Preserving our Blessings

I’m thankful. I’m very thankful. And not just today, Thanksgiving Day, but every day. I grew up in a family with loving parents and siblings. I don’t mean to demean the rest of you, but I’ve got the world’s best wife (some of you are undoubtedly pretty good, but no one can hold a candle to Courtney, the love of my life). We have a home that someday we’ll own, in the great State of Colorado, a state whose abundance of outdoor beauty and recreation gave birth to my entrepreneurial spirit. We live in a land of liberty and opportunity, and for all these things, I’m grateful.

Dad worked hard to provide for us, but also instilled a strong work ethic so that we could provide for ourselves. I remember working with Dad after school one day as an 11 year old. We were picking up scraps and trash at a home he was building. A subcontractor stopped to talk to Dad, and I stood idly by and listened for most of an hour. Then it was time to go home. As we got into the van I was foolish enough to remark how easy it was to earn my 50 cents for that last hour. Man, did he lay into me! He said he wasn’t going to pay me for that hour. I complained that I was there to help him, and since he was listening to the subcontractor, I was helping him listen. Dad carefully explained that he pays me to work, and that we each have different jobs. If I expect to get paid, I had better stay busy doing my work.

My dad taught me that hard work in this land of opportunity is rewarded. Indeed, the United States of America is the most prosperous nation in history. Even the poorest among us live far better than most of the rest of the world. We owe that to our history of respect for liberty. It is our deeply held belief in liberty that gave us a legal system that protects property rights. Without property rights there is no incentive to create or produce anything more than what it takes to survive. After all, if you can’t enforce your right to own what you produce, why bother?

As thankful as I am for all these things, I’m also deeply concerned. Former State Senator John Andrews today told me of the writings of Alexander Tytler:

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always have progressed from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, and from dependence back into bondage.

In Senator Andrews’ book “Responsibility Reborn” he says, “You’d have to be dreaming, not to recognize that we have been living in a nation that has for quite a while been somewhere on the declining side of the cycle”. He also points out that the cycle can be reversed. If I didn’t believe that, I would not write these columns. I would not have run for State Representative in 2010. Simply put, I wouldn’t bother. If we don’t renew our respect for liberty, if we don’t restore limits on government that respect property rights, we will continue down that cycle.

We have gone from a nation that was built on a rugged entrepreneurial spirit, on self reliance and personal responsibility, and on mutual respect for rights and liberty, to a nation with a culture of dependence that relies on what the government can take from one to give to another.

 

During this season of thanks, let us be grateful for the work of those who established, secured, and protect our freedoms. Let us be mindful of the abundance we enjoy, and how the blessings of liberty created that abundance. And let us commit to not decline into complacency, apathy, and dependence, but embrace the independence and personal responsibility that will ensure the survival of the Republic.

The Misdirected Anger of the Occupiers

“I’ll have a hamburger, for which I’ll gladly pay you, Tuesday”. Wimpy.

Comics often allow a humorous glimpse into real life. I remember growing up and reading Family Circus every Sunday, tracing Billy as he ambled from amusement to amazement throughout the entire cartoon panel. At the time, it didn’t occur to me that we behave that way as children. I just thought Billy was cool. Then there was the comic strip “There Oughta Be a Law”. Can anyone doubt its success? Although its not singlehandedly responsible for overregulation, we certainly have an abundance of laws!

 

What can we learn from Wimpy, the affable carnivore from the Popeye comics? For many youngsters, this was our first look at capitalism. Wimpy made an offer. The hamburger vendor (Bluto) was under no obligation to accept the offer. Why might he accept the offer? If he values the future payment more than his immediate possession of the burger. Were another customer to show up and offer to pay immediately for the burger, Wimpy might not get to eat. Neither has the right to demand anything of the other, because they each have the right to control the fruits of their own productivity. If Wimpy does not respect Bluto’s rights, he may be inclined to steal the hamburger. At that point, government should step in to protect Bluto’s rights, ensuring that each participant in this scenario has full enjoyment of their own property, but not the unearned right to the property of the other.

 

Capitalism is based on value, offer, acceptance, competition, and property rights. The participants, each looking out for their own interests, decide with whom and for what they will trade. Some call this selfishness, but it’s really rational self interest. Competition ensures that resources are used where they achieve the best value for their owner, and that creates wealth. Wealth creates jobs. Jobs create more wealth and society benefits as a whole.

Government’s role is to ensure respect for property rights, the ultimate basis for liberty. When each individual is assured of the right to his property, self interest unleashes the kind of creativity that transformed America into the wealthiest, most respected, and most generous nation in history. Without the rule of law to protect property rights, there is no reason to create wealth because someone else can simply take what you created. Self interest is lost to the extent that property rights are lost.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is based on self interest. The protesters hope for some ill-defined change within Corporate America that will somehow turn into comforts for themselves. Unfortunately, their desires are examples of the very greed they rail against, and their anger is misdirected.

The Occupiers are asking for unearned wealth. That’s human nature. It’s the trait that Corporate America and unions display when they funnel millions of dollars into campaign coffers of elected officials. There will be no human evolution that eliminates self interest, and no amount of punishment for Wall Street will convince corporations to forego their own survival for the sake of mankind. The anger should be directed at government.

 

Lawmakers acting in their own self-interest have lost respect for liberty, property rights, and the right of people to pursue their own selfish interest. With subsidies, loopholes, and regulations, lawmakers have bestowed undue power on those that can return the favor by funding their campaigns. Big business competes for favorable treatment, and it nearly always comes at the expense of the “little guy.” Lawmakers and bureaucrats have essentially institutionalized legal theft. The result is a loss of freedom, opportunity and jobs for society as a whole, and the 99% in particular.

A return to constitutional limits on government will return opportunity to the powerless, increase self interest, and create greater prosperity for all Americans. As F. D. Roosevelt said, “[it is] not that the system of free enterprise for profit has failed in this generation, but that it has not yet been tried”.