Why my own party makes my blood boil

Is this not incredible? Wendy Davis could actually win the Texas gubernatorial race. Not because she has the credentials. Not because she is widely respective, or represents Texans, who have a very low tolerance level for self promoters who ridicule people in wheelchairs. Who would have ever thought that that Texas pride, gumption to the point of insolence in the 'whole other country' could morph into fear at the power of the democratic "machine". Said a staunch republican pundit yesterday. We can't rest on our laurals. She may not represent the state. But the Obamama, Democratic, machine is powerful. We have nothing like it.

This talk is infuriating. Why did Romney lose the election? Why is the senate democratic, why is there even a remote change the republicans could lose it AGAIN, when every survey shows averge Americans leaning 7 points towards republicans. Why do even our strongest supporters like Glenn Reynolds say "They don't call it the stupid party for nothing.

At the Red State Conference, I suggested that we will never win, until we adopt the tactics of our opponents. I don't know whether the responses whether the reactions were sad or alarming. "But then we would be stooping to their level... WHATTTTTT??????  These are the leaders, the people who are going to bring about social change? How? By maintaining the Moral high ground???

They are very nice people. They are principled, devoted, and unwilling to compromise. They also have no idea, not are they being told that politics is a dirty business, that winning and principles are not the same things, that winning means getting dirty and doing dirty, fighting dirty, knowing your enemy and winning on the battlefield.  The last presidential election was proof
   "A lousy platform and a good vote machine can win"
   "A god platform and an ineffective vote machine looses"


We will lose and lose and lose until we start fighting the war with the right tactics. Polls are useless when actual votes have another major component. The voting "machine" the democrats have is not "magic," We can have the same. If we dedicate ourselves to this. If we do it ourselves [ and not hire a bunch of consultants we don't know]. If we man polling places, have hackers, etc etc. None of this is difficult. Republicans ignore it. That is idiotic and infuriating.

This is not new technology. I and many others have build large databases, used them to predict models predicting product loyalty, incluencability, odds of success and methids/ approach likelt to succed. Updating databases online,is an old technology using hierrchies by zip codes to direct activities of  service reps was done 25 years ago. Database speed and size is known, as is methods of testing  backups, and in critical sitiation, live runs, and backups to backups. In Politics one criticl decision is when do you stop convincing people (a) and start getting out the vote (b). This also can be calculated and used to use staff.. The greater the staff, The greater the odds of winning,

I am less angry at Democrats than I am republicans for being naive idiots, and even more anbry at tea party members and the red state, the Heritge foundation and the Cato foundation who have no excuse for behaving in such an idiotic fashion. For analyzing what Substantantive, communicative or
other essential characteristic Republicans do not have and treating Democratic criticisms with all the seriousness they do not deserve. Letting your opponent set the agenda is always a lousy strategy,

Imagine , if, Romney, instead of graciously, conceding to Obama, and kvetching for poor Ann who would have made such a wonderful first lady, instead of sayong we put up a goiod fight and he wo n fair and square, leaving the stage with his tail between his legs,

Imagine if he said. I do not condede. He did not win. This fraud is a travesty that puts a democracy to shame. In x county and Y county 125% if the population voted. I did not spend years running for president to leave Americans in a banana republic.

Anybody want to do something about it?

All sorts of organizations call me for money. Now  I don't care how good the cause is. I don't give money. I used to. If someone managed to play my emotions well enough, not because I am a female canine (not sure what censorship policies exist here in the political correct) but because I have a litmus test.

In most cases I can spot a sales call in the first three words and hang up. There's that roboto-speech if you know what I mean. Robots, on the other hand have mastered the art of sounding human so well that I found myself chatting with one last week. I have this high IQ and did eventually foure out that he was a recording.

Back to the litmus test which is based in this premise. Most people are inflexible and lazy. If they call for money and I offer something of far greater value they will reject it. This will be true even when I am not speaking to a telemarketing firm based in India.

So last week, the Heritage think tank called me. for some money. Whatever I could spare. As usual, we are at a "critical juncture" , democracy is at stake, the country, the socialists are turning the universities into a Marxist ideology breeding ground on our tax dollars. Aha, something I could bite my teeth into.

