Lesser of two evils

So it seems we are all faced with the same decision every election cycle, which is the lesser of two evils. Neither candidate ever represents us well, and both come with a pack of lies and things that scare the hell out of us.

This is especially true for folks like myself who can best be described as Libertarians. Every election cycle I have to choose social issues over economic issues. You see guys like me are about freedom. Freedom in the bed room, freedom in your mind, freedom with your body, freedom with your pocketbook, freedom in business, freedom in education, freedom from tyranny, privacy/choice, yadda, yadda, yadda. I believe in this in every aspect of my life for myself and for everyone else. I don't care what you believe in, I don't care what choices you make, as long as they don't tread on my choices. I believe in the pursuit of happiness and the power of the individual to use his/her talents in how they see fit. I'll always side with the liberty of the individual over any type of collectivism. You reap what you sow, and when you fall you learn.

You see for guys like me who don't care who you marry, what you put into your body, whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, and at the same time believe in property rights, and the chance to reap the rewards of my own endeavors, there is no real party in American politics that represents us. There is some social freedom on one side and some economic freedom on the other. Throw in foreign policy which is mostly junk from both sides, and you are really stuck.

So some describe the GOP as some sort of religious fascist entity that wants to control every aspect of your personal life while completely rigging the economic system against you. The haves sticking it to the have nots. Straight up serfdom. Oh and woman are dying in emergency rooms, because they don't have access to free contraceptives. Then there are those who might describe the liberals as commies wanting to essentially redistribute wealth and centrally plan all outcomes to the point where good looking people have to wear ugly masks as a handicap to make them equal and rich dudes have to hand over 90% of what they make in the spirit of fairness. Probably both extremes are a little much, wouldn't you say?

At the end of the day, I don't trust anyone else to make decisions for me but me. Because I trust my own value system and recognize that it probably different from anyone else's. I also recognize the flaws in all humans. Regardless of how much of bleeding heart your are, push come to shove you are going to put your own self interest first. If you don't you are some type of anomaly or insane. So we are all inherently selfish, or self preserving, or whatever you want to call it.

Based on that reality, there is no way I trust anyone but me to make decisions for me, but me. Which is why I believe in a small government. There is no way any central power is going to understand all the complexities about whatever topic and make that right for everyone, absolutely no way. Its completely impossible. What happens whenever that is attempted is a whole bunch of bad stuff. What sounds really nice in speeches and in policy always ends up costing a lot more and accomplishing a lot less of what is was meant to accomplish.

So I'm not surprised when any politicians lies or deceives or completely fails. Its a mistake that anyone ever trusted them to do anything useful in the first place. That is why I'd rather have my money and pay as little tax as possible. Because I think I can make better decisions for me, my family, my community, than anyone else ever can for me. I recognize there are certain things this doesn't work for, but I think those things are small in number. At the same time when I do have to edge towards collectivism, I'd prefer to do it on the smallest scale as possible. So that goes from family to friends to community to state to federal to global. I only jump from one unit to the next when its absolutely necessary.

So am I for education, and I for a safety net? Sure I am, but I'd like to make those choices first, and only then pass it on to someone else when I have to. So that means it takes a really long time before anything in my mind ever gets to the federal level. Our founding fathers were really smart, they understood corruption, they understood tyranny. The more you let power get away from you, the more chance there is for things to things to come back decidedly different from how you would want them. So do I think there is a roll of government to play in things like education or a safety net? Sure, but I'm not convinced there is much of a role for that at the federal level at all.

So that is my problem with the left and the current state of the democratic party in this country. From my perspective there is far more tyranny and danger being argued from the left than the right, and its all about the power grab. When you give power over to a central force, while you may like it when your guy is in power, you might find it pretty horrible when your guy it not in power. In the end, you are much better off if that power was not aggregated at the top as you end up controlling more of it yourself. So I'm very wary of anyone telling me they are going to fix everything, and I should just trust in them and give them more of my money, or support, or anything.

What is the worst you can imagine from this so called religious fanatical right wing? Few less science books, the word GOD in a few more places, couple of dudes can't marry, a poor woman has to give up a pack of cigarettes to buy some condoms? The depth of the intrusion into our lives is much more significant with the left. They don't stop with the pocketbook which is bad enough. They apply the do-gooding know it all attitudes to what you eat, wear you live, what type of car you drive, where your kids go to school and what that experience is like, what you read, and even try to control what you think.

We've seen this from Obama. Let's take cash for clunkers. Let's get rid of all the gas guzzling old cars. You know what happened, the price of used cars has soared. That's really helped poor people hasn't it? And what of all the people who just loved old cars. What is the carbon footprint of making a new car opposed to fixing an old car even with the gas guzzling? The unintended consequences is my worry. I used to be able to get my kids apples instead of fries in their happy meals. But Michael Obama caused such a stir, now you get little bit of fries, little bit of apples. No choice. Gee thanks, so you were attempting to help my kids eating habits, but now I have no choice, and they are getting fries all the time now. So I'll take having to pay for some condoms over having not having a job. I'll deal with some people praying in school over someone controlling how much soda or french fries I eat. I have no idea where this type of thing will stop. That's the thing with the intrusion of the left into your life, it has no boundary. That is what is so offensive to those of us that are concerned about Freedom above all else.

