1Declaration: Free Markets, Free People, Free Minds

When discussing politics the usual sides are conservative and liberal, or Democrat and Republican. Most people consider politics to be linear ranging from totalitarian government (fascism, communism, or more generally statism) on the far left, to liberalism, then moderates, conservatives, and anarchists. Most tend to forget the latter because a traditional form of government and politics does not exist.

When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man?
--Henry David Thoreau

Political Diamond

I contend that the political sides are not linear but rather a diamond. The bottom corner represents statism, the two side corners liberalism and conservatism, and the top corner libertarian with the center area being a centrist or moderate with slight tendencies towards one of the extremes or corners.

Statism as previously discussed represents big government at its most extreme. A government where economic and personal liberties are eroded for the benefit of the community (fascism, communism, and totalitarianism fit into this category). Liberalism and conservatism are a bit hypocritical and confused. Both political leanings have big government and small government leanings. Liberals generally seek a maximization of personal liberties (not legislating morality such as marriage, drug use, abortion, and etc.) while neglecting economic liberties favoring higher taxes and welfare programs to act as a safety net on society. Conservatives are the opposite favoring economic liberties while imposing morality legislation on personal liberties. Conservatives favor lower taxes, a strong military, a free market, and oppose social welfare programs.

Libertarians on the other hand favor minimal government intrusion into people's lives economically or personally. We view it as unethical to forcefully take money from one social groups pockets and put it in another in the name of social justice. To make it simple, libertarians are generally pro-choice everything, strongly favor the free market, favor a laissez faire form of government, and view government as a necessary evil with a few specific functions. These functions are in the most general terms policies that protect individual liberties and choice, a common defense, and the administration of justice.

Why am I a Libertarian?

Simple, life is a precious gift! Life is too short and every individual should be free to live their life in whatever manner they choose as long as they do not engage in activities that would take another persons right to live their life in the way they choose. In essence, the forced imposition of your beliefs is immoral and unethical.

But what about the "less fortunate" (a phrase I despise)? "Less fortunate" is a phrase invented by socialists and liberals for the imposition of social welfare programs. "Less fortunate" is a term that implies that those who are well off have gotten lucky and those who are not well off have not been fortunate to have luck on their side. Off of my soapbox now.

As an individual you are free to engage in any activity you choose, whether positive or negative, so long as you do not impede another persons ability to live their life in their own manner. With that liberty you are also responsible for your own position in life, your failures, and your successes. This means that your position in life are brought upon by your own decisions in life. As with the force imposition of morality, the forced collection of money for the purposes of social welfare programs is unethical and immoral because the actions of one group impedes another groups right to live their life including the donation of goods and money to those who they chose to support.

The power to tax is the power to destroy.
--John Marshall

Surely government must institute laws to protect traditional values, right? Wrong. Each person should have the chance to develop their own personality and their own moral compass. Not everyone has the same religious, moral, or other beliefs. To be fair government must remain neutral on policies towards the legislation of morality.

So why am I a Libertarian? Life is too short and precious to remove individual choice and freedom whether through social welfare schemes that forcefully take from one and give to another, the legislation of morality that do not affect another's "life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness," or economic limitations.

Conclusions

Government is a necessary evil and is the worst failure of civilized man to quote both Thomas Jefferson and H.L. Mencken.

Government's throughout history have largely proven to be failures where power becomes absolute and individual freedoms have been crushed. From the monarchies of Europe, to the liberal fascism that Hitler and Mussolini espoused, on to the Communists who preached for the collective, and governments who legislate religion onto the masses.

Government has proven through history to be a tool to enslave man mentally, economically, morally, and religiously. The founding fathers of the United States recognized these facts and created a country where individual and economic liberty should be cherished. Today though liberals espouse views that forcefully take money and livelihood from one groups labor to give it to another who have done little to nothing and conservatives who seek to legislate "traditional values" while neglecting other people's beliefs and morals; government has failed and been oppressive.

As P.J. O'Rourke has clearly stated, "A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them." This is why I am a Libertarian.

Liberals want the government to be your Mommy. Conservatives want government to be your Daddy. Libertarians want it to treat you like an adult.
--Andre Marrou

The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it.
--John Hay (1872)

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.
--Thomas Jefferson

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
--Winston Churchill

If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.
--Ludwig von Mises

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
--Thomas Jefferson

Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money --- only for wanting to keep your own money.
--Joseph Sobran

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
--Albert Einstein

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
--Thomas Jefferson

Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.
--Friedrich Hayek

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
--Samuel Adams

A little government involvement is just as dangerous as a lot, because the first leads inevitably to the second.
--Harry Browne

It is sobering to reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.
--Charles A. Beard

