For those who fought with the war cry "Freedom" President Lincoln was not one.

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON GMUECONSOCIETY.BLOGSPOT.COM
I am sure everyone has heard it by now since the outcry of
most Americans was an uproar at a statement by Ron Paul on President Lincoln.
Last year, the GMU Economics Society was fortunate to have a lecturer, Thomas DiLorenzo on this issue. Unfortunately we do not have any audio or video of the lecture, but I will link to support the argument as best as I can. I wish only to place some evidence to those looking to comprehend Ron Paul's statement. Not endorsing any politicians as the Econ Society, although the members may have full support for whomever they wish, but do wish to clarify a statement in which many Americans seem to be growing upset towards.

What is taught to children?

• That President Lincoln's nickname was Honest Abe, yet we understand that most politicians do lie. Why should we view him differently?
  The American Indians are led to believe so...
  
• Lincoln saved the Union therefore denying the South the right to secession, yet when Jefferson had installed an embargo on trade with the British the Northeastern states met in convention for secession led by U.S. Senator Timothy Pickering
• Note: Lincoln states he is against state secession in his first Inaugural Address:
  

  But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.

  It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

• Lincoln had abolished slavery, yet in his first Inaugural Address he states:
  

  I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

I leave it to you to decide if Lincoln was as good as we were taught he was, or if he is just another politician that lies, cheats, and steals.
I end with a link to a blog by Mister Snitch! Who does a great job of linking to valid sources to go with his argument on the bad press for Lincoln.

Saving the Environment: No need for government

If you did not know, today the U.S. government had passed their energy bill. This is supposed to jumpstart the use from petroleum fuel to bio-friendly fuels. Thank you government for all your hard work in passing a bill that is useless except to halt the choices of your own citizens.

PETA's efforts have failed in halting the amount of middle class citizens from buying chicken from KFC; should the U.S. government get involved in order to promote the practice of fast food chicken services? If your answer is no, then what is the difference between the government passing a law with chickens to passing a law with fuels.

There have always been alternatives to oil. We may not use these alternatives, but the reason is that it is too costly. The same reason why PETA's effort fail with KFC. Their chicken is cheap and to go to PETA friendly substitute is more costly. If their celebrity friends such as Paul McCartney and Pamela Anderson would pay me the difference I would happily stop eating at KFC; THIS IS NOT A CALL FOR GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES IN ANY MANNER. Notice that Pam nor Paul HAVE NOT given money to me or anyone else to stop eating only raised their voice in a cheap protest that hardly costs them.

The new law makes it costlier to maintain of life that we have; the cheaper one and replaces it with the more costly. Is this the work of business lobbying allowing for government rules to go in favor? It appears so since we know through Ludwig von Mises that

[r]estrictive action on the other hand is always advantageous for the privileged group and disadvantageous for those whom it excludes from the market. It always raises the price per unit and therefore the total net proceeds of the privileged group. The losses of the excluded group are not taken into account by the privileged group.

From this we can judge that the government must be giving the blessing to one at the cost of the others. Thank you government.

Why do we have alternatives? Naturally, businesses want to make money and are always searching for the best method; at least, this is the popular stereotype. Thus there must have been alternatives although not cheap alternatives since no one was using them. This law allows for the more expensive alternatives to be cheaper only because their is a law made up by certain individuals to solve a problem that they define.
No, there is no need for such laws. This is just a disgrace and an abuse of power.

Note: this does not necessarily mean that the government is hurting one business at the cost of the others such as in oil giants. Rather, it may be the case that they all agreed to this law as it keeps each in line to searching for alternatives away from foreign oils. This would mean that the cost was transferred to the average citizen who must now PAY more for his fuel. Bio-friendly fuels were coming. It was inevitable, but the law is a disgrace. Atlas Shrugged could be rewritten with Hank Rearden as the bad guy, with his Rearden Steel benefiting from the government law that benefit the few at the cost of the Many.

Shame, Shame on you U.S. Government for increasing the costs to the many rather than having the product improved to be better suited for us all. Shame.

I did not discuss the issues with lightbulbs or most of the energy, but I think the broad case here makes its case in each argument.

War is good for the economy?

I have returned to this debate more than once, and this weekend appeared to be when everyone rose the question. Why, I do not have the slightest idea, but the question was asked... er the statement was made. "War is good for the economy".

Their points?

1. That war creates more jobs
2. More jobs mean more families with an income
3. More income means more money is spent
4. The money spent creates more jobs

Cute thought and true, although the market model that they are viewing is incomplete.

