"Google turns up only 657 hits for "Everything the government touches turns to." It seems to be an unfamiliar statement. I first heard it in the 1970s from a Chicago economist named Karl Brunner. It is attributed to Ringo Starr, of Beatles fame. The whole statement is "Everything the government touches turns to s**t."
Ringo's aphorism is true. As long as a country like ours is under The One and Single government, this will be so. No isolated person and no isolated private sector institution, be it church, company, institute, or university, is a match for the size and power of a national government like that of America. Any industry that the government touches is no match for the government's power. That industry will deteriorate, fade, kowtow to government, lose its innovative powers, misdirect its investment, seek subsidies, pay tribute to politicians, try to become a cartel, and eventually lose any semblance of operating in a truly free market. The government has the power to kill any free market. It has done this to industry after industry and market after market. Worse still, since everything the government touches turns to s**t, and since the government's powers allow it to touch more and more things, we have a situation of deterioration. I could say the same thing about individual freedoms. At the moment, the national government imposes its paralyzing vision on everything in its territorial domain of power. State, city, town, and village governments are often as much ordered about and forced into measures as any of us. They do not currently give us the degree of competition in governance that would free up the system. But as much as I believe all the above is true, I am vastly outnumbered by those Americans who disagree with me. This article is about how most of us, I would hope, can become better off, despite our differences, by having the government of our choice all the time. Americans are divided politically. That is natural. There is no way that we will ever be united on political matters, any more than we are united on religion. And being united on political matters is neither necessary to improve the situation we are in nor a good idea. Libertarians cannot convert large numbers of Democrats to libertarianism. Democrats cannot convert large numbers of Republicans. Anarchists cannot convert large numbers of libertarians to anarchism. Anyway, most of us are interested first and foremost in improving our own situation, not that of everyone else in general. To move forward, we do need some area of agreement. Otherwise, if and when our national government fails, we will end up dividing into clans and sects and fighting one another to see who will impose his vision on the rest. Or else, we will fail to take full advantage of the opportunity that such a breakup and failure would provide us. The Soviet Union broke up, and the peoples immediately placed themselves into and under States again. They did not learn from experience. They were not ready to advance the nature of their governance. The attitudes of people to the situation of deterioration that I see vary all over the map. I may see deterioration, but many others see no problem at all. Some think doomsday lies directly ahead. Some don't care. Some have given up hope. It is an important political fact that attitudes vary. This matters a great deal because a person's happiness depends on such attitudes, and each of us has a right to pursue happiness as we see fit (within the normal boundaries of natural law.) Attitudes are also held firmly. No number of articles by me and no number of letters and e-mails between me and people who disagree with me are likely to convert them to my way of thinking. If someone likes the Social Security program and likes subsidized housing, I cannot convert them. And if I try, they will feel threatened by my message and dig in their heels. Pointing out truths in articles is one thing. Pushing for conversions is another. You are the best judge of your own welfare. You do not want to be ruled by me any more than I want to be ruled by you. That mutual attitude gives us the common ground we need to forge a new way of living together. I therefore do not ask for anyone to convert to my way of thinking. I ask only for one thing: Give me my freedom from your government. Correspondingly, I give you the freedom to have your government - with one important stipulation. It is that neither of us demand that the other remove himself from the country (this land, this place, and this people) that we both cherish. If you want social insurance programs delivered by your government, then, by all means, have them. I will not stop you. Will you then allow me to live my life without being forced into your programs? Will you allow me to have the governance of my choice if you have yours, both of us living in this land we now call America? Will you allow each of us to have the non-territorial government of our choice? Will you allow alternative governments operating over the same territory but on different self-chosen constituencies? Will you endorse that as an ideal? This ideal, freedom of choice in governance, is eminently just. It is a natural right that flows directly from our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is why we have a multitude of native nations within the boundaries of the U.S. "Under this policy, the U.S. recognizes 550 native nations within its borders. These are not state or federal agencies. This policy was established in 1970 by President Richard Nixon and reaffirmed on June 14, 1991 by President George Bush." Cannot non-native Americans gain the same rights as native Americans and have their own governance? Governance involves various goods that we perceive governance brings us. Each person has different views of what those goods are, what they are worth, and how to attain them. If I argue for individual liberty, as I do, then I logically must argue for your freedom to choose those goods that you wish to consume in non-free markets. Freedom of choice in government encompasses your freedom to trade off some of that freedom for the sake of being ruled by others, if that is what makes you happy. If I believe in freedom, I cannot force other people to run their lives with the freedoms that I may value and think good and proper. But neither may they justly force me into their views of government and into the government that they choose. The situation we are in today is a situation of force, for both statists and non-statists, for both anarchists and minarchists, for Democrats, Republicans, and those who prefer third parties. Many of us are seeking the power to control everyone else and remake society in our vision. We need to agree to call a halt to that process if we are ever to move forward." http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff219.html [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
