I completely disagree. Privatize education? Put citizens health and well being in the hands of the profiteers? Lame idea. Where in history has your idea worked. What Economic theory or practice validates this idea? Educate me!
Changes are necessary in our Government. I can't believe the nation is 200+ years old and there are so many problems! I can (and do) believe our government is an enormous bureaucracy, and is in constant need of citizen involvement to improve it. Citizens need to know how many corporate (private) special interest groups are pounding on legislators doors in Washington, advocating for corporate best interests, and not individual. "We the people...", not "We the corporation".

Below is an excerpt from The Worst Way to Do Anything: Why a Healthy World Requires Freedom from Coercion

http://www.strike-the-root.com/71/allport/allport22.html

What People Know

Coercive government always proves to be the worst way to do anything peaceful and civilized; the combination of coercion and top-down central planning ensures this. Furthermore, everyone knows that government is the worst way to do things, even though most people don't seem to realize that they know it.

You can prove to someone that he or she understands the superiority of non-government approaches with a single question:

"How often do you voluntarily send money (that is, non-tax money) to assist government programs?"

The answer, for nearly everyone, is "never." But ask whether the person voluntarily supports private, non-government efforts for provision of goods and services, or for charity and disaster relief, and the answer is very different.

For example, after hurricane Katrina, did you donate to FEMA? Did you donate to the Army Corps of Engineers? Did you send a check to any government agency involved in responding to the disaster?

If not, did you instead donate to the Red Cross, or to the Salvation Army, or to a fund set up by your church, or to any other non-government charity or relief organization? For many people, the answer here would be "yes."

When giving to charity, you are moved to donate money (or goods, or time and effort) because you have a healthy human desire to help others in their time of need. You donate specifically to a non-government effort because you want what you give to actually provide a benefit.

"People do what they believe," observes Sunny Randall, a character in Robert B. Parker's novel Spare Change. I think it's reasonable to infer, from the ratio of voluntary donations to private versus to government charity and relief efforts – not to mention when voluntarily paying for other goods and services – that people know perfectly well the superiority of non-government action. This superiority has nothing to do with government employees being inferior or corrupt (although some are), but instead results, inevitably, from the nature of coercively-funded government action versus the nature of voluntarily-funded efforts.

[See link above for full column]

Freedom is a long way off, and I think people should understand that this movement doesnt have to be about freedom. Thats just what it represents. In effect, it can also act as a counterbalance to slow down and reverse the trends occurring in government today. In other words, whether you think freedom is the right way, or the status-quo is the wrong way, this movement may be your best hope.

As long as government is involved in these areas, ever more money will be thrown at the programs because it's the only thing beaurocracies know how to do.

More than a decade ago our govt. began throwing billions at the task of alternative energy. Billions of dollars later the product of these wasted billions is ethanol, which consumes as much energy to produce as is created, has sent the price of corn sky high, and took those billions away from whatever productive endeavor they might've funded in the private sector.

On the freemarket side, once gas rose to $4.00/gal Honda is producing a car that runs on water, India has a car already on the road in France which uses gas to power an air compressor getting 1000 miles on 8 gallons of gas, and a whole new generation of electric car engines.

Multiply this by some ridiculously large number and you'll get a picture of the total effect of the governments incompetence. But the govt. doesn't just waste money. Think of the cost in hours of you life that you spend working to pay taxes and the inflated price of goods made by companies force to try to produce while complying with the endless regulations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDzuI1974zA&feature=related

going to comment but it looks like everything has been said already.

Freedom.....gimme all you got

"So, it is only "libertarianism" that truly "functions," or is sustainable (it may not have been called "libertarianism" in the 18th or 19th centuries, but the philosophy was the same). It is not an abstract idealism that has never worked "when the rubber hits the road." It is the one form of government that HAS worked and proven sustainable. It gave us the modern world we take for granted. After thousands of years of traveling on foot or beasts of burden, LIBERTARIANISM gave us automobiles, trains, and airplanes to travel in instead. No explosion of innovation or improvement in quality of living had ever been seen before, or has been seen since. We will never again see an improvement in the quality of life for our middle class or poor until we return to the libertarianism that once promised to lift the poor out of misery forever...."

