Separation Anxiety

While expressing his solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement this week, President Obama said something very weird – that OWS and Tea Party protestors share the frustration of feeling separated from our government.   

No we don’t. I desperately want to be separated from my government again; separation from government is the whole purpose of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  It draws the lines between us and our government; it is our national restraining order against a stalking pervert who climbs through our windows every chance he gets to steal our stuff and cop a feel while we are sleeping.    

I doubt if separation from government is what makes the employees of Gibson Guitars frustrated these days.  My guess is that the feds busting down their doors and shutting them down indefinitely for no reason whatsoever is probably more of a concern.  They are probably more than a little frustrated that the guy who keeps yammering on about his jobs bill is the reason they lost theirs.  

And it is a safe bet that the small regional banks that are being choked to death by regulators under the Dodd-Frank bank “reform” bill don’t see separation from government as a major problem.  Congressman Frank sees no conflict between his taking heaps of cash from the giant Wall Street banks and writing the new rules that effectively take out their smaller competitors while guaranteeing their profits.  He supports OWS, too, providing a role model for schizophrenics with political ambitions. 

And weren’t you happy to learn that First Lady Michelle Obama wants to “shape” your children for you?   Personally, I would like to establish some considerable distance between me and someone who thinks children should be shaped, like little pieces of clay.  Does she want to dress them up and take pictures, too?  We like our kids to be separated from strangers like that…and we like our First Ladies to be a little less creepy.  I’m not sure how the OWS crowd feels about it.

By linking the Tea Party and OWS, President Obama once again shows us he doesn’t know his country very well.  Most of us do not want government to sit in our lap; we want it to go lay by its dish. Americans are united in the things we are against; what divide us are the things we are for.

No one wants more crime, poverty, injustice, racism, drug abuse, inflation, illiteracy, pollution, unemployment, bankruptcy, fraud, illness, and premature death; we only disagree about how to combat them.  And everyone sees war as the last resort; we just disagree on what comes second to last. 

President Obama and his ideologically aligned liberals, Democrats, progressives, and socialists are for more government and less liberty.  Like helicopter moms, they see separation from government as way too risky for their citizen/children; they demand a government that protects us from ourselves at our grandchildren’s expense.  

Conservatives, libertarians, constitutionalists, principled Republicans, and political agnostics are for less government and more liberty.  We do not want to be mothered by government; we want to live free of government supervision and approval.  Separation from government does not cause us fear and anxiety; we crave it.  

When asked if we want more government or less of it, Americans consistently choose “less” by 2:1 margins.  That has been one of the most consistent polling questions over the past three decades.  OWS is not the 99%; it is some tiny fraction of the 33% who say “more”. 

When I went off to college, my mom and dad did not cry and neither did I; after 18 years of dependence on them, we were both happy to empty the nest. I was grateful to them for preparing me for that day, and they were even more grateful that it finally came. 

There were other kids who spent that whole day bawling with their parents; I didn’t understand why back then, but a little wisdom has stuck to me over the decades that have passed since.  We all grew older but we didn’t change much. 

Some Americans see every new day as an opportunity to learn and grow, to overcome new challenges, to succeed and prosper, to be responsible, to discover how high is up for ourselves and to help others do the same.  The happy kids.

Others wake to dread the dawn; seeing only hurdles that can’t be overcome, barriers that can’t be breached, disadvantage and unfairness, and a world so difficult to manage that only government can protect us from it.   The bawling kids.

The painful truth is that we choose which of those two worlds we will live in.  The happy kids and the bawling kids all went to the same campus.  And the awful truth is that politics is the imposition of one viewpoint upon the believers of the other.   The genius of democracy is that is allows us to change who wins without killing each other.     

In the natural order of things, the mighty fall.  The prodigal squanders, the haughty are brought low, nations decline, empires implode.  This creates space at the top for the lowly to rise.  Our iconic national story is one of humble beginnings which end in glory. 

The problem with government is that it disturbs that natural order; it props up the mighty and crushes the meek.  In a free market, privilege cannot be defended, it must be re-earned.  Enron’s separation from government allowed it to rightfully perish alone; Fannie Mae’s incestuous relationship took us all down with it. 

Maybe the bawling kids are still fooled by the teleprompter President, but the happy kids aren’t buying it.  We are not still mired in recession almost four years later because government can’t clutch us tight enough to its bosom; we are stuck in the ditch because it won’t get off our backs.  

Mr. President, with all due respect, we are not frustrated over our separation from government; it is that your separation from government can’t come fast enough.
    

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

American Idol

Seeing the GOP presidential debates in person is whole lot different from watching them on TV.

Thanks to our friend Herman Cain, we were seated right up front at the CNN debates last night in Las Vegas.  Our section mates included gaming moguls Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson, the Romney family, Wayne Newton, and too many other notables to list.  This was not just the 1% crowd, these were decimal pointers.

If you are reading this, you undoubtedly saw the debate yourself – and perhaps noticed Joanne and me in the audience shots or up on stage with Herman immediately following the show (my son liked that part of the debates the best).  So I won’t go over what you saw, just tell you a little about what you didn’t see.

We rode to the event with the Cain party, cleared by security into a large warehouse area where a fleet of RV’s awaited the candidates – identical mobile green rooms where the candidates prepared themselves.  Probably the closest any of these Republicans will get to a trailer park.

The campaign staffers milling about the campground looked to my aging eyes to be in their teens, and mostly stared at their Blackberries while furiously texting the other teens to schedule whatever it is all these teens do for the campaigns. The bodyguards were all as big as the Winnebagos and we were escorted to our seats by not one but two of the sun-blotters with the squiggly ear things.  Rock star.

