live on the dole.

Actually being needy is not a requirement for government "charity." Consider this couple, they live in a million dollar mansion, etc, and have huge amounts of accumulated wealth, can afford to give to charity and travel the world, yet receive tens of thousands of dollars from the government a year because their income indicates that they live in poverty. No not everybody is abusing the system this much, but why are we giving money to anybody who can support themselves but won't. Our current welfare system is immoral.

The reason why the US and Germany are arguably the most successful in the world, is they share as societies a basic moral value. These values can be summed up as follows: Effort should lead to reward as often as possible. People who work hard and play by the rules should have a fair shot at prosperity but not a guarantee. People should be rewarded monetarily based on enterprise, merit, and effort. People should be rewarded for exercising self-control while sloth and envy should not be rewarded. Our government and other institutions should nurture responsibility and fairness and shame irresponsibility and favoritism.

However there are a large group of people who see things through poorly shaded lenses that cloud their vision with an image of a permanent class war. They do not think it matters how people conduct themselves, they only consider the final outcome of who has and does not have wealth. Rather than expect a person to be self-reliant they assume any person who does not have wealth is poor because a person of wealth purposefully withheld either opportunity or property. They do not consider the effort put into creating and accumulating wealth to have any more value than breathing. These people are generally liberals, progressives, leftists, socialists, etc, and all firmly believe that resistance to redistribution of wealth is greed and avarice and treated with outrage.

Our current financial crisis came from bankers buying off politicians and both getting rich off of securing mortgages to people who were not qualified to repay them. Even now the government is requiring banks to grant loans to people who cannot repay them, in order to be "fair." We still reward sloth and envy those who legally acquire wealth. We know this yet, the left, our press, the government, and the banks refuse to even talk about letting the people who caused the crisis to be held responsible. Our massive debt is the problem, not a lack of taxes, yet the left never even considers any strategy to unwind the gigantic debt buildup. Because the basic structural problems plaguing our economy are not attended to, nor does our current leadership, regardless of party, appear to be willing to address them, as we currently see, the result is that the United States suffering from a horrible crisis of trust. The result of this lack of trust is crippling slowdown in growth, a paralyzed government, and the strangest direction of politics in modern history.

Business is sitting on massive wealth, but will not invest it because the uncertainty of whether they will be allowed to grow those investments. If investment and labor cannot be reasonably assured to produce prosperity, while government cronyism and theft are visibly rewarded and while we routinely provide for those who can but don't provide for themselves, you cannot expect people to work and invest with such uncertainty and obvious moral corruption. The very moral fabric that created the most prosperous and generous country the world has ever seen is being torn apart by power hungry collectivists who seek to redistribute the wealth of this nation not based on the idea that effort should lead to reward as often as possible, but based on the idea that regardless of effort everybody should receive the same rewards, and the ruling elite should receive a lot more.

We cannot subsidize behaviors that make us poorer, and penalize behaviors that make us richer and expect people to choose to behave in a manner that enriches themselves and the country. If you want people who have legally acquired wealth, to invest that wealth (not hoard and protect it), you cannot penalize the profits from investing and take away the fruits of their labor to such an extent that they are better off doing nothing with their labor and wealth than they are to exploit both for their and their communities betterment. Why would a person or company make an investment whose efforts are taxed to such an extent that if they simply purchased gold or other commodity and did nothing, they would make more off the increase in value due to inflation, than the profits from investing?

Here is an example; we need massive expansion to our aging power grid. Power companies are regulated extensively but guaranteed a profit (about 10%). If you have money to invest and after you pay the taxes on your dividends the real profit from investing in a power company is a modest but because power companies are government protected monopolies such investments are fairly safe. This investment would allow the power company to expand and make improvements. Now if you invested that same money in gold, you have an even safer haven for your wealth and the return is greater than the investing in a power company. There is not growth, but the wealth is protected against inflation; the growth and payout from the power company doesn't even cover real inflation. Obviously the incentive is no longer to invest but to protect wealth and assets. It is the government regulation that severely restricts the profit that can be made by power companies, and takes the profit that can be made by investors, and inflates the value of dollars, which has made conditions such that those with wealth are better off sitting on it that putting it to work. Since we now punish people who invest and work hard, and reward hoarding wealth and doing nothing, people are no longer investing and working hard, but are doing everything they can to protect what assets (wealth) they have.

Eliminating those who would protect the very moral fabric of our society is essential for liberals and the Wall Street - Government Complex. The ruling elite do not garner wealth through effort but by graft. They make the less fortunate dependent upon the largess of the ruling elite to buy their votes so they may remain in power and suck the wealth and labor from those who labor. Explain why congress and its employees are exempt from insider trading laws. Explain why the ruling elite guaranteed known bad mortgages, and rewarded bankers and themselves with massive amounts of money at the expense of the taxpayer. Explain why it is acceptable to have generations of people living on the dole. Explain why with more and more spending and more and more government control that the actual output of government education continues to get worse not better, especially for those who live dependent upon the government for their every need. Explain why they have restructured and tried to change the purpose of government to supply the needs of everybody, rather than provide protection for the rights of all individuals equally. Explain why we reward sloth and envy and punish self-reliance and effort. Obviously those who would return the US to a system where effort, enterprise, productivity, and self-discipline were rewarded and bad governance, sloth, and envy were not rewarding, would result in the ruling elite losing both wealth and power. The protection of individual liberty, although historically prove to enhancing a societies overall wealth and well being, diminishes central control and power, the ruling elite would rather all lose liberty than they have less power.

