Press Releases

I have decided to end my bid for Nevada's 3rd CD and support Republican Party candidate Joe Heck.  You can read my statement by clicking here.  Please go to Dr. Heck's site and donate to his campaign.

I will continue to blog about the CD3 race and the issues of our day, and so I ask you to continue to visit this site.  I have a few other links to share with you where you can follow me.  The first (for now) is this one (i.e., VoteAnderson.com).  The second is my YouTube channel.  (BTW, I am proud to point out that as of right now I have 391 subscribers to my YouTube channel, which is more than most members of Congress.)  I also have a site dedicated to military/veterans' issues, but I am working on changing over to a new host.  I will also be launching a commodities trader news & information site, and maybe get into advising clients on asset allocation.  That site will be at LibertyEconomics.com (under construction).

On a peripheral note, at some point I was going to update this site's header by adding a professional photograph of myself on the left-hand side.  I have been so busy that I never got around to getting a professional photograph taken.  In fact, I think the last professional photograph taken of me was while I was in the Marine Corps.  Also, I still plan on finishing off my statement on each of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights.  The jury system, for example, is a very important firewall in the defense of liberty.  Some of the more abstract clauses in the Constitution have been morphed into excuses for a do-everything federal government.  But that interpretation only renders the Tenth Amendment meaningless.

As a champion of the Constitution and a Congressional candidate who is interested in protecting the liberties of Nevadans, as well as all Americans, I call for the U.S. government to drop all charges against Robert Kahre.

Robert Kahre was a self-made businessman in Nevada who paid his employees with gold bullion. For paying his employees with honest money - instead of in dollars which politicians are debasing, which destroys the hard-earned savings of workers - Mr. Kahre was criminally charged and could serve several years behind bars as a political prisoner.

As a candidate for Congress, I find it to be unconscionable that the government has, effectively, made it illegal for you and I to exchange our labor for gold (i.e., work for gold), forcing us to work for a currency which that same government is working hard at destroying. What is next for the government to target? Barter clubs?

If it is a politically-connected firm or institution, such as AIG, not only can it not be a net taxpayer, it can be a net tax consumer. In fact, the very prosecutors who are prosecuting the case against Kahre are themselves non-taxpayers, since they are tax consumers (i.e., paid out of revenue derived from taxation). I call for the tax consuming criminal government to promptly dismiss all charges against Robert Kahre.

As one who plans on pursuing a seat for the U.S. Congress in the 2010 elections, I would like to alert Nevadans about the dangers of H.R. 2159 and H.R. 2401, as well as go on the record with my unequivocal opposition to these bills.  Although H.R. 2401 is easier to understand, on a peripheral note I would like to point out that - like the USA PATRIOT Act - these bills are not designed to be read like reading a book.  In order to read these pieces of legislation - as is the case with most pieces of legislation - you must juxtapose the bills with a copy of Black's Law Dictionary and the U.S. Code. 

On the surface, the bills sound good.  Who could disagree with keeping firearms out of the hands of terrorists?   But there are a plurality of problems with legislation designed to summarily revoke particular rights.  H.R. 2401  merges the "No-Fly" list with a "No-Gun-Buy" list.  I am going to cover a few points and present a few questions which we should all reflect on.  The danger of the government running contra-legem lists, used to deprive people of their rights, is something that should have been considered - as I did - before things like the "No-Fly" list were created in the first place.

1) The "No-Fly" list was established to supposedly prevent terrorists from boarding flights.  Sounded great.  But then we found out that people such as Senator Ted Kennedy and Congressman John Lewis both ended up on the list, as well as over 700,000 other names.  This shouldn't have surprised anybody.  Why would known or suspected terrorists be told that they can't board flights?  Shouldn't a known or suspected terrorist be apprehended?  It is self-evident that the "No-Fly" list was never intended for real terrorists, but for political opponents, people who are delinquent on taxes, and so forth. The "No-Fly" list is nothing but travel restrictions aimed at the American people. Travel restrictions are the hallmark of repressive regimes. When I was growing up during the 1980s, I remember how we were taught about how bad the Soviet government was, because Soviet citizens weren't allowed to travel freely like we could in the free Western world. So much for that.

