Peace Out

This will be the last Moment of Clarity column for some time.  I have no idea how long it will be before I write another column; I will write it when I write it.  That is the entirety of the plan.

For the moment, I have said everything I wish to say about economics, politics, business, government, candidates, parties, socialism, capitalism, and the virtue of living free.   

My reasons for taking a break are personal – there are a lot of other things that must get done, and I have no desire to risk either redundancy or irrelevance.      

There are no words to express my gratitude to the readers and fans of MOC – you are the best.  I have learned more from you than you could possibly know, and it is the great privilege of my life to number you among my finest friends.  

This is not a farewell message, just an explanation so you do not wonder if I was abducted by space aliens or silenced by the government.  I'll be back.     

Dr. Tim

Spoiler

Thick skin is a blessing.  My Libertarian friends lose their minds whenever I say something nice about a Republican, and my Republican friends lose their minds whenever I say something nice about a Libertarian.  My Democrat friends do not need a reason. 

I never tell people what to think; I merely try to give them something different to think about and then trust them to reach a conclusion that is right for them.  Here’s what’s right for me these days: the worst possible choice for President in November is Barack Obama – no question about that.  Romney is much better – no question about that.  And Gary Johnson is the best choice – by far, not even close.

No surprise, that.  To borrow a phrase from the original “spoiler” victim, read my lips – I’m a Libertarian.  Capital “L” libertarian, like in member of the Libertarian Party, former member of the executive committee of the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin, and briefly the 2010 Libertarian Party candidate in Wisconsin’s 2^nd Congressional District – “Tim, Not Tammy” might ring a bell.    

Our guy Gary Johnson won’t stand down to ease Romney’s path to victory and no one should expect him to; and I might remind my more frantic knee-jerk reactive Republican buds that you are the ones that drove him out of your Party in the primaries.  He was a Republican running as a Republican until you treated him like dirt, so quit peeing yourself now that you must compete against him.  And get a sedative ready, elephants – I am about to say several nice things about our Libertarian Party presidential candidate Governor Gary Johnson.      

Gary Johnson is 10 times the fiscal conservative that Paul Ryan is and infinitely more fiscally conservative than Romney thinks he is…should be…maybe…or not…today.  Johnson’s budget plan balances the federal budget next year, not next generation.  He will abolish the IRS and hundreds of other agencies and departments that my rowdy conservative pals rail against daily.  He won’t tell other nations what to do, he won’t tell you what to do, and doesn’t mind you keeping your money, your guns, or your stash.          

In business we have a saying: the main thing is the main thing.  Sovereign debt is the existential threat to our nation and too much spending is the cause.  Gary Johnson will not trim pennies around the edges of some 10 year fantasy CBO projection; he will gut next year’s budget with a meat axe like Vlad the Impaler.  

He is opposed to wars that are not declared by Congress, just like it says in the Constitution we all claim to love so dearly.  He vetoed over 700 bills when he was Governor of New Mexico; how many did Romney kill when he had a chance?  Johnson was elected and then re-elected in that overwhelmingly Democrat state.  To do that, you must siphon off a boatload of Democrat votes away from their guy.  Hint…hint…hint.  

He will end the insane war on drugs.  If that makes him a lunatic, then save me a seat on the fringe.  And you can add such doofi (plural of doofus) as Milton Friedman, George Will, William F. Buckley, and Barry Goldwater to the list of us presumptively naïve dumb-ass must-be-stoners who fail to recognize the wisdom of packing our prisons with inner city dads and slaughtering Mexicans on money borrowed from the Chinese while the terminally ill are denied effective pain management.  Fast and Furious – there’s your war on drugs.        

Use your head, people.  There are millions of reasonably sane Democrats who do not want to vote for Act II of Obama’s economic suicide mission that would never, ever, ever vote for Romney…ever.  Having Johnson on the ballot in all 50 states gives them somewhere else to go besides the O.  Don’t listen to “spoiler” talk from the dipsticks that ran McCain’s losing campaign or the dipsticks running Romney’s campaign who lost to McCain’s dipsticks last time.  And don’t believe the polls, either – they said Walker/Barrett was a toss-up, if you recall.  Remember who called it?  There you go.   

So let’s cut to the chase and talk about why conservatives get the vapors over us libertarians - abortion.  Every time some Republican spam-bomb calls Johnson “pro-abortion” it reminds me why I left the Party years ago.  If I want a daily dose of mindless bullsnot, I’ll subscribe to the Debbie Whazzername-Shultz channel on YouTube.  Put aside the sloganeering for a minute and let’s get down to the nubs.         

