More on the Moral Impotence of Democracy

I read this quote today in John Locke's Essays on The Law of Nature and it reminded me of my election day thoughts:

'The voice of the people is the voice of God.' Surely, we have been taught a most unhappy lesson how doubtful, how fallacious this maxim is, how productive of evils, and with how much party spirit and with what cruel intent this ill-omened proverb has been flung wide lately among the common people. Indeed if we should listen to this voice as if it were the herald of a divine law, we should hardly believe that there was any God at all. For is there anything so abominable, so wicked, so contrary to all right and law, which the general consent, or rather conspiracy, of a senseless crowd would not at some time advocate?

Democracy, when it is seen as an end in itself, rather than as a means to the end of liberty, becomes little more than the rule of a mindless mob. The mob that Locke dismisses in the above quote as a possible source of natural law is also entirely incapable of ruling with the unfettered power we seem not to mind investing in the electoral process today. The fact that most people want something is not a justification of its being law. It's that simple.

Tax Bill Is Beginning of Formal Debt Criminalization

The noose is tightening on liberty. The United States Congress is steadily headed to a place where those who owe money to the US government shall be treated criminally. This phenomenon is advancing domestically and now, increasingly, internationally. The first shot in this latest campaign took place in 2010 when US President Barack Obama signed into law The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. It demanded, basically, that foreign banks withhold up to 30 percent of the income that an American abroad might earn. This bill isn't working so well because overseas banks are not cooperating (a state of affairs that was certainly expected). Thus, there is a need for something else: Senate Bill 1813, recently introduced by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA). This bill, in part, states that taxpayers with unpaid taxes over US$50,000 may find their passports confiscated. This isn't criminal per se, but the IRS has recently made noises about "sharing" information with police a...

Thomas Sowell Returns

By: Thomas Winslow Hazlett Reason

How To Cripple The Real Estate Market In Five Easy Steps

If the government and the banks had just allowed real estate prices drop to market equilibrium, we'd be out of this mess and housing would truly be affordable. But the government is determined to artificially prop up housing prices, whatever the cost to the economy. If you were head of Central Planning (howdy, Ben!) and were tasked with crippling the real estate market, here's what you would recommend. Choke the market and banking sector with zombie banks... Have the central bank (the Federal Reserve) buy up $1 trillion in toxic, impaired mortgages... Lower the rate that banks can borrow from the Fed to zero, and then pay the banks interest on all funds deposited at the Fed... Try to prop up the housing market by giving poor credit risk buyers loans with only 3% down... Load young people up with the equivalent of a mortgage in student loans... OK,let's see how our Organs of Central Planning are doing: check, check, check, check, check: a perfect score! they're...

The Humble Libertarian original

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