One of the grown-ups in the room described this election cycle to me as “American Idol on steroids”.  In a series of national televised auditions pitched as debates, the field is winnowed as the pundit class disposes of them one at a time.  I never thought of it quite that way, but it rings true; the new paradigm is being made up as we go.

This is why a candidate like Herman Cain actually has a chance in this race – all of Romney’s money and boots-on-ground organization in 50 states can’t win him a talent contest.  The more people see of Herman the more they like him; that’s why the powers that be have stooped to smearing his 9-9-9 tax plan to try and slow him down.

I love Ron Paul.  He was rolling his eyes, shaking his head, looking around at the set visibly bored while Perry and Romney wasted large gulps of our short time on this earth pulling each other’s braids.  Everybody wanted to, and Ron Paul did it; there is the man’s whole career encapsulated for you.

I got a chance to chat with Dr. Paul during a commercial break; thanked him for his service to liberty and for inspiring young people to discover the Constitution.  Since Ron Paul is my idol and Herman is my friend, I asked them both to play nice. I was surprised and happy to learn they get on well personally, and I got to see it first-hand; I wish their supporters could learn from their example.  Please.

Michelle Bachman had her hand up to say something the whole time like that Horschak character in Welcome Back, Kotter.  Could you guys hear her calling out, “Anderson, Anderson!”? It was a little annoying and very weird.  I lost $20 bucks when she didn’t count her kids for us again – it’s true you can bet on anything in Vegas.

In person, Rick Perry throws off a jerk vibe that makes your hairs stand up from 40 feet.  That guy has got some seriously bad juju going on; and oversized hands, in case you wondered.  The crowd booed him twice, nobody came up to talk with him on breaks, and the other candidates gave him that look of disgust I used to get from dads when I showed up to take their daughters out.
 
Newt Gingrich has to be one of the smartest guys on the planet – and he doesn’t have a prayer.  Rick Santorum is not one of the smartest guys on the planet – and doesn’t have a prayer, either. Huntsman didn’t even show up, answering many prayers. And Gary Johnson was not invited, for which CNN should pray for forgiveness.

At each break, Mitt Romney came over to visit with his wife and son; since they sat next to us, he was standing two feet in front of me each time.  The guy looks like a President, and that might be enough to seal the deal.  For a guy who claims not to be a politician, he sure can turn that smile on an off on command, and mostly the command is the presence of a potential donor.

I don’t watch TV, so I hadn’t seen Anderson Cooper before.  My opinion of Communist Network News is not great, but he did ok for a guy with no first name. He is not 360; maybe 135 dripping wet.  He made tiny Michelle Bachman look statuesque.  David Gergen is a big guy.  Newt was the only fat guy in the whole room – rich people must pay someone else to go to seed for them.

So there you have it; Dr. Tim’s take on the CNN Las Vegas debates.  Does anyone remember what any of them said?  I don’t.  And who cares anyway. People aren’t going to vote for a tax plan or vote to eliminate fractional reserve banking. Touting experience as an IRS lawyer is suicidally stupid, to steal the best line of the evening from Newt.  And neither one of the Bickersons is going to even get their families off the couch to vote for them if they keep this up.

So Herman Cain will win the GOP nomination, because he is the most liked and most trusted – American Idol on steroids, like the man said.  If you are looking for a libertarian candidate, Mr. Cain is not your first choice, please quit telling me he was on the Fed board, I knew that a long time ago.  But if you are looking for a conservative candidate, he should be your guy. 

Check our his 9-9-9 plan for yourself and you will see that just about everything the others threw at it last night is bullsnot; they knew it and slung the poo anyway, all those faith-driven values candidates.  They only one who didn’t was Ron Paul, who simply proposed his own plan to replace the income tax with nothing.

Herman Cain is my friend and Ron Paul is my idol.  They are front-runners and have the whole field talking about less government and more liberty; I never thought I would see it in my lifetime.  My lasting memory of the debates is watching them share a laugh at one of the breaks – the former Fed board member and the guy who would tear it all down.

The fact that one of those two could be the next President of the United States is simply amazing.  Let that day come not a moment too soon.

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

Hate-baiters

Liberals call conservatives many things: racists, heartless, greedy, selfish, sexist, homophobic, and now…haters.  Last week a popular liberal blogger announced that calling conservatives haters will be the Democrats election strategy in 2012. 

Like most other things, the standard for hating has been dumbed-down in recent times; it used to be that you had to actually hate someone to be a hater.  Nowadays all it takes is to oppose increased funding for any government program, or in the case of DADT, merely oppose a policy, or in the case of the Tea Party, merely gather. 

And if conservatives are haters simply for what they believe about government, then we libertarians must be drooling, vein-popping ragers.  We don’t just hope to restrain government programs; we would prefer that most of them be abolished altogether.

Sure – I’m a hater.  I hate ignorant talk like calling people haters for no reason.  I hate the partisan demagogues who profit from peddling such blatant nonsense.  I hate the stifling of speech, the intimidation of opponents, and the suppression of dissent that the hater-card is intended to accomplish.  I hate the arrogance that Statists display by playing it.  

How weak is the mind that would conclude the only possible explanation for policy disagreement must be an opponent’s hatred for whole classes of people? How blithering must be the idiot who can see only two possible sides in a debate – his own and you-are-hater?  How flimsy must the case be when the best argument to support it is “you hate”.  How dreadfully stupid must be the second-best?

