Libertarianism: the radical idea that other people are not your property!

I was recently sent an email from a local businessman who railed against the anti-business mentality of the current Democratic administration. He described in some detail how Barack Obama doesn't have a clue as to how businesses create things including jobs. No argument there. He details the utter incompetence of agencies like the IRS, the gross misapplication of unemployment benefits and of course our favorite non-government, government agency, the U.S. Postal service (made private by Republican Richard Nixon of course). I'm sure he could have made a longer list but brevity is after all a virtue. He goes on to show how we spend more than we take in and how a private family doing the same thing would quickly go belly up. Again, he's just talking about what constitutes responsible behavior. He then concludes that the solution is to elect a select group of conservative tea party folks with business experience or at least business knowledge and who presumably, along with others of like mind, will put the country on the right track.

While well meaning, let me address each of these points in some detail.

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It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.

-- Eric Hoffer

Recently former judge Andrew Napolitano paid Jon Stewart on the Daily Show a visit to promote his book, It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom. Pseudo libertarian Napolitano and bona fide liberal Stewart immediately got into it. In an out of body moment, Napolitano started listing the natural rights that we all have and stated that we have the right to murder, which government then properly acts to restrict (even though he was using that to oddly make the point that government is an evil institution). For the whole sorry show in which this interview takes place, you can watch it here.

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