After relishing a moment of visualizing me as Buffy wandering around Washington, in my invisible suit, teeth gleaming,  I decided to respond. No great hopes. It's amazing. The things people will say for 15 bucks. Just because they're on your side don't be an idiot and believe them. Trust and verify.

So I wrote a letter, Told them they were brilliant. An that I do that. (I do). We have a GREAT opportunity right now because Universities are failing, the Millenials don't feel like being indentured servants to government crooks fir the rest of their lives, and the time is now for a different kind of college/University. We could be teaching libertarianism, free market capitalism, organizing experimental communities, free speech, critical thought. What balance of powers is. Federal vs. State powers etc. I pointed to specific programs we could join with and how we could and asked if anyone had thought of it and what their stance on "higher education was".

I got no letter but I did get an invitation to a weekly meeting of sentinels the grass roots arm of the organization apparently. These are the people who lobby republican congress people to behave like republican congress people. Up on the agenda this week: Do not extend the unemployment benefits because this sort of thing 'never works' and we have a budget deficit. I will grant that most likely encouraging long term unemployment is a lousy way to get people working again but without a cent and without articulating why this is a lousy idea and pretending it will have an effect on the budget is silly. Next up is immigration. Focus. It's important to NOT have any discussion of immigration because then then congress will go to committee and they will pass the dream act. I was getting worried. Outside of government, the country thinks the dream act has been passed. Hasn't it? Kids get social security numbers, medicaid, low cost tuitions? How are they not citizens? How about talking about this. No immigration legislation by presidential degree. Secure the borders and then we'll talk.

I hadn't read the news for a few weeks. Too depressing perhaps. What a bunch of WIMPS. Nobody talks about Obamacare anymore. One more "feature" of the new normal.
To end the conference call issues were poorly explained, nothing organized, no talking points, no prioritization. Last question was Do you think the Republicans will take both houses in November?

It wasn't just the lack of conviction by an organization that is one of the best hopes in the country or so I thought. It was the blase manner, as if unemployment benefits and winning the vote in November are equally important or maybe as if it doesn't matter.

Have you noticed that so many of the folks that used to launch battle cries are writing books-- Glenn Reynolds, Charles Krauthmauer, Mark Levin.  What the country does not need is one more conservative book or radio show. Yoo Hoo... Anybody out there?  Don't all answer at once....Helllo...eloooo..loooo...oooooo...

If there are hate crimes, they are all created equal

I never thought they would be implemented as equal. I have yet to find a case where more regulations solve problems caused by failure to enforce prior regulations. Government, and change, are by nature slow, and when pushed to quickly nothing good happens. But ,most unfortunately, nobody has asked me how to run the country. The courts rules that hate crimes are recognized as crimes whose motivation earns extra added punishment.

The FBI, monitors hate crimes annually based on police reports. Decisions are very ambiguous and politically vulnerable to the "right answer" from the":top brass." who make it clear that African Americans should emerge as victims and not perpetrators of hate crimes. Nevertheless, the group who are most often victims of hate crimes relative to their presence in the population are Jews. The difference between hate crimes against Jews and hate crimes against any other group is almost unbelievable. If Jews are defined as other religions are (based on self report-- are you Jewish), thgere are @ 3MM Jews in the Us and hate  crimes against Jews are 12 to 1 their fair share in the population. This is in sharp contrast to Muslims. If Jews are defined racially (either birthparent Jewish, the odds are 7 to 1.

There is no other group that remotely approaches this level. Crimes against Africam Americans are higher than the national average .    Crimes against Musims account for      for all the crimes against religiouns. The number of muslims in this country is very doffoicult to determine and based on.. if higher are minimal, Crimes against Christains are higher and on the rise. Not issues in the FBIO reports are crimes of blacks against whites, specifically .  Crimes are chilling as groups involved are games    . Crimes by police against citizens are also unrecorded but are on the rise

The FBU has been reporting hate crimes for x years, The findings  re Jews have been the same, and although there has been a change in favored minorities insofar as as homosexuals, lesbians, transvestites, in all cases, Jews, have been consistently been the victims of hate crimes, no decrease has been noted as with blacks and no efforts to do anything about this have been done.