The small minority of adults who are unable rather than unwilling to work, have to rely on voluntary charity; misfortune is not a claim to slave labor; there is no such thing as the right to consume, control, and destroy those without whom one would be unable to survive.
--Ayn Rand

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
--Thomas Jefferson

There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.
--Ayn Rand

Having federal officials, whether judges, bureaucrats, or congressmen, impose a new definition of marriage on the people is an act of social engineering profoundly hostile to liberty.
--Ron Paul

The threat posed by humans to the natural environment is nothing compared to the threat to humans posed by global environmental policy.
--Fred L. Smith (1992)

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
--Mohandas Gandhi

I can say - not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, political, and aesthetic roots - that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.
--Ayn Rand

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping, and unintelligent. --H.L. Mencken


[Political] offices are as acceptable here as elsewhere, and whenever a man cast a longing eye on them, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
--Thomas Jefferson

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.
--Patrick Henry

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
--Thomas Jefferson

If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves.
--Thomas Sowell (1992)

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
--Thomas Jefferson

The true danger is when Liberty is nibbled away, for expedients.
--Edmund Burke (1899)

When they kept you out it was because you were black, when they let you in, it is because you are black. That's progress?
--Marilyn French

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
--Thomas Jefferson

If it is now the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their good requires victims, then I say: The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!
--Ayn Rand

Honest people are never touchy about the matter of being trusted.
--Ayn Rand

Force Always Attracts Men of Low Morality.
--Albert Einstein

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
--Goethe

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
--Noam Chomsky

The power to tax is the power to destroy.
--John Marshall

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.
--Aldous Huxley

You wanna get rid of drug crime in this country? Fine, let's just get rid of all the drug laws.
--Ron Paul

When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty.
--George Mason

There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress.
--Mark Twain

If it is one thing I despise it is government intervention in my life. Government tells me I must give a portion of my income for social programs. They tell me I cannot take the money I earn to save for retirement on my own free will, instead I have to support a bankrupted system that Chile eliminated within 5 years of its inception. Now they are trying to tell me I have to get health care or pay for someone else to get health care. Where in the Constitution does it state that the federal government has the ability to control these decisions in my life?

Republican House Member Ted Poe from Texas has brought out his Constitution and asks Speaker Pelosi where in the Constitution it says that the federal government has the authority to make us use a certain type of light bulb, the compact fluorescent (CFL). They don't!



Where will it stop? If you have not read the Constitution in a long time, try reading it. Take special note of the 10th Amendment, which delegates any authority not specifically granted the federal government to the states. Tell me where it says the federal government can tell me what type of light bulb I can use.

Bring back the Constitution!

Energy has become one of the most divisive issues on Capital Hill today as Americans are pleading for a solutions to the high gas prices that are dragging down the US and global economy. Democrats and Republicans cannot seem to agree on an appropriate course of action. Democrats have been duped by environmentalists claiming global warming will kill us all or the caribou in Alaska or some other species will be devastated by drilling. Republicans seem to totally neglect the need for research into other alternative sources of energy claiming drilling will solve all our problems.

Could it be that both sides are right? Without a doubt.

The Democrats

Democrats are correct about continuing the development of other sources of energy such as wind, solar, geothermal, bio-fuels, and the like. This has nothing to do with the threat for global warming. Instead the argument should be made and is being made in most cases that alternative energy development will help decline our dependency on foreign oil and more generally oil and natural gas. Our dependency on oil as a primary fuel source is a national security threat and has helped fund some of the same extremists our country is fighting against, a completely inefficient concept. We must increase our diversification of energy sources. As any investor knows, putting all your investments into one area can lead to complete devastation.

In similar measure Democrats are correct in their assertion that we need to remove the $18 billion in tax subsidies that has been given to energy companies like Exxon Mobil. The fate of these companies is not at stake as can be seen by the large profits taken in by the companies.

Overall these points made by the Democrats are beneficial towards lowering energy cost in the long term. Their plan however lacks any immediate impact as many of the alternative energy sources mentioned are not yet economically viable nor can they yet produce large sums of energy. Nothing in the Democrats plan will help cut out the speculation on oil prices.

The Republicans

Republicans hold the view that drilling will solve all of our problems. This is a bit watered down but for the most part gets the point across. Drilling and refining are necessary functions now that need to be expanded until another economically efficient solution comes forward for mass energy production. Announcing the lifting of regulations on drilling will help secure more supply in the future and drive down speculation in the marketplace.

Republicans are also right that the windfall profits tax touted by the Democrats will have no effect on gas prices. This test has already been tested before and its results were devastating. Domestic production of oil and gas decreased by an average of 6% and increased our dependence on foreign sources of oil by around 15%.

Overall the Republican solution acts to increase supplies today but does little to nothing for the long term to diversify our energy portfolio. With a lack of diversification we will to continue to fund the dictators and terrorists in the countries we are currently fighting justly on unjustly.