2) There have been a plurality of government reports that have been leaked that amalgamated peaceful political views with the profile of a potential terrorist.  H.R. 2159 gives the Attorney General the power to arbitrarily revoke the Second Amendment rights of somebody who is suspected as having the potential to engage in terrorism.  Pursuant to the language used, this means the pool of suspects consists of the entire U.S. population.

3) Does the government have the power to arbitrarily confiscate the "Second Amendment rights" of non-Americans, i.e., people who aren't even citizens of this Constitutional republic, and thus never had the right to begin with?  How can this legislation be aimed at anybody other than Americans?  This kind of legislation deprives people of their rights without due process of law. 

4) If we are to take these "no-this" and "no-that" lists to their logical conclusion, why not create one for every activity? Obviously, a terrorist shouldn't be on a plane, nor buying a gun. But should a terrorist be out shopping at Macy's? Or schmoozing it up at the local pub? Or watching television? Or on the internet? Need I take this reductio ad absurdum any farther? If somebody is a terrorist, their right to buy guns and travel freely can be, and should already be, eliminated by bringing that person to justice.  This legislation is not only not necessary, but dangerous.  Not only should the "No-Fly" list not be expanded to cover gun purchases, it should be eliminated altogether, since the contra-legem imposition of travel restrictions is just as dangerous.

5) If gun bans could prevent terrorists from obtaining the tools of their "trade," why not impose a complete gun ban? Obviously, that is silly. Just as common criminals continue to get guns, terrorists will continue to get [guns?] RPGs and so forth. In fact, the best way to prevent terrorism is to guarantee Second Amendment rights of Americans. A disarmed population is the most vulnerable.

See the video of then-Congressman Rahm Emanuel expressing support for expanding the "No-Fly" list into a "No-Gun-Buy" list:

If Democrats truly want the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan to end, then Democrats who live in Nevada's 3rd Congressional District should re-register as Republicans and support my candidacy.  Of course, Republicans should support me as well.  If my fellow Republicans recognize that President Bush's economic policies were not conservative, why should they believe his foreign policy was?  As a Republican since I was in high school (see picture below), even I recognized that a policy of promiscuous foreign intervention is not a conservative policy.  President Bush's foreign policy was crafted by the neoconservatives, who came out of the far left wing of the Democratic Party.

Certificate from the GOP received 1994, while I was still in high school.  I only post this to demonstrate to my fellow Republicans that I am not coming out of "nowhere" - nor am I some "military-hating lefty" (I served on active duty in the Marine Corps infantry) - to pursue the Republican Party nomination for self-serving, political interests.  My credentials as a supporter of Republican candidates goes back years. 

 Why should Democrats support me for Congress?  Because the Democrats in Congress have no intention of ending the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan.  Several months ago, Speaker Pelosi explicitly said that the United States will have a "Korean-like presence in perpetuity" in Iraq (she says it at about 6:30 into this video).  That should have came as no surprise to anybody, since the Democrats did vote to appropriate the funding for the largest U.S. embassy in the world to be built in Iraq.  

Does anybody even remember that?  I kept this newspaper copy precisely because I knew when I first read that we would be able to look back years from then and see what a lie it was.

It is important to understand that the contrast between the leadership of the Democratic and Republican parties is purposefully embellished in order to create a fiction of choice.  Neither major party has an interest in admitting that it is not much different than the other.  If Democrats admitted that they agreed with a foreign policy of intervention, they would give rank-and-file Democrats little compelling reason to vote for them.  If Republicans admitted that they agreed with big spending (domestically or on foreign policy), they would give rank-and-file Republicans little compelling reason to vote for them.

The parlance used by both sides is designed to crossdress positions and issues, to camouflage the agenda.  When the Democrats took control of the House and Senate a few years ago, I immediately detected that the Democrats had no intention of ending the wars.  I wrote about this in 2007, with this commentary: Withdrawal Hoax.  I wrote a follow-up commentary shortly after: Defusing opposition through misdirection.  How did I detect this?  The arguments used exposed the faux debate Democrats and Republicans were having.

The Democrats' defense was that they didn't have sixty votes in the Senate.  Gentle reader, if you understood what that meant, you would have known that it wasn't that they couldn't end the war, but that they wouldn't end the war.  That exact sentiment was echoed with this salient commentary and this one.   