You ARE kidding, right? You attribute the industrial revolution to Libertarianism?

What an egocentric thing to say. Never mind the great advancements in science made by Europeans, the huge leaps made by giants like Galileo and the entire Renaissance period, the contributions that came out of ancient China, or the humoungous amount of knowledge garnered AFTER you claim America stopped being Libertarian.

It is so preposterous a claim as to be laughable.

NASA and the entire space program is not libertarian but funded by government coercion. Stanford research is mutually funded by private grants and government coercion. The entire tech and computer industry grew up in an era of what you claim is a non-libertarian era.

Nobody is gonna be convinced of your ideals if you keep tossing salads like that!

"It is the one form of government that HAS worked and proven sustainable."

Proven? It got consumed by government coercion! England is a constitutional monarchy. There is no functioning libertarian society on the planet, dude...

The government that is limited to protecting people from force or fraud was most closely achieved in the United States before 1912, especially in the second half of the 19th Century. The next freest society in history was that of Great Britain. It is no accident that these two countries were the birthplaces of the industrial revolution.

It was the United States, the freer of the two countries, that raced ahead. Almost everything we associate with the modern world was invented in America in the last half of the 19th century or beginning of the 20th. The telephone, the motion picture, the automobile, the airplane, the electric light....the list goes on and on. This was not an accident. This was the direct result of what would today be called a "libertarian society."

Contrary to the socialist myth our children are taught in school, it was not merely a few "robber barons" (who should be called "productive geniuses") that benefitted. The quality of life of the poor increased more in those 60 years than it had in thousands before it. It is easy to look back now and say that things were bad for the poor. However, if one looks back 50 years before that, they had improved immensely, and were continuing to improve. The poor were seeing improvement, the middle class was growing wealthy, and yes, vast fortunes were made by those who were largely responsible for making those dreams come true.

Full of a sense of accomplishment and believing anything was possible, the Americans emerged in the 20th century unsatisfied and no longer willing to wait for laissez faire captalism to continue to improve the quality of life of the poor, even though it had done so at such an astouding rate. Thus, the "social reform" movement was born. In a classic mistake, America forgot that the very prosperity they were now trying to accelerate had been created by the ABSENCE of government beyond its necessary role. They wanted to use more government to create more prosperity, and thus we had the birth of social programs. America also made the horrible assumption that it could share its "democracy" with the rest of the world by conquest, and Wilson's policy to "make the world safe for democracy" became the American mantra, as it still is today.

In order to fund the Great War and social programs (welfare and warfare), an income tax was instituted and a central bank created to ensure that there was sufficient "liquidity" to support these grand new initiatives. The "libertarian" America was over and you can trace the decline pretty consistently from there. As the income tax was limited to a small percentage at first and only applied to a limited portion of society, it did not have the devastating effects that it does today. The same with welfare programs before the great depression.

FDR came close to taking America down when his attempt at a big government solution turned the Federal Reserve created recession into a 10 year depression. Luckily, the United States stayed out of WWII long enough, and demanded gold for all of the supplies and equipment it sold the Allies, and was able to amass most of the wealth of the western world as a result. However, due to the movement away from freedom and toward socialism that had started with Wilson, the prosperity was not sustainable, as indeed it hasn't been ever since. By the 1960's, new socialist nails in America's coffin were introduced with Medicare and Medicaid, which GAO Comptroller David Walker says are far worse threats to our solvency than social security. While America remained the most capitalist country in the world until recently, the drag of socialism was upon her, and the cracks in the foundation were beginning to widen. As America allowed government to encroach more and more into its formerly free market economy, it ceased to be competitive in many industries, automobiles, textiles, electronics being just a few. A general socialist antagonism toward productive businesses became the new "ethos" of the average American, while welfare programs growing out of control started to take huge bites out of the GDP, eliminating any hope of real savings and thus growth.