Did you know Johnson would overturn Roe v Wade?  Has your boy Romney come out and said that without equivocation?  Did you know Johnson opposes any government funding of abortion and opposes all abortions from the moment of viability without exception?  Did you know he would allow each state to decide when that moment of viability is and decide the criminal penalties for killing viable babies?  Did you know that he supports parental notification for minors seeking abortions? 

States’ rights, nullification, parental rights, balanced budget, enumerated powers...why is it suddenly scary when someone walks the talk?             

Ross Perot and the Reform Party did not cost George Bush the Elder his presidency; George Bush the Elder did that.  He blew a 90% favorable approval rating by not bringing our victorious troops home after defeating Iraq, raising taxes and inducing a recession, and greatly expanding government’s regulatory reach. His would be remembered as the most inept campaign ever had John McCain not come along to set the new world record for incompetence in 2008. 

That 2008 Republican primary introduced the world to libertarian Ron Paul and gave us a glimpse at the energy and enthusiasm of the grass roots liberty movement to come.  Instead of embracing a new generation of amped-up Constitutional freedom fighters, the Republican Party establishment, in their infinite wisdom, ridiculed Paul and disrespected his supporters - and it cost them the 2008 election.  In the school of hard knocks where we learn from our mistakes, it appears that some children were left behind over at RNC Headquarters.     

But that smoldering grass-roots liberty movement did not go away; it ignited by spontaneous combustion a year later when the Tea Party gathered up the coalition of the willing and started the job of cleaning house in 2010 that will take its next great leap forward this fall.  I’m proud to have been a little part of it – the Tea Party unites conservatives, libertarians, constitutionalists, independents, patriots, and free-thinkers of all stripes and it scares the living hell out of careerists and statists in both parties.  Stay scared, Republocrats - you do your best work when terrified of the people.

Thinking in binary terms blinds us to the reality that one third of the electorate is now independent.  I believe a large number of these non-aligned voters have libertarian leanings – the libertarian caricature “economic conservative and socially neutral” describes a wide swath of the cadre of non-obsessed casual voters. 

Republicans are not going to win over the non-aligned by screaming “spoiler” and calling us juveniles or idiots if we don’t obey your orders to shut up and vote for your ticket.  Ask our parents if that worked on us as children; rebels don’t turn into sheep just because we added a few decades of rings to our tree. 

If the GOP convention adopts some libertarian-friendly platform planks that don’t conflict with conservative goals – audit the Fed is a no-brainer - the GOP can attract all the votes it needs to win without resorting to name-calling or bullying.  Libertarians oppose force and fraud on principle; try a little persuasion or (gasp) compromise. 

I can list a dozen issues where conservatives and libertarians are on the same page; surely the RNC can find two or three to reach out if they care to.  And if they don’t care to, then don’t bitch about the consequences.  We’re not going to boil bunnies on your stove, but we will not be ignored, Dan. 

To be fair, the Libertarian Party goes brain-dead at times, too.  Putting out an official release bragging that Johnson can throw the election to Obama (to teach Republicans a lesson) was as stupid as Republicans not inviting Ron Paul to speak at their convention.  Polling at 5% is not exactly taunting material, and gloating over spoiling an election for the major party more closely aligned with our platform is the perfect strategy if irrelevance is your ultimate goal.  Our bad.         

Libertarians and “conservatarians” are not stupid.  We understand the calculus of third party voting in close elections; we are forced to make the tough choice between better and best (or worse and worse yet) most every time.  Either is a principled choice - supporting our own Party’s candidate is one worthy principle, and another worthy principle is denying a clueless socialist bent on ruining our country another term to complete the mission.  There – now everybody can rag on me.   

Whatever conclusion is reached by any thoughtful voter is a vote of conscience.  Whatever decision is made by a self-sovereign is worthy of respect in a nation of equals.  The whole purpose of campaigns is to inform the voters and assess the candidates, and the Presidential race does not even begin in earnest until Labor Day. 

This is the most important Presidential election in memory, and there is a lot of time between now and November. Chill out. Consider all of the ramifications of every possible voting outcome from every angle, and then vote your conscience when the day comes.  That is what I plan do.           

“Moment of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment.

Don't Dis' The Wis.

Now it’s official – Wisconsin is the new center of the conservative universe.  You can Mess with Texas again, just don’t Dis’ The Wis.

In case you have been in a coma since 2010, Wisconsin’s red tide has served up Governor Walker, Senator Johnson, Congressmen Duffy and Ribble, a Republican assembly and state senate, Justice Prosser, the Packers’ Superbowl, the summer recall defeats, Brewers’ division champs, Braun MVP, Rogers MVP, Priebus chairman of RNC, Badgers in the Rose Bowl, Miss America, the Walker recall drubbing, and now Paul Ryan picked as Vice President. 