The FBI in discussing religious discrimination, failed to normalize hate crimes against the number Jews and more important failed to conclude that anything should be done about it. Each year the conclusion was the same, We must redouble our efforts to eliminate any vestige of hate against African Americans.

Hate speech is not illegal and for the most part when cases are brought to court, courts rule in favor of free speech. Yet the vast majority of Universities including state universities funded by tax dollars have rules about what students may and may not say.

The rationale behind this practice raises questions about whether Universities educate or even aim to educate.  Push politics aside completely for a moment and think about Universities as they were a few hundred years ago or if that isn't far back enough try Ancient Greece. Wasn't the purpose of
education, the way Socrates taught it to examine any and all ideas through the lens of Aren't Universities precisely the place where all ideas are game?

Words.. words... which brings us back to today. Unless you are crying fire in a crowded theatre sticks and stones break my bones, words don't hurt, not unless they are followed by actions. Do they?
Maybe, sometimes. Are people who speak hatred, more likely to act hatefully. probably. What would Socrates have said. Something like: Put your faith in reason and in the University as the place, perhaps the only place where reason is free to flourish without interference from the realities if later existence. Let all state there views and subject them to the test of reason and not fear the results. It is not our job to rule reason, but to use it as a most precious tool with which to find truth. There are many in the world who will try to rule reason- politicians, men that seek power, and philosophers whose fears overwhelm their courage. The search for truth demands courage and is not the vocation of every man.

In a true University if there were one, a modern day confederate and a liberal would have a conversation made possible because of the common set of rules of discourse they shares. A socialist and a capitalist and everything in between would speak, the size of government could be discussed, the impact of insults on people and groups would be discussed studied measured without pre-conception. Contrary points of view would be welcome because they bring us closer to our own truths. Emotions would be muted, questions would outnumber answers. The institutions that are called Universities today to not earn the name. In my own field, social psychology, a witch hunt to prove that republican personalities are inferior to democratic personalities is underway , papers published in peer reviewed journals. There is even  study showing neurological differences. The one shocker to the democratic researchers that republicans are better at math and science is never referenced. This is not a desire to learn.

Perhaps a University is a pipe dream. Perhaps it is much too late to be in speaking terms. If that is true, what are the odds that these hate speech codes will be enforced equally. Of course they won't everybody is a member of some group. If people for some reason now have a right to not be insulted, unless nobody insults anybody, people are constantly discriminating against other people. Some of the codes are in fact so broad that students self censor because they have no idea what could qualify.

Example from the University of Buffalo:

     " Students are expected to act with civility.  To be civil means to be courteous and polite or, simply put, to be mannerly.  Acts of incivility—whether verbal, written, or physical—will not be tolerated by the Residential Life community…Hostile or inappropriate language or gestures, words that penetrate and hurt, words that destroy relationships rather than sustain them, or physical aggression in any form are not welcome in our university or residence hall community."

The basic ones are:

    " “stereotyping, negative comments or jokes, explicit threats, segregation, and verbal or physical assault when any of these are based upon a person’s race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, disability, veteran status or sexual orientation.”  

In reality and not surprisingly enforcement bears no relation to even the second statement below. In actuality relative to their numbers experience many more hate crimes than any other group including blacks. The level of hate crimes were @ 30% higher for blacks  but  based on the lowest estimate 7:1 meaning 700% as high as their presence in their presence in the population. These data are not taken from a study conducted by some Jewish organization but from the  annual FBI hate crime statistics report which does note that Jews are not Muslims are the religious group that is targeted for discrimination. 

