Regulated Economy Equals Regulated Liberties

Thomas Anger, a retired Washington economist, posed this question, “Why, despite sound arguments and concrete evidence, do most Americans tend to resist denationalization and deregulation?” That is a question we, as citizens, all should want answered.

And Anger does just that: “Their resistance arises from two things: risk aversion (both personal and paternalistic) and economic illiteracy.”

To clarify what Anger calls, “risk aversion,” it is when people are afraid of taking a chance. And they start asking questions to justify their terror, yet no movement towards answers, which would, after comprehension, alleviate their said terror.

Anger’s second claim “economic illiteracy” plagues people, how could one dispute this? The average person does not grasp economic theory, and he or she only views financial and economic situations (as well as governmental issues due to the interdependence of our government and economy) through his or her myopic glass bubble. That is, thinking solely on the present money in hand, not the money in bank in the next 30 years.

This idea that a government’s job is to rescue its citizens from poor personal budgeting and the ignorant understanding of finances is a falsehood. That leads--in our case, as Americans--to the Socialistic War, which I have spoken on previously.

In doing so, we allow, as economist Bruce Yandle, Ph.D., calls “Bootleggers and Baptists” to occur. Dr. Yandle explains, “Bootleggers, you will remember, support Sunday closing laws that shut down all local bars and liquor stores. Baptists support the same laws… Both parties gain, while the regulators are content because the law is easy to administer.”

The “Bootleggers” are those in the business world who use regulation to oppress competition in the marketplace, so to profit while at the expense of the consumer. Need I remind one who the consumer is in this equation?

The “Baptists” are, as Anger states, the “self-appointed guardians of our health and well-being (the sum of all our risk-averse fears, you might say).”

Nationalization and regulation hinder the economy and thus the people’s pocketbooks, not only at present but into the future. Anger adds, “The benefits of nationalization and regulation come at a high cost, but we tend to focus on our own benefits… and forget the cost (the taxes we pay for benefits that go to others).”

Denationalization and deregulation promote free market and a strong economy, which means the consumer will be granted the liberties he or she foolishly pissed away out of asinine behavior.

The liberties I speak of are the ones that allow you, the citizen, to choose your own box of cereal, your own showerhead, your own doctor, and your own insurance company (which is an issue in Massachusetts at the moment) and, basically, spend your money the way you see best fit.

Of course, if this would occur, we all would need to start signing up for budgeting classes, which I would rather have than someone else’s “regulated” liberties thrust upon me. How about you, the American citizen?


Here is my last column for this term. It is sad; I know the problems I (and the Parthenon) had working together, but I believe those problems are behind us. Most of the columnists were writing “Goodbye” columns. I thought about that, yet I opt to write mine with no reference to ending of the term. I hope this post is one you will like.

No Baby an Angel

Why do we, as a society, even attempt to protect children? Is protection really what children or is it society that needs protection?

Children, overlooking their guileless exterior, are not innocent creatures with pure intensions; their actions show the fundamental animalistic nature within each living being. Every individual born into this world initially cares about one individual and that individual is oneself.

It is plainly society that is afraid of children (with good reason).

Society’s defensive stance against children is the particular result of its own fears. Society teaches ethics, morals, rules, and laws, and the punishment, if any of these are broken.

Consider this: when an adult does or says something that pushes society’s limits of tolerance, what do we voice back to that person? We say, “Quit being childish,” which means more explicitly, “Quit acting like a child because the social circumstances we are in do not approve.”

We, as a compassionate group of men and women, believe we have an obligation to shelter children due to their so-called naivety, yet after pondering, if we will, the thought process of a child, we will disclose that assumption itself is naïve.

Being realistic, children are irrationally selfish, demanding, hateful, violent, loud, crude, and revengeful. Children are blatant lairs and they have no comprehension of respect for another individual’s emotions.

Every child--realizing that the word “love” is a powerful term to adults, maybe because of the sincerity in our voices--screams out to any given parental figure that “I don’t love you anymore” or “I hate you” or “You are a bad parent; you don’t love me.” That is an example of the pain they intensely inflict.

Some adults praise children for their frank honesty, yet many more are embarrassed. Furthermore, I believe rightly so, and out of that embarrassment society protects itself against the multitude of these miniature combatants.

These pint size individuals might be held as a so-called fresh air in a stale world, yet the actions of our little off-springs are deemed unacceptable in the adult reality due to the push for harmony--that is, for a society to function there has to be guidelines or rules.


Now, people can understand my disliking of children. That is not true. I love kids, yet I am worried about the idea of becoming a parent one day. Children are not angels and I hope my girlfriend better comprehends my disdain for parenthood.

Hey, Try Cooperating for a Change

I have wanted to speak out on this topic for a very long time, now. In fact, it goes back to last term, when students accused police officers of taking aggressive actions at an unapproved (I will refrain from the adjective, illegal) block party.

First off, I am excited that the Georgian Congresswoman apologized, even if it was only halfheartedly, Thursday afternoon. What an end to a week of shameful, name-labeling lunacy!

For those who do not yet know, Rep. McKinney D-GA was stopped as she was entering the Capital in D.C. She apparently had a makeover--that is, a newer, sexier, and fresher hairdo. She did not have her congressional ID pin out in easy sight and the officer did not recognize her.

When the officer asked her to stop, she did not do so willingly. When he asked her some questions, she did not cooperate. Finally, she struck the officer.

McKinney tried to play the race card as for the reason the officer stopped her and never once did I hear or read of her discussing her motive for striking the officer for doing his duty.

Do not get me wrong, if race was the underlying purpose then I would be arguing that; however, McKinney forgets that real racism occurs and her incident was not one of those sad displays of intolerance and lack of education. There are good, hard-working people in this country being denied career opportunities, cast aside in social settings, and harassed by mere words or by physical means.

However, back to my topic: the treatment of the police officers. My grandfather, a retired officer after 35 years of service, raised me, since I was four. Furthermore, having that perspective showed me a side that most people do not get to see. I learned of the motives for a police officer’s actions, which the layman might not understand at first glance at the situation or incident.

Richard Keplinger, another retired officer from my hometown, stated once to me that “an officer has a few moments to make a decision that might take a court and/or the public months, if not years, to tear apart and say if you [the officer] were wrong or right in the action you took.”

I have to agree with him. Police officers protect me, the writer of this column, and you, the reader of this column, and everyone else. Then why do we, as citizens, seem to like to bad mouth their behaviors or degrade their actions or piss on their characters?

Maybe the reason lies with the way we see our influential citizens. Maybe when the rapper or singer curses the officer or when the actor plays the part of the “bad cop” or when the congressman or congresswoman, in this case, assaults the officer for servicing and protecting.

There are officers in this country who do not fulfill their duties and are these “bad cops”; however, those are the few and the far between. Whatever the reason may be, though, I believe a thank you is in store for the men and women wearing the uniform and carrying the badge.


This was a last minute column. I am not happy with it, but it is okay. I hate when I procrastinate. I am planning on starting earlier this week and write a great column.

Religion [and Politics] Should Be Separate

Some have the idea that America was a Christian nation; that is a false assumption. America was the dumping pot of Europe--they sent their criminals and impoverished lowbrows to this new world just to cleanse their lands of the so-called unsophisticated populous.

Somehow the insane took over the asylum. We became the land and the “government of the people, by the people, for the people”--the safe haven for the world’s lost and beleaguered.

We have been force-fed half-truths and idealistic notions about the faith of our United States. We heard from the classroom to the pulpit to the home that our nation was a Christian nation, and that itself was spread to us by people whom themselves had never read the complete U.S. Constitution, if at all.

Joseph Ellis, historian and author, answered a question about the intended faith of our nation, “Jefferson, along with Madison, is the author of the famous separation of church and state principle, which essentially insists that there be no government enforcement of any particular religious denominational preference.”

The Framers of Constitution would be undoubtedly appalled by their fellow countrymen of today. The Framers stood up against the world’s most commanding nation to gain the freedom to establish a nation that viewed liberty as the core of its existence, not an overbearing Theocracy.

In a letter to Samuel Kercheval in 1810, Jefferson said, "But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State."

Robert Carver, historian, wrote, “At the Constitutional Convention, the Framers looked to the examples of antiquity, the Greeks and the Romans and not to the Ten Commandments. They were a pragmatic lot, and they were not interested in being bound by their religious heritage, despite today's claims to the contrary.

“Rather, they were searching for virtually any idea, from virtually any source, that would work to create a better government than the failure produced by the Articles of Confederation.”

John Leland, a Baptist preacher, wrote to the Framer as they were drafting the Constitution, “The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence; whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks [Muslims], Pagans and Christians. Test oaths and established creeds should be avoided as the worst of evils.”

The Baptists, under a state united with a church, suffered extremely. Baptist preachers were fined, imprisoned, and tortured for advising their congregations to read the Bible for themselves--something of which the state church disapproved.

Also, citizens had to pay tithes to the state church, even if they did not attend said church. This still occurs in many of the world’s nation, such as many European nations.

The Framers of the U.S. Constitution seeing this noticed the uncanny similarities between these treatments of citizens in the newly established United States and the old tyranny of England.

The Framers made a conscious decision to deflate these motives of cruel treatments and inhumane practices before they would be exacerbated any longer and eventually tearing their fragile nation apart at the seams--destined to be another failed, degrading, self-righteous Theocracy.


I have been very ill; I have missed a week and half worth of classes. I wrote a six page paper awhile back on this topic. So I just cut it down that 3000 word argument to 540 word column. However, for the newspaper it was too long and they cut it even more--that is, to 390 words. I am posting my draft here because I feel that the three paragraphs that were cut were the most important.