The Right to Say, "No!"

I often get questioned by conservatives about the difference between conservatives and libertarians. I have had difficulty coming up with a needed sound-bite type of answer that is fundamentally correct and easy to understand.

But I think I have found one. Here it is: The Right to Say, “No!”

We know this not the totality of the differences between libertarians and conservatives. But it is a start.

Check out this video of a man who did not have the right to say, “No” to being taken to the hospital. He represents a microcosm of the abuses heaped on people for saying, “No!”

This right covers a lot of ground when you think about it, some of them big ticket items: Taxes, recycling, using renewable energy, who to allow to come into your business, who to hire in your business, how much to pay your employees, sending your kids to school, giving your kids vaccinations are some of the bigger ones. Painting the house, mowing the lawn, who to hire to rewire the house or put in a new bathroom, what to eat, what do drink, what to smoke are some of the smaller ones.

When someone says, “You must,” do you have the right to say, “No I don’t?” Libertarians think so.

Under a conservative regime, people are expected to follow the orders issued by Authority. Conservatives create armies of government inspectors housed in impressive sounding bureaucracies such as Building Departments, Health Departments, Electric Department, Food and Drug Administrations, Property Tax Collectors, Income Tax Collectors, Occupational Safety Administrators, Police, Fire and Sheriff Departments, ad infinitum whose purpose it is to monitor our activities and issue orders.

All these bureaucrats exist, according to conservatives, for our own good, for our own protection and safety. According to conservatives bureaucrats are needed to protect the majority from the unthinking minorities who fail to comprehend “proper behavior.”
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Well, there you have it. A nice one-liner to that nagging question that attempts to make libertarians look like some kind of bedraggled dissidents to the conservatives who know how we all should be comporting ourselves.
I don’t expect any conversation beyond the quick reply. But if I get a follow up, I’ll mention a couple of the minor ones listed above. Then, if they are still listening, I might follow up with a couple of those big ticket items, especially Taxes!!

Give it a try. If you do, please post a comment on how it worked.

I will be trying it. If it shuts them up, or makes the smile, I don’t care. I just want to make the point—quickly—that there is a difference.

I don’t expect agreement. It gives me a quick “one liner” to their query

And it may give them something to think about.

My Platform, 2010, 61st State Assembly

GM Platform in roughly this order of importance.

IMMEDIATE ACTION:

1. BALANCE THE STATE BUDGET.
2. CUT TAXES, SPENDING AND REGULATIONS until we balance the flow of people in and out of the state. Our growth should be commensurate with that of other states. We should not lose any more representation in the House.
3. CONTINUE TO CUT TAXING, SPENDING AND REGULATIONS until we reach full employment

HOUSE KEEPING ACTIONS (So-called because they have been cussed and discussed ad nauseam and just need to be quickly finished off):

1. PASS School vouchers for Racine County.
2. PASS Concealed carry.
3. DUMP any vestige of Commuter Rail or High Speed Rail legislation or provisions and get on with sensible means of transportation.
4. PASS Voter ID. Maintaining an honest voting procedure is vital to peaceful co-existence. We don't need people going to the streets to choose their representatives.

LONG TERM GOALS:

1. Bring about a broad, statewide application of personal responsibility and freedom, enhanced and made possible through reduced taxation and government regulations.
2. Eliminate all direct taxes (includes income and property taxes). Use only indirect taxes: for example, sales and excise taxes.
3. Direct election of members of the State Senate by members of the county board. (Each county gets one State Senator - total of 72.)

Counties should take over State Senate

Recently County Executive Bill McReynolds and other County Executives started a movement to halt the State Government’s raids on the Department of Transportation highway funds through referendum and a constitutional change.

This is a worthwhile effort. I think it is time to take that change a step further, though. The counties need their own representation in the legislature and the natural place for this is the Senate. Having the county boards elect the State Senators would bring about a broader, permanent change in State abuse of a perfectly workable County System.

As an individual I have two votes in the state legislature, one through my assembly representative, the other through my state senator representative. Those two votes do me no more good than one vote would do in the Assembly.

Through a Wisconsin Constitutional Amendment we should expand the State Senate from 33 members 72 members. We would then also change the constitution so that each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties would have one senator elected by its county board. For example, the State Senator for Racine County would be elected by the 23 County Board Supervisors (not the County electorate).

With this change, the Wisconsin Senate, instead of an echo of the Assembly, would become a powerful second voice to control budgets and activities at the state level.

You can't get the Constitution back

People say they want their constitution back. That is fine. I hope they aren’t speaking literally. For if they are, then they don’t understand the constitution or what it is.

For they can’t get it back. Because it didn’t go anyplace. In fact it isn’t anyplace. It just isn’t.

Not today anyway.

The pseudo constitution under which we operate today in this country isn’t even a very good fake constitution. It doesn’t closely resemble the original.

So what does one do about it?

The first thing is to learn what the original constitution is. Learn how it works. You do that by going back to the documents written at that time about the constitution; read them, understand them, determine what the men meant by those words that were written down on that piece of parchment called the constitution.

And then you put the constitution into operation again.

The constitution is just words on a piece of parchment. That is all it is. That is all it can ever be. Those words can be nothing more by themselves. They need you to put life into them. The constitution must be within you and then you must put it into action in the physical universe. No one else can do it for you. Not a legislator. Not a president. Not a judge.

Only you.

No, you can’t get your constitution back. But you can put it there. For it is yours with which to so do.

What I am talking about is responsibility. What I am saying is that you can’t rely on someone else to do it. That’s what “getting it back” is saying. It is saying that someone else has it and you want them to give it back to you. It is saying that someone else must take responsibility for the situation.

I am saying you are responsible for the Constitution It is within you. And you must find it and know when you have found it. And then you must take that final step and give it life.

Start!

Commuter Rail Referendum

The County Board seems headed in the right direction regarding commuter rail. The referendum question proposed by the Board exposes the prime problem of consideration regarding commuter rail: how is it to be funded?

I took a libertarian argument to the board to hold the referendum. Here it is:

My comments tonight are in regard to the proposed advisory referendum and tradition.

We are all familiar with the words, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This is a statement of what is Tradition here in the United States. I don’t think there is a person in this room tonight that does not understand the importance and value of this tradition. It is part of all of us who live in these united States.

From this very same document is stated another tradition almost as important as the first one: “That to secure these rights Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

And that, dear members of this board, is your basic purpose as County Supervisors. To secure those rights.

It is not to laud over us, telling us what is the best thing for us to do. It is not to tell us how to live our lives, how to care for ourselves, how to care for our property, how we should travel, eat, sleep or drink.

In pursuit of your traditional purpose, to secure those rights, if there is an issue of great controversy, then it is your duty to consult the people from whence your powers were derived. And what better way to do this than by referendum.

I am not a great proponent of majority rule. When 51% of the people can tell the other 49% what to do, that is not Democracy. It is just a form of fascism.

But when just an elite few make the decision for the rest of us, that is worse. That is socialism.

In a True Democracy, a traditional democracy, someone cannot take from another person to give to a third person. I, for instance, cannot forcibly take money from Jim Kaplan (here), my County Supervisor, and give it to my friend County Supervisor Ken Hall—even when Ken and I say it is in Jim’s best interest to give us that money.

In a traditional democracy, Jim has the right to spend his money the way he sees fit without interference from Ken and me.

So this whole concept of taking money from one group that has no interest in investing an a rail system to give to another group that does, is anathema to democracy and the traditional role of government to secure our rights.

In pursuit of that traditional role of government, the least you can do is consult your constituency and hold a referendum on the issue.