The beauty about our Constitution is that it has embedded within itself a plurality of checks on tyranny.  Whether it be the enumerated powers of the President to veto legislation, the House to override the veto, the jury system, or the long-established Senate rules that allow the filibuster, they are all important checks on power.  The beauty of our system is that it was designed so that nominal minorities could stop an agenda from being steamrolled.

It takes one Senator to start a filibuster.  It takes forty-one Senators to sustain a filibuster, since sixty Senators can invoke cloture.  So, it may have been true that if Republicans all voted together, then the Republicans could have blocked legislation.  But the Democrats' argument implied that they needed a supermajority - i.e., a veto-proof majority in the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate - in order to stop the war.  That was and is a lie.  (Not only that, but supermajorities are dangerous.) The argument rested on the fallacy that the executive is entitled to all of the money it wants for anything.   

When it comes to war, the issue is funding.  The way to have the government stop doing something is for the Congress, which has the real power since it has the power of the purse, to cut off the funding, i.e., blocking legislation.  If nominal minorities can block legislation, as the Democrats even conceded, and the Republicans had the numbers to block legislation, then certainly the Democrats could have blocked any legislation they wanted, including the war funding.  But the Democrats and Republicans never debated war funding.  It was all Shakespearean theater.  Instead, they presented us with a fake debate between which war funding bill we would get - a "clean" one, or one with non-binding calls for pseudo-withdrawals.

President Barack Obama and former Senator Hillary Clinton voted for all of the war funding supplemental appropriations bills, as did most of the Democrats.  President Barack Obama voted to re-authorize the USA PATRIOT Act, and for many other draconian pieces of legislation that came out of the Bush White House. 

The Democrats now have a supermajority, a completely homogeneous government, and the wars are not only not being brought to an end, but are creeping into other countries such as Pakistan.  We are involved in nation-building on the other side of the globe, while our economy is going broke.  There is no finite enemy to destroy.  It is war on a tactic.  It would be like trying to wage war on sin.  With no clear objective, this is a calculus for never-ending wars and financial ruin.

As a former Marine who spent a year on Okinawa, and also having done some training in Korea, I would also propose that it is time we cut back on this spending orgy by starting with these bases all over the world.  Why should Americans be the first to die if other countries get attacked?  Why can't South Korea defend herself?  Why don't we let the Japanese do the same?

If you are tired of the ongoing bipartisan sellout of our liberties and the continued wars that are bankrupting this country, then I am the candidate you should support.  If you are tired of the sliding withdrawal dates given for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, then I am your candidate.  Republicans, the only way to truly oppose the policies of Clinton & Obama is to run from the Bush-Cheney neoconservative legacy of big government at home and interventionism abroad.  Democrats, the only way to truly oppose the policies of neoconservative Republicans and stop the war is to vote against Democrats.  Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, if you are interested in liberty and peace, then I am your candidate.

With the economy in critical condition, the last thing we need is for politicians to obfuscate the nature of the crisis, scapegoating the free market, and providing us with more false choices.  In President Barack Obama's address to graduating ASU students, he discouraged them from pursuing profits and encouraged them to do volunteer work.  On the surface, it all sounds so good.

Personally, I believe volunteerism and charity are both noble.  People should come to the assistance of others, especially in times of need.  But, at the same time, this requires no federal legislation, such as the GIVE Act.  In fact, the best way to encourage volunteerism and charity is to create an economic climate that encourages production and profits.  There can be no charity without capital.  For politicians to say that they support volunteerism and charity, while simultaneously supporting policies that are destroying the economic foundation of the country, is akin to putting the cart before the horse.  If we become a nation of non-producers, dependents, and paupers, where does the charity come from?

With the economic crisis being blamed on everything but central economic planning, it is no wonder that people are confused and politicians have been able to use this as an opportunity to exploit these troubled times for their own personal gain.  Make no mistake about this: the Republicans, under the leadership of former President Bush, did not kill the economy with too much laissez-faire.  The key to Republican success in the future will come from acknowledging that fact, and then running from President Bush's legacy of false prosperity, as opposed to claiming credit for it.

When President Bush first got into office, annual federal expenditures were around $1.8 trillion, not even counting off-budget outlays.  By the time President Bush left office, federal expenditures exceeded $3 trillion, not even counting off-budget outlays.  That is hardly "free market conservatism."

