politics

This last Saturday was 28 August, 8/28, the day of Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor event in Washington D.C.

I didn’t attend the event in person, but I did donate some money to the Special Operations Warriors Foundation which was the beneficiary of the event. It’s not the same as actually sacrificing to be there, but I hope it’s something.

The rally was carried live on C-SPAN Saturday morning, so I recorded it on my DVR and watched it later. The actual rally was about three and a half hours long.

True to Glenn’s word, the rally was not political. Sure, there were a couple comments made during the rally that could have been perceived as political, but by and large, it was not political. Instead, it was religious, spiritual, and pious. It was also patriotic and reverent. There was lots of tribute during the first hour or so to those who serve, and who have served, in the branches of the U.S. military. That portion of the program could have been held in late May as part of a Memorial Day program.

If you’ve listened or watched Glenn Beck much over the last, say, three or four years, you may have caught him talking to, or about, Jon Huntsman Sr., a prominent businessman from Salt Lake City, Utah. I remember hearing about the Huntsmans when I was growing up and my dad was in the state legislature. I also remember the Christmas cards we’d get from the Huntsman family. There was always a picture of a HUGE family that always seemed so much bigger than it was the year before.

To say Glenn Beck admires Jon Huntsman would be a terrible understatement. I would say Glenn is in awe of Jon’s philanthropic work, his integrity, and his character. So, it was no surprise that Huntsman received the first Badge of Merit for Charity at the Restoring Honor rally. Unfortunately, he was unable to attend to receive the award (He was attending the marriage of one of his grandchildren- something he probably does a couple times a week these days… Remember the family photo? Yeah.)

The last half of the rally was about turning to God.

It’s been quite a journey for those of us who have followed Glenn Beck over the years. Since 2007 and especially since the 2008 election, Glenn has been spending most of his time presenting to his listeners, viewers, and readers the threats of Progressive, Marxist, and socialist movements to the republic our Founding Fathers designed.

He has demonstrated. over and over, how we have allowed our country to be taken over by progressives, from both major parties, He also introduced a long lost revolutionary idea to the masses, that voting for a candidate because they have an “R” or a “D” next to their name was stupid; We should be voting the candidates that share our values and principles, that have character and integrity.

Is it any surprise we have seen candidates like Doug Hoffman in New York’s 23rd congressional district come out of nowhere and make a spectacular showing in a race. People are waking up and looking at elected officials in a way they haven’t in a long, long time.

Glenn’s also reminded us and taught us how religion played such an important role in the early days of this country. Our founders never meant for our government to be free of all religious influence.

The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that the federal government and the states shall not ESTABLISH any official state religion or interfere with the free practice of religious worship. Somehow, over the years, the Progressives and other well-meaning interpreters of the Constitution, have misconstrued the intent of this law to mean that religious observance has no place in the public sphere. But, in fact, our founders insisted, on several occasions, that our public officials, and the people at large, should be a “moral and religious people” in order for the American experiment to survive.

The first sessions of congress after the new federal government was instituted under the U.S. Constitution included hours of prayer and bible study. These men elected to represent their constituents believed the best way they could possibly serve was to be sure they were in prayer with God.

Benjamin Franklin believed it was only through God and through the various representatives to the Constitutional Congress humbling themselves and turning their hearts to God that agreements could be made to bring about the U.S. Constitution.

So, in the end, Glenn was surrounded by 240 religious leaders, each pledging that their organizations would be teaching their congregations it is time to turn to God, to rally behind God, and to recognize the importance of equal justice and individual liberty.

By doing this, Glenn has reinstituted the “black-robed regiment” to fight for the soul of the country. Pretty heavy stuff.

Now, I understand many people these days are bound to feel uncomfortable about what Glenn Beck is doing. Even if you do not believe in God or are not that religious, this is a good thing. Glenn made it very clear on his radio show today that when he approached these religious leaders about including them in his rally that he wasn’t creating a political force like the Christian Coalition or the Moral Majority. He told them, if this is political, it won’t last. It seems like most of them agreed with him.