Who is the main consumer during times of war? The government.
Who has raised the amount purchased? The government.
If you begin to spend more than you have what do you do? Work more to raise income.
What does government do to spend more? Usually raise taxes.
(I leave it at this point, but today the government does not increase income while increasing spending which causes a higher deficit. This is able to be done under a fiat system. One of the many arguements against it, but for my point I will leave it at raising taxes.)

Therefore, citizens receive jobs to gain income to support their family, yet their taxes are increased taking away from the income for their family. The new jobs do not neccessarily help the citizens, but did increase the amount of revenue the government received.

It returns to the same arguement as government subsidies. The government taxes all citizens and gives a subsidy to farmers to not grow as much of a product. The overbundance of the product is disposed of rather than sold. In World War II, excess military equipment was disposed in order to maintain the high level of employment for the citizens. Thus, citizens work and accomplish nothing. A return to Sisphysm, which I spoke of before. A time of full employment, but never having anything to show for it. The citizens work hard; are taxed taking from their own income; the tax is used to purchase the goods they made, but then the good is disposed of just to keep them employed. Is this really efficient? And we haven't even begun to discuss the loss of citizens who are underpaid fighting in the war...

Government Corruption continued

So, the question we ended with was how does the NFL reduce the amount of corruption?
To begin I want to show why I am using the NFL to compare with government. The NFL is the league that unites different teams together. The Federal government unites different states together to form the United States. They both have rules and regulations to keep one state from abusing the other. They have police power which I shall also include military in. For the NFL, the police power are the officials during the game who do not let a player abuse another. Now I will not agree with everything in the NFl as in the salary cap and other programs they have, but for the most part is a regulatory authority that is easily compared to the government.

The NFL reduces the amount of corruption easily since the teams are independently owned, not owned by the league. This allows the teams to leave the league if there is an increase in corruption. Even the threat of the teams leaving the league would cause the NFL to decrease the amount of corruption. So, the United States once had states who seceded from the Union, but why? They wanted to reduce corruption. They wanted to reduce the control the Federal government had upon them, and increase the states own rights. But I am not only talking about the civil war, as before the Civil War there were many northern states that threatened to leave the Union. These states were threatened with backlash of military might as well, but in the end caused a change in government. Exactly what the threat of secession is meant to do. Unfortunately, although I do not agree with slavery but other issues were addressed when the Confederacy was formed and they seceded from the Union. The Union though did not change policies, perhaps increased them denying this form of reducing corruption. With the Union winning the war, the South had lost, and as they say, "To the victor the spoils." I won't put President Lincoln to blame for corruption, but at this point in our Nation's history did the corruption begin. The intervention of government and the economy began to rise, and the Federal government was able to increase their taxes without outcries of revolt.

So to reduce corruption we have to be able to revolt. Without this ability, the citizens have no power in reducing the corruption of the government. Yes, they will still be corrupted, but in fear that they will be the next Robespierre will cause the reduction. We don't even have to revolt. Its just the outcry of revolution, the cry for freedom, and the end to government intervention.

Basic Economics on Corruption

Yesterday, I announced that its the people who lead not government that we should be upset with. There were many responses which led me to this post upon corruption. A light introduction about our Nation's history: The thoughts of this Nation's forefathers was to not let the government control the citizens. Let us recall that first came the Articles of Confederation which gave no power to the Federal Government. After some harsh times, the Constitution was created which strengthened the role of the Federal government, but is the Constitution created to control us or the Federal Government? Of course, it was created to control the government, but throughout our Nation's history we have had some leaders who have created laws and amendments that strengthened the Federal Government's role. Thus the beginning of the corruption. I am not going to announce that those leaders who strengthened the role of the Federal Government had intentions of abusing their power, rather that it enables the government to be further corrupted.


This leads us to the corruption that many have begun to find in the government and the question, how do we reduce the amount of corruption? What types of government have the most corruption? Many would say totalitarian governments as in monarchies and communist governments. Why, because the government had complete control therefore controlled the levels of corruption. Is it for this reason that the forefathers had created a democratic republic?

No, the forefathers did not create this form of government with thoughts in reducing corruption. Perhaps they did, with the knowledge of economics that more competition is better as they can balance out the legal system disallowing the corruption from spreading. But a government is unlike a market and therefore the competition only increases the amount of corruption. What do I mean? That we have many elected officials and therefore have a large amount of people that are able to be corrupted or influenced. Rather in a monarchy or another form of totalitarianism, it is difficult to corrupt since there is mainly one ruler, therefore the costs of corrupting this one official is high, but the benifits are just as large or larger. In the democratic state, the large numbers increases the amount of those who can be influenced or corrupted but reduces the amount that they may do.
An incorruptible government is impossible, but again we look towards man and his ability. There have been those who have been able to surpass the influence of corruption. Yet corruption is found in all different states even to religion, where King David sent a man to war for a lifetime so that he may have his wife.
This is getting a little long so we shall leave the corruption topic for another post, but let us end this with a simple look upon sports. Rules are needed to guide the sport, but the rules do not control the players. If the NFL and their officials were corrupted and influenced by one team, we could then see bad calls that gives certain teams an edge over others. This would lead to certain teams doing great and others faltering. So how does the NFL reduce the amount of corruption? I'll leave this question unanswered until the next post.