There is nothing wrong with profit-seeking, per se.  Not all profits are bad.  So long as profits are earned on the free market, they are good and necessary for a growing economy.  Within the construct of the unhampered free market, the only way to obtain profits is to earn them through productivity, i.e., conferring a social benefit.  The late philosopher Franz Oppenheimer referred to that as the "economic means" to obtain profits.  The government, however, distorts this process.  That is because the government does not sustain itself by satisfying consumer demands, but through compulsory taxation, i.e., the threat of violence or actual violence. (That is why problems inhere in everything the government touches.)  Oppenheimer referred to that as the "political means" to obtain profits.  Thus to the extent that businesses are dependent upon the government for survival - e.g., military contractors - then they, too, do not have to satisfy consumer demands - i.e., be productive  - for sustenance.   That does not represent free market capitalism.  Please, politicians, don't attack the genuine free market by erecting your own crony capitalism straw man.

While many on the left reject big business and big capital, many simultaneously embrace big government.  But it is government power that big capital uses to manipulate the market in its favor.  Why can I not think of a single libertarian billionaire?  (Ross Perot was not and is not a libertarian.)  If big capital was so in favor of unbridled free markets, then I should be having money pour into my campaign for Congress.

How can there be charity without productivity and profit-seeking enterprise?  Why is it considered to be more noble and virtuous for a so-called non profit to sustain itself through the altruistic charitable contributions of others than it is for businesses, producing things on the free market, to engage in mutually-beneficial and voluntary exchange? 

How can there be job growth without profits?  If we were to sit 100 businessmen and businesswomen down in a room and ask them if they could hire more people, i.e., create jobs, without profits - i.e., operating at losses - I am sure the unanimous response would be "No!"  How can politicians claim to support higher wages for everybody and job growth while simultaneously attacking profit-seeking?

As Ludwig von Mises and Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk saliently articulated, labor can't increase its share at the expense of capital.  Nobody can argue against capital without arguing for a reduction in their own standard of living.  Thus the problem for the left should not be with capital, per se, but that capital is so inaccessible to the common person. 

Why is capital so inaccessible to the common person?  This is because every tax, every regulation, and every government program begets capital consumption, making capital artificially scarce, and thus drives up the cost of capital.  Politicians love this, because they get more power.  Big business loves this, because this creates barriers to competition.  Big capital uses big government to control capital, in order to drive up its cost.

In fact, one way big business drives up the cost of capital is through another policy which those on the left support: minimum wage law.  Where is the logical consistency in telling people to go do volunteer work, while simultaneously supporting minimum wage law? 

Many people believe that the government can, by fiat, raise wages. The government can no more raise wages through minimum wage law than it can create prosperity by outlawing poverty. Real wages can only be increased through increased productivity. Creating a minimum wage does nothing to create a job. By creating a minimum wage, many productive jobs are eliminated. The effect is to create idleness, thus diminishing real wages.

Many people - both for and against minimum wage law - construct their arguments based upon the fallacy that raising the minimum wage will be inconsequential, since most people get paid over minimum wage. Proponents of minimum wage laws believe government interference with the market isn't injurious, resulting in the belief that minimum wage is inconsequential - save to make everybody more prosperous. Many opponents argue that the minimum wage need not be increased, because they believe it to be entirely inconsequential. This is a myopic view, which only sees that which exists, but not that which doesn't exist thanks to minimum wage.

It is state power that the wealthy elites use to manipulate the market on their behalf. Minimum wage is a good example of a fascist regulation which benefits the wealthy elites. Minimum wage ensures that only the very wealthy can become employers. How is one who gets $10 per hour to hire somebody for more than half of their own wage? These are the jobs that don't exist, which make up the hidden costs that can't be calculated. It may be true that by the time the government gets done regulating the economy, those who are still left with jobs may have higher nominal wages. However, due to the people who are now without productive jobs, real wages will be much lower.

A good way to illustrate how minimum wage laws help the wealthy elites control the poor is to look at political campaigns. Many politicians rely upon volunteer labor for their campaigns. Suppose politicians learned how to do proper math, and then realized that volunteer workers get paid less than minimum wage. And then, seeing that paradox, those politicians decided to close up the "volunteer work loophole." What would this do to the poorer candidates who couldn't afford to pay all of their campaign volunteers? Who would be left to run for office then?