It took a little while longer than I expected but the ruling elite in DC have succeeded in eliminating or silencing all the presidential candidates who are willing to address the true problems facing this country. Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Gary Johnson, and all the third party candidates have effectively been disqualified by the media and ruling elite in Washington. Even though Ron Paul, is still taking 2nd place in polls, and the people resonate with his message, the press and ruling elite will not address the issues he and others running who represent half of Americans who don't live off the government. All these candidates the collectivists don't want you exposed to share a common belief. They believe it is moral and just, and have a willingness, to hold the government accountable for its spending and seek to reestablish the basic moral formula that made this country great, based on moral values that has historically proven to provide the highest standard of living for the most people, a moral formula that so called progressives hate and refuse to acknowledge or address. That moral formula is simple, Effort should lead to reward as often as possible.

Liberty vs. Security Just a Matter of Standards

By Tom Rhodes, 7/20/2011The difference between statists (that’s both Democrats and Republicans) and libertarians is that libertarians respect liberty for themselves and others while statists have little or no respect for the liberty of others. Now if you believe that federal government’s primary roles is to take care of people, regulate their economic activities, and maintain an overseas military empire that intervenes in the affairs of other countries, then you are clearly a statist. This description clearly defines Obama as a well as Bush as statists.

Libertarians in the USA are different from statists, although they have been born and raised within the statist environment; they have broken free of it, in both an intellectual and moral sense. Unlike statists, we recognize that statism isn’t freedom at all. Libertarians want to be free, with all that freedom entails.

Of necessity people who want and accept freedom tend to be to be people of high standards. If a free person takes actions that are not in his best interest, he must be prepared to take the consequences for those actions. A free person doesn't have government agencies bailing him out of every difficulty or excusing his behavior because life isn’t “fair.”

The truth is that unfree people usually succumb to having or acquiring low standards. Under the ruse of being "fair," the government removes the consequences of behavior. This results in the removal of feedback for our actions. With no negative feedback to unproductive or immoral actions, standards sink like a rock. When our motivation to provide for ourselves, and treat others as we would be treated, is removed; when there are no negative consequences to our behavior; when we accept that others have the right to tell us what to do, and tell our neighbors what they must do; when we accept that we are entitled to the labor and property of others; we have lost our the ability to self-govern. Dependency becomes a way of life. Not only do unfree people not respect their own liberty, they demonize those who would claim freedom for themselves.

The lack of respect for liberty, leads directly to lack of respect for life and property. The natural course of events is for authoritarians to reward themselves with special dispensations, to participate in gross immorality and to use imprisonment, torture and murder as tools of control. Nobody could have thought that those terms could be used to describe the US government. Now it is plain that the statists whether Democrat or Republican, that are currently in Washington share significant qualities that were once only considered qualities of unaccountable dictators.

Because too many have become effeminate and will sacrifice their liberty, freedom, and self-respect to provide security for themselves and/or their children, individual freedom, liberty and rights are no longer respected. No matter how much effort is put forth in ensuring "security" no one is ever truly secure. In order to guarantee complete security, you would have to accept restraints on your liberty to the point that you are no longer free. Worse yet to secure this “security” you must restrain your fellow man and take his property as well.

One of the biggest projections that fearful statists have is that those who value freedom and liberty would be the first to call on the government for help, if they were in need. This is merely the projection of their fear onto others. They cannot fathom that a person would rather suffer the consequences of life and their own actions than give up their freedom. They have been so wussified by the belief that there should be no suffering for making bad decisions, nor suffering if nature doesn’t treat you fairly, that they cannot even comprehend the idea that there are those who have such high standards and belief in themselves that they prefer freedom to security.

The total lack of respect for liberty is evident, they create regulations as to what food you can buy, what chemicals you can put in your body, and new even want to regulate the level of success an individual is allowed to obtain. Statists demonize anybody who wants liberty. They demand that everybody accept their low standards and reject the high standards and accountability that free men expect of themselves and others. They are more worried about how students feel about themselves than how they perform. They fear risk, so attempt to regulate it out of existence. They hate the fact that it is free people willing to take risk, invest, work, who don’t accept that their success/failure is based on the actions of others, who created a government that had severely limited powers, whose sole purpose was to protect the natural rights of the people from all enemies foreign and domestic, and allow the people them self-rule, not rule by some elite. No place else in the world embraced the scary idea that to ensure freedom, the people should allowed to govern themselves, that the consequences of self-governing are preferable to the security of statism.

