Published: Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Sunday 12/24/00

WHAT IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE?

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In his Sunday column, Lance Murray echoed, in passing, as though it is now established wisdom, the steady media drumbeat that tells us how the closeness of the recent election proves that America is divided along ideological lines.

Ideology, however, refers to a major philosophical worldview, such as Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Fascism.  Although early Soviet Communism, for example, briefly split between Leninism and Trotskyism, it could hardly have been called an ideological divide since both camps remained adamantly Communist.  Similarly, today's Republicans and Democrats remain adamantly committed to bigger, more expensive, more intrusive, more coercive government.  They differ only in policy; do you want left liberal or right conservative Authoritarianism?

A true ideological split would have occurred if the electorate had divided itself between Republican, Democrat, Green, Reform and a host of other authoritarian "isms" on the one hand, and libertarianism on the other.  Libertarianism is an ideology that holds the individual is sovereign while a small and strictly limited government exists solely to protect and nurture that sovereignty.  Libertarianism is the modern heir of the Founder's Constitutionalism, established as an ideological alternative to that other once popular authoritarian ideology, Monarchism.

Today's Republicans and Democrats will argue endlessly over the "how," but never the "should," of subjecting all of us to the ever expanding loss of our incomes and rights.  Until Americans in greater numbers rediscover their libertarian roots, there will be no ideological divide.  There will be only the interminable family feud over whose particular flavor of Authoritarianism gets to dominate us all.

Published: Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Wednesday 01/10/01

MINIMUM WAGE SHELL GAME

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Watch for another push in congress to raise the minimum wage, even though libertarian economic scholars long ago exposed the practice as a political sham.

A wage is a cost of doing business.  When a company is forced to raise wages, the price of their goods or services must be raised to maintain profits.  Otherwise, the company fails.  Yes, the worker's income will increase, but that same worker is also a consumer.  And everything he or she consumes on a daily basis will eventually cost more than it did before the wage increase.  Net result: no increase in real-world purchasing power.

Another way to compensate for the increase is to fire an existing worker, or forego hiring a needed additional worker.  Yes, those still employed will get their raise.  But remember, those same workers are also consumers, paying more for goods and services from companies that raised their prices.  And guess what else?  They're also taxpayers.  Which means their newfound incomes will be eaten away by taxes needed to pay unemployment and welfare benefits to those who have been frozen out of the job market.  Net result: no increase in real-world purchasing power.

Libertarians have long understood that the only winners in this coercive shell game are vote-seeking politicians.  The sooner we all learn that a truly free market - in goods, services and wages - always trumps government force, the more prosperous we'll all be.

Published: Dallas Morning News Online, Wednesday 01/17/01

PRISON REFORM

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A recent letter from K. Crowther offered three reforms that might help prevent future escapes of violent criminals like the Connally 7 from the Texas prison system.  These included paying guards better, Stop sending "technical" parole violators back to prison, and increasing parole approvals for nonviolent offenders.

While that's a good start, libertarians have a better idea: abolish all victimless crimes!  Not long ago, the Libertarian Party issued a press release pointing out that as many as 750,000 people in the United States are in jail for victimless crimes like gambling, violating censorship laws, not wearing seatbelts, or consensual sex.  At least 400,000 inmates are serving time for non-violent drug offenses alone.

If, as the Libertarian Party claims, less than a third of the people currently in prison are violent criminals, it means that Texas prisons are bulging at the seams with people who harmed no one and are not a proven danger to anyone.  Abolishing victimless crimes and releasing these people will have many immediate benefits, for all of us as well as for them.  A few of these are:

1)   They will become productive members of society and taxpayers will be relieved of the burden of supporting them.

2)   Prison, judicial and law enforcement officers can concentrate on violent criminals.

3)   Reduced prison populations means fewer guards, which means translating current budgets into greater pay that will attract higher quality and better trained people.

Published: Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Sunday 02/25/01

CAMPAIGN FINANCE "DEFORM"

(renamed: Symptoms vs. Problems)

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Senator McCain is still pushing campaign finance "reform," believing that "soft money" corrupts the political process.  But libertarians know that's backwards - political corruption is the problem, "soft money" is just a symptom.

When have lobbyists knocked on your door offering you bags of money?  Never?  That's because you don't have the power to squander billions of your fellow taxpayer's dollars on pork barrel projects.  Politicians shouldn't have that power either.

Libertarians believe that over 85 percent of what the federal government does today isn't authorized by the Constitution.  If politicians were forced to limit themselves to Constitutional activities there would be no pork and therefore no  "soft money."

Stealing "free" air time from TV networks, and public campaign financing, are not solutions either.  They're just two more ways for politicians to feed at the trough.  To his everlasting credit, the Libertarian Party presidential candidate refused government (taxpayer's) matching funds. [Deleted from the published version.]

Published: Dallas Morning News Online, Saturday 03/10/01

The Fable of the Lexus and the Muffler

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With so many people criticizing President Bush's tax refund as "a tax break for the rich" it's time to take a stroll through the Land of Reality.  A libertarian economist named Henry Hazlitt once wrote a simple, common-sense book called "Economics in One Lesson."  His purpose was to illustrate the basic truths of economics in simple, easy to understand examples.

Remember Sen. Tom Daschle?  He's the guy who said that under Bush's plan the rich guy would get a Lexus while the poor guy would get only a muffler.  Here's how that works in the Land of Reality:

Joe Richguy doesn't get his tax cut so he doesn't buy a Lexus.  Bill Dealerguy is sitting in his Lexus showroom, watching his profits drop and wondering what he can do to cut expenses.  He decides to fire one of his lot men.  Bob Lotguy, who desperately needs a new muffler, gets a pink slip instead.