Penn Jillette is not someone I would call a genius, or a brilliant man. Hell, I don't think his closest friends would call him a brilliant man. However, I do think he is a wise man. I believe he is wise because he knows that he simply doesn't know everything, but he keeps trying to learn as much as he can. In his vast wisdom, his simple take on Libertarian views is the best I've ever heard, in which he said, “My whole take on Libertarianism is simply that I don't know what's best for other people.” I also don't know what's best for other people, and I am nowhere close to knowing everything. So, in this new blog I will be discussing my beliefs (largely circled around being a Libertarian), and my hope will be that through arguments, debates, and discussions I will become a little smarter and much more wise.
In my very first blog I shall address the one problem that most of my intelligent friends have with the idea of Libertarianism. How do you keep businesses from destroying the poor as soon as we go in to a Libertarian society? It's an understandable fear, as everyone has heard horror stories about companies that mistreat their employees and use the poor in their own evil Capitalist plans. I have a few problems with this line of thought that I'd like to share with you.
First I'd like to address the idea that the world of Big Business came about from the free market and “evil” capitalism. This is not anywhere near the truth. The free market was actual that, free. However, people love expansions and hate a recession. That is understandable, but the problem with that is that in a free market there are supposed to be rises and falls. The highs and lows businesses and the economy experience is how the market corrects itself. The government felt they could change this. Keep the good times and lose the bad by coming up with as many regulations as they can come up with to stop it. “What's wrong with that?” you ask. Well what's wrong is holding off the fall the market can't correct itself. Instead with the government holding it up the fall, which has to happen eventually, will be a much larger fall. Or even worse, the businesses will get so big it cannot be allowed to fall, as in the case of the government bailouts. This huge government involvement is not a free market. Freedom is liberty, and liberty is choices.
Which leads me to my next point.
Liberty, the freedom to make choices. It is liberty that will keep the rich from raping & pillaging the poor. The choices of what to buy and why. There is no bigger protest, no larger deterrent, than not buying someone’s stuff. McDonald's changed their menu because of a documentary that was mostly wrong and overly dramatic. Why? Because they feared losing even more business than they had already lost from the documentary. Many private clubs in the 70's & 80's started letting in minorities, because they were losing business from members, events, and PGA tours. Nothing changes things faster than messing with someones livelihood.
Lastly, I just want to say some of this is just our own beliefs. My belief is that people are good. Despite what TV, movies, and other dramas might have you believe, there are not mean businessmen out their wearing big cowboy hats, trying to steal your land secretly while laughing manically. They are just trying to sell you a service that you need or want while at the same time making it affordable and profitable to them.
I honestly think that we would be better off if the government just got out of the way.
