The Freedom Factory

Government detention camps cover up deaths-does America have a human rights problem? Congress passes unprecedented $3.6 trillion budget with $1.2 trillion deficit, official unemployment rates his 8.5%-some economists claiming they are really upwards of 20%, government mortgage giants Fannie and Freddie to pay $159 billion in new bonuses, Obama calls end to ‘Pax Americana’, world leaders pledge $1.1 trillion to IMF, Russia refuses to remove troops from Georgia, NY protesters call for government to ‘Bail out the People’, Hugo Chavez declares that ‘Capitalism must end,’ and Treasuries drop with announcement of next week’s $59 billion note issue and Goldman Sachs estimate that government will need to borrow another $3.25 trillion this year… Continue Reading

It appears that we are witnessing, not only an all out assault on the greatest free-market system in the world, but the re-engineering of American society. The statements made by, then candidate, Barack Obama, that this economic recovery will be from the bottom-up, and the, “don’t you believe in spreading the wealth around,” were insights into what we are now seeing played out in congress as a thrust of socialists policies being rammed down the throats of all Americans. The “we won” attitude and the “your getting what you deserve” mentality, is political hubris at its worst.

Frederic Bastiat, in his monumental work, “The Law” makes the case, that once we go down the path of using the law to violate liberty and private property, in the name of equality, there is no stopping it. He asks the question, “Once started, where will you stop? And where will the law stop itself””

Please think about the truth of the statements that Bastiat makes below. Share them with your friends and apply these insights to your evaluation of your government. Bastiat writes:

The mission of the law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property….Its mission is to protect persons and property.

Furthermore, it must not be said that the law may be philanthropic if, in the process, it refrains from oppressing persons and plundering them of their property; this would be a contradiction. The law cannot avoid having an effect upon persons and property; and if the law acts in any manner except to protect them, its actions then necessarily violate the liberty of persons and their right to own property.

The law is justice—simple and clear, precise and bounded. Every eye can see it, and every mind can grasp it; for justice is measurable, immutable, and unchangeable. Justice is neither more than this nor less than this.

If you exceed this proper limit—if you attempt to make the law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, literary, or artistic—you will then be lost in an uncharted territory, in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose it upon you. This is true because fraternity and philanthropy, unlike justice, do not have precise limits. Once started, where will you stop? And where will the law stop itself?

The speed at which the current administration and congress is moving creates a barrier to the appropriate dialog necessary to ensure competent public policy decisions. This, I believe, is by design. We must keep thinking through what we are hearing and give thoughtful responses to our government officials. Me must slow this “train” down.