Conversation at a local bar pits me against the town pundit

“Vinny! How can you call yourself a Libertarian and think about voting for Obama? He's a socialist taking our rights and freedoms away. It's a fact, just look it up.” My protestations declaring an incapability of distinguishing between Obama and Romney make no dent at all against such an irreproachable source.

It seems to me that Obama is true to the FDR tradition of his party and Republicans on other hand campaign for small government and then administer a RINO (Republican in Name Only) stampede of too much Government. It took three terms before Democrats recovered the White House with Bill Clinton and after George W. Bush's pooh pooh pile Republicans don't deserve this next election and until they get their heads straight, nor the next few.

How is it that Republican's can only serve up RINOs? If you preach and believe in small government you have to be against a liberty sucking garrison state with an empire to defend. Other than Ron Paul, no other GOP candidate gets it. In last fall's Republican debates we saw most of the candidates decry the fact that Obama missed the opportunity to stay in Iraq longer! We saw Mitt Romney in South Carolina pandering to the defense industry by declaring we need an even bigger Navy with more aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines to fight the likes of Al Qaeda. Just how dumb are we suppose to be? Come on Mitt, a clear analysis of the U. S. Government from the perspective of a Bain Capital would have you taking a meat cleaver to the U. S. Defense budget. Why don't you say it? Otherwise what is your mandate? Build a bigger Navy?

Republicans are the management class and some believe they can tame government excess, show fiscal restraint and pay down the debt. The last time I looked it was Bill Clinton who managed our economy best. It was his tax increase early on his administration that created the fantastic boom of the nineties. George W. Bush, on the other hand, never made a hard decision. He just made easy ones such as tax cuts and spending increases setting the stage for a Japanese style lost decade.

Which brings up the point of what does left – right mean in the political debate? Liberal versus Conservative means nothing when you understand that the word “Liberal” meant a believer in the individual during the 19^th century. Because it was such a new and radical idea it became associated with “new and radical.” By the time of FDR's administration Liberal just took it's “new and radical” modifiers over to the government interventionist camp. Conservatives on the other hand are the general fighting the last war. They were the Tories in our revolutionary war, the America Firsters before World War Two and now the pre-emptive first strikers.

I became a Libertarian years ago because of my dis-satisfaction with the moral interventionist the GOP includes in it's tent along with its half hearted belief in free markets. The counter to libertarian is authoritarian. Let me posit that an authoritarian is a believer in government and a libertarian a believer in the individual. The spectrum from left to right extremes would be Stalin's or Hitler's regime, both equally horrifying and on the same side, versus a hermit on a deserted Isle. The middle of this spectrum is one where reasonable people can acknowledge some legitimacy in the other's argument and find a cordial way to compromise between more government and less government.

One ideological lever between the two sides is raising or lowering the bar of “Federalist,” proponents of central government, versus “Antifederalist, ” supporters of states rights. Obama's Health Care Act may be argued as federal over reach. My problem is that I can't trust Republicans to consistently push back protecting states and ergo individual rights. Rick Santorum, for example, appears to be much more willing to intervene with federal authority in our personal lives than any Democrat I know, when one considers his intrusive grandstanding performance in the Terry Shiavo case. What does the likes of a U. S. Senator from Pennsylvania have to pontificate about when the head of family makes a personal decision on pulling the plug on a body on life support in Florida? Jeb Bush's intervention was bad enough, but at least he was Governor of Florida at the time. 

"The Economist" Nuclear Energy - The Dream that failed

Nuclear energy requires a Libertarian democracy with fair well understood compensation offered to those who will accept a facility and massive legal recourse for damages when it goes awry.  Japan's experience at Fukushima shows that the Industry's pact with the populace depended solely on the trust of government regulator's efficacy.  That trust is now gone. Can Japan's bank regulator's be far behind?

Nuclear Disaster in Japan was Avoidable, Critics Contened

Today's article in the New York Times illustrates how a regulatory agency eventually gets co-opted by the industry it regulates. In this case the Nuclear regulatory agency in Japan is overwhelmed by industry insiders migrating from company to overseer.  The group think this migration engenders cuts through all types of government agencies. The Goldman Sachs executives migrate to high Treasury positions, for example, and quash proposals that allow customers to get real value versus illusory profits.

The decision making in all cases reeks of willful denial of the known, such as the launch of Challenger when there was a very specific warning that rocket seals would not function in sub freezing weather that Florida could never have, yet did on January 28 1986.