These numbers are alarming, Yet there is every reason to believe that they are understated and that they are being ignored deliberately and that this policy is supported by the white house. The difficulty or coming up with a definite figure depends on who one classifies as a Jew. If this is based on church membership of self report. (answers to questions like what is your religion), there are less than 3 million Jewish Americans with a decreasing number. If one uses Jewish parentage and includes people who explicitly say they are not Jewish or say they are Catholic or some other religion, there are approxiomately 5 million. Jews, possibly due to fear of extinction tend to gravitate to higher numbers. Using the 3 Million Jews figure of 12:1 or 1200%. The figure does not change from year to year, does not include hate crimes on campus where Jews are victims, but dies where Jews are perpetrators, according to police interviewed they are pressured to not classify crimes against Jews as hate  crimes especially when they are committed by groups of black teens, In general, knockout games are under-reorted as more examples were filmed than reported.

It gets worse. Universities sanction this behavior and only retract when the media picks up a story and embarasses them as it did when.

 Jewish students on campuses have been  threatened for peacefully demonstrating their support of Israel. Rallies interrupted with shouts if sig heil. Events demonize the Jews and glorify their murderers under a thin veneer of anti-Israel and University administrators. Given the strong tie between Obama and the Muslim brotherhood, Obama's failure to act on this issue does ot come as a shock. When a letter was sent to complaint that had accused a California state university of allowing a hostile environment for Jewish students to exist on campus, the education department’s Office for Civil Rights wrote:

    “In the university environment, exposure to such robust and discordant expressions, even when personally offensive and hurtful, is a circumstance that a reasonable student in higher education may experience. In this context, the events that the complainants described do not constitute actionable harassment.”

The mildest critique of a Muslim is Islamophobia, while threats against Jews are not actionable harassment. This double standard encourages more and bolder anti-semitism. The anti-defamation league found that 40% of Jewish students in a study of 1400 Jewish students were aware of anti-semitism on their campus


Actions against Jews Universities are not limited to speech. They include physical violence.  promoted by well funded Muslim organizations associated with the Muslim brotherhood such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the which unlike bad worlds against "protected minorities" is ignored by University personnel and the Muslim Student Association. Jewish students on campus have been physically attacked for demonstrating support for Israel.  A young woman stood near a setup with a fake wall and machine guns in exhibit blaming Jews/Israel for apartheid holding a sign saying "Israel wants peace" One of the people from the exhibit rammed a shopping cart at her so forcefully, she had to be taken to the hospital


This is not limited to Berkley. SJP has organized a pattern of events at a growing number of Universities , setting up mock checkpoints, asking students passing by what their religious affiliation is and intimidating the Jewish students

Trusting Government means never having to grow up

Most people, if asked,  realize that government does do things that are not in their best interests,
that their taxes go to people who use money  frivolously, that it's hard to get things done in government, that they don't really think  any politician does all the things he or she promises, that an honest person would go into some other line of work, and that these guys get paid too much.

But say the word government partial government shut-down and major freak-out. Partial government shutdown was, of course, a joke. Some people had to take unpaid vacations, there was that couple who couldn't get married in Yellowstone because it was closed, memorials that were closed. People got their social security checks, and medicaid, the free phones worked, foodstamps cames . Alcohol tobacco and forearms were there. homeland security made a show of it and then returned to whatever essential stuff it is that they do that we can't know about because it's classified, As for those three and  the department of education, agriculture, forestry. most of the state department, Indian affairs, the part of the IRS that gives you advice that can be wrong, IRS tax auditors that didn't bring in more money than their fully loaded salaries two years in a row... ( I could go a lot further but you get the idea) please go home and stay home). Nobody would miss these people, regardless of party.

Unlike others who believe this was just one more example of democratic maliciousness, I  believe the thought of no government scared people even though they knew it wasn't really true and that it wouldn't last long just like the other times and people wouldn't die of food stamp deprivation. This is a difficult one for me to accept but I believe it's accurate. Most people don't want independence that comes from being responsible for yourself. Not here in NY in the city and Ohh, 100-200 miles out. It isn't simply gaming the system. Its needing and knowing that someone is going to take care of you. The thought of government scared them so much that they prefer a strong one that takes freedoms away that one that is more constitutional. Actually they probably like the strong one better. A bigger government takes care of people more than a smaller government and gives them fewer decisions to make.

