The Road to Serfdom – in Cartoons

Nobel prize winning economist Friedrich Hayek’s book The Road to Serfdom is required reading for any serious student of liberty.

Hayek’s warnings are very timely, as they seem to describe quite well the events we are currently seeing in the American political system.

The folks at Mises.org have placed a copy of The Road to Serfdom – In Cartoons on their web site. This effort makes The Road to Serfdom approachable to audiences of all ages and intellectual background.

The Road to Serfdom is a chilling guide to the descent of a free nation into a totalitarian socialist dictatorship. If enough free men and women read this great work we may be able to prevent this fall in our time.

Please, send this cartoon to your friends and family. It will educate them on the great dangers we face and may interest them enough to read the entire book.

Why You Should Vote for More Government

Here at Fort Liberty, we’re big fans of small government. We don’t like bureaucrats and busybodies telling us what to do, and we don’t like being forced to pay them for the privilege.

However, we are now in the minority. Judging by the last presidential election, the majority of Americans do want someone to tell them how to live their lives. That’s the “change” they voted for and it’s already been implemented in hundreds of new laws and regulations since January of 2009.

It is difficult for me to see why rational individuals would vote for virtual enslavement under a nanny state. One answer, however, was recently proposed to me: More than 51% of households legally pay no income tax.

If you are not paying for government, then it may be in your (short term) best interests to vote for more government. You will gain some of the benefits of taxpayer largesse (free health care, free cell phones, free food stamps, free housing, etc…) — at no financial cost to yourself. All you will have to give up is a little freedom and self-respect.

That trade-off doesn’t seem worth it to me, but millions of Americans appear to believe otherwise. Effectively, the government is now paying citizens to vote for more government. It is not difficult to see where this will lead. But in the short-term, the American voters seem to enjoy riding in the handbasket.

Obama Risks War with China

The Obama Administration is quietly refusing to sell F-16C/D fighters to our allies in Taiwan. The Taiwanese have been attempting to purchase 66 of the jet fighters to help defend their tiny but prosperous and free nation against escalating aggression from Red China. The deal would mean $8B in revenue for the beleaguered U.S. economy. The Perryman Group estimates that this sale would create sixteen thousand American jobs.

The Taiwanese are desperately seeking replacements for their aging F-5 Tiger and Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft. They hope to replace 120 of the older jets with just 66 of the new fighters. The F-16 was introduced in 1978 and is currently in use by the United States, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Turkey, Bahrain, Egypt,Israel, Jordan, Oman, theUnited Arab Emirates, Morocco, Indonesia, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Chile, and Venezuela.

Taiwan is under increasing pressure from Red China, as the Chinese government is using nationalist propaganda in an attempt to distract Chinese youth from rising up against their governments policies. China’s one-child policy has created 30 million single men of marriageable age who will never be able to marry, because there are almost no unmarried women left. There is just one female of marriageable age for every nineteen males. In addition, each of these young men must labor to take care of two parents and four aging grandparents. They must do this while working for some of the lowest wages on the planet and with none of the human rights enjoyed by their peers in the Western world.

These young men are not happy. The Communist Party rulers know this and are attempting, apparently successfully, to deflect this unhappiness away from themselves and towards the Taiwanese. Taiwan must be able to defend itself against aggression from Red China, including the Communists new Varyag aircraft carrier. David Lo, a spokesman for Taiwan’s defense ministry, has stated that “The Chinese communists’ acquisition of their first aircraft carrier will threaten not only Taiwan but the stability of Asia.”

If the Taiwanese are insufficiently armed to defend themselves against aggression from the mainland, who will defend them? Who defends everyone against foreign aggression? Taiwan is an important trade partner of the U.S., supplying components and displays for every household in the United States. In addition, Taiwan is an important bastion of freedom and an example for all of Asia that free minds and free markets create prosperity. By refusing to make this sale, Mr. Obama risks encouraging aggression to which the United States will be forced to respond. Mr. Obama completely fails to understand the Reagan principle of peace through strength.

President John F. Kennedy said “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” President Obama is refusing even to sell our friends the tools they need to assure the survival and success of their liberty. In doing this, he should be ashamed, he should be opposed, and he should be impeached.

The Democratic Peace

Many Americans, on both the left and the right, are questioning the value of democracy. The left opposed America’s attempts to export democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq. The right looks at the election of Barack Obama and wonders if perhaps American voters are no longer capable of making informed voting decisions.

Historically, both groups can look back and see that Adolph Hitler, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hugo Chavez were all elected by somewhat democratic processes.