For the past 20 years, the United States has lived off the confidence of other countries, based upon its past. It has created phony wealth in the 90's tech bubble and this decade's housing bubble, importing goods from around the world and giving nothing in return but its dollars, only valuable because other countries are still willing to accept them, although that is coming to an end and we are seeing the beginning of the end for America as the dominant power. The fact is, America is no longer a productive nation - at least not productive enough to justify anywhere near its consumption. We have gone from the world's largest creditor to the world's largest debtor. All of this is the result of allowing government to go beyond its proper role.

Today, the average family struggles with two full time incomes while 50 years ago 1 income kept the whole family comfortable. This is a decline in real terms (separate from nominal money values which are deceiving when the currency is constantly debased) in quality of life. We are heading backwards. If you haven't noticed, the pace at which things are getting worse is accelerating. Forebodingly, the rhetoric of the politicians, especially Clinton and Obama, is that more government is needed than EVER before. The "conservative" republicans were so bad that now the socialists are seizing the opportunity and moving in for he kill. Socialized medicine. Windfall taxes on profits. The last vestiges of capitalism are going to die in the next few presidential terms and then America will be dead.

You will notice that big government advocates will always refer to America as a "democracy." As popular (and wonderful) as Naomi Wolfe's lecture on fascism was, her positions on everything else are completely socialist. Watch her presentation again and count how many times she calls America a "democracy." Does she ever refer to it as a republic? No. Democracy is no more a guarantee of freedom than monarchy or dictatorship. That is why the founders insisted on a Bill of Rights - it was to protect the individual AGAINST DEMOCRACY - THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. While we respected it, we prospered.

So, it is only "libertarianism" that truly "functions," or is sustainable (it may not have been called "libertarianism" in the 18th or 19th centuries, but the philosophy was the same). It is not an abstract idealism that has never worked "when the rubber hits the road." It is the one form of government that HAS worked and proven sustainable. It gave us the modern world we take for granted. After thousands of years of traveling on foot or beasts of burden, LIBERTARIANISM gave us automobiles, trains, and airplanes to travel in instead. No explosion of innovation or improvement in quality of living had ever been seen before, or has been seen since. We will never again see an improvement in the quality of life for our middle class or poor until we return to the libertarianism that once promised to lift the poor out of misery forever.

Tom Mullen

www.tommullen.net
www.myspace.com/skepticsongs

" don't feel Scott has made a skillful argument in defense of his position because he departs from logic constantly from one post to the next..."

Again, just making a claim doesn't make it so.

You have not demonstrated where my logic fails at any point. You have just asserted that it was so.

Your fundamental premise is faulty because humans beings are faulty. Is there any fault in logic there?

Your fundamental premise does not resolve common human problems adequately, due to the faultiness of humans.

Is there any faulty logic there?

Please, demonstrate that you are more than just an assertion...

"The "American ethos" is not static or written in stone. In fact as we drift further to the left this ethos is changing in fundamental ways. Independence and self-reliance? "

Yes. I agree. The ethos and American sense of "liberty" is taking a turn for the worse. That is why I support a movement like the RP movement. It shifts the balance back to where I agree with it.

But a shift toward the ideals of "liberty" don't mean a hard slam of the needle to an extreme point of view. And that is my position. SOme of you are arguing for an extreme "concept" that is not a working model. My view is less severe, but in the same direction as most people here...

Limit government coercion to what is essential to make society FUNCTION. Remove the center of power from WashingtonDC and return it to local governments as much as possible. That means taking away most of the taxing claims made by the federal government, as well. Allow local governments the rights to actually do what government is supposed to do, and that is make society FUNCTION. Reset the federal government back toward doing what it was originally designed to do.

Remember, I have as much right to live in a society that functions as you have a personal right to climb pine trees in your underwear... The balance is never easy, between functionality and liberty, but just declaring "liberty" to trump all other considerations will get you nothing but hard core followers.

