Destroying Liberty

by Walter E. Williams.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned, "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." The freedom of individuals from compulsion or coercion never was, and is not now, the normal state of human affairs. The normal state for the ordinary person is tyranny, arbitrary control and abuse mainly by their own government. While imperfect in its execution, the founders of our nation sought to make an exception to this ugly part of mankind's history. Unfortunately, at the urging of the American people, we are unwittingly in the process of returning to mankind's normal state of affairs.

Americans demand that Congress spend trillions of dollars on farm subsidies, business bailouts, education subsidies, Social Security, Medicare and prescription drugs and other elements of a welfare state. The problem is that Congress produces nothing. Whatever Congress wishes to give, it has to first take other people's money. Thus, at the root of the welfare state is the immorality of intimidation, threats and coercion backed up with the threat of violence by the agents of the U.S. Congress. In order for Congress to do what some Americans deem as good, it must first do evil. It must do that which if done privately would mean a jail sentence; namely, take the property of one American to give to another.

According to a Washington Post article (6/22/05), there were nearly 35,000 highly paid registered lobbyists in Washington in 2004 who spent $2.1 billion lobbying the White House, Congress and various agencies on behalf of various interest groups. Political action committees, private donors and companies give billions of dollars to political campaigns. My question to you: Do you think that these people are spending billions of dollars to assist presidents and congressmen to better perform their sworn oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the U.S. Constitution? If you do, you're a fine candidate for a straitjacket. For the most part, the money is being spent to get politicians and government officials to use their coercive power to create a favor or special privilege for one American at the expense of some other American.

If we Americans didn't give Washington such enormous control over our lives, I doubt whether there would be 10 percent of the money currently spent on lobbying and campaign contributions. This enormous control that Congress has over our lives also goes a long way toward explaining much of the government corruption that we see in Washington.

If the average American were asked whether he wishes to return to mankind's normal state of affairs featured by arbitrary abuse, control and government dictates, I am sure he would find such a suggestion repulsive. But if you were to ask, say, the average senior citizen whether Social Security, Medicare and prescription drug subsidies should be continued, he would probably answer yes. The same would be true if you asked a college professor whether higher education should continue to be subsidized, or a farmer or a dairyman whether their products should be subsidized, or a manufacturer whether there should be tariffs and quotas on foreign products that compete with his product. The problem with congressmen producing favors and privileges to all interest groups is that it creates what none of us wants: massive control, numerous dictates and micromanagement of our lives.

There is no question that if one were to ask whether we Americans are moving towards more liberty or more government control over our lives, the answer would unambiguously be the latter -- more government control over our lives. We might have reached a point where the trend is irreversible and that is a true tragedy for if liberty is lost in America, it will be lost for all times and all places.

The Irresponsible Congress

From The Washington Times.

Congress returns today for an abbreviated session, with energy being the number one issue on the agenda. Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner, spent the August recess pushing for Congress to enact an "all of the above" package to increase energy supplies and lower gasoline prices, and they will continue to do so. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, clearly thrown off balance by public opinion polls showing that a decisive majority of the electorate agrees with the Republicans on drilling, have a different, irresponsible agenda: running out the clock and preventing a straight up-or-down vote on drilling. But to do this successfully, they will have to continue their strategy of pretending to support compromise, while loading up energy legislation with poison pills that will make expanded drilling impossible.

Before leaving town five weeks ago, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, Wisconsin Democrat, realized that his panel was likely to approve Republican-proposed amendments to the Interior Department and Labor-HHS appropriations bills that would have permitted drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf. So, he adjourned his committee to spare the Democratic leadership several embarrassing defeats. Mrs. Pelosi and company have also embraced "use it or lose it" language that would prevent the government from issuing new exploration or production leases unless the applicant could certify (to the satisfaction of lawyers, judges and bureaucrats) that every lease currently held is being "diligently developed." The problem is that no company can certify that because exploration is a difficult, time-consuming task in which success follows years of expensive, time-consuming failures. Forcing oil companies to drill immediately or lose the leases based on some arbitrary political dictate will make exploration prohibitively expensive.

In the House, the Democratic leadership will offer a "compromise" plan to allow drilling more than 100 miles from shore. (Which presumably means that if the next Prudhoe Bay is discovered 25 miles off the coast of Virginia or 50 miles from North Carolina, consumers should just shut up and be happy with oil from Mexico, Saudi Arabia or Venezuela instead.) The House Democrats' bill is also expected to include tax increases and royalty increases for oil companies - actions that will decrease rather than increase production - which would pay for alternative energy research, among other things. It also mandates that companies use some government-dictated percentage of "renewable energy sources." Some "alternative energy" research could prove useful; in other cases, it can squander taxpayer dollars like the infamous Synthetic Fuels Corporation did in the early 1980s. But the most irresponsible course of action of all is the course that congressional Democratic leaders are taking, which is to demagogue against oil companies and punish producers with higher taxes and new mandates.

Democrats are talking about a $50 billion "economic stimulus" package that provide largess to state and local governments and fund highway projects. On top of that, the Big Three automakers are seeking government loans to help them retool their plants and build fuel-efficient cars. The car companies want $50 billion in government loans, while lawmakers seem to be suggesting a smaller amount that would be folded into the stimulus package. As for the Big Three, while ill-considered regulations bear some of the blame for their current problems, it would be difficult to imagine an industry responsible for so many self-inflicted wounds. The woes of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae should be a cautionary note to politicians who think it is a good idea to put taxpayers on the hook to bail out private enterprises that make bad decisions and fail in the marketplace.