So usually people will start firing off about corporations and how they dominate, and the only way to fix this is with a strong government influence through regulation and enforcement. But I reject that idea. The reason corporations have such influence is because of how we've aggregated power. This IMHO was a direct result of the 17th amendment, which also by the way brought forth the progressive movement. So while all the awesome "people centric" reforms we all supposedly love came to be, the by product was an easily corruptible Senate, with no regard for states rights. That is how we got the corn lobby, and just about every other lobby that greases our current government. A progressive power grab by and for "the people" made it really easy for things like corporations to control the federal government.

So when a lot of people talk about a do nothing congress, most of the time I think good, a do nothing congress means they can't mess up any more stuff. Its not just the selfish assholes who mess stuff up, but the do-gooders are equally as responsible for messed up stuff. From entitlements, and on down the line. I respect the passion and the intent of these guys, but really all the do-gooding, it leads to bad stuff. From price controls, to affirmative action, to all sorts of things. Go read some Thomas Sowell he can explain it all to you much better than I ever will.

So that is why I fear the moral agenda of the left. Johnson launched a war on poverty, we spent a bunch of money. Poverty rates are just about the same as before this policy. You can look at all of these programs and see the same sorts of results. So time after time, we give up a little power in tax dollars and choice, believing in some program that is going to fix something, but never really does. Then we are all just left holding the bill.

There is a tippy point coming really soon, it doesn't matter who caused it, there is tons of blame to go around. There is a structural debt problem. When debt becomes overwhelming nations have three options. Major cuts, growth, or tax increases. The forth option is inflation, which is really just a hidden way of increasing the tax. This is the course I suspect we are on which no one will tell you. But since the US has a reserve currency, its very hard for us to inflate out of it. For some knowledge on how various countries have dealt with debt see:

http://www.globalfinancialdata.com/news/articles/government_debt.pdf

So as the parent of three young children, and now sterile (non scalpel vasectomy, lots of fun), I'm far less concerned about things like contraception and abortion then about the opportunities my children might have for success in the future. Just as personal debt can be stifling there is a point where nation debt has the same affect on growth. I can not ignore that Obama promised to cut the debt in half. I don't care why he failed, there are no excuses, you are the god damn president figure it out. He will add 6 trillion by the end of the term. I don't care that some of it was Bush's, I don't care that the congress didn't help, he's the boss, buck stops there. He sucked at solving this problem, which is the most important thing on my radar.

So I can push aside almost everything else when I consider Romney. He picked Ryan. The guy is a budget hawk, and has some ideas with real math. He lied, I don't care, VP's always are the bullies, they lie about stuff; whatever I can get past that. Romney understands business, he understands the global economy. According to some guy who writes for Rolling Stone and sucks Bill Maher's dick, he cash infused a bunch of failing companies to give them one last shot at success which turned into debt and failure, and then managed to still pull out some cash for himself. Whatever, dude knows numbers, tried to help some failing businesses, it worked some places not others, figured out a way to always make it work for himself, awesome, now apply those skills to fixing the whole financial situation in the US. Find a way to do the same thing to China, accept apply it to our bottom line.

When folks talk about cayman island accounts and all that, I think to myself what better a guy to help deal with the financial situation then someone who knows how to bypass all the rules, and knows why it sucks bringing money back into this country. Money is like water it flows to the path of least resistance. Sure its not fair, but that's the world we live in. Its better to understand the realities and adjust the incentives than attempt to fix the unfixable.

There is zero probability Obama has any chance of a growth solution out of this debt problem. I haven't seen any demonstration of a real understanding of the economy, nor a desire to put American back on top. I think he comes from a place where he's more worried about the situations of people in third world countries than he is of the plight of Americans. Too much 2016 maybe, but it seems to stick. I think there is a non zero chance of Romney either making some cuts or setting forth a growth solution out of the debt, or maybe a little of both. I couldn't say if that chance is 1% or 20%, but its better than zero.

So there you have it, the lesser of two evils. One guy has some chance of setting a better trajectory out of debt, and another guy has added 5.something trillion to the debt. It's really not a hard decision. So call me a asshole for making woman die in emergency rooms, not letting gay people adopt kids, killing poor people, keeping the kids stupid, and being a racist bigoted immigrant hater. I don't care. It's all smoke and mirrors in the way of what I think really matters.

If this guy ends up being another neo-con than I'm just going to move somewhere else. Has that Mars rover started building something yet ?