But, I say "What if they take care of you like the mafia takes care of you?"

And they don't seem to care. This cartoon captures that sentiment.

On what we can do about it

Can the wave of dissatisfaction, frustration & anger in this country translate into action.
There are a few excellent think tanks [Cato Institute, Heritage]  a multitude of blogs, radio shows, congressmen and senators taking a stand in public in the legislature, bumper stickers, rap songs.. We have a long way to go.

We have allowed the left to turn American education system into socialist ideological training. College campuses have become very expensive socialist indoctrination camps. Critical thinking has been replaced by social indoctrination that aims to overturn our way of life--  capitalism, individualism and the right to pursue happiness are replaced with government mandated paternalism marketed as outcome equality.

Those of us who stand by liberty have failed to communicate an alternative that the American people can embrace as an ideal. Individualism and liberty have an almost quaint sound these days. A few scholars -- Milton Freidman, Ayn Rand-- speak about free market capitalism and the cost of government. To the average person this means nothing,  We haven’t communicated the high economic and costs of regulation that go way beyond their budgets, that strangulate economic prosperity, then job market, and the quality of our lives.  are causing and know there is a better way worth fighting for,

Obama and democreats are able to say over and over agaib that we offer no alternative to Obamacare because we haven't put one single simple alternative out there. Proposals made by a few people, by the Cato or Heritage foundations don't exist, not to the average person who would have to SEE what it would be like Imagine a website, that looked like the ACA site and lead people to different options, that do not exist, that could exist, and that are simple.  We do not have the organized ‘machine’ that our opponents have, know about but have no game plan to combat voter fraud. We may very well have lost the 2012 election because of this or rather won it. We will never know. Nor will we win the next one unless we fight that battle.

We are paying a high cost for the liberal university takeover. I checked my own field before writing this [psychology]  and was aghast. A growing research field in social psychology is scientifically documenting differences between liberals and conservatives, to prove that republicans are inferior. According to peer reviewed papers published in journals, conservatives are more fearful, less receptive to new ideas, and less tolerant. Even the structure of the brain of democrats and republicans are different. [ I am not kidding)  Economics and all social sciences, humanities, english courses are taught on campuses with an anti-imperialist, anti-conservative bias based on bad but accepted science. I know the biases in these studies but that isn't the point. [ see "Fake science and politics"] A generation of students will believe this nonsense just as they believe carbon dioxide is evil and global warming is science.

Our ideas are better but that does not spell success.

 College in their current form are declining; that gives us an opportunity we haven’t taken advantage of. We could be the Kahn University equivalent of history, government, and economic and a different way to think about  humanities , philosophy, sociology and psychology. There is a younger generation that want to know libertarianism whether or not they can articulate it, that disrespects government. There is also a much better way to speak to Americans than Paul Ryans confused blabberings about sequester deals. Ronald Reagen did it.  No Uber-president,  he went on the air with simple charts that explained what he wanted to do to American people.

The millenials ‘get’ the raw deal they’ve been dealt. They don’t see any other possibility because we haven’t presented it. Conservatives to them are people who are unkind, who do not care about the poor, whose main goal is stopping abortion and shutting down the government. Most don’t pay it much attention to politics anyhow because it isn’t relevant to their lives.

When I was young, I was a committed leftist. I didn't understand or reason. Kids don't do that. I knew this -- the world wasn't good as it was, I shared a vision of a world without war or hunger, love and freedom.  Our "vision" was unrealistic, naive, dogmatic, and ripe for abuse by Stalinists and the Chicago mob. Nevertheless, the committment (however wrong) to the better reality at the end of the tunnel  galvanized a generation and led to social change. Some of the changes have become nightmares. Nightmares, however, can end, when people have a better reality that they can SEE feel and want. The power that fueled change then can be unleashed again

Americans deserve better from us. Young people deserve the opportunity to experience life in a microcosm of free market capitalism in the same way that their grandparents/parents once lived in communes. Listening to libertarian debates is as useful as counting the number of angels who can dance on a pin.  “Who is John Galt” communities (like a kibbutz, but not socialist) could be living market capitalism. If Israel's ventures against poverty  sponsored by the United as a solution to unemployment can succeed in third world counties, Imagine what could happen here? Productivity and innovation are not dead. They have no outlet. And we are the people who can create those social experiments and learn about how free market capitalism. principles and equality co-exist? How would a libertarian community care for poor? What would be expected of them? What common principles would develop? How?