And yes, of course I know that not all of those are political races, but you have to admit that is one impressive string of reasons for the nation to pay attention to Wisconsin.  We’ll never know for sure, but maybe it was Newsweek calling him a wimp that led Romney to come to Wisconsin for a Veep with some stones.    

He came to the right place. Our Governor Walker rides a Harley, our former Governor Thompson hammers out 50 pushups like a teenager, and our new VP-select Paul Ryan proudly poses in camo over trophy bucks he takes down with bow and arrow.  

Contrast those visuals to these disturbing images:  Obama riding his Pee Wee Herman bicycle with a kid’s helmet, throwing baseballs like a girl, and channeling his inner Urkel holding that construction pick like he was allergic to the darn thing.     

Hey, don’t blame me – that was the President’s White House PR machine that put those images in our heads; that was their idea of him being a regular guy.  A regular guy from Illinois, maybe, but you won’t see moves like that in Hayward.     

And it’s not just the boys making noise in the Badger State; there is a cadre of conservative women who are smart, fearless, accomplished, and tough-as-nails.  Some hold elective office, some organize the grass roots, some lead Tea Party events, some inform the public, and all stand up for the things they believe in.  I don’t have space to list them all, but they know who they are and why they matter.

It is fitting that Wisconsin - the state which birthed both the Republican Party and the Progressive movement - will be the state where the former will be saved from itself and the latter will be vanquished into remission.  It’s been “game on” in the Dairy State since the summer of 2009; it is about time the rest of the nation caught on.        

Paul Ryan is not a libertarian, so don’t expect me to heap praise on his policy prescriptions or his ideological bent.  But he is a fine Republican selection for Vice President and a worthy native son to represent Wisconsin to the world.  He is a decent man, and wholly undeserving of the character assassination sure to be hurled his way by the unhinged left.  The hinged left will be barely more civil.      

Ryan’s selection frames the November election as a stark choice between the serious and the unserious, between boldness and blame, between a plan and no plan. 

We recently had one of these campaigns in Wisconsin, and perhaps Governor Walker’s decisive recall victory over the no-plan candidate in a battleground state moved Romney and folks at RNC to double down on guys with plans.  

Romney has published a 59-point plan to move the economy into recovery, and his new VP selection Ryan put out a detailed budget plan to curb federal spending and reform entitlements.  By contrast, the President and his VP have no plan, no clue, and no chance.  I’ll go on a limb – 8 point margin, called in 20 minutes.   

Naturally, I don’t think either the Romney or Ryan plans go nearly far enough to tame government spending and scale back its unconstitutional reach - I like Rand Paul’s plan better and Gary Johnson’s plan much better.  But not far enough in the right direction is a whole lot better than any distance in the wrong direction.      

For the 95% of Americans who will not vote for my Libertarian Party this November, the choice between Romney/Ryan and Obama/Biden is easy – it is opportunity versus entitlement.  Pick your side.    

Both Romney and Ryan can articulate the virtues of free enterprise and the principles of liberty and self-sovereignty upon which this nation was founded; they can do this well because they believe in those traditional American ideals and values.  They will be running against a team that does not, and no amount of negative ads can hide that fact.   

Once in office, Romney and Ryan will surely disappoint us when they fail to live up to our expectations – that is the nature of politics.  But falling short of high expectations would be a relief after four years of blowing it on low ones. 

While it is true that the lesser of two evils is still evil, it is also true that less evil is better than a lot more evil.  Paul Ryan is going to make the choice clear, and he is going to make Joe Biden look like a buffoon in the debate.

I have only one piece of advice for Mr. Biden: Don’t Dis’ The Wis.    

“Moment of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment.

Free From What?

The argument for free enterprise is won at “free”.  And the thing that enterprise must be liberated from is, of course, government.  

When people are free (from government) to produce, own, exchange, store, transport, invest, save, buy, sell, invent, work, and consume in any manner they see fit, the most possible prosperity is delivered to the widest possible number of people in the shortest possible time.  This is the lesson that economic history teaches to those who will observe and learn. 

And it is not difficult to understand why it is so - 310 million distributed brains focused on rational self-interest have a higher aggregated IQ than do a few dozen civil-service central planners whose priorities are more time off and early pension.    

Apologists for central planning may have a different answer for that free-from-what question; probably “greed” or “monopoly” or “corporate predation”.  But monopoly power is a grant from government in nearly every case, and corporate predation can only occur when government paves the way.    

