Heads And Tails

Economic Liberty and personal Liberty are two sides of the same coin; you can not pretend to keep heads when you throw tails away.

While I have devoted a great deal of time in these posts to matters of economic Liberty - jobs, taxes, energy, health care, monetary policy, fiscal policy, and trade – it is personal Liberty that is the defining American virtue and the greater loss when the coin is stolen from us.   

You have heard me say it many times: Liberty is the absence of government in choice, and Government is the absence of Liberty in choice.  In Liberty, your choices are governed by your own conscience and beliefs; in government, choices are made for you by others.  It is our choices that define us as persons.

Volition – the capability to form moral choices and act upon them - is what separates us from the beasts.  Therefore, constraint of volition by force or fraud is inherently de-humanizing; it does not matter whether the constraint is imposed by individuals, corporations, or government, it is wrong. 

A principled belief in personal Liberty is quite simply stated: government has no legitimate authority to regulate private personal behavior - period. It only becomes complicated when exceptions are made and we attempt to explain the contradictions that arise.

Too many of us demand Liberty for ourselves, while insisting that it be denied to others.  We demand that government leave us alone in matters of keen interest to us, while insisting that government prevent others from doing things we don’t like.  We demand freedom from coercion while insisting that others be coerced.

None of us has the right to impose our values and beliefs on another against his/her will.  As a practical matter, criminalizing private behavior doesn’t get us less bad behavior anyway, just more criminals.  Victimless crimes do not exist in reality; only in bad laws.  Laws which are selectively enforced, prosecuted, and sentenced. 

Most of us want government to protect our rights; not to protect us from our rights.  As long as our choices do not infringe on the equal rights of others, we should be free to live as we see fit, not to live under the yoke of mob rule.   

Libertarians, as our name implies, hold Liberty as our first principle.  Our strict allegiance to both heads and tails of the Liberty coin is what separates us from modern-day Conservatives and modern-day Liberals, who choose their favorite side when it serves their purposes and disregard the other when it becomes inconvenient.   

Absolutism in Liberty means, by necessity, that we must tolerate all sorts of personal behaviors and choices that we do not condone, endorse, or approve of.  Annoyance is a trivial price to pay in order to live free. 

In my generation, tolerance was taught as a virtue. We were raised to “mind our own business”, to “live and let live”, to “judge not, lest ye be judged”.  In political terms, the virtue of tolerance is embodied in a position of neutrality on social issues. 

When it comes to the social issues - abortion, drugs, welfare, guns, religion, lifestyle choices - the proper role of the federal government is to keep its Interstate bridges in good repair.  Head down, eyes closed, mouth shut – leave all that stuff to communities and states as the 10^th amendment instructs. 

Whether you choose to work three jobs, pray all day, or take drugs and curl up on the floor, you will be sufficiently rewarded – with prosperity, piety, or addiction - to self-regulate.   There is no real need for the government to add its own punishments to the consequences of your choices. 

Our Creator endowed each of us with Free Will, a gift so precious it was withheld from the angels.  If He did not deny it to us, who are we to deny it to one another?  

Tim Nerenz is the Libertarian Party Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives from Wisconsin's 2nd District. To support Dr. Tim's campaign, please visit the campaign website at www.timnerenz.com.

Irreconcilable Differences

The mommy and daddy of the nanny state filed for divorce Sunday night – all that’s left now is to convince us kids the other parent is to blame.  

Our year-long forced march into socialized medicine has sharpened the line of demarcation in this nation.  On one side is the State and its dependent wards; on the other, freepersons who seek to make their own way in the world. 

The former no longer countenance the independence of the latter, and the latter will not willingly live under the yoke of the former.  We should quit pretending we want to live together any longer.  

President Obama is correct on this point: the time for talking is over.  There is nothing to further to discuss. It is pointless to pretend that Collectivism and Individualism can co-exist.  There can be no dialogue between the looter and the looted.

People who believe it is their right to confiscate their neighbors’ earnings and compel them to work for their benefit have already turned a deaf ear to reason, the law, the Constitution, the Ten Commandments, and the cries of their neighbor.  What else can we say to them? 