Yes, my dear Govbots – it is possible to question government programs without hating people. A transition from Social Security to private ownership of retirement accounts would increase pension income six-fold; why would we advocate for it if we hated old people?  Or why do we work for school choice if we hate children and parents?

Why defend the right to carry if we hate the people who live in the most dangerous neighborhoods?  Why fight for sound money if we hate poor people living on fixed incomes?  Why push pro-growth economic policies if we hate the unemployed?  Why oppose the welfare state if we hate the minority communities which have been decimated by it?  Why uphold the Constitution if we hate all the citizens it was put in place to protect?

The idea that anyone who comes to hold an un-liberal belief arrived there by hate is so middle-school that it deserves an equally juvenile response: “He who smelt it, dealt it.”

If you think everyone else is racist, it is probably because you are.  Ditto if you think everyone hates homosexuals, or women, or men, or Jews, or Muslims, or blacks, or illegal aliens, or poor people or whoever you want to lump together into a herd.  In fact, it is that herd mentality that gets people started down the road of hating.

And if you smell haters everywhere then chances are you are dealing that yourself, too.  It would never occur to me that someone who comes to a different political position than mine got there because he/she hates.  I’ve never heard anyone suggest such a thing, because I know very few people who hate.  Life is too short.

For some reason, the anti-hater left especially hates the Tea Party, citing their boisterous rallies and too-white demographics, as if that should seal the deal.

I have been invited to a few Tea Party events, and found them to be less hostile to opposition views than the Milwaukee Brewers fans were at Miller Park Saturday night – that poor girl did not even say anything, just wore a St. Louis Cardinals jacket.

And the racial make-up of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure on Sunday was no more diverse than the Tea Party events that I have attended.  SGK is not a government program – do we hate women because we chose to participate?

I have to believe that every conceivable political and religious viewpoint was represented in the lakefront crowd of 20,000 as well as in the large group of breast cancer survivors who were honored.  Does anyone really think that half of them hate on the other half of them?  Anyone?

And yet, that’s what the hate-baiters on the left would have you believe – that half of those nice people wearing pink hate the other half of those nice people wearing pink, ergo you should vote for a Democrat, any Democrat.

That is their victory strategy for 2012?  That’s the big idea?  The scary thing isn’t that they think it will work; the scary thing is that they paid somebody to think it up.              

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

Friend or Foe

A single day does not pass that I do not receive many e-mails telling me that one or the other of the Republican candidates for President is an imposter to his/her cause – not really a conservative or not really a libertarian, as the case may be.  It is frankly very annoying.

The tactic is ineffective, and the underlying premise – that political piety exists – is deeply flawed. Political orientation is not digital – 1 or 0, left or right, approve or disapprove.  Think of it as a continuum with utopian socialism anchoring one end and utopian libertarianism at the other.

Each of us first chooses one of those directions – State or Self – and then discovers a comfortable destination along the route we travel in search of our core beliefs.  Our resting places have names – progressive, liberal, moderate, blue-dog, centrist, neo-con, conservative, paleo.  Those fixated on labels will drill even deeper, pursuing their happiness by defining sub-categories of sub-categories of sub-categories.  

Too many of us judge each others’ politics by the absolute distance between our places on the spectrum. This seems unnecessarily divisive and is mostly counterproductive.  Some hairs are too fine to split, and purity exists only in the mind of the purist. No two people will agree on every single issue unless both have surrendered their brains to an ideology they have memorized.

Years of living over here on the libertarian lunatic fringe have taught me to define others by the direction of their steps, not by the number it would still take for them to reach me. If I can see your face as you travel, you are my friend; if you have turned your back on me we will be adversaries.  These days, when each election is a virtual referendum on the Constitution, it does not have to be much more complicated than that.  It’s ok for conservatives and libertarians to be good neighbors; we don’t have to be family.

Free trade, limited government, individual liberty, private property – is there any conservative or any libertarian who does not embrace these four principles?  More importantly, is there a single liberal, progressive, or socialist who does not oppose them all?   The choice of trajectories is so starkly opposite that such surgical sub-species labeling as “neo-progressive post-libertarian anarchist” serves no practical purpose.  But if you are one of these, I hope it makes you happy.

We already know there will be a Democrat incumbent President running for re-election in 2012 who hails from the left-most nether regions of the spectrum. We know he is an anti-capitalist, a serial statist, an internationalist, an anti-constitutionalist and an interventionist. We know that we will never see his face from where we stand; he will never travel in this direction.  Not ever.

We know that he fears liberty enough to extinguish it; what we don’t know yet is who liberty will choose to defeat him.

While we each may have a preferred candidate among this year’s lineup of challengers for the Presidency, it is foolish to think our favorite can win our country back by tearing down the others. To imagine our guy or gal is the only one who can lead a nation of self-sovereigns is to deny self-sovereignty at its essence. We are not electing a savior; that position has been filled for all eternity.

The first primary is still months away. The process of nomination is long and arduous for a reason; it will show us what we don’t know now about each of those who seek the office. It is a contest that must be played out, not a coronation ritual staged for TV ratings months before the first vote is cast.

We will discover the true character of the candidates.  We will observe their leadership style in the management of their campaigns.  We will judge their stamina, consistency, and temperament.  We will see how they handle disappointment, victory, deception, unfairness, adulation, and defection.  We will watch to see if their positions can mature without abandonment of principle.  We will study their gaffes, their recoveries, their missteps, and their strategic prowess.  We will see them get angry, and judge them by what they get angry about.  We will watch them gloat and judge them by what they gloat over.