As much as it might like to, the socialists’ evil nemesis Walmart can’t raise prices on a whim – not because there is a government, but because there is a Target.  Meanwhile, the sugar cartel can charge three times world market price because of U.S. government protection. 

Human beings must cooperate to survive; we were organizing ourselves into civil societies and engaging in trade in order to sustain and protect ourselves for tens of thousands of years before there was government as we know it.  Our brains are no larger today than they were 35,000 years ago, and our ancestors’ capacity for learning and innovation was no less potent than ours. 

They did not love their children any less than we do, and yet all of the technology we depend on to save our sick children came into existence in only the last 200 years.  In fact, most of the material things that we find indispensable to modern living were unavailable to all but the last seven or less generations of humans.  Why? What happened to suddenly turn the fight for survival into the pursuit of happiness?        

America happened, with its free enterprise system and its Constitutionally-limited government.  For the first time in history, people owned themselves and the fruits of their labors.  They kept what they produced instead of turning it over to a king, priest, dictator, warlord, tribal chief, colonial governor, general, emperor, commissar, or entire village. 

People who can keep the surplus they produce, produce in surplus; those who can’t, don’t.  The word economists use to describe this phenomenon is “duh”. 

And America would not have happened but for two other seminal events – the Protestant Reformation and the invention of the printing press.  Religious freedom and freedom of speech were the necessary precursors for the establishment of political and economic freedom.  More freedom is good, less freedom is bad and yes, it is really that simple.      

You don’t need a Ph.D. in economics or commerce to test that theory.  Simply look at any of the most miserable and impoverished countries – North Korea will suffice – and run down the list of what else they don’t have besides prosperity: religious freedom, freedom of speech, gun rights, freedom of association, political freedom, economic freedom. 

And then look at the countries whose living standards are rising the fastest – China will suffice – and ask yourself: why there and why now? What changed to lift them out of abject poverty, starvation and oppression?   The government changed, that’s what.  

It rejected central planning and embraced free enterprise; and the results have been nothing short of miraculous.  Since 2000, the United States created roughly 6 million new businesses; the Chinese started an astonishing 43 million. The shift from government enterprise to private enterprise in China has transformed the economy so that 70% of China’s output is now generated in the private sector.  

Free enterprise has raised the average manufacturing wage in China from 58 cents per hour in 2000 to nearly $6 per hour today.  Let’s connect the dots for the UW grads: government lets go of the rope, 43 million new businesses are formed, the economy is 70% liberated, and wages go up 10-fold in a decade.  Get it?    

Meanwhile, our government is tying us up with more rope, business start-ups have slowed to a trickle, government takes a bigger share of GDP each year, and wages (measured in tangible value, like ounces of gold) have plummeted over the last decade.  The Chinese are not kicking our butts; we are sitting on their foot.     

North Korea has roads and schools and free health care and food stamps and public transportation all those other things the “you didn’t build it” crowd thinks made this country great.  So did China when it was wasting two generations on a failed system that relies on someone else to “make that happen.”   What happened is that tens of millions of people starved to death and millions more were killed for complaining about it.       

China is not perfect, but it is better in every way since government started to let go of the rope.  If you melted down all the Olympic medals won by China during their communist years, you couldn’t make a bicycle.  This summer they will carry home more gold than is probably left in Ft. Knox.            

The Olympic Games remind us that choice and competition make us all better – and the Games also remind us why “equality of outcome” makes us all worse.  Michael Phelps has way too many medals; nobody really needs that many, so by modern liberal standards he is a greedy and selfish bastard who should be occupied. 

And I don’t have any gold medals, so how do we spread Mr. Phelps’ wealth around to me?  You could pass a hundred laws and a thousand executive orders that say I swim as fast as Michael Phelps and it would not make it so.  The only way that we could achieve equality of outcome – the only way - is to force Michael Phelps to slow down.        

That is what socialism does to our most productive wealth-generators.  And slowing them down does not make the less productive more productive, it just makes them feel better about their lack of productivity.  It gives the envious a temporary reprieve from their jealous tantrums while they look around for something else to covet.    

Free enterprise doesn’t care who wins and by how much.  It lets each of us discover how high is up for us.  And when our enterprise is free from government, most of us discover that up is a lot higher than we could have ever possibly imagined.   

When we liberate ourselves, we learn that the only real disadvantage we ever had were the people who told us we couldn’t compete, couldn’t win, and shouldn’t try.   Don’t listen to the slow swimmers and those who covet. 

Liberate yourself instead; you will be glad you did.

 

“Moment of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment.

Conservatarian

Here is the difference: a political party is a label you wear on the outside, and a political philosophy is a label you wear on the inside.  One is what you join, and one is who you are. 