Seriously. Tell me if my math is wrong here, but don't people get paid less than minimum wage when they do volunteer work? Isn't zero less than minimum wage? If there should be a minimum wage, then shouldn't volunteer work be criminalized? Is this not at least a slight paradox? It seems to me that being in favor of minimum wage law and volunteerism at the same time is schizophrenic. Yet, it isn't unusual to see politicians promoting state-sanctioned volunteerism, seeking the help of campaign volunteers, but advocating increases in the minimum wage at the same time.

I could also make the argument that all forms of charity should be curtailed. What is the objective difference between working for less than minimum wage and giving away so much of your wages that you end up with less than minimum wage? There is nothing to prevent people from giving away their wages. If we are to take central planning to its own logical conclusion, then there should be laws to determine how much of your wages you are allowed to donate to charity.

And you thought those immigrants were "driving down wages" with cheap labor. What about the cheaper-than-dirt, free labor provided by volunteer workers? You now have to compete against people who are willing to work for free. The "evil" of volunteerism surpasses that of the immigrants. If only volunteers would get their heads together, unionize, stop working for free, and demand some pay. Come to think of it, home-cooked meals must be doing all sorts of "damage" to culinary workers. Maybe we should outlaw homemade meals.

Sadly, while what I am saying is self-evidently true, I find that minimum wage proponents like to play ignorant when I explain the minimum wage/volunteerism paradox. They lose their ability to engage in abstract thinking, by repeating the truism that volunteer work is volunteer work, but the job you get paid for isn't. That is my entire point. It is as if they suddenly forgot that no pay is less than some pay.

This paradox makes perfect sense, but only if you understand that everything the government is pushing for is aimed at holding onto power.

We do need more charity in this country.  But we need real charity.  The politicians don't want us to practice real charity.  If they did, they would be promoting free markets, and would be cutting the government's budget.  Why don't government employees, who get paid by an organization that steals every penny it spends from producers, take pay cuts?  Now if there is one form of volunteerism the government should promote, it should be amongst its own employees.  How can politicians direct and centrally plan private charity and volunteerism?  How can politicians know who should be volunteering for what activity?

The government promotes pseudo-volunteer schemes, which undermines the spirit of charity.  In many cases, the government even promises more government benefits - even though the government can't make good on its promises it has already made, such as to us disabled veterans - to these "volunteers."  Like I mentioned earlier, there is no need for federal legislation in order to promote volunteerism - unless, that is, politicians seek to exploit well-intentioned people for their own political gain.  The idea is to use well-intentioned people to serve their own political interests, creating the illusion that the government is a philanthropic institution.  The process impersonalizes volunteerism and charity.

This push for federally-guided volunteerism is a tacit acknowledgement that the government is incapable of raising wages by legislative decree - that it could was a Marxist dream.  At the same time government grows because politicians are unwilling to cut spending, the rest of us are expected to take pay cuts, working without pay.  Objectively, the Democrats are telling you to embrace poverty and accept a reduction in your standard of living, while the bureaucracy remains intact.  You got that, slave?

It is imperative that the residents of Nevada's 3rd Congressional District, as well as all Americans, understand that we are living through a slow-motion run on real wealth. This is due to the inflationary policies pursued by central banks all over the world, but especially the Federal Reserve.

The United States has been running an unsustainable account deficit for decades. Rather than Washington coming to its senses, the policy pursued has been aimed at trying to conceal the insolvency of our financial system by further undermining savings with more and more inflation (i.e., an expansionary monetary policy). In other words: the supposed solution to insolvency is to become increasingly insolvent.

You will feel the effects of present policy by noticing rising prices in real terms, and also nominal terms. It isn't that anything is becoming more valuable, but that the dollar is becoming less valuable. Gas prices will keep rising, food prices will keep rising.

When you find yourself struggling to buy the basic necessities of life due to the inflation, understand that the problem is completely political. Rising prices are not a feature of a free market. Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. The reason why the Fed is inflating to hold interest rates down is for the sake of the biggest sub-prime borrower of all, i.e., the U.S. government. This is all about politicians wanting to continue the promiscuous spending, not wanting to relinquish a single inch of power.

The message the market is sending is that we can't continue to pay the bills with inflation. Our foreign creditors have accumulated huge amounts of dollar reserves. The dollar-dumping phase has begun, as our creditors are demanding payment in specie. It is important to get out of dollars as fast as possible.