I listened to Glenn’s radio program today. I don’t usually have time to do that, but today I had some driving to do and had time to listen. I wasn’t sure what to expect the first day back on the air after the rally. There was some time spent talking about the number of people that came and re-iterating some of the messages that were delivered, but what really struck me… What really stood out were the callers that called into Glenn’s show today. Did they call and say, “Oh man, Glenn, you were the most awesome guy on Saturday!?” Did they call and tell him he was right, that they felt in their heart he did the right thing? No, not exactly.

Most of the callers that had been to the rally called to tell stories of exceptional, extraordinary experiences they had while attending the rally. One caller, a disabled black woman from the northeast, spoke about how she and her daughter decided to rent an electric scooter so she could be mobile enough to attend the rally. When they had difficulty using the subway and navigating through the crowds going to and from the rally, a man and his family befriended them and treated them as one of his own family and helped them for the entire event.

Another caller spoke of her husband losing his wallet containing the money they had to live on while they were visiting Washington D.C. A man nearby heard their distress and handed over four $100 bills.

Another woman spoke of pushing a stroller and pulling a cooler through the National Mall to meet up with her husband who was saving them a spot to listen to/watch the rally. She said the crowd was more than helpful in helping her and her children move through the sea of people to her husband, even cheering when they finally made it.

These stories of people helping people are incredibly uplifting and, in a way, demonstrate exactly what the rally was about.

If you want to read a political message into it all, it’s probably this: Looking to government for guidance out of darkness is hopeless. The best path out of the mess our country is in right now is for us to serve each other; Find ways to help one another. The best place to start is in supporting our churches.

I recently read Obama’s Oil Spill To-Do List by Heritage Foundation Director of Strategic Communication, Rory Cooper and found it to be a sensible task list that identifies and enumerates things I think most on the right side of the political spectrum wish the administration were doing to address the oil “spill” in the Gulf Of Mexico.

The very first item mentioned in this list is to “waive the Jones Act,” which, as Cooper explains, “requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flagged ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens.”

This law obviously restricts what ocean-bound vessels can be used in the cleanup efforts. But, the restriction can be lifted, as it was by DHS secretary Chertoff during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. Doing so would allow a much greater diversity of equipment to be used in the cleanup effort.

In recent news, BP and the U.S. Coast Guard are apparently testing a giant Taiwanese oil skimmer. I assume using this ship, owned by a Taiwanese shipping company, will require a Jones Act waiver or exclusion. If that’s the case and they get the legal right to use this skimmer, that’s good news for everyone.

A lot of the talk about the Gulf oil “spill” has been about enormous amounts of money. It is apparently going to cost a lot of money to clean up the oil out of the water. It will apparently cost various Gulf Coast industries (fishing, tourism, etc.) lots of money in lost business. It will apparently cost the oil industry a ridiculous amount of money if the administration gets their way with these ridiculous moratoriums.

One area which I wonder if the money might be spent in vain is the cleanup efforts. I’ve read many sources that indicate that oil in water is pretty well handled by nature. We can maybe add a little fertilizer to speed up the growth of natural bacteria that break down the oil particles, but other than that, nature handles it.

The outlook becomes more muddied — no pun intended — when oil reaches land. Nature will take care of it, but it will take longer… years longer. So, it’s shocking to learn that the administration is seemingly blocking many attempts to do sand-berm dredging along the coast that would catch oil before it reaches coastal beaches and wetlands.

Finally, I completely agree with Cooper that the administration should stop using the oil “spill” as a wedge or lever issue to promote climate change (i.e. “Cap and Trade”) legislation.

A whole lot of talk has taken place recently about Net Neutrality. The histrionics and grandiose claims on both sides of the issue are quite disappointing. And that seems to be biggest problem.

In his recent FOX News program, Glenn Beck highlighted the group Free Press and their support of Net Neutrality legislation and regulation. Beck makes some points and observations about the leftist agenda of Free Press and its co-founder founder, Robert W. McChesney. There’s no doubt that McChesney is out of step with mainstream America with regard to his views on media, government control, etc. His comments do seem like those of a socialist or, dare I say, a Marxist.