Democrats suffer from some peculiar form of self-loathing which prevents them from describing themselves as “liberals”, even though they are; and they recoil at the term “socialist” despite it accurately describing their agenda.    

And Republicans have no difficulty whatsoever in proclaiming themselves to be “conservatives” and “capitalists”; in fact they boast about it.  Their dysfunction comes later when it is time to actually do something conservative or capitalist. 

It is no surprise that a full third of the American electorate now self-identifies as independent.  The conventional wisdom holds that we independents can’t decide if we are liberal or conservative and end up stuck somewhere in the middle.

While it might be that some people find it hard to decide which party to vote for, it is hard to believe there are many people who can’t decide who they are.  In fact, I don’t know anyone who can’t decide if they are liberal or conservative - do you?       

It is fitting that mixing red and blue produces the color of a bruise.  A quarter century of pandering politicians “moving to the middle” has delivered to us the worst of both worlds – a permanent welfare/warfare state that is bankrupting us both economically and morally.     

However, there is a different and more important middle; and that is the space between conservative and libertarian on the continuum.  Let’s call it conservatarian.  Many thousands of readers of this column aren’t certain if they are conservative libertarians or libertarian-leaning conservatives.  This conservatarian middle is what wins elections these days - need convincing?   

Conservatarian is the space claimed by the Tea Party that sent a record number of reformers to Washington, D.C. and state capitols around the nation in 2010. 

Conservatarian is the gravitational pull that compelled even establishment RINO’s to vote to audit the Federal Reserve. 

Conservatarian is the energy that made Ron Paul the last man standing against Romney when all the others fell by the wayside. 

Conservatarians are the reason Wisconsin’s Governor is named Walker.  

Some people can’t see past the things that divide libertarians and conservatives; and there are indeed enough to warrant the two different nameplates.  But I prefer to focus on the things that unite us, because when we are united we win elections. 

And when we win elections we at least give ourselves a chance to restore liberty as our nation’s first principle instead of just writing about how nice it would be to live free again someday.        

Polling has shown that Americans, by a 2:1 margin, want less government, not more.  Less government is the bedrock conservatarian ideal – we are the 2 and liberals are the 1.  While libertarians and conservatives may differ about how much less, we both want a whole lot less of the stuff than we have now.     

Free trade, individual liberty, sound money, school choice, lower taxes, a fairer tax system, family sovereignty, gun rights, religious freedom, Constitutionally limited government, tenth amendment, property rights – conservatarians are united in support of these things.   

The welfare state, warrantless seizure, world government, crony corporatism, nationalized industry, nanny-statism, vote-rigging, corruption, excessive regulation, sovereign debt, central banking, “nation-building”, bailouts, TSA, and forced unionization – conservatarians are united in opposition to these things.

President Ronald Reagan ran twice as a conservatarian, extolling the virtues of freedom and American exceptionalism while railing against government.  He did not hide his libertarian leanings when appealing to conservatives, and he did not disguise his conservative values when appealing to libertarians.  You may recall that he pummeled the liberal establishment…twice.  

That liberal establishment is in decline; but for its iron grip on a shamelessly tanked media, progressivism would have long ago joined utopianism and communism into the “nice try” category of epic fails that sounded good but delivered misery.   

My liberal friends will naturally dispute that claim, conveniently ignoring the fact that the states in the most desperate fiscal condition are the bluest and cities closest to implosion are the ones with the longest history of one-party rule.  Hint: it is not the Libertarian Party. 

Their excuses for why their political philosophy has not worked all boil down to “you did not give us enough of your money”.   Right…and the reason my bacon diet did not work is that you did not give me enough of your bacon.  

Conservatives who fear that we libertarians are some kind of mutant libertine/anarchist hybrid from a different galaxy should take a good look at Governor Gary Johnson’s record in New Mexico.  If vetoing bills were an Olympic sport, he would need three more necks just to hold all the medals.    

Or better yet, look at his campaign platform – he is our Libertarian Party candidate for President – and tell me specifically where the presumptive GOP nominee has a more conservative position.  Here is an appetizer to pique your interest:  Johnson would overturn Roe v Wade. 

Every election brings up the specter of the 3^rd party “spoiler”. Listen, if every single conservatarian – conservative, libertarian, and “tweener” – goes out and votes their conscience, then President Obama will be crushed.   

Whether it is 70-30 or 60-30-10 does not change the mandate.  In fact, a strong Libertarian Party showing across the country would help keep the shallow-rudder GOP from drifting once they get back in power.

So what about you?  Can’t decide if you are a libertarian conservative or a conservative libertarian?  Don’t worry – just call yourself a conservatarian and let the political parties join you.      

“Moment of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment.