Probably the single most beneficial amendment to the U.S. and state constitutions would be an amendment to forbid the government from “doing something” beyond its normal actions in response to national or local emergencies.
Tag: constitution
The Myth of ‘Good Government’
The history of the US is not that of good government gone bad, but of bad government remaining bad. Yes, it’s improved a bit in some areas even as it has worsened in others, but when it comes to its central evils—plundering, kidnapping, caging, and killing people—it continues to follow the pattern of cruel oppression which has always defined it.
Principal-Agent Theory and Representative Government
As a rule, the candidates for election to public office make vague promises, hardly any of which are subject to straightforward monitoring or quantitative measurement. In general, it is impossible for principals in the electorate to identify precisely how their office-holding agents have succeeded or failed.
Putting Principle above Party, People, and the Past
When I put principle first, I’m better able to judge the compatibility of parties, people, and the past with what I believe in. And when my understanding of those things change, it’s easier to move on. I’m also less likely to be fooled and subsequently betrayed.
How an Airborne Ranger Became a Voluntaryist
Government directives to do evil (whether by commission or omission) do not override our conscience and our understanding of right and wrong. I favor agoristic obviation of government institutions. I support voluntary alternatives to government services as much as I can and continue to encourage government institutions to reduce and eliminate their restrictions on our freedoms.
Charlottesville
The Charlottesville demonstrations got out-of-hand; they were non-peaceable. But is anybody surprised? Part of the baggage of a free republic is that it gets out-of-hand sometimes.
My Ongoing Battle with Leviathan
In January of this year (2017) I was notified that my 2015 tax return was going to be audited. 2015 was the first tax year that I wasn’t completely a W2 employee. Half the year was W2, the other 1099. Surprise, surprise, I was one of the lucky ones chosen to be told I owe more money. I responded to the audit request with a request of my own: give me the information you used to determine your code and constitution apply to me, and I’m happy to cooperate.
What the Left Should Like about Public Choice
Although the public choice school of political economy has been demonized in a new work of putatively progressive fiction masquerading as intellectual history, good-faith leftists (if they don’t already regard themselves as libertarians) may be surprised by how their cause could benefit from the insights of James Buchanan, et al.
Public Choice Analysis a Scheme for Imposing Racist Oligarchy on the USA? Preposterous!
The claim that public choice analysis is intended to, or actually does, assist the rich in dominating the poor, or the capitalists in dominating the workers, or the whites in dominating the blacks cannot be made in good faith by anyone who has the slightest familiarity with public choice analysis.
Healthcare: A House Divided Cannot Stand
I predict that the US government will adopt a “single-payer” healthcare system no later than 2030, and probably sooner. And while I oppose that outcome and believe its results will be far worse than a real free-market system would produce, I also suspect that those results will be better than the current half-fish, half-fowl, largely socialized but with fake “private” players sucking it dry, system.