Those of us who have left the Republican Party should not tell it how to pick its standard bearers.  But we should remind our GOP friends that they cannot win elections on their own.  They will need all of us tea partiers, independents, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, patriots, and disaffected Democrats to secure their victories.

And we will not blindly support whoever they select; fitness for office is more than simply being the least unfit in the herd.  If a third-party candidate draws large numbers of votes in 2012, it will be the fault of the GOP fielding a bad ticket that could not win us over.  

Republican activists working on campaigns are not making that job easier on themselves by sending out daily emails telling us what a lying, corrupt, unprincipled poser this or that one of their rivals is.  At this point, any one of them could find themselves at the top of that ticket, and words are not so easily eaten in the internet age.

President Obama has proven that you cannot lead this nation on a last-guy-bad platform.  All of the GOP challengers have said they would repeal Obamacare on their first day in office – we get that.  If they want to move up in the polls, they should start talking about day two. 

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

Tawana Who?

This week’s contrived liberal yawner is the choking accusation against Wisconsin Supreme Court judge David Prosser.  Two words: Tawana Brawley.

On Sunday, the news media reported that two weeks ago Justice Prosser suddenly grabbed pro-union Justice Ann Walsh Brawley…er…Bradley by the neck and tried to choke her in the presence of four other Supreme Court judges.

My first reaction to the story was bewilderment.  Why would the liberal flash mob who filed lawsuits and complaints over the method of notice used in a legislative committee hearing hold their fire when a real live felonious assault is committed by their arch-nemesis – an old, white, conservative man?   

And then on Monday we learned that witnesses to the incident (Supreme Court judges, no less) said it was Justice Brawley…er…Bradley that charged at Prosser with fists raised, while Prosser defended himself from her attack.  The old she said/they said thing.

There are two possible explanations for why Justice Brawley…er…Bradley did not file a complaint after being choked and why no assault charges were filed by Capitol Police who investigated the incident:  a) liberals feel sorry for old white conservative men, or b) it never happened.  I’m thinking b).

Besides, I watch COPS; I know how this works.  The girl in the tank-top calls the cops when the mullet guy with no shirt pushes her to get more beer from the fridge.  The cops talk to each of them separately while they smoke, and then they slap the cuffs on mullet guy while tank-top girl screams at them to let go of her may-un.

It doesn’t matter if she changes her mind or her story; the dude is always guilty in a case like this and he clunks his head as they push him into the cruiser.  Did Prosser get his head clunked in a cruiser?  No, he did not – and that’s good enough for me.   Besides, the mullet people don’t have Supreme Court justices as witnesses, only cousins or maybe his momma if she is good bleep-out material.

But now that some “journalist” has broken the Justice Brawley…er…Bradley version of events, the Capitol Police have referred the matter to the Department of Administration, who kicked the can over to the Dane County Sheriff, who will investigate the matter and make a recommendation to the Dane County District Attorney, the guy whose lawsuit was being discussed when Wrestlemania IV supposedly broke out in chambers.  How convenient.

This will undoubtedly take union law enforcement weeks and weeks to sort out; after all, there are many evening newscasts to fill and papers to print before the recall elections, and the socialists need to get all of the free negative media coverage of their enemies as possible before then.

This shouldn’t take weeks.  My mom and dad could figure out which of us three boys was lying and which one was the instigator in minutes.  In fact, I bet every parent reading this could spend 10 minutes with Justice Prosser and 10 minutes with Justice Brawley…er…Bradley and get this caper solved with plenty of time left for a lecture to the perpetrator about lying.  Am I right, moms and dads?

I’ll tell you who is in a choke-hold; it is the people of Wisconsin who are forced to watch the hysterical over-reactions of the lefties in this state week after week.  These nimrods have lost control of their bowels ever since they lost the election in November and can’t tell the rest of us what to do anymore.

What’s next, commies?  You going to throw acid on our face and scream “if I can’t have you nobody can?”   I know what is really bothering you; Walker and his Republicans are making fixing your mess look easy.  I have to admit, I thought it would be much harder myself.  This one’s easy to fix, too: Supreme Court judges wouldn’t go around charging at each other now that their adversary might be packin’ heat under that robe.  You’re welcome.

It is, of course, possible that Justice Prosser actually choked Justice Brawley…er…Bradley.  Just as it was possible in the beginning that somebody actually hacked Weiner’s Twitter or however you say that with a straight face.  Did you believe him, even for one minute?  Me neither.

Maybe at the socialist sing-a-long down at the Capitol they should add “What A Fool Believes” to their repertoire.  Seems appropriate. 

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

RINO

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If you ask me, Ron Paul is the RINO – Republican In NameOnly. 

Don’t get me wrong; that’s a good thing.  I have been a Ron Paul guy since I firstheard of him in 1988 when he ran for President as a Libertarian Party candidate.  I just think it amusing that the term RINO isthe pejorative used by those on the fringes of the GOP to smear the Republicansthey don’t like – i.e. most of them.   

Who is under the fat hump of the GOP bell curve?  47 Republican senators signed on to a non-bindingbalanced budget resolution which, if enacted, would require Congress to balancethe budget within five years.  But yesterday,40 of those 47 Republicans voted againsta real budget bill – Senator Rand Paul’s – that does exactly that.  

Those 85% whose gut-check bounced are not RINOs; they areR’s.  They are the mean plus one standarddeviation, the center-cut, the sweet spot of the Republican Party. They talklike libertarians when they are running for office, talk like conservativesafter they win, and then vote like schmucks. Heartbreakers.