Character

Ron Paul doesn't get much credit for being a decent person. He doesn't wear religion on his sleeve.  He is polite and cordial to his opponents and he speaks about the issues directly without dwelling on character assassination. David Brooks editorial today about "The Rediscovery of Character" doesn't mention Ron Paul, but it ought to have.  Its the reason I am such a Ron Paul supporter.  He is a libertarian philosophically,  but his lifestyle and character is conservative. He is not a libertine.

Is this what Davis Polk was meant to do?

Thank you “The Economist” for the “Too big not to Fail” article on Dodd Frank which shows the law as such a boondoggle for lawyers and lobbyist that it is sure to concentrate finance into too big to fail institutions. With so much complexity subject to interpretation the law is sure to be gamed to absurdity. What isn't understood is that a lot of smart people with expensive degrees and resources will utterly waste their lives performing financial and judicial masturbation generating some heat and no result.  

Ron Paul is Barry Goldwater's disciple

“I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' "interests," I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.”

Barry Goldwater The Conscience of a Conservative

AU H2O was the bumper sticker for me when I was fourteen. It was the year Barry Goldwater took the GOP nomination from Nelson Rockefeller and the eastern establishment. It was a year that Republicans pressed the reset button. My parents were conservative, William F. Buckley conservative, but being from the Northeast they were doubtful about Goldwater. It took Ronald Reagan's half hour televised speech a few nights before the election to turn them around in spite of my urgings and the issues of the “National Review” lying on the table in the den. Ron Paul is of course my standard bearer today. His campaign is as pure as Goldwater's and it comes at another time that the GOP needs to renew its commitment to liberty.

Free market capitalism is the core value of the right. I would posit that unfettered free market capitalism is libertarian and that Adam Smith's “invisible hand” gives moral credence to individual's selfish pursuit of economic gain because the result of that independent activity by many players in a market promotes the general welfare better that if it had been directed from on high. It's a form of crowd intelligence beneficial to society. An extremely important caveat to Adam Smith's theory is that there be many players in a market system for this greater good to happen. Unfortunately Republicans have not been a trust busting force since Teddy Roosevelt and have let crony capitalist weeds overtake the garden.

Republicans resist liberty as an ideology because they think it's unelectable. Goldwater was swamped by a landslide. Ron Paul answered a question posed to him during the campaign on whether he realistically saw himself in the White House with a quiet, “not really.” This type of answer is an anathema to professional politicians who will say and do anything required to get the prize. The safe electable GOP candidate is one that answers the questions nobody asks. The Tea Party's message is of discontent with elite big government and so the party responds by nominating a Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich?

George W. Bush's administration was so poor it should condemn the Republican Party to the dog house for at least two terms to ponder their utter lack of direction. Until they understand what a danger the “W” years were for the country they have no right to demand the seat of power. In the mean time Democrats are doomed to suffer poor economic results for many years. Junior wrecked the economy so thoroughly that no amount of tinkering is going to turn it around quickly. It's a case of Republicans be careful of what you wish for because you just might get Herbert Hoover's ghost.

Goldwater's primary battle against Nelson Rockefeller was against big government and Republican's in name only. It's an unfortunate trait post FDR to creep toward the big government side of the ledger. If you define the left as pro big government then Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are Democrats! Republican's have to learn to root out these impostors. It's only a clear commitment to Liberty as espoused by Goldwater, Reagan and now Paul, that should define a true Republican leader. With the GOP rudderless, now is the time for them to embrace Goldwater again and patiently preach liberty and avoid false gods claiming to be electable.

The current Tweedledee Tweedledum difference between the two parties guarantees a third party effort. Under those circumstances Obama wins and the GOP gets pushed aside with it's infirm, intolerant and old constituency. The concentration of money, power and influence flowing towards Washington needs a counter and if Republicans let go this opportunity to seize the representation of the people for the people, then they are as irrelevant as Newt Gingrich's protestations that he is not a lobbyist.

Audit the Fed

Ron Paul's Audit the Fed proposal is not unreasonable given it would be required before doing a massive restructuring of the banking system. My personal opinion is that the Fed be reduced to the FDIC. Its window to be open to banks who pay insurance and whose assets are one tenth of one percent of the nation's GDP. Banks with more assets, investment banking, proprietary traders and insurance will not be part of club. Hopefully, in this new world, the bigger they are the more risk premium the market will demand and get. Funding of large projects would go back to Wall Street syndicates managed by private partnerships. These partners will pay salaries as truly merited since they will go quickly out of business otherwise. Salaries at small banks will be very dull indeed as they were during most of the previous century.