Back when government was limited, the Constitution served as a buffer between the State and the People, and legislative compromise was possible.  If we have learned nothing else from this past month, it is that government is no longer limited. 

Still need proof?  The clincher was federalizing all student loans at the 11^th hour by appending it to the health care Bill. Using kids with leukemia as human shields for such a brazen power grab is well south of shameless.  The Department of Education will be the 7^th largest bank in the nation, and will determine who goes to which school.  We spent a good portion of the last century fighting nations who did this.         

Health care, education, banking, autos, energy – the list of American industries nationalized in the past year would make Hugo Chavez blush.    

But this is not Venezuela; our socialists are bolder.  Liberal Democrats were reported to be “giddy” last week at the prospect of taking another $1 trillion from those who earned it.  Watch any riot on the news – those looters are always giddy, too.  

To all my giddy liberal Democrat friends, I would remind you that it takes just one election to turn all these new powers of the State over to Sarah Palin or someone you may find even more distasteful. It will be her czars who will decide how you live your life.  Still giddy?       

And to all my outraged Republican friends, I would remind you that it was your party that appeased our socialists for decades and expanded the State yourself when you had the chance.  By the time you decided to be the Party Of No, the party was over.  Save up a bit of that righteous indignation for the mirror.

Libertarians take no joy in saying “I told you so.” But we have warned you that this day was coming for 40 years.  We have stood firm against each encroachment on your liberties, whether it came from the left or the right.  You called us whacky, losers, paranoid, conspiracy nuts – how do you like us now?  

The vote is over; the Health Care Bill is law.  It will not stop children from getting sick; it can not compel miracles.  The laws of supply and demand can not be amended through reconciliation.  Its first visible consequence will be the hiring of 16,000 new IRS agents; they will not be taking your child’s temperature.  

As a result of Sunday’s vote on Health Care, the government is vastly more powerful this week than it was last week.  But the people who run it are no wiser and no more capable.  That will soon become abundantly clear. 

 

Tim Nerenz is the Libertarian Party Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives from Wisconsin's 2nd District. To support Dr. Tim's campaign, please visit the campaign website at www.timnerenz.com. 

Math Reform

While they are at it, Congress should go ahead and deem us all millionaires – that would be wildly popular in November, and we could afford their Health Care Bill.   

Where to begin…..you can’t reduce the cost of something by 3,000 percent, even if you are the President of the United States.  Once you hit 100%, the thing is free. 

After promising a 3,000 percent reduction in our health care premiums in Ohio (apparently that sealed the deal for Rep. Kucinich), the President also promised us our employers will use that found money to give us a raise.  I am an employer, and can assure you that there will be no raise.  Just deem yourself to have received one – it’s apparently the same thing now.

The President’s handlers quickly tried to fix his goof, asserting that he meant to say $3,000 dollars, not 3,000 percent.  Recognize that that is a 40-50% reduction in premium costs for the average employer plan, which is equally ridiculous. 

Everyone understands that insurance premiums go up when the cost what is insured goes up, right?  If you want $2 million liability coverage on your auto insurance it will cost you more than $1 million coverage does, agree?     

Ok, then – let’s do the math.  The Health Care Reform Bill eliminates caps on lifetime payouts.  Will your premiums go up or down when your $2 million lifetime cap turns to infinite? 

The Bill mandates adding coverage for children with pre-existing conditions. Will your premiums go up or down?

The Bill mandates adding five more years of dependent children coverage to age 26. Will your premiums go up or down?

The Bill mandates insurers to provide free preventative care, increasing coverage costs.  Will your premiums go up or down?    

If you are one of the millions of Americans who choose not to buy insurance, you will be forced to – your premiums have no where to go but up.

Let’s think about the other nonsensical claim that this Bill will save you money by reducing the deficit.  The Bill is estimated by CBO to cost the government $940 billion, and it reduces the deficit by $130 billion.  News reports described Democrats as “giddy” when they were told the cost to the taxpayers would be under $1 trillion.