Paul the Younger did himself doubly proud this week; he alsofilibustered the Patriot Act singlehandedly on the Senate floor this week.  How pathetic is that?  One lone defender of the 4^th, 5^th,and 2^nd amendments out of that whole Republican Party that made sucha grand show of reading the Constitution to start the session.   

And while Dr. Rand Paul fought his own Republican Party todefend our 2^nd Amendment rights in Washington,D.C., Dr. Pam Galloway fought her own RepublicanParty to defend them here in Madison, Wisconsin with her ConstitutionalCarry bill that the leaders of her own Party are trying desperately to waterdown. 

The mind boggles; two doctors – rookies with no priorlegislative experience – are our fragile grip on the Constitution.  And thank God for both of them.  What a perfect commentary on the absurdity ofour times: our doctors are fixing government while our government is ruininghealth care.        

Here is the list of Republicans who have won their Party’snomination for President since I have been old enough to vote: Nixon, Ford,Reagan, Bush, Dole, Bush Dance Remix, and McCain.  Congressional leaders I remember include BobMichaels, Newt Gingrich, Bill Frist, Mitch McConnell, Denny Hastert. 

There hasn’t been a Goldwater Republican since…Goldwater.  

So quit calling big-government Republicans RINO’s; call themNADS, but not because theirs are particularly large.  It stands for Not A Democrat, which most daysseems to be the only principle they have left.  If Obama is for it, they are against it andvice versa.  I would not be surprised ifthey reverse themselves and vote to double the subsidy for wind energy after itmussed up Michelle Obama’s hair in England.    

Is there even such a thing as a DINO?  Do the anti-war lesbian unionists reef on thefoodstamp PETA greenies for not being Hispanic enough?  I don’t know that much about Democrats – justthat they want to take all my money and tell me what to do.  I’ve never gotten past those two things to discovergoal #3.      

And I’ve never heard a Libertarian called a LINO, either, althoughI did recently learn that we have been further subdivided into Cosmotarians and Paleotarians.  I think thedifference is whether you base your Presidential campaign on legalizing drugsor ending the Fed.  It sounds a lotbetter than wing-nut A and wing-nut B.

Paleotarians, I am told, hold conservative personal valuesbut oppose the imposition of values by the state.  Works for me. And if we strip away all of the Party labels, I think that thumbnailsketch describes a majority of Americans.  We don’t want Democrat government orRepublican government; we want lessgovernment.   

What we want most from government is to be left alone.  We don’t want someone else’s values writteninto law.  We don’t want someone else’schoices to be our mandates and prohibitions. We don’t want to tell others how to live their lives and we don’t wantto be told how to live ours.  We want topay our own way and choose for ourselves the means to help others lessfortunate.    

Is there a label for that?   Yes, it is called American.  The idea thatgovernment is limited and liberty is not; the belief that free people and freemarkets improve the human condition.  It’snot a Democrat thing, or a Republican thing, or a Libertarian thing; it is anAmerican thing – or used to be.  Thisweekend we honor those who have given their lives for that American thing. 

How many of our politicians in either party vote as if theytruly believe in free people and free markets? How many of them vote as if the United States Constitution they swore anoath to protect and defend is the law of the land? 

How many are Americans In Name Only?  Too many.          

“MomentOf 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 andwatch for the upcoming release of his new book, “Capitalista!”    

Revolution

These are pretty good days to be a libertarian – all of asudden, our ideas are popular again. They are not really our ideas, of course; we learned them in theConstitution and Declaration of Independence, and understood them through theworks of Friedman, Hayak, Mises, Rand, and Paul.  

For as long as I can remember, us libertarians have been dismissedby the political class as cranks and wing-nuts; the tin-foil hat guys on themargins who like guns, gold, gambling, pot, prostitutes, and pre-emptivesurrender.

That is so unfair – I don’t even know any prostitutes.  The boring truth is that libertarians don’tadvocate any specific choice; we just object to throwing people in jail formaking choices we don’t like. As Milton Friedman said, the only real freedom isthe freedom to choose.  Those who read MomentOf Clarity regularly have heard me say this many times:   

Liberty is the absence of government inchoice.  Government is the absence ofliberty in choice.  Tyranny is theabsence of choice in government.

If you need help with the tyranny reference, just picture NancyPelosi and Newt Gingrich sitting on the couch together telling you whygovernment should make your energy choices for you.  The staunchest Democrat ever fabricated andthe most partisan Republican ever hatched cooing and purring and smiling ateach other like prom dates while they fit you for the yoke.  Or RomneyCare; you pick ‘em.

It is heartwarming to see so many Americans getting in touchwith their inner crank and wing-nut.  Thelibertarian belief that we can not just live with less government, but live better with less government has beenrekindled by the grass-roots tea party movement and legitimized by the abjectfailure of the Obama presidency, the last great hope of socialists, Keynesians,and unionists.     

My jaw dropped when New Jersey Governor Chris Christierecently responded to a reporters question about his belief in evolution with,“it’s none of your business”.   Not solong ago, Republicans were laughing at us; now they are talking like us.  Or if they prefer, talking like BarryGoldwater, who was one of us before it was necessary to give ourselves a name.      

Freedom is popular, as our beloved Ron Paul says.  Who would have thought we would ever see him breakingBen Bernanke’s stones from the Chairman’s seat in committee?  Or Congress locked in a showdown over how muchto government to cut?  Or the Wisconsinlegislature haggling over whether carry should be permitted or constitutional?    

Be honest – did you think the union stranglehold ongovernment would ever be broken?  Thatschool choice would be expanded?  That a publicuniversity endowment would buy over $1 billion in physical gold?  That ObamaCare and McCain/Feingold would befound unconstitutional by a modern-day court? That someone would make a movie out of “Atlas Shrugged”?  And that it would be good?  