I know not everybody can afford gold bullion. But there are other measures that can be taken to protect yourself. I believe silver bullion is still relatively very cheap. You can get yourself water filters, storable food supplies, storable seeds, etc. The idea is to obtain things with intrinsic value.

I do not recommend buying equities, bonds, nor anything that is denominated in dollars. Inflation, which engenders pseudo-rates-of-return, is not equities-friendly. The fact of the matter is that we have been in a bear market for the last decade. The stock market never went up in real terms. The gains were strictly nominal, and one can see that by pricing the Dow in ounces of gold - it went from about 45 to 9 over the last decade. It was all the result of inflation, and real incomes have been steadily declining due to a rising cost-of-living.

As we move into the future, I believe you will find my advice to have been right.

By trying to artificially lower them.

In my economic commentaries, I have repeatedly made the point that the Fed, by trying to hold interest rates artificially low with inflation, will actually cause interest rates to go much higher than where they would have been absent central bank manipulation in the first place.

I redacted my most recent commentary by prefacing it with an open letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.  I encourage people to read it, and remember what candidate for Congress warned you about this as this unfolds.

Ben Bernanke, you are RAISING interest rates

On March 30, 2009, Harvard and Princeton professors Coval, Jurek, and Stafford released a paper concluding what I, as a proponent of the Austrian School of economics, have been saying for quite some time.  The Austrian School of economics bears its name because its genesis goes back to its intellectual fathers, who came from Austria.  While the analysis of this paper isn't entirely Austrian, the conclusions are 100% in agreement with the Austrian School.  It is encouraging to see academia echoing what would have been the prevailing sense of paleo-academics not even a century ago.

I have written extensively about the pathological origin of the economic crisis and the way out.  Because the format of my writing has been in brief and easy-to-understand language, much of my analysis is fragmented into a plurality of different commentaries.  When my commentaries are juxtaposed with one another, I believe they serve as a fairly good primer on economics.  Over the next several days, weeks, and months, I will be posting links to my commentaries.

Without belaboring the details, as I have in my commentaries, I will provide a condensed version of the problem as I have seen it:

1) A policy of inflation - i.e., an expansionary monetary policy - is unsustainable over the long-run.  Inflation engenders malinvestent and malconsumption, creating pseudo rates-of-return.  Either we abandon inflation as a policy, or the currency itself goes bankrupt.  Inflation can only work in the short-run, and only for a narrow group of beneficiaries, at the expense of producers and savers.

2) Over the course of years, the smallest amount of inflation will lead to an outflow of capital, draining bank reserves, and leading to national insolvency.  Whether the inflation is 2% or 10% is inconsequential.  It is a matter of whether or not we blow through our savings by the 5th of the month or the 15th of the month.

3) The problem is not illiquidity, i.e., a dollar shortage.  The "liquidity" is out there, i.e., in foreign reserves.  Inflationary regimes have inherent dollar leakages, which is why inflation bankrupts a nation.

4) As the result of inflationary-induced, artificially-low interest rates, the loan market became insolvent.  The problem is not a "credit crunch," but a savings crunch.

5) There is a confusion about cause and effect.  The way to fix the problem is not to inflate and spend more in an effort to fix prices.  What people perceived as good, i.e., cheap credit, was what precipitated the crisis.  Bailouts of any kind only hold prices artificially high, engendering even greater misallocations of resources.  The solution is what the perceived problem is: deflation.  Let prices fall, so that the market can discover real prices.  Only then will assets begin to clear the market again.  The best way to protect bank reserves is not to re-create vanishing savings on a printing press, but to raise interest rates.

6) As long as we continue down the present policy path of trying to substitute a printing press and government spending for income-generating investment, there will be no economic recovery.  Lost jobs will not be replaced.  Interest rates will go even higher than where they would be absent central bank manipulation, as the market accounts for the inflation risk.

See:

Geithner Wrong, Crap Assets Correctly Priced, Say Harvard And Princeton Profs

Uncle Sam’s suspect diagnosis

I would like to preface this by noting that I speak as somebody who first got involved in Republican Party politics when I was 16-years-old. I worked on a plurality of Republican campaigns while I was in high school. I am now 32-years-old.