I won’t even comment on a morality of being “giddy” at the thought of spending nearly a trillion more dollars of someone else’s money.  But since the deficit is the difference between cost and tax revenue, reducing the deficit by $130 billion means new taxes must exceed the new costs. 940+130=1,070. 

That is a cool $1.07 trillion in new additional taxes you will pay in addition to your increased premiums – over the giddy line, I’m sorry to report.  There are about 105 million people working in the private sector these days, so that works out to $10,000 each.  In reality, you can double it; nothing ever costs what they say it will.         

Oh, but only the rich will pay, you might say. Think again. Who makes over $250,000 per year?  Doctors do.  Where do they get the money to pay their taxes?  You and your insurance company pay it to them one procedure at a time. 

When they charge more to cover the added costs of their new taxes, do you think your premiums will go up or down?   And so will the costs of everything else you buy, because for the most part, it is rich people that produce it and sell it to you.

Bend over; you might feel some discomfort……..

Here is more ugly math: an astonishing poll over the past weekend found that 46.3% of general practitioners said that if Congress passes the Bill, they would be forced or would elect to leave their practice.  No wonder Tammy Baldwin’s team is scared to record their vote for this sop to the big insurance companies, drug companies, unions, and trial lawyers.      

And what business person will continue to provide insurance coverage at 15-20% of payroll cost when they can drop coverage and pay an 8% fee?  None that I know. And don’t count on a raise from your employers’ “windfall” just yet, as it will not quite cover the cost of all the other tax increases levied on businesses this year.  Maybe we can just deem them paid.        

Still the President insists you will keep your employer-provided insurance and will not have to change doctors.  Unfortunately, he is not your doctor or your employer, and can only fulfill that promise by putting a lot of guns to a lot of heads.     

Advocates for socialized medicine claim this Bill will increase coverage, expand benefits, reduce costs, lower the deficit, expand choice, leave your current plan unchanged, and give you a raise.       

That would be math reform, not health care reform. 

 

  

Tim Nerenz is the Libertarian Party Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives from Wisconsin's 2nd District. To support Dr. Tim's campaign, please visit the campaign website at www.timnerenz.com.

Defending The American Dream

I call it Tooth Fairy Government – they take your quarter, stick it under their kids’ pillows, and make believe the world is 25 cents richer. 

Now, the only people who believe in the tooth fairy are young children and old socialists.  We should love our children, and we should love our socialists, but we should not let either of them run the country.

Like most of you, I did not set out to be a radical. Like most of you, this is my first crack at being an activist.  Like most of you, my American Dream did not have a scene with me standing in front of thousands of people fighting to take our country back.    

But then I never thought I would be living in a NASCAR republic. A NASCAR republic is where every time you look up the leaders of the pack just took another hard left turn and crashed us into the wall.       

A half century of those left turns have made us the radicals now, and all we did was stand firm in one place.

A place where government is limited and liberty is not; a place where government needs our permission to act, not the other way around; a place where Government is our servant, not our master.  A place where we own the mansion and government is our Cabana Boy.  

And our Cabana Boy has a job description; it is called the Constitution.  The black ink tells Cabana Boy what he can do; and the white space belongs to us.  Problem is, our Cabana Boy doesn’t read. 

Our Cabana Boy forgot which of us is the servant, and which is the master.  Our Cabana Boy tells us what we can and can’t do.  Our Cabana Boy tells us how much of our own money he will let us keep. Our Cabana Boy steals from our children and our grandchildren.

So what do we do with a Cabana Boy who does not know his place?  We fire him, that’s what.  And that is exactly what we should do this November – sack the whole miserable mess of them and start over.

Start over with people who have read the Constitution; who know the difference between the black ink and the white space.   People who will represent, not rule.  People who understand it is not their money.

People who are not afraid to be a great nation; not shamed of being better than the others.  The Socialists in Washington think you have too much money, too much energy, too much freedom, too many guns, even too much health care. 

They want you to surrender your liberty so they can run everything, just like they do over in Europe.  We are here today to stop them.  This isn’t a partisan event.  We are not the Party of No.  We are the Party of Hell No!

Do you want to give them your money?  Do you want to give them your guns?  Do you want to give them your health care, your energy, your Liberty?  I say Hell No!

Europe is all we hear about these days – Europe has high speed rail, Europe has cap and trade, Europe has national industries, Europe has unions, Europe has government health care, Europe has VAT tax.  Europe, Europe, Europe. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.

Let me tell you something:  Europe sucks.

They make 20% less than we do.  They pay double the taxes we do.  They’re unemployment rate is twice as high as ours.  They live in tiny little apartments; they drive tiny little cars, and they ride little bikes with little baskets on them.  They wear tiny little glasses and tiny little speedos.  They still pay attention to Al Gore.

 

And we are supposed to give up our American Dream for that?  Why? Because they live longer than us?   That’s not living.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t care how old they are in Belgium.  I would rather live free for 79 years than be a slave to the state for 81. 

Thank you for caring enough to join me here today.

This is the text of Dr. Tim’s speech at AFP’s 3^rd annual Defending the American Dream Summit in Wisconsin Dells on March 13, 2010.  To learn about Tim’s campaign, visit our website www.timnerenz.com

FLIP

It is easy to remember the acronym FLIP: Free trade, Limited government, Individual Liberty, and Private property.      

The libertarian political philosophy is adequately explained using just these four basic principles.  And working the acronym FLIP backwards from right to left, each one builds upon the other in sequence.  

You alone are the owner of your person and the fruits of your labor – that is private property. 

You alone are entitled to dispose of your person and property as you see fit – that is individual liberty. 

The only just purpose of government is to protect your rights to life, liberty, and property - that is limited government. 

And the only just transaction between free sovereign persons is voluntary exchange – that is free trade.

Is there any moral alternative?  Does someone else own your person and the fruits of your labor?  Does someone else have the right to dispose of your person and property?  Should the government have the power to set its own limits?  Should someone else hold veto power over your voluntary exchange?

Of course not; yet those are exactly the tenets of the socialist progressive ideology which has transformed our politics over the past century.  Government no longer exists to protect the rights of individuals; rather to impose the will of the majority political Party upon all citizens.  The language of liberty has been corrupted; its meanings twisted to fit opposite aims.       

Trade is not free when it is controlled by the government through regulation, licensure, subsidy, preference, prohibition, monopoly, tariff, quota, and taxation.

A government is not limited that ignores the Constitution, seizes half of the nation’s output and spends it to manipulate markets, change foreign regimes, redistribute earnings, harass citizens, and prosecute victimless crimes.

Individual liberty does not exist when government tells us what we can eat, drink, smoke, wear, own, shoot, say, buy, sell, rent, drive, read, see, teach, display, hear, and earn.

Property is not private when the government can devalue it, confiscate it, assert a public right to it, transfer it to others by decree, and prohibit its voluntary exchange. 

You have heard me say it many times; things are not so complicated when you know what you believe.  And what do you believe - do you believe that you alone are the rightful owner of your person and property?  Do you believe that government should protect your rights, and be constrained from imposing the beliefs of others upon you?  Are you a FLIP person?

If so, then ask yourself this question: which political Party has stood resolute in defense of these four principles – Free Trade, Limited Government, Individual Liberty, and Private Property?  Which Party has refused to compromise these principles in the face of political expediency, majority opposition, media ridicule, and national crisis?

We Libertarians hope that you will find us to be that Party – the Party of Principle, just as we say we are.  We hope you will join us, vote for our candidates, work in our campaigns, come to our events, donate to our cause, and help us to fight for the principles you believe in - FLIP.  

We will respect your decision gratefully or gracefully, as the case may be.  Because our purpose is not to convince you to change your principles; it is to provide you the opportunity to vote for them.     

 

   

Tim Nerenz is the Libertarian Party Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives from Wisconsin's 2nd District. To support Dr. Tim's campaign, please visit the campaign website at www.timnerenz.com.