The revolution is on. 

It is thankfully not being fought with bullets and blood;rather with ballots and blogs.  Ourliberty is being reclaimed, one battle at a time.  There is much territory to recapture and theprivileged are not giving up ground without a fight.  But who can deny that liberty’s opponents areeverywhere in retreat?  We must press on withdiligence until our rights have been reclaimed, our liberty restored, ournation saved.    

Libertarians are to conservatives what socialists are toliberals.  We embody the extreme form ofthe principles that define a common worldview – free trade, limited government,individual liberty, private property.  Ifconservatives are Dagny Taggert, then libertarians are John Galt. 

And liberals will have no clue what that even means; the moviewas not subtitled in drum.  

“MomentOf 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 andwatch for the upcoming release of his new book, “Capitalista!”    

Judge Tim

Silly me, I thought that it wasthe job of the legislature to make laws, the job of the executive branch toenforce them, and the job of the judiciary to keep the Constitution betweenthose first two and me.

Had I known that the job of thejudiciary in Wisconsinis to overturn the decisions of the legislature, prevent the executive fromcarrying them out, and impose their own personal ideology on the whole state, Iwould have never wasted my time running for U.S. Congress.  I would have aimed high and gone straight forcounty judge right off the bat.

And I know the perfect county fora libertarian judge – Iron County, home to the city of Hurley, “where Hwy 51 ends and the funbegins!”  We have a cottage nearthere in Oma Township,otherwise known as the Kingdom of Oma.  Libertarian Judge Tim from the Kingdom of Oma would be your best friend or worstnightmare, depending on whether you are a freeperson or a taxeater.

Dane County Judge MaryAnn Sumididn’t like the way the legislature passed Governor Walker’s budget repair billso she put it on ice.  Well guess what -Judge Tim doesn’t like the way the legislature passed the income tax; so thatwill be my first injunction and we can all stop withholding tomorrow.

You know what else I don’t like?  Bar time. Do you have any idea how many bad marriages can be traced back to thepressure of finding someone before the lights came on and the music stopped?   In the Kingdom of Omathe party won’t stop until you run out of cash. 

And I would put the ki-bosh on thatsmoking ban, for sure.  If you are notold enough to walk out of a too-smoky bar, you are not old enough to drink.  In fact, the drinking age in the Kingdom of Oma will be when you stop whining; Danemight be our first dry county.  Back whenI was on the tour, my tri-fecta package was a Black Russian, a bottle ofRolling Rock for a wash, and a Marlboro. Two out of three is like ZZ Top without Billy Gibbons.  Glad I quit when I did.

Want to bet on the Badgers, thePackers, or the over/under on how many voters rise up from the dead in theKloppenburg recount?  You won’t have todrive to an Indian Casino; you can place your wager at the Kwik Trip…or the M&Ibank. I’ll order that one out of spite.

Know what else you can do at theKT?  Fill up your SUV, ATV, and Jet Skiswith high octane, no ethanol, manly gas. For about a buck a gallon, because Judge Tim doesn’t like gas tax,either.  Want to run your Prius oncorn?  Put the bikes on the rack and moveto Iowa; theyare addicted to the stuff over there.

But how would we pay for the DNRwith all those tax cuts, you ask?  Simpleanswer: “you’re welcome”.   Here’s howthe DNR would fare in Judge Tim’s court: “Attorney Kloppenburg, show me where your name is on the deed tothis property…I didn’t think so…now sit down and shut up.  And buy this guy’s pier; no, buy him two justfor being a dork.” 

And don’t even think aboutboycotting our fine businesses up here in the Kingdom of Oma,because Judge Tim knows how to spell extortion and throw your miserable buttsin the hooskow for 20 hard.  While I’m atit, I think I will rule that the Federal anti-trust waiver for unions isnullified in Wisconsin.  There – now your whole amalgamatedbrotherhood can drag your knuckles back home to Illinois. And as long as we are nullifying…sayonara, Obamacare!  You have just been injunctified! 

I like guns, don’t you?  Concealed carry, open carry, locked andloaded and ready to defend against the dirtbags and gang-bangers who arealready packin’.   Not just allowed, butmandatory, just like recycling used to be before Judge Tim ordered theprisoners in jail to sort the garbage so honest citizens didn’t have to wasteour time doing it.  What’s that, ACLU -sorting trash is cruel and unusual punishment? I know! I know!   

Let’s see, what else don’t I like?…seatbelts, car seats, dairy queen light bulbs, out of state college kids voting toincrease taxes they will never pay.  Drinkraw milk if you think you should, don’t worry about motorcycle helmets, andconsider the speed limits on rural interstates to be suggestions.  And of course, I’ll reverse any injunction JudgeSumi issues.  I’ll get an app for myiPhone to alert me.

You think Obama has power?  Hah!  JudgeTim can make a hundred thousand people suddenly get glaucoma just by making medicalmarijuana legal, and then cure them all when I end prohibition altogether.  Just don’t come into my court expectingunemployment when you flunked your drug test at work, stoner.  Judge Tim has no sympathy for slackers.

If you think the people in the Kingdom of Oma will vote me out over pot, you’venever been to Hurley.  Did I mention I would VoterID the whole state by decree and make everyone cast their ballot in gun shop,church, or Harley dealership?  Think of it as affirmative action, making up fora century of liberal home-field advantage voting in public schools.  Besides, once I order the state to give everyparent vouchers, there won’t be any public schools left to vote in.