The Solution

The Democrats and Republicans cannot seem to get things done but the solution is right before them. If they would end the partisanship and begin to work towards an economically and politically viable agreement that coupled both long and short term strategies our energy problem would have a solution and both side would be satisfied with the results.

First thing to tackle will be the near term solution. Lift regulations on drilling and the building of refineries. This will help tackle speculation and help solidify the future supply of oil. Lift the current $18 billion worth of tax subsidies on oil companies unless they agree to invest in the creation of alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, and etc. To help further solidify oil supplies, the US should invest the the building of coal to oil plants. Both of these are both short and mid-term solutions.

Second we need to address the mid-term to long-term solutions to increase our diversification in energy resources. First we need to start a mass conversion to nuclear and clean coal energies. Nuclear is a readily available, economically viable, and environmentally friendly option that both Italy and France are investing quickly in. If we really want to reduce our dependency on oil in an environmentally friendly way nuclear is the best option.

The other mid to long term solution is increasing our use of coal. Coal has been in the past and can be a very dirty energy source. New technologies are available that can reduce carbon emissions to near 0% and utilize nearly 70% of coals energy source through a process involving carbon sequestration and the conversion of hydrogen laden emissions into hydrogen fuel cells. The US is the Saudi Arabia of coal. We should use this natural resource to our advantage and with todays technologies it can be used in an environmentally friendly and efficient manner.

Other energy sources are available such as wind and solar and can be constructed but they are more expensive and less reliable that both the nuclear and coal options. None the less, if areas such as in West Texas and Oklahoma can be used for wind generated energy this is a good way to increase our energy diversification. This method also helps soothe environmentalists qualms. bio-fuels are yet another option. These are all sources of energy that both Democrats and Republicans can embrace.

Finally long-term solutions towards energy independence are needed. This is a more research oriented phase that Democrats are offering such as clean energy. Some of these sources are viable now like solar and wind but are still expensive and with further research and development can become an economically viable and viable energy source. Research into other energies such as hydrogen fuel cells should increase. These long-term solutions in research will help solidify our future because oil and gas are quickly running out.

Conclusion

The solution offered unilaterally by Democrats or Republicans are incomplete. Democrats lack the short range solutions and would increase the prices and decrease the output of oil and gas through windfall profit taxes or other taxes like the Climate Security Act. Republicans lack the longterm solutions that the Democrats are recommending and are offering subsidies to oil companies that are not needed.

If Democrats and Republicans would work together they would see that their goals are the same in increasing our energy independence, bringing down energy prices, and increasing our energy diversification in the short, mid and long terms.

By working with both sides, our energy independence can be secured and sources of clean energy can be developed to reduce pollutants into the air that can cause health problems. End the partisanship and start working towards a viable energy solution that embraces that positive aspects of both sides and negates the negative aspects.

Sources

(1) "Dumb or Ill-Informed," by Walter Williams, Townhall, 4 June 2008.

Tonight Libertarian leaning Republican Ron Paul of Texas will officially end his campaign for the Republican nomination in what is really just a formality this evening. Reports indicate that Ron Paul will not endorse Republican nominee John McCain and will work towards getting Libertarian leaning candidates elected instead. Ron Paul will not seek election as an independent or third party candidate.

Ron Paul appeared on CNN this morning. He had this to say about Libertarian nominee Bob Barr.

John Roberts: Congressman, what do you think of Bob Barr? Does he faithfully represent the values of the Libertarian Party?

Ron Paul: I think so. It doesn’t mean that you can look at his voting record like you look at mine and say there was never any infraction. That doesn’t mean that he can’t represent these values. He’s saying the things he should be saying. He’s joined the Libertarian Party and he presents these views and he talks our language. So I do really believe that he can have a very positive effect in this campaign and let the people know that limited government is a very, very important message and that people will have a chance. That gives everybody a choice in the matter.

Exxon Mobil has just announced that they will be getting out of the retail gas service. Oil prices have become too high to continue this operation as profit margins continue to decline. So much for the argument of liberals that profits are too high. Exxon has stated they will begin to sell of company owned gas stations to other retailers around the country. This is surprising since Exxon is the world's largest gas distributor.

This is clear evidence, since these companies as all privately owned companies seek to make a profit, that pressure and interrogations the oil and gas companies that have come under on Capital Hill is nothing but political pandering to the masses. Their hand in the oil crisis is minimal at best but better stated negligible.

As stated by large oil and gas companies numerous times in Congressional hearings, their average profit on a gallon of gas is only 5-6 cents per gallon. As prices of oil continue to increase the profit margin declines and consequentially the economic viability of this area of business.

Stop the rhetoric about "big oil" Congress and vote to Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less. Write your representatives and let them know.