If you are reading thank you for putting up with my stream of consciousness. I will work towards these ends and am getting closer to a n action list.  If you are interest in either joining me or helping me and others do this, contact me.

On the Fragility of Democracy

I never met a government I liked, past or present. Governments may start with noble goals but loose their original purpose too easily.  ‘survive and expand’ for the benefit of a small group becomes the goal.

This happened in Greece (ancient) and Rome. Athens became more than just another city state, as the keeper of the city-states’ war funds. Athenians used monies that didn’t belong to them to build beautiful statues, and expand power. Original principles were lost, Athens grew weak and was conquered by barbarian tribes.

The Roman Republic had more checks and balances than ours does.  To prevent the situation of an Uber-president, the highest office was held by two consuls each of which could veto the decisions of the others. The executive branch was a group , the senate, and was not allowed to own or run businesses while in office. The legislative body was a direct democracy;  all citizens debated proposed laws which were read aloud prior to voting.  A complex veto system further limited power of specific government bodies.  In emergency situations, when a single leader was needed, the senate declared the emergency and gave temporary power to the consuls- one of them became ‘dictator’ for no more than six months. [This avoided the conflict of interest if the same person that declares the emergency becomes the dictator]

Roman democracy has been criticized in textbooks because it was not a ‘real’ democracy. The senate was not elected. Women and slaves were not included.  Nevertheless, it’s checks and balances deserve a hard look because they are the most extensive ones that ever existed. Nevertheless,  all the checks and balances in the world couldn’t save the Roman Republic when masses of furious unemployed and overtaxed Plebeians, who had lost their jobs to slaves  (many former soldiers,) formed populist groups, rioted and found the senate willing to appease and unwilling to compromise.   In the U.S, the biggest threat to democracy comes from the White House, in Rome it came from the senate. The results could be the same.

Checks and balances are necessary in a democracy but they are no guarantee.   The original purpose of any arm of government can always morph into self interest of one group with power.  Democracy may be the best of governments, but in reality , it is fragile. The rules that keep it in place are only as strong as peoples’ commitment to underlying principles and the democratic philosophy. [Maintaining this commitment in a country as diverse as ours is especially difficult.]

The erosion of checks and balances under President Obama should concern us. This is not, however,  the doing of one President. Would it have been possible for an executive to violate each of the bill of rights, to pass laws by using  ‘executive orders’ without repercussion, to make treaties without congressional approval if the stage had not been set before?

It’s becoming harder and harder  to find aspects of our lives, from education, to work, to health, to say what you wish (as long as it’s politically correct) to privacy, to the right to property that are not controlled by government. This process did not happen overnight. There are numerous contributors that have been eating away at our core philosophy and way of life for a long time.

The elimination of the gold standard, the power of the Fed, the unlimited involvement of government in the economy, out of control regulations that nobody understands but everyone is forced to comply with, the president’s power to use money it doesn’t have without enforceable limits, the alignment of the press with one party and ideological changes in our educational system all contributed to the erosion of our commitment to freedom, liberty and individualism in principal and practice.

The Conservative solution is go back to the constitution.  That would be a TREMENDOUS improvement and very hard to accomplish. We face a government today  that is very committed to maintaining the status quo and is structured with layers of agencies and bureaucracies that keep things the way they are.

If this country is a democracy, citizens have ultimate power. If the majority of people in a country want one thing and the government does another, we have a problem. In a real world, this will happen sometimes - people in government aren’t the most selfless sorts -- but not all the time, not most of the time, and not a lot of the time.  A situation in which most citizens do not agree with what their government is doing is a prescription for trouble.

Changing this is a tall order - not the sort of challenge people ask for in life. Hopefully knowing what we are up against is a start.