Now, I know that my liberal opponentsfor county judge will point to my lack of judicial experience and say I shouldstart out on the Supreme Court until I know what I am doing, like their guys do.  And my conservative opponents will be lecturingabout impartiality and temperament and separation of powers and things thatpeople under 40 never learned.  That isnoble.

But I’d wipe the floor with themboth. There wouldn’t be no Franken re-counts when Judge Tim stands forre-election.  You know why?  Because freedom is popular, just like RonPaul says. And free people would rather livein the Kingdom of Oma than the People’s Republic of Madison. 

It’s too bad they don’t have thechoice.  

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary byLibertarian writer and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment andorder his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”  

Middle Class

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The left continues to prattle on and on about the “war onthe middle class”, which is the label they attach nowadays to any serious discussionof government spending.       

For the moment, let’s put aside the rather obvious pointthat the middle class will be the first to be wiped out if the grown-ups don’t avertthe debt-induced economic collapse and currency debasement that looms.  Instead, let’s visit a country where the pro-laborpolicies our American unionists demand have already been in place for 80 years. 

This nation’s Federal Labor Law was enacted in 1932.  It sets not only basic minimum wage, but a differentminimum wage for each general category of employment, flexed upwards to accountfor education and regional cost of living disparities. Salaries must be increasedannually at a minimum set by law.  Take that, Scott Walker!

For every six days of work, employees get one paid day ofrest.  Overtime at double pay must bepaid for exceeding any 8 hour shift, not just a weekly total. No one can workmore than 9 hours of overtime in a week.  Screwyou, Chris Christie!

Every worker is guaranteed a minimum of 6 days of vacationwhen hired, and 2 days are added for each year worked up to five.  Employees get 25% premium added to their paywhile on vacation.  7 mandatory holidays,with triple time pays if worked.  How do you like me now, Jerry Brown, youhippie traitor! 

There is mandatory severance pay for both termination andresignation – three months plus additional 20 days for each year employed.  And the fired employee is entitled to sue forreinstatement at the employer’s expense; the law presumes wrongful terminationunless the employer can prove otherwise. Talkto the clenched fist, Rand Paul!

Employers must fund employees’ personal retirement accounts,as well as provide housing allowance, annual bonus, government health carecontributions, and other benefits totaling 29% of base salary.  Plus profit sharing at 10% of earnings mustbe paid to workers, with management excluded. Eat it, lousy Koch Brothers!

Labor unions must be recognized if just 20% of the workforceregisters.  Collective bargainingagreements are negotiated between the employer’s representative and therepresentative of the national union every two years.  Holy CardCheck, Batman, only 20%?  Wait until theother occasional dishwashers hear about this…

The entrenched national unions all back one political party,a democrat-socialist party which has held serve for 72 of the 80 years sincethese pro-labor laws were enacted. The politicians are pro-union, the judgesare pro-union, the government is pro-union and the law itself is pro-union.  Dude,where’s my passport?      

Can you guess this land of union plenty and middle-classabundance?  Mexico!  So when you see all those public union workersprotesting in American state capitals, here is the translation of theirwar-chant: “hey, hey, ho, ho, let’s be just like Mex-i-co!”  

After 80 years of the unionist stacked-deck, oil-rich Mexico’s nominal per-capita GDP is just $9,423 rankingit 64^th, just behind rioting-as-we-speak Libyaand economic juggernaut Uruguay.Eight decades of living the union dream has produced a living standard lessthan 1/5 of its union-busting, worker-be-damned Gringo neighbor to the north. Muchworse, actually, because $25 billion of Mexico’sincome is remittances sent home from the millions of Mexicans workingunion-free in the United States. 

The richest man in the world is Mexican, while 40% of hiscountrymen live in poverty.  Mexico’s incomegap is greater than ours; so too its urban/rural disparity. Mexico’s middleclass – and this is all about the middle class, remember – is ¼ the size ofours, proportional to population. 

So why haven’t 80 years of union privilege, strict labor laws,single party rule, and mandated wealth redistribution brought prosperity to Mexico?  For the same reason they won’t here and never have anywhereelse ever – you can’t redistribute skill.     

Celine Dion is wealthy because she has a beautiful voiceand has worked insanely hard her whole life to perfect her act.  While the state can force her to share her earningswith me, it can’t make that sound come out of my mouth. 

For me to get paid more than my singing is worth, she mustbe paid less than hers is worth.  That isthe simple zero-sum arithmetic of socialism; and it works the same for masons, teachers,engineers, accountants, plumbers, store clerks, managers, and machinists, too.     

And what does Ms. Dion do when she is paid less than sheis worth?  She quits singing, and we bothget poorer.  Figuratively speaking, Mexico’s 80 years of pro-labor, anti-business politicshas created a land of bad singers; ditto for Greece,Detroit and the Milwaukee Public School district, whereeven the Principals are unionized. 

If tough labor laws, pro-union government, and wealth redistributionwere the pathway to prosperity, then it would be Mexico building that wall on oursouthern border, not us.  Skills, not union propaganda, are the pathwayto the middle class; too bad our children are only getting the latter in the classroom these days.    

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarianwriter and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment andorder his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”  

Union Busting

While the Wisconsin media continues to obsess over the partisanstandoff between Republicans and Democrats in Madison, the many other fronts in the warbetween the taxpayers and the taxeaters has received only glancing coverage.   

Idaho, Utah,Indiana, Ohio,Pennsylvania, New Jersey,New York, and Vermont(yes, that Vermont)have all taken measures to shrink the size of their public sector unions or torestrict collective bargaining privileges. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) hasintroduced federal Right-To-Work legislation which would guarantee allAmericans in every state the right to work free of union impairment.   