But, stop! Net Neutrality wasn’t created by Marxists! No, it’s just being co-opted by them… and probably lots of other groups that see government control over Internet service providers as a means to an end for them.

The problem with Net Neutrality right now is that many groups are trying to claim it as their poster-child issue. Libertarian conservatives are saying Net Neutrality is an example of government overbearance or even tears at the fabric of the Constitution.

On the flip-side, we have leftists who apparently have incredible amounts of disdain, distrust, and suspicion toward corporations who might alter, affect, control, or in any way or form touch content from the Internet as it’s being delivered to their computers.

I’m opposed to Net Neutrality. Not because it’s a conspiracy to usher in totalitarian government control over the Internet and not because I don’t care about freedom of speech or freedom of the press.

Let’s look at some history.

In 2007, some customers of Comcast’s Internet service complained they were having problems downloading files using the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol. BitTorrent is a common method for sharing and distributing large files such as Linux distribution installation images that can grow to several gigabytes in size. To be frank, however, most BitTorrent traffic is largely downloads of music, movies, and TV show content. I think it’s fair to say most of this data is for entertainment purposes.

Apparently, Comcast was experiencing some problems with BitTorrent users creating congestion on their networks. Comcast chose a highly unorthodox means of dealing with the congestion and basically tricked the users’ BitTorrent clients into thinking their connections had been closed, thereby killing the BitTorrent downloads.

As word got out about the experiences of the Comcast users who had been affected by Comcast’s tactics, Comcast denied doing anything. When users showed proof of what was going on, Comcast confessed. Eventually, Comcast said they would adopt a “protocol-neutral stance” on managing traffic on their networks.

I think Comcast was out of line doing what they did. I think someone should have been fired, if they weren’t, for doing what they did. I’m surprised, really, that Comcast didn’t have more integral methods for dealing with “bandwidth hogs.”

Internet protocol networking has long supported the notion of Quality of Service (QoS) measures of traffic control for prioritizing certain kinds of traffic over others. For example, voice-over-IP (VOIP) traffic might be deemed high-priority because it’s a service people depend on and can’t tolerate congestion affecting the service.

I’m surprised, to say the least, that Comcast didn’t have priority-based queuing in place for their networks.

But some free-speech advocates are crying foul saying any attempt to regulate the flow of data by an Internet service provider essentially equates to censorship or stifling speech. Bull crap!

That’s almost like crying censorship because a newspaper didn’t quote everything you said, verbatim, at that pro-spotted owl rally. No, they had limited space and had to prioritize.

Now, I’m not a fan of Comcast… or Qwest (both are the major providers of broadband Internet service in my area), but I do believe they should not be regulated, controlled, or otherwise overseen by the federal government in how they carry Internet traffic.

Any Internet service provider’s business model is built around giving its customers the best Internet experience possible. I firmly believe that, within reason, any ISP is going to do as much as they can do accomplish that goal. However, if certain users abuse the freedom they’ve been given by the provider and that threatens to affect the experience of other users, the provider has every right to do something to protect the overall network performance. I contend that the business objective of Internet service providers already promotes the best service possible for the bulk of customers.

Net Neutrality, on the other hand, could force less-than-ideal performance on everyone in the name of equality. It could force providers into charging tiered rates like Time Warner explored doing in 2008, much to the disapproval of their customer base.

The federal government was responsible for creating the Internet through Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) projects in the 1960s that created the ARPANet, the great-granddaddy of the Internet. In 1998, the National Science Foundation (NSF) released its last talons from the backbones of the Internet and allowed complete privatization of the burgeoning network. It’s arguable, based on what happened from 1998 until today, that allowing the Internet to thrive completely out of the government’s control was the best thing that could have happened. I don’t see any benefit of returning any aspect of the Internet back into the government’s hands.

I caught the tail-end of Glenn Beck’s radio program today and was impressed to write about it. Here is my transcript:

May I read this to you?