Rank-and-file Republicans have been conned into believing that, in order to get elected, they must surrender conservative principles. Party consultants have candidates and party members convinced that there is a formula for winning an election, and that winning the election is everything.

There is no formula for winning an election. If there was, somebody would have patented it by now. The Republican Party has followed the formula of compromise and surrender, and where has it gotten Republicans? Republicans haven't been winning very many elections lately. And winning elections isn't everything. It does no good to win an election but lose the country. The second you surrender principles, you have already been defeated.

Let me clue the Republican Party in as to why it has become inconsequential: the party has abandoned conservative principles. Party consultants argue that Republicans must behave like Democrats in order to "steal" Democratic votes. It doesn't work that way. If somebody wants big government, they will vote for the authentic socialist, and then blame all of our problems on "laissez-faire" Republicans. By abandoning conservative principles, Republicans give conservatives no compelling reason to show up and vote. The Republican Party has been hemorrhaging conservative votes, while simultaneously discrediting authentic conservatism.

With a FY '09 budget deficit - not even counting off-budget outlays - that will come close to $2 trillion, and a Federal Reserve that has more-than-doubled its balance sheet since September of '08, now is no time for pseudo conservatism. Sterile platitudes are insufficient. We need conservative positions with meaning. Spending less than the Democrats is without meaning. Curtailing "wasteful" government spending is a platitude. Aren't all politicians opposed to "wasteful" spending? And where has that gotten us?

If the Republican Party wants to atone for its past and rebuild its lost credibility, it must work towards electing conservative candidates. It must give conservatives a compelling reason to support Republican candidates. It is a long road ahead, but the Republican Party can start down this path of redemption in 2010.

This won't be an easy road. But to travel it, we must not only elect truly conservative Republicans, we must also elect Republicans who can articulate the virtues of the free market. This is the only way to short circuit demagoguing Democrats, who appeal to the masses by convincing them that the government can spend us out of poverty.

It shouldn't be hard to put an end to demagoguing Democrats, so long as we understand economics. With the government as big as it is, would it not be reasonable to assume that most people who are very wealthy are so because of government interference in the market? Does big business not use the government to manipulate the market in its behalf? And with the government as big as it is, would it also not be reasonable to assume that many people are poor precisely because of government interference in the market? It is called the cost of lost opportunity.

Political crossdressing Republicans won't cut it. Republicans must admit their past sins, by acknowledging that they haven't been governing as true conservatives for the last several years. Until then, the free market will continue to be the scapegoat. If the party fails this test, it will become a party of irrelevance, sentenced to the same fate as Sisyphus.

Growing up in Minnesota, I started playing hockey when I was five years old. I went to many North Stars games as a kid, and I will never forget how I would get goosebumps from listening to Jimmy Bowers' rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Everything that America stood for - liberty, justice - made me feel so proud to be an American. That was back when you could go to bed at night with a level of certainty that you didn't need to worry about government agents grabbing you or your property without reason. It wasn't Pol Pot's Cambodia.

My love for the country motivated me to enlist in the Marine Corps. I served honorably for four years on active duty in the infantry. I felt that I was really serving to defend liberty. But I am not so certain of that anymore. When I look at what politicians are doing to us, I weep for my fellow countrymen. I have had many sleepless nights crying out of a deep concern for the future of this country.

To come up with my own "Yogism," I would say that it doesn't take a genius to figure out that something isn't right when 3/4 of the population is on the government dole and the other 1/2 works for the government. Present policy is leading us towards a humanitarian crisis. More and more Americans will find that their quality of life has diminished, as they can afford less and less. Prevailing consensus on the Hill is that we can continue to run an economy based upon inflation, and that we can substitute a printing press for income-generating investment. If we don't turn course, we will have a currency crisis and interest rates will go even higher than where they would be absent the central bank's effort to manipulate them downwards.

We have an abusive government that is no longer restrained by the Constitution. We have politicians that are inebriated with power. Sub-prime politicians running a sub-prime government have created a sub-prime economy. Washington lacks leaders who have a strong sense of their fiduciary responsibility. If somebody was trying to plan the destruction of the country, they could not do it better than the politicians in Washington.

And so it is my purpose to champion liberty, to restore the Constitution, and to remind those in Washington that they aren't our masters, but our servants.