Americanly Yours

I am leaving the Democratic Party to join the Libertarian Party. My fit with the Democratic Party has been less great in recent years, and I have got to the point where I no longer feel comfortable calling myself a Democrat. And, although I voted for John McCain, I cannot consider myself a Republican either. Even though I supported Senator McCain, I actually disagreed with him on more issues than I agreed with him. It wasn’t a “lesser of two evils” thing, it was just that at the time Senator’s McCain’s views were closest to mine.

Since the election, however, a wave of bailouts has swept aside our Capitalist system and has moved us towards a socialist system in which the government owns and directs the economic activities of large corporations. The government’s reaction to the recent economic crisis (which I blame on government intervention in the first place) has hardened my non-interventionist views.

I decided to join the Libertarian Party after these bailouts convinced me that I could not support the Democrats or the Republicans. I began looking at the party platforms for different parties and found that I agreed with most of the Libertarian Party’s platform. Sure, there are major areas where I disagree with them, but I feel great about joining the Libertarian Party.

Why did I join the Libertarian Party you ask? Well…

Who stood up to Republicans and opposed the Patriot Act?

Who stood up to Bush and defended the 4th Amendment to our Constitution after details of Bush’s warrantless wiretap program were revealed?

Who has stood up against the efforts of the Democratic Party to take away the rights given to Americans by the 2nd Amendment?

Who has opposed every government bailout?

Who has opposed the increasing governmental control over every part of your personal life, from how you educate your children, to what types of cars you drive, to what type of energy you use to heat your home?

Who has fought for the right of ailing patients to be allowed to use medicinal marijuana to soothe their pain?

Who has fought for an end to the immoral system of taxing human labor, investment, savings, and entrepreneurial activity?

Who is the only party that defends the Constitution, as written?

Who is the only party that promises to cut the fat from our bloated bureaucracy?

With both parties turning toward bailouts and excessive regulation, who is the only party left still advocating Capitalism?

Which party is a staunch supporter of Free Trade, knowing that it is the best way to create jobs, economic growth, and save consumers the most money?

And which party holds the fundamental belief that individual freedom and personal responsibility are natural rights which should not be abridged by government for any reason?

The Libertarian Party.

Do you get the point?  The Libertarian Party is the only American political party which advocates complete economic and political freedom.

Many people say that voting for a “3rd party” candidate is a “wasted vote.”  This is not true.  It is true that the odds of a Libertarian candidate being elected to National office in the next elections is small.

The Democratic and Republican Parties want you to think that your vote only matters if you vote for one of their candidates.  And, this is only true to the degree that you accept their argument.  If you want to vote for a candidate who supports Liberty, but you do not believe that he can win, so you vote for one of the candidates from the two major parties, you are wasting your vote.  You are making the Democrats and Republicans right in their assertion that a 3rd party candidate cannot win.

This is a democracy.  In a democracy, there are no wasted votes.  A vote for any candidate, be he Republican, Democrat, Communist, Libertarian, or a protest write-in vote for yourself is equally valid and is not a wasted vote, as long as you are voting for the candidate that you feel is the one most suited for the job.  A vote is wasted if you compromise your beliefs and vote for a candidate that you do not like over a candidate that you agree with because you assume that the candidate that you agree with has no realistic chance of winning.  Penn Jilette says that if you “keep voting for the lesser of two evils [you will] watch things get more evil.”

Additionally, a vote for a 3rd party candidate should be viewed as an investment in the future.  A candidate may get only 5% of the vote this time, but getting 5% could encourage more people to vote for him.  Maybe in the next election, he gets 10%.  And as this happens, we could see a Libertarian or other 3^rd party candidate win. In Georgia in November, a statewide Libertarian candidate for Public Service Commissioner received over 1 million votes and received over 1/3 of the total votes cast for his position, even winning my county by over 37,000 votes. Maybe next time, he can win.

They say that “absolute power corrupts, absolutely.” Well, I say “absolute freedom enlightens, absolutely.”