“What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap… between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with… And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to have a civilian defense force, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

“What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with [a leader], their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

“This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.”

That is from a chapter “Then It Was Too Late” from the book “They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45” ( See here ).

That could have been written today!

That doesn’t mean we are headed for that… Let me rephrase that. Let me be more clear.

It doesn’t mean that this president or this congress will take us there, but it does mean that the more power we give this government, the more we allow them to become more and more remote to us, indifferent to us; The more power we give them to decide our fate and decide who should be listened to and who shouldn’t be, who should live and who should die, who is politically correct and who is not, who should succeed and who should fail; The more we let them decide those things… It may not be this president. It may not be this congress. But will be in our future because all we have to do is elect the wrong person… once… and they have all the structure they need. Let’s not finish the job Germany started in 1898.

We’re headed down the same pathways and both parties have been involved.

I’ve had a few conversations recently with people who think Glenn is a “nutjob,” a “kook,” and a “loon.” Or… perhaps the most amusing characterization is that he’s a shill for the Republican party and an apologist for George W. Bush.

It’s obvious to me that these people have never really listened to the man.

Another excerpt from This Nation Shall Endure by the late Ezra Taft Benson, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and President of the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

The principles behind our American free market philosophy can be reduced to a rather simple formula. Here it is:

1. Economic security for all is impossible without widespread abundance.

2. Abundance is impossible without industrious and efficient production.

3. Such production is impossible without energetic, willing, and eager labor.

4. Such labor is not possible without incentive.

5. Of all forms of incentive, the freedom to attain a reward for one’s labors if the most sustaining for most people. Sometimes called the profit motive, it is simply the rights to plan and to earn and to enjoy the fruits of one’s labor.

6. This profit motive diminishes as government controls, regulations, and taxes increase to deny the fruits of success to those who produce.

7. Therefore, any attempt through government intervention to redistribute the material rewards of labor can only result in the eventual destruction of the productive base of society, without which real abundance and security for more than the ruling elite are quite impossible.

“… with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens—a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits or industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

— Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address, 1801

I’m reading this book right now and ran across this great quote tonight.

“If reference is made continually to weaknesses of the private enterprise system without any effort to point out its virtues and the comparative fruits of this and other systems, the tendency in this country will be to demand that the government take over more and more of the economic and social responsibilities and make more of the decisions for the people. This can result in but one thing: slavery of the individual to the state. This seems to be the trend in the world today. The issue is whether the individual exists for the state or the state for the individual.”

— Ezra Taft Benson, This Nation Shall Endure, 1977

There has been a whole lot of discussion both online and offline about healthcare. Specifically, about government’s role in healthcare and whether that role should be enlarged, redefined, etc.

Personally, I’d like to see the federal government get out of healthcare altogether. If things were done my way, there would no longer be any Medicare or Medicaid.

“But, Doran, what about all those people who depend on these programs for their healthcare?! Do you just want them to wither away and die?!”

No, but I have something I think many who are pushing for more government involvement in citizens’ healthcare do not have: Faith. I have faith in the people of America to provide help to those who really need it. I have faith in the free market to find healthcare solutions.

The U.S. is, by far, the most giving population of any country on Earth. In the absence of government run, mandated, etc. healthcare, I believe the people will step forward.

I have a friend who recently received a kidney transplant and has since relied on a regular dose of anti-rejection medications and regular doctor visits. He also recently was laid off from his job and is now paying for C.O.B.R.A. coverage to maintain the health insurance benefits he had when he was employed.

My friend can not go out and buy individual or family health insurance coverage outside of an employer group because his condition places him in a precarious position called “uninsurable.” Because I am an insulin-dependent diabetic, I am also in a similar position. To my knowledge, no health insurance company will provide coverage for me outside of an employer group either, regardless of how well I control my diabetes and lifestyle.