Our founding fathers were far from being fans of democracy. Thomas Jefferson, the most eloquent of our founding fathers, wrote, “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” This is why the United States is a constitutional republic — to protect the rights of individuals against a democractic majority.

Democracy, however, does have one significant advantage: It tends to lead to peace.

Democracies very seldom go to war with one another. There is no hard and fast rule which says that two democracies cannot wage war on each other, but in practice it very seldom happens. Democracies also exhibit extremely low rates of militarized interstate disputes, terrorism, politicide, democide, and genocide.

Democracy has other benefits, of course. Democracy tends to increase individual freedom and liberty. As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1848, “Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom; socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”

Democracy, in turn, has demands of it’s own. For example, real participatory democracy cannot exist without free markets. As Milton Friedman wrote in the Introduction to the Fiftieth Anniversary Edition of The Road to Serfdom, “The free market is the only mechanism that has ever been discovered for achieving participatory democracy.” Friedrich Hayek stated the case slightly differently when he wrote “To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be controlled in everything.” Political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom.

Peace then, largely depends upon participatory democracy, which in turn rests upon economic freedom. This can all be summed up in a general statement that respect leads to peace and lack of respect leads to conflict. Governments which do not respect the property of individuals will also not respect the lives of individuals. Socialism is a gateway drug to war.

Moral Equivalence and Religious Freedom

My left-leaning acquaintances consistently attempt to convince me that all religions are equally good and equally bad. This is one instance of the doctrine of “moral equivalence.”

The trouble is, moral equivalence just isn’t true. If you and I were to meet on the street, I could smile at you or I could punch you in the nose. Few would claim that these acts are morally equivalent. And yet if these acts are promoted by a religion, our brothers on the left would have us believe that they are morally equivalent.

Religions are more than the acts of their adherents. Every religion maintains a set of core beliefs which are promoted to their followers as the good and right way to live.

For example, Sura 9 of the Qua’ran teaches Muslims how to deal with members of other religions:

Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.

Compare that to the words of Matthew Chapter 5:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

Our friends on the left then argue that these ancient texts have no relevance to the events of today, as if the adherents of a religion have no interest in the published tenets of the religion. To this, I would like to answer that we don’t need to. We have modern evidence to provide us with more than enough guidance.

The Roman Catholic Church represents the largest organization of Christian believers. In 1965, the Pope issued a Declaration of Religious Freedom, which states:

This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.

The most well-known and respected Islamic cleric currently living is Osama bin Laden. When Osama bin Laden, or his successor, issues a declaration of religious freedom guaranteeing that no man, woman, or child will be coerced into following Islamic law — then perhaps we will have some real moral equivalence in this world.

Europe Rises as America Falls

The situation in the United States looks bleak as the country endures the third year of what will most likely become known as The Second Great Depression. At the same time, our friends in Europe are showing encouraging signs of recovery.

Over the last few years, the voters of Great Britain, Germany, France, and Italy have replaced leftist politicians with more moderate alternatives. The same pattern also holds true even for the European Parliament elections.

Of the large Western European countries, only Spain remains in the hands of the more left-leaning party. Spain’s election was largely influenced by a well-timed terrorist attack. In the immediate wake of a railroad bombing, the Spanish voters made a sudden decision to replace a strongly European government with one more acceptable to the Islamist minority.

It would be dangerous to mistake Europe’s powerful center-right politicians for libertarians. All of them strongly believe that government should control the lives of individual citizens, but to a slightly lesser degree than their more-leftist opponents.

The European center-right parties have succeeded with voters largely by adopting many elements of socialism into their party platforms. Center-right parties have succumbed to popular demands for state-sponsored welfare and state-run medical care. They have also embraced anti-business issues such as radical environmentalism and intrusive regulation of business relationships.

On the other hand, they have also succeeded by promising lower taxes and less government overhead on the economy. This, of course, is a recipe for disaster. No government can permanently exist by promising to do more for less. Eventually such governments drive their nations into debt and penury.

The United States is several years ahead of Europe in that area. The Republican party lost power in the U.S. largely as a result of voter dissatisfaction over it’s lack of fiscal discipline. Instead of reducing governments footprint, the Republican party allowed it to grow throughout the last decade. This caused many traditional Republican voters to withhold financial support from the party and to stay home on election day. The United States is now burdened with it’s largest debt to GDP ratio since WWII and the largest debt to GDP ratio among the “advanced” nations.

The European nations will follow the United States into decline if they fail to learn the lessons of our mistakes. To succeed long-term, the European center-right parties must embrace free markets and fiscal responsibility. In they fail to do so, they will face the same massive trade and budget deficits that currently afflict the United States.