Government is always a drag on an economy. Every dollar it spends — after looting it from your paycheck or borrowing it in your name — is an “investment” in making us all poorer than we’d have been if left to run our own lives. Every rule it comes up with makes it harder for us to prosper.
Category: Blogs
The official Everything-Voluntary.com blog.
We Have Vaccines, We Don’t Need Pandemic Restrictions
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends staying 6 feet away from others. In Oregon, everyone must wear a mask outdoors. In parts of the country, 2-year-olds must wear masks. Are such rules necessary?
Best To Let People Try Different Things
(My Eastern New Mexico News column for October 13, 2021)
If government claims it will finally allow you– after you buy a license– to do something you’ve always had a natural human right to do, but makes the rules for getting the license so burdensome,…
Cities Lead the Way in (Another) Massive Fall Exodus from US Public Schools
With most schools open for full-time, in-person learning this year, it seemed reasonable to assume that parents would eagerly re-enroll their children in their local district school, tabling last year’s alternative education plans. That doesn’t seem to be the case.
Political Power is The Power to Bully
If you define political power as the power of government, then I don’t want political power. It’s the power to bully. This power is concerned with controlling others. I’m only concerned with controlling myself, and that doesn’t involve political power…
Raise Congressional Pay — and Tax the Rich
“Young investors have a new strategy,” National Public Radio’s Tim Mak reported on September 21: “Watching financial disclosures of sitting members of Congress for stock tips.” Under the Stock Act, members of Congress must disclose their own stock trades, and those of their spouses, within 45 days. One member of a TikTok investor community refers … Continue reading Raise Congressional Pay — and Tax the Rich
A Republic … If You Can Keep It
The title above is based on a Benjamin Franklin quote, often cited. It implies that a republic is a good thing, worth keeping. At the time of Franklin’s observation, republics went back to the heyday of Rome and Athens, and were the merest step apart from monarchy. A good definition of “republic” would point out that it was doublespeak for aristocracy.
“No First Use”: An Empty Gesture That Would Cost Nothing
“Debate on ‘no first use’ of nukes mushrooms in Washington,” Joe Gould reports at Defense News. “Five years after President Barack Obama turned back from declaring a ‘no first use’ as US policy for nuclear weapons,” Gould writes, “opponents say the Biden administration is considering it too, and warn that it risks alienating allies.”
Stillness & Curiosity
Much of our lives are lived on autopilot. We jump from one task to another, one message to another, one meeting to another, one browser tab to another. We react in habitual ways to other people, to situations. And we justify this as the way it should be. Nothing wrong with that — but what would it be like to explore other possibilities?
Looking for the Green New Deal
I was all set this week to plunge into the details of the Green New Deal so I could see what new impositions the climate-alarmist politicians have in store for us. Then I made a startling discovery. (Startling for me, that is. I’m behind the news curve.)