Obama has repeatedly said that he believes he is a ruling elite who should have the authority to do what he thinks is best for everybody, and that the labor, property, and capital of all individuals should be his and the other ruling elites to use and (re)distribute as they see fit. He’s called the constitution “inconvenient” and routinely ignored it. The rule of law is bothersome, and he changes it to reward those he favors and punish those he doesn’t, of course, all for the good and security of the nation. The has told us we are too stupid to understand the debt, promised us transparency while doing more in secret than even Bush. He is a statist of the worst kind and has no respect for the liberty of the citizens of the country he was elected to lead not rule.

Libertarians believe that people should be free to engage in any occupation or profession without any government-issued license, permit, or other form of official permission. Let consumers, not the government, decide who engages in different lines of work. I trust the ASE to certify my mechanic not the government, and would trust the American Board of Thoracic Surgeons to certify my doctor far more than the government. Let free men decide not the government. Libertarians believe that people should be free to enter into mutually beneficial transactions with anyone else without interference by the government.

Libertarians believe that people should be free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth and, equally important, to decide for themselves what to do with it — spend, save, invest, or donate it. Thus, we hold that people should be free to plan for their own retirement (or not), to donate to their church or other causes (or not), and to help out their elderly or ailing parents and grandparents (or not). Compare the human right standards of countries who are dependent upon foreign aid to those that are not.

Statists have low standards, don’t respect or trust the people to be free, they don’t respect the property of others, and don’t feel as though anybody should ever suffer as a result of bad decisions. So the Statists want to make all the decisions for everybody. This is hardly freedom, and the security they offer is just a lie to concentrate power among the ruling class. If you value security over freedom continue to vote for Democrats and Republicans, they will gladly promise you security in exchange for your freedom, property, and standard of living, you will get neither, nor if you would sacrifice you essential liberty for security do you deserve either. As Libertarians we want and will fight for, freedom.

Statists, mostly liberals, try to claim some sort of moral superiority to their policies. The problem is that the reality of implementing “progressive” policies is that they actually make things worse, usually through predictable but unintended consequences.

US Citizens are some of the most productive in the world, last year we increased our productivity, not with more jobs, but by working harder. Contrast that with the citizens of liberal welfare states, who are increasingly narcissistic. A huge part of the citizenry of England, France, Germany, and other Western Europeans focus on how much vacation time they will have and how early they can retire and be supported by the state. The fact is most Americans work Harder than Europeans. The acceptable standard, work ethic, for people who would be free is superior to those who would depend on others to provide for them.

All the history and evidence of welfare in our country points to the simple fact that nothing more guarantees the erosion of character than getting something for nothing. The welfare state leads to the entitlement mentality – another expression of narcissism. Liberals then take what people need, use twisted and tortured logic and label it a right; this just reinforces this sense of entitlement. Leading large numbers of people to the idea that they have a right to the property or labor of others without having to pay for it.

The great society program of LBJ, institutionalized the welfare state. This corrupts family life. Even significant numbers of Democrats recognize the destructive consequences of the welfare state on the underclass. This makes fathers (males in general) unnecessary to women, who now have the state to support them and their children instead of husbands. The welfare state has become the husband to large numbers of women. It even rewards them more children outside of the traditional family structure.

Children raised in the welfare state tend not to mature into responsible adults. This specifically is an attack against men, who no longer aspire to hard work, and creation of their own family, and the accusation of wealth to pass down to their progeny. I believe my generation was the last of American men raised to believe that they had a bigger purpose in life than just their own happiness. This is why so many women lament the plethora of boy-men who haven’t grown up, and complain that they can’t find a man worth marrying. The liberal state has told men that they don’t have to support anybody, and that they can remain boys as long as they want.

Progressives’ entire world view is twisted. They don’t see that there is a battle in the world between good and evil, what they see is a battle as between rich and poor. They actually believe that equality is more important than morality. This is how they can cheer Cuban tyranny and curse American liberty. They really believe that the egalitarian redistribution of Cuba is superior has lead to a better life for all Cubans than the freedom and liberty and inequality of outcome that exists in America has lead to the quality of life for all Americans.

The most telling fact is that the bigger the government, the less the citizens do for each other. If the state will provide for me, and provide for my neighbors, they why should I. This is best shown in the fact that people who live in the welfare states of Western Europeans give less to charity and volunteer less time to others than do Americans of the same socioeconomic status. Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville recognized this almost 200 years ago, noting one of the most distinguishing characteristics of Americans from Europeans was how much Americans, through myriad private associations, care of one another. Churches, Rotary Clubs, free-loan societies and other voluntary associations were ubiquitous, until our path to the welfare state was stared under FDR and expanded by other liberal presidents. As the state has grown, our charities have declined. In Western Europe, they are virtually non-existant.

With a bigger state comes a vastly greater amount of corruption. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," is an overused but none the less true statement. When a big business is caught in corruption, it goes out of business, people quit buying it’s products and services. Look at how fast News of the World disappeared. A government cannot be run out of business, but worse yet a corrupt business can’t just print money from thin air, nor can a business arrest you.

Of course statists will ignore all the caustic consequences of the policies of the liberal welfare state. They will call their policies “compassionate conservatism”, or “social justice” and label those who don’t believe in the welfare state as selfish or worse. The truth is the welfare state leads to moral decay and narcissism. The standards of those who love liberty and those who want a welfare stare are clearly defined, but taboo to talk about.