That’s frustrating, but I know any program provided by the bureaucracy of the federal government will have the following attributes:

• Plan will provide a minimum baseline of coverage with few options
• Plan will result in my treatment being a paperwork nightmare
• Plan will restrict what medications and/or treatments are available to me regardless of doctor recommendations
• Plan may restrict what doctors I may consult
• Play may require ridiculous amounts of my time to see a medical professional and/or fulfill my obligations in seeing that bills are paid
• Plan will suffer from corruption, mismanagement and fraud

I know these things because this is par for the course for any kind of service provided by the federal government.

Now, imagine I am in a situation like my friend could be in if he does not soon find employment with a company that offers health insurance benefits. Imagine, also, that our government offers no assistance to people who find themselves in this position. Who would I turn to?

I would probably first turn to my church. My church has proven itself invaluable to many people in need for food, financial assistance, and other needs. Historically, this is one of the things churches have done in the past. I’m not familiar with people going to their church leaders to help with healthcare needs, but that could be because the government, in one form or another, has become the de facto first place people turn.

I am confident that assistance provided by my church through a church leader familiar with my specific issues and background would provide more than a minimum baseline of coverage and would provide more options that would benefit me. It certainly would not be a “Cadillac plan,” but I’m confident that if my doctor recommended a procedure or a medication, I would not be told, “We’re sorry, that is not covered.”

I am also confident there would be a common sense amount of paperwork and I would definitely not be restricted in what doctor, hospital, etc. I see. And, most of all, I have an order of magnitude more confidence in my church’s ability to run an assistance program that isn’t plagued with corruption, mismanagement, or fraud.

If churches were not sufficient to fill the void, I believe other non-profit and charity organizations would appear to fulfill the need.

One such organization — Volunteers in Medicine — was mentioned in a recent General Conference talk by Thomas S. Monson, the president of the church I belong to. In this talk, President Monson describes the organization as follows:

[Volunteers in Medicine] gives retired medical personnel a chance to volunteer at free clinics serving the working uninsured. Dr. McConnell said his leisure time since he retired has “evaporated into 60-hour weeks of unpaid work, but [his] energy level has increased and there is a satisfaction in [his] life that wasn’t there before.” He made this statement: “In one of those paradoxes of life, I have benefited more from Volunteers in Medicine than my patients have.” There are now over 70 such clinics across the United States.

Prior to the “Progressive Invasion” of the early 20th century, the people of the United States of America never thought of looking to the federal government to aid them in their individual or community concerns. Churches and other organizations ran all kinds of programs for people that would later be handled by government programs. There was a time when churches ran hospitals, schools, and more.

Some people have traced the first progressive shift in federal policy to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 when then commerce secretary Herbert Hoover convinced others in the Coolidge administration that the federal government needed to step in and provide on-the-ground assistance to those displaced and otherwise affected by the flood. Even then, Hoover wasn’t spending federal money as much as he was directing the relief effort at a federal level — telling people how things should be done.

This action got Hoover elected as the 31st president of the United States and under his administration, the country experienced the great stock market crash of late October 1929 that began an economic recession that grew to become the Great Depression and endured through Hoover’s presidency and two terms of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency.

Hoover and Roosevelt both implemented federal programs to spend taxpayer money to provide assistance to those afflicted by the lackluster economy. The merits, effectiveness, and end result of these programs is still debated today, but some believe — and I do — that these programs only lengthened and amplified the recession that began with the crash of 1929 and made it “Great” while other countries’ economies participating in the global marketplace at that time recovered within a couple of years.

Healthcare dictated, provided by, or otherwise governed by the government is perversion of the law as dictated by Frederick Bastiat, an early 19th century French political economist whose essay “The Law” explains.

Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

In the above excerpt, Bastiat defines the fundamental purpose of government. It is to defend and uphold our rights as individuals. It is to act on our behalf where we can not. It is not to interfere in our rights, something our current system of government increasingly does!

Bastiat continues:

Under such an administration, everyone would understand that he possessed all the privileges as well as all the responsibilities of his existence. No one would have any argument with government, provided that his person was respected, his labor was free, and the fruits of his labor were protected against all unjust attack. When successful, we would not have to thank the state for our success. And, conversely, when unsuccessful, we would no more think of blaming the state for our misfortune than would the farmers blame the state because of hail or frost. The state would be felt only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided by this concept of government.