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

Here is an excerpt from a piece I wrote back on September 26th, before Congress passed the $700 billion TARP program.  A lot of things have changed since then, but I still think this is a good and relevant piece.  I did not change this from the way that I wrote it back in September, except to correct a spelling mistake in the last paragraph.

We should, however, worry about our economy now.  The national debt is rapidly marching towards ten trillion dollars ($10,000,000,000,000).  Our unfunded liabilities in Social Security and Medicare now total an additional sixty-seven trillion dollars ($67,000,000,000,000).  By 2012 the Medicare fund will be going into a deficit and we will be forced to spend tax dollars to keep up with Medicare payments.  By 2017, the same thing happens with Social Security.  American families now owe over $15 trillion in household debt.  We have nothing left.  We are witnessing the slow, painful fall of the American Empire.  It hurts me to watch because I love this Nation so much.

For years we threw money at problems without ever trying to really solve them (poverty, drugs, education, health care).  Now we have no money and things are getting worse in all of these areas.

Iconic American companies are being swallowed up by foreign firms at an unprecedented rate.  Budweiser is being bought out by a Dutch firm, Miller is now owned by South Africans, and Coors is owned by Canadians.  Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors are now on the brink of extinction and are closing down American plants to move to other nations.

Sovereign wealth funds (companies owned by foreign governments) have been buying up large stakes in American companies—these sovereign wealth funds now own about 10% of Citigroup, 20% of the NASDAQ stock exchange, 9% of UBS, 10% of Morgan Stanley.  They own 7.5% of the Carlyle Group (which owns major defense contractors, telecommunications and technology companies, CSX railroads’’ domestic container lines, and consumer companies like Baskin-Robbins and Dunkin’ Donuts).  China owns 10% of the Blackstone Group (which owns Hilton Hotels, American textbook publisher Houghton-Mifflin, Universal Studios Parks, and is in the process of purchasing a large stake in The Weather Channel).  These wealth funds also own well over 10% of Merril Lynch (RIP), 2% of Barclays (which controls large portions of the stock of many large companies—go here and put in any symbol and you will see that Barclay’s owns a large stake), 7.5% in Diamler, AG, and several hundred million dollars worth of Visa.

The German government owns 35.5% of DHL, 20.3% of Volkswagen, and 32% of T-Mobile.  Through its stake in Renault, the French government owns 6.9% of Nissan.  Any time that you buy a product or a service from one of those companies, you are essentially paying a tax to a foreign government.  For example, if you stay at a Hilton hotel, 10% of the profit made from your visit goes to the Chinese government.  If you buy a new Mercedes, 7.5% of the profits made subsidize the Dubai government.  Do you think that American text books will continue to criticize the policies of Mao, now that China owns 10% of the company that makes our history books?

This is socialism, but at least in traditional socialism, Americans would see some benefit from their dollars going to state-owned enterprises.  In this case however, American dollars are going directly into the hands of foreign governments.  Would foreign nations tolerate the American government coming in and buying up stakes in their countries?  think not.

Do you remember mercantilism from history class?  That is what is happening in this country.  We export food, chemicals, plastic, cigarettes, cotton, and many other raw materials, only to import these goods back into the country later as finished goods: the cotton comes back as clothing, the plastic comes back in the form of goods made in China, and so on.   We produce nothing here.   We consume foreign goods like the world is ending tomorrow.  We now have the import/export profile of a 3rd world nation.

Rome is burning while Congress is playing the fiddle.  Be scared.  You should be.  Your children will know a different America.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

You cant make this up.

Apparently this guy gets really drunk on a United Airlines flight from Japan to America a few years ago.  Then, he goes home and beats his wife.  The beating was so severe that it landed him an 18 month jail sentence.  The couple is now suing United Airlines for over $100,000 because they claim that it is somehow their fault that he beat his wife after drinking on United’s plane.

