The Freedom Minute

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A hearty welcome to Doug McIntyre’s Red Eye Radio audience. Like you, I’m a big fan of Doug and am honored to be a guest on his show. Check back here for detailed information on the topics we’ve been discussing and feel free to shoot me an email from the contact page . And don’t forget to subscribe to email or RSS updates so you always know when I’ve posted something new.

July 14th, 2010 Posted by freedomminute | Libertarian Philosophy | no comments

Health Care Reform – Introduction

I considered avoiding this topic since there’s so many others writing and talking about it, but with all the misinformation on all sides of this issue, I feel I need to bring some sanity to the conversation. Health care reform is a complicated issue and there’s no way I can cover everything that needs to be said about it here at the Freedom Minute. Countless books, research papers, college courses and articles provide volumes of information for anyone who wants to look for it. Yet most people don’t look for it. They continue with their pre-conceived ideas, certain in the correctness of their “facts”. I’ll attempt to distill down the vast amount of information available and present it in a clear and concise manner, free as much as possible from ideology and rhetoric.

I’m going to divide this up into a bunch of different posts, partly because I don’t want to have to write it all at once and partly because dividing it up will make it easier to follow. Much of what follows is not simply my opinion, but rather the result of countless hours of research and investigation. I use mostly verifiable, independent, peer-reviewed sources and if I make an assertion, I’ll attempt to cite those sources so you can check them out yourself. Mostly I’ll be paraphrasing the relevant data, but when I quote another source directly, I’ll use italics so you know when that’s happening.
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September 30th, 2009 Posted by freedomminute | Federal Government, Health Care, Libertarian Philosophy | no comments

Cash for Clunkers: Success or Failure?

As the “cash for clunkers” program came to a close this past week, government officials fell all over themselves declaring what a huge success the program has been. “This is one of the best economic news stories we’ve seen, and I’m proud we were able to give consumers a helping hand,” gushed Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The positive spin is certainly not surprising considering the federal government just spent $3 billion of your tax dollars (or more correctly, added $3 billion to the national debt which will have to be paid back, with interest, from future tax revenues). And when they pony up that kind of coin, we’re certainly not going to hear anything coming from Washington other than the sound of our elected officials patting themselves on the back. True, if you’re one of the roughly 700,000 who were able to take advantage of the government’s largess, it’s likely you consider the program a success as well. And who’s to blame you. It’s not often you can get the government to reallocate $4500 of someone else’s money to you so you can buy a new car.

But those of us who understand that there is no free lunch realize that when the government engages in this kind of economic sleight of hand, there is always something on the other side of the equation, hidden from view, which balances out all the “benefits”. Plus, we’ll have to deal with all those pesky unintended consequences which always occur. So let’s take a look at the entirety of the cash for clunkers program and see whether or not it really was a good deal for America.
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August 29th, 2009 Posted by freedomminute | Federal Government, Libertarian Philosophy | 6 comments

Who Wants to Be a Master Debater?

On Sunday I was at a friend’s house for an Academy Awards viewing party. I generally don’t care much about who wins the Oscars, and this year in particular we all knew which film was going to take away the lion’s share of the awards. But I like visiting my friend and his wife and they were so very kind to include us, so we went.

During one of the commercial breaks, I happened to be talking to my friend about the state of the economy and mentioned in passing my libertarian leanings. One of the other couples there immediately took great umbrage at my statement. The wife pronounced that (I’m paraphrasing) “libertarianism can’t work because under such a system there’s no common property and you can’t have a functioning society without a commons such as roads etc.” I pointed out that I never claimed that I was in favor of a society in which there was no commons and that by attacking me on that point she was making a Straw Man argument (claiming I said something I didn’t say and then arguing against it). She apparently didn’t want to engage me further to explore what I did advocate because she simply walked away in a huff. As a result, I never got the chance to explain why she also happened to be wrong about her absolute assertion that a commons is necessary for a society to function.

Then her husband chimed in.
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February 25th, 2009 Posted by freedomminute | Libertarian Philosophy | no comments