Bastiat later writes about the difficulty of reconciling this definition of the proper role of government with one that does things to help its citizens.

Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation.

But the government’s participation in this socialism, Bastiat explains, is “legal plunder” and infringes on the citizens’ ability to be FREE!

This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again: These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other. We must choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be free and not free.

Patrick Krey, an attorney in New York, wrote a piece titled “Bastiat, Barack and Bail-Outs” for the John Birch Society site this last April talking about this very concept as it relates to our current administration.

How about some relevant quotes from founding fathers? Here are a couple from Thomas Jefferson:

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

John Adams:

Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.

And don’t get me started with Benjamin Franklin!

“We have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessing were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that makes us.”

— Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation for A National Fast Day, March 30, 1863

Hear, hear.

Milton Friedman was a highly visible economist, statistician, and policy commentator during the Twentieth Century. Before he died in 2006, he wrote and co-wrote several books relating economic theory, policy studies, and statistics. He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in economics in 1976.

I just finished reading “Free To Choose: A Personal Statement,” written by Thomas Friedman and his wife, Rose Friedman. The book is dense and full of well thought-out arguments for free markets, smaller government, and how policies that adhere to these principles will result in greater liberty and freedom for the people that live under them.

This book is almost thirty years old and it shows. Many of the numbers the Friedmans use in the book are laughable today, especially those they use as salaries for the common man or the cost of an average home.

It’s fascinating, however, they write at the end of the Carter administration that “the tide is turning.”

The failure of Western governments to achieve their proclaimed objectives has produced a widespread reaction against big government. In Britain the reaction swept Margaret Thatcher to power in 1979 on a platform pledging her Conservative government to reverse the socialist policies that had been followed by both Labour and earlier Conservative governments ever since the end of World War II.

“Free To Choose” is organized in chapters that each spend a liberal amount of print on a specific category of policy thinking. The first chapter, “The Power Of The Market” spends nearly 30 pages covering the ideals of a free market, the dangers of price controls, and the role of government with respect to markets. The second chapter is devoted to governments’ role in free trade and overall liberty and economic growth. Hint: Friedman isn’t a fan of tariffs or any other kind of government meddling with trade between nations. He offers a compelling historical argument for free trade by examining the governance and trade policies of Japan during the latter half of the 19th century and India during the latter half of the 20th century.

The third chapter, “The Anatomy of Crisis,” is perhaps the most relevant to readers today. It examines the modern banking system in the United States from the inception of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the depression nobody remembers from 1920-21, and the Great Depression of the 1930s. For those who believe we are currently at risk of suffering from the same mistakes or making greater ones today in our vulnerable financial status, this chapter offers some brilliant insights.

In the conclusion of this chapter, the Friedmans write:

In one respect the (Federal Reserve) System has remained completely consistent throughout. It blames all problems on external influences beyond its control and takes credit for any and all favorable occurrences. It thereby continues to promote the myth that the private economy is unstable, while its behavior continues to document the reality that government is today the major source of economic instability.

The fourth chapter, “Cradle to Grave,” examines the development of the welfare state beginning in Europe in the late 1800s and then in the U.S. in the 1920s. Friedman spotlights health, education, and welfare in this chapter because at the time the book was written, they fell under a single department within the federal government.

The waste is distressing, but it the least of the evils of the paternalistic programs that have grown to such massive size. Their major evil is their effect on the fabric of our society. They weaken the family; reduce the incentive to work, save, and innovate; reduce the accumulation of capital; and limit our freedom. These are the fundamental standards by which they should be judged.

The following chapter challenges the popular notions of what “equality” means. The Friedmans distinguish between the following:

• Equality of outcome
• Equality of opportunity
• Equality before God

Concerning equality of outcome, they write:

Life is not fair. It is tempting to believe that government can rectify what nature has spawned. But it is also important to recognize how much we benefit from the very unfairness we deplore.

This chapter goes on to examine the effects of egalitarian policies as practiced in the US and in other modern societies.