Unionists, statists, and most liberals decry all of thesemeasures as “union-busting”.  While most whooppose unions try to wiggle out from underneath the charge, I wear that labelwith pride.  Damn right we should bustthem; just like we should bust all the other economic monopolies andcartels.  Unions could not even existwithout the exemptions from federal anti-trust laws that they have purchased.   

Compulsory collective bargaining – key word compulsory – isincompatible with the principle of liberty.  End of argument.  If union enthusiasts would simply makemembership voluntary, I would be out there stomping around with them.  But the “right” they insist upon is the rightto deny the rights of others by force, and libertarians don’t swim in that endof the pool, sorry.

Whenever there is a barrier that prevents the exercise of acivil right, it should be busted. Every American has the right to work –period.  It is the most basic of civilrights, to own your person and the fruits of your labors.  Nobody has the moral authority to deny youyour person – nobody.  Right To Work isno more complicated than its title; it is the denial of that right throughforced-union privilege that requires tortured justifications.   

Libertarians and conservatives are allies on Right To Work; thisdoes not arise from a perfectly shared vision of a just society, rather from ourcommon reverence for the Constitution.  Wherein the foundational documents is the principle that one right can be imposed bythe state at the expense of two other co-equal rights?  Where in the Constitution is the authority grantedto government to force a person to pay a third-party tribute as a condition ofemployment?  Show it to me.

You have a right to vote, and you are not forced to purchasethat right from me.  You have a right tospeak, and you are not forced to purchase it from me.  You have a right to worship, and you are notrequired to purchase it from me.  Youhave a right to bear arms, and you are not required to purchase it fromme.  You have a right to due process, andyou are not required to purchase it from me.

But when it comes to your right to work, in 28 states you are required to purchase it from me, aslong as I call myself the amalgamated brotherhood or fraternal order ofwhatever, and persuade 50% of your co-workers – once , and by any means necessary – to pay the toll. And there’s therub.    

In the past, you had to pay a poll tax to apolitical partyto exercise the right to vote; in forced-union states, you still youmust pay atribute to the parent company of a political party in order to exerciseyourright to work. The second case is no less corrupt and reprehensiblethan thefirst, but many who marched against the former offense in theirbell-bottomed days are now marching to protect the latter offense intheir loose-fit years.    

The civil rights movement of the 1960’s busted the hold ofthe Ku Klux Klan over the Democratic Party in the South and abolished the polltax.  Right To Work in the 2010’s willbust the unions’ even more powerful stranglehold on the Democratic Party in thenorth, and abolish the workplace toll.  Bustingorganizations whose sole purpose is to deny civil rights to others is a worthyand noble cause. Klan buster, trust buster, crime buster, union buster; it’sall good.     

It is the liberals who defend forced-union legislation that havethe explaining to do.  They have abandonedtheir commitment to civil rights, trading their principles for box seats in thegame of political power and control.  Tocontinue to call themselves civil libertarians is dishonest.  They are civil rights sellouts, and we shouldnot be squeamish about calling them on it just because they are nice.      

On one hand, they insist on a right for gay people to marry,but they would deny those same married gay people the right to work.  They claim to be the defenders of women’srights in the workplace, yet categorically deny women their most basic workplaceright – the right to work.  They claim tobe the protector of children, yet work tirelessly to deny children the right towork when they grow up.  The advocatesfor workers with disabilities will not lift a finger to help the disabled workfree of union impairment.

They will yell themselves hoarse over a 5% minorityreligion’s potential offense over a mural with the Ten Commandments; but they findit perfectly acceptable to force the 49% of a workforce that voted againstunion membership to join it anyway and for employers to withhold the dues thatwill be used against their interests.

There are some of us who have concluded that the mobbed-upextortionists with initials on their windbreakers are vile; and we don’tbelieve we should be coerced into joining their ranks by the government thatrepresents us. That wacky notion iscalled freedom of association. If you think it is a proper role of governmentto force people into associations against their will, all I can say is that youshould thank your lucky stars that I am not the Governor of your state.    

It now seems clear that the unionists strategy in Wisconsin is to disenfranchise the whole state andnullify the November elections by keeping 14 Democratic State Senators in Illinois long enough tomount a nationally-orchestrated recall effort in selected Republican districts. That is our President’s impaired visionof representative democracy in a republic.   

There are over 5 million citizens in the state of Wisconsin.  The vast majority of us do not live andbreathe politics 24/7/365. We like to stay generally informed, and then everytwo years, we would like to weigh in on the performance of our representativesand the direction of our state. Then we want to get back to important thingslike business, work, family, church, clubs, charities, neighbors, friends, entertainment,romance, hobbies, intellectual pursuits, music, education, and sports, sports,sports.       

But there is a tiny little minority who think they are sobloody important that they should hold the entire state hostage to theirpartisan sparring and self-absorbed tantrums.  Their arrogance and condescension would beinfuriating if we weren’t so bored with it.

They think their passions are more important than ours.  Theythink their uses for our money for aremore important than our own. They think the perks of their own jobs aremoreimportant than the hundreds of thousands that won’t be created here nowthatthey have shown potential employers that we are a state run by folkswho have lost their minds or folks who are losing their nerve.  

They have a right to their opinions. But far moreimportantly, the rest of us have a right to work. And this would be a good time for the new governmentthat was elected last fall to protect our rights to show us the respect of actually doingit. Right To Work – right now.   

“Moment Of Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarianwriter and speaker Tim Nerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.com to find your moment andorder his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”