"Scott. you seem to fail to acknowledge the flip side of that argument. what about the people that push for the programs you don't like, they seem to be absent in this process. they would surely try to employ the same tactics to get their way. and because the local government is more responsive they'll get their way quicker than at the federal level."

No. I do not fail to recognize that everyone doesn't think like me. Government of a collective, is a process of compromises with conditions. Again, those compromises can be argued over at a local level, but are out of the hands of the constituents at a federal level. There are no utopias or perfect systems. Humans make "ideals" unidealistic in a hurry.

"You're not going to convince Scott. I suggest you try somebody else. When you confront him with facts, he changes the subject and argues about something he feels he can win..."

What facts? First time I saw facts, was in this post!

And I agree with your assessment, the federal government is too big, tries to do too much, and is out of hand. That is a far cry from the pure libertarian ideals you espouse.

I've been reading all the comments on here, and I've noticed a trend. This is kinda off subject. I'm not sure whether the rating system is meant to rate whether or not you agree with what someone is saying or whether their post is articulate and so on... I got a bad score on my first post here, where I agree with, because I wasn't particularly articulate , didn't convey my ideas well, and came off as angry. I can pretend to excuse it with the fact that I was tired and probably in need of nicotine, but I got the rating I deserved. But I also notice that Scott from Oregon practically has a negative rating on everything he's said. Despite that he's not being an asshole and seems to be conveying his ideas well. I just think it's poor use of the rating system to use it to indicate whether you agree wholeheartedly with their ideas or not instead of how articulately they're expressing their ideas. I kinda believe that everyone should be respected for what they have to say because they have the right to say it , and lets grade them on how well they express themselves and the maturity level with which they do so, not on whether you agree with what they're saying. This site is comprised of libertarians and Ron Paul supporters in general, and while we probably agree on most issues, it's still somewhat broad and nobody should be shamed for having a difference in opinion.

"does every single social program in this country get smaller in scope or bigger with time?"

bigger with time?

No. They do not. Welfare was actually shrunk under the Contract With America initiative under Clinton, and locally, we've had services such as libraries and parks diminished due to the federal government reneging on old land for tree deals...

So no.

"your argument is that on the local level this would not happen?
how do you figure that?"

Because government on the local level is responsive, whereas on the federal level, it is insulated and therefore far less responsive. If you try and establish laws or programs that I cannot tolerate, on the local level I can put tacks in your driveway, have a talk with your wife, tell your kids to tell their dad to knock it off...

If my taxes, for example, are out of proportion to the services I am getting, then I will be irate and come and see you in your office... If many people come and see you, you will either be persuaded or you will face what happened to Gray Davis in California -- a "recall".

Local poitics is much more amenable to the actually needs of the populace, where federal governments tend to be more about establishing more power. Especially in a country as large and diverse as the US.

"you just keep twisting them and completely avoiding answering the bits that challenge your assertions."

Ummmm.... I haven't avoided answering anything. You give me theory that doesn't work in practice, because humans are not ideal beings.

Asserting something doesn't make it so.

Society doesn't function well without some "governmental" coercion, and I maintain that the source for that coercion, if close to my front door, is the ideal place for it.

You awesomo, use a simple, logically faulty "slippery slope" argument to try and tell me that if we allow any coercion, then we will end up a totalitarian state...

I say Bullshit.

You argue that if we allow for coercion to maintain a public school, then we will automatically gravitate toward pure socialism.

I say bullshit again.

Claiming you "made salient, convincing points" doesn't mean you did.

Like I said, if you can't convince someone who leans in your direction, you aren't going to change many minds...

"Scott, you must know you break from logic "

There you go making assertions again without evidence or facts or reason.

Just saying something is so doesn't make it so.

You are trying to make a case for your envisioned type of government, but you can't even convince me when I lean that way to begin with...