… a society that puts freedom first will, as a happy by-product, end up with greater freedom and greater equality. Though a by-product of freedom, greater equality is not an accident. A free society releases the energies and abilities of people to pursue their own objectives. It prevents some people from arbitrarily suppressing others. It does not prevent some people from achieving positions of privilege, but so long as freedom is maintained, it prevents those positions of privilege from being institutionalized; they are subject to continued attack by other able, ambitious people. Freedom means diversity but also mobility. It preserves the opportunity for today’s disadvantaged to become tomorrow’s privileged and, in the process, enabled almost everyone, from top to bottom, to enjoy a fuller and richer life.

Next, the Friedmans attach “What’s Wrong with Our Schools?”

It’s no surprise their position is that centralized planning is a substantial culprit of the problem with schools. Again, freedom is the answer, they say. Vouchers, for example, tied with freedom to choose public schools, are an ideal way to encourage competition between private and public schools and drive education quality up.

I found this passage about public subsidies of higher education shocking considering what we have observed in 2009:

When we first started writing about higher education, we had a good deal of sympathy for the (justification that public subsidies was an investment in future productivity and economic growth of society). We no longer do. In the interim we have tried to induce the people who make this argument to be specific about the alleged social benefits. The answer is almost always simply bad economics. We are told that the nation benefits by having more highly trained people, that investment in providing such skills is essential for economic growth, that more trained people raise the productivity for the rest of us. These statements are correct. But none is a valid reason for subsidizing higher education. Each statement would be equally correct if made about physical capital (i.e., machines, factory buildings, etc.), yet hardly anyone would conclude that tax money should be used to subsidize the capital investment of General Motors or General Electric.

Milton Friedman is undoubtedly spinning in his grave today.

Following education is the question of “Who Protects the Consumer?” This chapter discusses the development of the Interstate Commerce Commission, The Food and Drug Administration, The Consumer Products Safety Commission, The Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. The Friedmans raise some very valid questions about the government’s role in establishing these authorities and whether they are effective in their stated objectives.

For example, many are familiar with Ralph Nader’s book, “Unsafe at Any Speed,” in which he supposedly documents the safety risk the Chevrolet Corvair was to its occupants. This book ignited a firestorm that eventually crushed the Corvair out of production and resulted in new government regulations pertaining to the manufacture of automobiles. It’s difficult to argue that the outcome was a bad thing, but what about the original premise? Was the Corvair that bad? My dad was a Corvair collector and had two that he tinkered with, restored, and drove around on occasion. I always thought they were odd cars because the engine was in the back. The Friedmans point out that ten years after Nader’s book landed, “one of the agencies that was set up in response to the subsequent public outcry finally got around to testing the Corvair that started the whole thing. They spent a year and a half comparing the performance of the Corvair with the performance of other comparable vehicles and they concluded, ‘The 1960-63 Corvair compared favorably with the other contemporary vehicles used in the tests.’”

Next is “Who Protects the Worker?” Here labor unions land square in the crosshairs. Also addressed are government interventions into work such as regulations against child labor, minimum wage laws, OSHA oversight, workers compensation, and more.

Chapter 9 is about inflation. This isn’t very relevant right now, but likely will deserve a re-read in a year or so.

Here, Friedman puts his statistician muscles to work and establishes through numbers a strong correlation between monetary control and consumer prices. When the the Treasury and the Federal Reserve flood the market with money, prices respond by going up.

The final chapter is a nice capstone on the book and discusses how the U.S. Constitution relates to many of the policies discussed and how it is eroded by some.

Appendix A is an interesting inclusion. It is the party platform from the Socialist party during the 1928 presidential campaign. The Friedmans go through each of the 14 items in the platform and demonstrate that despite the Socialist Party not having a chance in Hell of ever having a candidate elected, since 1928, just about each and every one of these ideas put forth by the Socialist Party has been enacted.

That’s something to think about.

“Free To Choose” is available in paperback at a MSRP of $15.00. It’s not a quick read, but definitely an informative and educational one.