No Trust? *Corrected*

For those who read this blog and Ditzy Democrats' Monstrosity, you know that I am a student at George Mason University. To give a little more background, I am Treasurer of the GMU Economic Society, a young group that is hoping to have a great year in attracting more students to economics. I am majoring in Economics and have grown to enjoy the writings of the Austrian economists who have fought hard to preach on the good of Capitalism.

I say this today because I wanted to address an issue that I see reoccuring. Today upon leaving one building I saw, in chalk, the words, "Don't Trust Governmnt". Yes it was misspelled without the e in nice print. All across the blogosphere there appears to be a rise upon blogs, podcasts, even grafitti proclaiming that you can not trust government. Perhaps some view me as not trusting government, but I don't view myself in that manner. I distrust people not institutions.

It is people that are corruptible not the government. If we were to distrust the government, then we could also claim that you can not trust religions. Many have already come across that view as well, but tell the faithful that you can not trust their religion... their faith holds strong keeping them from faltering their trust in their religion. The Catholics with all the news upon the molesting priests continue to hold onto their faith. The same Catholics have the history in their church of long corruption, power hungry Cardinals, and outcries that there has been a female Pope, yet they relentlessly support their Church. Why does their trust in their religion not falter?

I am not trying to overthrow government, but tame it from becoming this massive beast that controls our lives. For this reason many lose their faith upon the government, but this same massive beast when tamed is a Godsend as it upholds our given rights so intently defined by many philosophical writers from Aristotle to Locke. The government helps the communities live together in a unity that increases our own gain while shielding us from others who wish to control us. It is not government that should not be trusted but those who run it, control it; those who hold the reigns to Leviathan. We all grew up watching Mr Smith Goes to Washington in civics class with an understanding of what politicians are meant to do. The goodness residing in their hearts only wishing to make the country a better place.

I distrust many politicians, as their empty promises are just antics to receive my vote, but there are those that I feel I can trust. Trust is given and can be taken away with swift ease. The Catholics who have not faltered throughout all the discourse may have it right, we have to keep having the faith. Faith that there are good willed politicians. Faith that those we elect will do the right thing. Faith that our elected will not abuse their power in financially supporting their friends and family with tax payers money. It is as Bon Jovi says we have to "Keep the Faith".

*The actual writing on the wall said "Never Trust Governmnt" not as I had recalled earlier Don't Trust Governmnt.*

Abuse of Power

I was reading this months Rolling Stone when I fell across an interesting article about the Governor race in Ohio. Yes, this is going to reiterate the already highly spoke of accusations that the Ohio polls were fixed in the 2004 Presidential Election. I was hesitant to write anything about it from this article so I began to look for more proof throughout the internet. It was not difficult to find that the circumstances are true. The Secretary of State Blackwell of Ohio had made laws causing it harder for certain individuals to vote. Namely the lower classes who do not have id cards or the time to have id cards with updated information as in place of residence. I am not going to begin to explain what was done. Only that Blackwell is now running for Governor of Ohio while still holding the Secretary of State of Ohio position. He could use his power in office to cause the outcome of the election in his favor. Not saying that he would, but he has been accussed of fixing the election in 2004. It would only be a smart move as to not run for Governor while still holding such a powerful position as he could be viewed as abusing his power.

Politicians are not the only ones who abuse the power entrusted unto them. The military gives their recruiters complete control in acquiring new recruits. The problem that has arised is the recruiters violating the rights of new recruits sexually. Young adults want to enter the service to support their country; others have no other options but feel that the military will give them a chance, yet the recruiters can offer the best MOSes (jobs) to those who they like rather than to those who earn the spot. As most of those who enlist do not know everything about the military, the positions or how to enter them, the recruiters have the opportunity to ask for something more, or even grant them a lesser position. Most recruiters are men so we can assume that it is mainly young women who are being sexually assaulted verbally and physically, but the young men may be abused as well even if they do not view it as an assault. We have not even begun upon the bonuses that the recruiters can offer. Would they not offer the bonuses to those who give them favors or to those who they are more friends with? Must new recruits become friends with their recruiters or should they trust that the recruiter is trying to do the right thing for his service, for his Corp.