Monday, January 30, 2017

Who Would Be Better for Liberty, DLT or HRC?

David Kuehn emails:
I know pre-election you advocated that HRC would be better for liberty in the long run. Do you still stand by that? I, like you, am no fan of DJT. But do you think that when the Executive Order Dictator finally breaks the back of the country (e.g., the border “tax” that will be paid by consumers, and the general realization from DJT fanfolk that his backward looking views on trade, comparative advantage, etc. are actually *worse* for the economy than anything being then-contemplated by HRC) that this could be even better for liberty? That whatever disasters DJT births will actually create an opportunity to push a libertarian idea of trade, buttressed by explanations from the Austrian school about basic, sound economics?
RW response:
Hi David,

I believe it is a grave error to believe that crisis and collapse will result in a move toward liberty.

The masses are really split into two groups right now.  Those who support Trump regardless of what he does and crazed lefties who would like to see the same central planning that Trump is exercising but with them in control.

Neither option appears very attractive to me. I find it most noteworthy that for awhile Customs and Border Patrol agents ignored a judge's ruling to stand down on parts of Trump's travel ban executive order. Keep in mind, this is only one week into the Trump presidency. The real problem I believe will occur with some kind crisis directly with the left. It will determine the direction of trends, rather than problems in the economy, of which there will be many.

Who knows what domestic crackdown could occur where police and the military, Trump supports them both unabashedly, could very well interpret orders so that they stand with Trump over judicial orders?

Opposite the Trump supporters are lefties who want more government interventions in our lives. It is very possible that the boomerang reaction to Trump will be massive new support for a socialist candidate down the road.
 It is difficult to know exactly what scenarios will develop over coming weeks, months and years, however, it doesn't appear as though it will be a march toward liberty with Trumpsters to the right of us and socialists to the left.
As for Hillary, she would have hardly been much of an improvement, but as I  said during the election campaign, she couldn't get a wave going at a baseball game. Indeed, I believe she lost because she couldn't motivate enough people who would have voted for her to get off their welfare paid-for big butts to vote for her. I'll take that over an authoritarian leader who seems to have strong backing from police and the military versus Hillary where her secret service protectors appear to hate her
The country really isn't ready for liberty and it would be long odds luck if a crisis brought liberty. It is more likely to bring us deeper into a totalitarian state.

3 comments:

  1. Only a fool would believe that Hillary wouldn't have issue an equal number of executive orders by now. That power hungry beeotch has been waiting 24 years sine Bubba got in. Not that this makes Trump any better but you should keep this in mind. She would have issued all sorts of leftist orders like trans bathrooms everywhere, women generals get to stomp on the testicles of all the white male generals, abortion worldwide funded by the US taxpayer, retroactive tax increase, immediate revocation of 501C3 status for any group that is right of center, shutting down any alt-right media outlets and seizing their assets, and many other edicts.

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  2. Yes, DJT so far has been 'less' bad than a leftist cunt. DJT has his faults and some policies will be misguided, but it's damn nice to have a masculine leader for a change with a good looking first for a wife that does seem to actually give a damn about Americans.

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  3. 1. I think it is essential to continue pointing out the Trump dangers and absurdities.

    2. The insane reaction of the “progressives” and Democrats to Trump provides libertarians with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to destroy them forever in the eyes of people who do not live in their bizarre bubble world.

    3. The biggest danger of Trump in my opinion is that tax cuts and “deregulation” will be blamed for the inevitable bursting of the existing Keynesian bubble and our failure to communicate that Trump is a Keynesian and funny-money guy.

    4. Keynesianism is just another part of the reality-free “progressive” bubble world. It has always been a lie or “fake news”.

    5. A few years ago, Daniel Kuehn wrote a paper noting that the 1920 depression was caused by the government changing direction after the wild spending and monetary expansion of WWI.

    https://academic.oup.com/cje/article-abstract/36/1/155/1713381/A-note-on-America-s-1920-21-depression-as-an

    6. Four years ago, I got Kuehn to admit that his scenario is consistent with the Rothardian scenario for the period.

    http://factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.com/2013/01/poor-kid-was-just-couple-years-too.html?showComment=1358951616430#c7905647555055464192

    7. If the government caused the 1920 depression (and continuing funny money shenanigans which began in WWI caused the 1929 depression), there is no basis for the Keynesians claiming that the market failed or fails. There is no basis for a Keynesian “cure” for a problem that does not exist and has no historical antecedent.

    8. Further, the judicial grant in the 1930s to the government of plenary economic control is based upon the associated false and fake news nostrum that since we now know the market fails, the government must step in to fix it.

    9. I’ve been waiting since January 2013 for a Keynesian to explain when the market failed leading up to the 1920 depression. I’m turning purple holding my breath.

    http://factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.com/2013/01/poor-kid-was-just-couple-years-too.html?showComment=1359067576135#c3828640123045664561

    10. We need to be relentless in our attack on the Keynesians and must come up with a program (sooner than later) so that average people at least understand a) that inflation is not a mysterious force of nature; b) that inflation is a purposeful government program intended to solve problems that do not actually exist; and c) that every incidence of funny money creation is an act of theft of purchasing power. People will never understand the ABCT without grasping those basics.

    11. However we address the problem of immigrants and foreign goods, I would ALWAYS point out that the reason those people might undercut our wages is because they are impoverished and they are impoverished mainly because a) they have adopted Democrat socialist and/or crony institutions which they learned from the West or which were imposed upon them by the USA; or b) because they were the victims of US warmongering and slaughter. If they were more affluent, they wouldn’t be willing to work for starvation wages.

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