If you can't make a case that I accept, what hope do you have making a case for those who lean away from you to begin with?

Great...fantastic article...but uh...question...since the GOP, like my own state of CO has kicked the Ron Paul folks off...is it better to stay in the GOP and fight within...or jump out of the GOP(sinking Titanic) and fight on the outside of this organization?

'''Scott, would it be legitimate for the state of California to pass a law whereby the 5 richest people in the state would have to hand over all their income, excepting, say, one million dollars each? A million dollars is a lot of money, don't we agree? Certainly enough to live on, right?

I can imagine such a proposal might be well supported by a majority of Californians."""

Ummm, I can't imagine Californians passing a law like that. You are going against an American ethos here, and are assuming that a population is far more selfish than it is reasonable. I haven't ever seen that to be true. The trouble with a hypothetical of that nature, is that it is too outlandish to actually make a good point. You obviously want to know what I think about "redistribution of wealth" tax schemes. I think the very mildest forms of this can have a soothing effect on society, actually keeping the lowest "classes" from revolting against the super rich. Again, too much is not good either because then "investment" slows or stops. Right now, the balance is out of whack and it is a federal government doing the whacking.

"If government is locally centered, I will probably know the family of the girl who wants me to pay for her medical...
also, i'm not talking about you in particular paying for somebody's health bills. i'm talking about a collective healthcare system. surely it can be implemented on a local level as well. so there is no personal discussion involved in this as there are, let's say 2 million people involved in this undertaking."

I know what you are talking about. I am talking slightly metaphoric here. I may not ACTUALLY know the girl who wants me to pay her medical. What I will know are the players who want to enact legislation that I may not agree with, like a medicair for all bill. My point is that with a more local focus of power, closer to my front door, I can actively participate in the proces if it means somethng positive or negative to me.

"Either there are unalienable rights that limit the laws permitted to be passed by majority or there are not. You have stated that our rights are granted to us by the majority. Therefore, if the majority passes a law saying that you MUST join a church, attend services, even BELIEVE in God, then by your own logic you must do all of that."

If you say so... Our rights are granted by ourselves, by concession to a piece of paper. If the majority wants to enact a law that some find despotic, they will have to deal with the backlash to despotism. You are trying to argue against an ethos here, an American iconographic ideal. Theoretically, you are correct in saying that a majority could make the minority live under its dictation, as the majority could tear up the Constitution and reestablish a theocracy. Fine. As with all laws of humans, there is no immutable truth. There is only the ethos and ideals we all agree to abide by, represented in such documents as The Bill Of Rights. Saying something is "inaliable" doesn't actually mean all that much, unless you agree with it and enough people agree with it to make it an ideal that people adhere to.

"""There is no "balance" needed between totalitarianism and freedom, socialism and freedom, or any other characterization of freedom vs. slavery.

People should be 100% free.

That does not mean that they are free to harm others. THat does not mean that there are no laws.

People living under a properly limited government, which protects their rights, prohibits them from harming people, but compels them to do nothing"""

You keep making this statement in a vaccuum. The compelling nature of government is what makes you have the most freedoms possible. Without the compelling nature of government, a grass fire may sweep through your area and just keep on sweeping, taking out your house and belongings. If everyone you know and knows you are in your neighborhood, they may not be in a position to help you. I suppose you are free to beg and borrow and sleep under bridges... sure. The point is, some of us prefer the alternative. We dont mind chipping in for fire protection, which is not cheap. The only way to make this FUNCTION is by coercion of some form. Otherwise, human nature being what it is, the funds would not be there when needed as many will make other choices and then lament when the fire arrived.

Your system sounds ideal but doesn't work nearly as well as a mild form of localized government that uses laws and taxes to make things actually function. Having a mild form of localized government doesn't lead to totalitarianism any more than joining a food Co-op leads to Communism.

Pure libertarianism has yet to be established in any modern society, and it continually fails where the rubber hits the road, and that is in creating an equilibrium that benefits the individual and the collective at the same time.