Capitalism isn’t a four letter word

What's Capitalism, anyhow

Capitalism has a bad rep these days. Media is partially responsible. So are those who claim they want a smaller government, and who say they want fewer regulations. We don’t explain it well. People have this idea that capitalism means big businesses who stomp on poor people and on regular folks like you and me, who take all the money and leave none for us. Socialism seems attractive. It seems like real equality until you live it, (See: My socialist adventure) as any immigrant from a communist country will tell you

Capitalism isn’t a dirty word or a plot against poor people.  It’s  people free to buy and sell what others want and keep the profits, freedom to invent new solutions, rewards for the hard work of making useful   products and selling them, and keep the money. You get to do this without the government in your face.  The innovation America was known for grew out of this idea.

The waves of immigrants that came to this country with very little are a testament to that,  A man starts with nothing works buys a car, gets paid to drive people, provides good service and builds a limousine service. A woman works long hours,  saves money buys a house, pays it off and becomes successful in real estate, a young kid obsessed with technology builds a computer, or software or.... in his garage and builds a successful. business. People pursue happiness, they don’t always succeed, but they have the right to give it their best shot build something, feeling proud and live good lives. 

If you think ‘but that was then’ or ‘ but not me’ perhaps these examples will work better: Making a living selling on eBay is capitalism, a kid who saves broken bicycles and sells the parts is capitalism. the entire underground economy is capitalism, farmers markets, flea markets....

The less involved government is, the better economies work. In of technology sector, where government is not very involved, there are constant new products, growth, quality and economic prosperity. People expect quality and get it; companies that don’t deliver are replaced.  Healthcare, and banking are highly regulated  and don’t work as well. But no part of the economy works as poorly as government.

How peoples’ actions regulate the private sector

People also hold the mistaken idea that capitalism if not controlled by government is chaos, no rules , anything goes. Not true.

In the private sector we vote with our pocketbooks every day.  For the most part, this works. The food at restaurants is safe to eat not because it has a license, not because of all the regulations ot has to follow but because it wants your business.

Elevators don’t usually kill people, not because of those certificates and inspections you see on their walls,  but because people won’t ride in elevators that kill people.

Disposal companies for the most part, don’t dump garbage in peoples’ backyards --  not because of all the environmental laws and regulations -- but because they want to stay in business.

Accountants don’t steal your money for the most part because they want your business and the business of your friends.

This pocketbook voting of capitalism keeps business honest, and protects people. Of course, the system is far from perfect. People would have to get injured in elevators or even killed before people boycotted them, Crooked accountants might steal money before pocketbook voting kicked in and so on.

But ask yourself this,  Does government improve on that? Make it worse? Improve some things and make other things worse? On balance are the laws, the procedures and rules worth it?

Other protections in the Private Sector-

Insurance is another way that capitalism protects consumers. Most professionals and commercial builders have insurance,; insurance contracts require businesses to meet standards, may require evidence, and will  not payout if those standards aren’t met. Any business that breaks the rules,  won’t get insurance again. Of course, insurance companies can be corrupt; insurance agents can get paid off to “look the other way”. but again only to a certain extent.  Lose money for your boss and you get fired. [ Here’s something to think on-- If a government inspector is paid off, what will stop him from doing it again? Who would be easier to pay off -  an insurance agent or a government inspector]

The same motive limits corruption of insurance companies. They want the words Insured by Geico.. to mean something to keep customers and get new ones.

Consumer feedback groups from Angie’s list to consumer reports serve a similar function in some areas. On-line feedback about businesses do as well. Book reviews, seller statistics, do the same. Consumers are willing to pay for this.

The feedback people give and get in the internet and the speed at which it occurs and is used keeps people honest. Why would a salesman lie about a cars previous accidents, when the consumer can just check the VIN number using his mobile phone and see if he is telling the truth.

Getting rid of government completely is a nice fantasy, I know I am not the only one who wished it really had during the alleged partial shutdown. I am not proposing that.

Consider this as a possibility to think on. We have separation of church and state in this country, How about separation of economy and state?