If I were President for a day

The first thing I would do is to abolish the special IRS tax courts. Then I would order the ending of income tax withholding, because it wastes one third of what we earn.

I would announce in a speech to the American people that they should, when serving on a jury, remember the right to nullify any bad law, because it is an age-old right of juries.

Then I would offer everyone in the country an executive clemency for carrying a hand-gun, and order all BATFE personnel to sit at their desks and do nothing, because everything they do is in violation of the Second Amendment.

I would also order every government employee to write a report justifying their jobs, because they need justification.

I would recall all American armed services troops who are stationed outside our borders, because they have nothing to do with defense.

I would then abolish the authority of the Social Security Administration to collect any “contributions” and shut down the agency, and would issue an executive order that everyone will be issued a credit for “contributions” al ready made, a credit against their future income taxes. This is beause Social Security is a ponzi scheme.

Government-owned property, lands and unused buildings, will be sold on the open market to reimburse other persons who are no longer liable for any tax, such as retired persons, for all of their Social Security “contributions.” This is because the earnings taken could have been invested in S and P 500 index funds earning almost 10% per year, which would have been worth over one million dollars per retired person, instead of a couple of hundred thousand.

An executive order would be issued to declassify everything that has anything to do with UFOs, Project Blue Book, swamp gas, the bizarre incident at Rozwell in 1947, and so on. This is because government has little if any need to keep secrets.

I would issue an executive order to abolish all the stupid regulations about politically correct toilets. This is because “Political Correctness” must be a matter of free choice, not of legislation.

Federal support for “reformulated” fuels, but still allow farmers to sell their alcohol from corn, and allow them to do so in their own filling stations. This is because the free market works better to direct capital to the most productive uses.

Establish December 15^th as Bill of Rights Day. This is to enable everyone to remember their liberties.

End the War on Drugs. This is because prohibition perversely never works. It always makes things worse.

Forbid payment of any government funds for abortions. Every woman who might become pregnant would think more carefully about preventing pregnancy if she knew she would have to raise the child or pay for the abortion herself.

Abolish the DEA. FBI, BATFE, and CIA. This is because these agencies do not secure our liberties, but rather threaten them.

Declare a Constitutional Emergency, suspending a long list of laws and regulations doing the most damage, and offer clemency to all who may have violated them. This is because it might inspire the repeal of many bad laws by juries or legislators, laws that do more harm than good, destroying liberty instead of securing it.

I would end that day by recommending that everyone read "Hope" by Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith.

American government went wrong. But how?

This is about the fundamental problems of this country. The premise, however, is NOT about whether the main problems of the United States of America are inequality, starvation, poverty, illiteracy, discrimination, war, rape, murder, assault, theft, political dishonesty, divorce or illegal drugs. And there may be more. These are problems and they are serious.

These and other lesser problems have never been absent in history and never will disappear. As to whether they are more severe and impact more people than they should there is little dispute. However no single one of these explains the enormity of the total destructive effect of the rest. Much could be done to lessen the above problems, but they will always be with us, and they don’t constitute the big underlying problem.

Understanding the fundamental problem will help explain why all of these other problems are as severe as they are, and point the way to minimizing or alleviating most of them.

What is the fundamental problem then?

First some clues. How close to your ideal is our society, and what factors need to be examined?

1. The objectivity of our laws – legislating simple, well-publicized rules that protect our rights and enable us to know what government might do in most all situations, OR making laws that increase government power, delegating police and court powers to regulators who impose rules and punishments cannot easily be foreseen.

2. The example set by leaders and other major public figures – inspiring us all to being productive and voluntarily helping the least well off or dissembling, buying favor, selling influence, legalizing theft, punishing victimless crimes, etc. – “Why can’t I steal and cheat a little, too?”

3. Incentives that are built into our laws, encourage either a flourishing independence or a dependency on government and major efforts to circumvent laws instead of being more productive. An independent and neutral government which allows a vigorous economy to invent and create solutions to problems that arise to reduce the burden of labor, cure diseases, generate wealth that increases capital to create new jobs, support the arts and aid the hungry and poor, or a state which uses force to achieve environmental and welfare goals.

4. The scope of domains for which the majority may vote new laws – restricted to affirming and protecting all human rights and liberties, or unlimited democracy has replaced liberty as our chief value.

5. Overlooking to fact that 300 million people have 300 million potentially different dreams of the good life. This is replaced by regarding it as one homogeneous aggregate, leading to the perception or belief that society and the way life within it is organized is basically simple, and as a result, can be radically designed or at least continually adjusted and micromanaged toward some optimal state that is predeterminable through foresight and reason.

We need an independent and neutral government which allows (does not promote, but just freely permits) a vigorous economy to invent and create solutions to problems that arise to reduce the burden of labor, cure diseases, generate wealth that increases capital to create new jobs, does not interfere with the arts and aid the hungry and poor. We do not want a state which uses force to achieve environmental and welfare goals.

I think that also was the vision of our Founding Fathers, with the exception of the Tories like Alexander Hamilton. Unfortunately, from day one, a quiet war has been running between those who support the vision of liberty and those who want a nanny state.

The Myth of Consent

We have been convinced that our wonderful and sometimes no so wonderful government relies on our consent. It gets along very well, thank you, without it. It always has.

The framers of the US Constitution did not all agree. The people alive at the time the constitution was adopted did not all vote for it. A minority did, but excluding women, slaves and children.

And in no way could they have spoken for us, and bind us to give even any sort of implied.consent.

Randy E. Barnett has now laid to rest this crazy idea, once and for all, in his book Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty. See chapter one. Part of the text is stored here