Are you kiding me?  Why should United Airlines be responsible for the actions of a drunk customer of theirs.  The man, an adult, got drunk on his own and then choose to go home and abuse his wife.  I have been drunk hundreds of times and have never beat up a woman.  United Airlines had no reason to believe that serving this man alcohol would result in him physically abusing his wife, and they should not be forced to pay any damages to this man.  It is his personal responsibility–not the responsibility of United Airlines–to ensure that when he becomes inebriated that he does not abuse his wife.

No rational person could ever abuse his wife and then claim that it is the fault of the airline because the airline served him.  The judge should dismiss this case and the couple should be forced to reimburse the court and the attorneys for United Arilines for the costs of this frivolous case.

We live in a society where our first instinct has become to place blame on others for our own faults and that is a shame.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

The American people and Congress may have rejected a bailout for the automakers, but in his infinite wisdom (and apparently infinite power, as I was unaware that a President could circumvent our Constitution and our laws to enact legislation without the consent of Congress), our President has thrown Chrysler and GM a lifeline by giving them $17.4 billion.   Remember, Chrysler is the same company whose owners would not contribute their own billions to save, so clearly this is another smart investment from the Federal Government.  Luckily, Ford has announced that it doesn’t need the money and will not be requesting any.  With this new bailout, the government now has the right to purchase stock in the two companies and place them under governmental supervision.

President Bush, thanks for Socialism!

The government that is supposed to represent you has taken your money through taxes on your hard work and is using this money–without your permission or even your approval–to purchase stock in two failing auto companies.

Do you still think Robin Hood was a great man?

This act completely violates the basic core principles of both Democracy and Capitalism.  The principles of Democracy are violated because the government is acting without the consent of the people, and is in fact acting opposite of the desires of the people.  The principles of Capitalism are violated because the government is taking ownership in two more American companies, placing factors of production directly under its control.

Does anyone really think that $17.4 billion can save the automakers?  This money is just an excuse for the government to put more money into the companies in the future to protect their initial investment.  In poker, you are called “pot committed” when you have a large enough amount of money in the pot to justify calling a bet that you know you will lose.  In the investing world, this is called throwing good money after bad money.  I thik the investors have it right this time.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

When I was young, I read the children’s book If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. You can find the book here, but the book starts off like this: “If you give a mouse a cookie, He’s going to ask for a glass of milk. When you give him the milk, he’ll probably ask you for a straw…” The mouse keeps on asking for more and more, using each previous request as the basis for why he should get another favor.

With people saying things like “Well, we bailed out AIG, it isn’t fair for us to not bail out GM,” I have been thinking about this book a lot lately. People have been using flawed logic by saying that because we bailed out one failing company, we ought to bail out the next failing company. It was wrong for us to bailout Bear Stearns, AIG, Citigroup, or any of the hundreds of other businesses that the government has bailed out and taken an ownership stake in. Just because we have committed several wrongs doesn’t mean that we need to abandon what is right and continue doing wrong. Think about someone who is on a diet, but splurges once and eats a piece of cake in a moment of weakness. Should that person then eat a cookie, a cheeseburger, and a plate of delicious Chicken Wings because they have already fallen off the wagon, or should they admit they made a mistake and return to their diet?

Our government made a huge mistake in bailing out Bear Stearns. This led to the government being asked to bail out more and more companies. Using the flawed logic that I described above, the government bailed out more and more companies, not wanting to be “unfair” to any company or industry. In doing so, our President and Congress were unfair to the American people who are to be saddled with the large debts created by the costs of the bailouts which we do not support.

It might not be as good of a children’s book as If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, but here is an excerpt from my new book entitled If You Give Bear Stearns A Bailout:

If you bailout Bear Stearns, they will ask you to bailout AIG. If you bailout AIG, they are going to ask you to bailout the rest of the financial industry. If you bailout the financial industry, they are going to ask you to bailout the auto industry. If you bailout the auto industry, they will ask you to bailout the airlines…

We should have told that “mouse” no.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet