Democracy Is Not Freedom

One of the ostensible goals of U.S. foreign policy is to spread democracy. Of course, the reality is the exact opposite. The U.S. Empire is one of the greatest lovers of nonelected dictatorships in the world, as manifested by its ardent support of such dictatorships as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Chile (under Pinochet), Guatemala (after ousting Arbenz), Iran (after ousting Mossadegh), Pakistan (under Musharraf), Yemen, Bahrain, and many others.
But the irony is that even if the U.S. Empire was the greatest democracy-spreader in the world, it still wouldn’t necessarily be spreading freedom by spreading democracy. The reason is a simple one: Democracy is not freedom.
In fact, as Ludwig von Mises pointed out, the only real advantage to democracy is that it enables people to peacefully change the administration of government.
Consider Syria, whose government is dictatorial in nature. Since Syria isn’t a democracy, the citizenry have but one way to oust the regime from power: violence — i.e., revolution.
But does a democratic system necessarily constitute a free society?

Absolutely not! A free society does not turn on whether people can peacefully change public officials. It instead turns on the extent of powers wielded by public officials, whether they are democratically elected or not.

Suppose people are living in a democratic society. Suppose also that whoever is elected president has the powers to force people to go to church, punish people for criticizing the government, confiscate weapons, and arrest, torture, and jail people for as long as he wants without a trial.
Would anybody consider that a free society, notwithstanding the fact that the president has been democratically elected? I think everyone would agree that that society is as far from being free as one could ever imagine.
It is not a coincidence that the word democracy is not mentioned one single time in the Constitution. The Framers understood that democratic regimes can be just as tyrannical as non-democratic regimes. Again, freedom turns on the powers that are wielded by public officials, whether they are democratically elected or not.
The Framers also understood that freedom is one of the natural, God-given rights with which all people have been endowed. Such rights preexist government. As Thomas Jefferson observed in the Declaration of Independence, people call government into existence with the aim of protecting the exercise of people’s rights.
The problem, as Jefferson also observed, is that the natural propensity of governments, including democratically elected ones, is to infringe, suspend, and abridge the very rights that the government was called into existence to protect.
Thus, while the Constitution called the federal government into existence with the aim of protecting people’s fundamental rights, it simultaneously limited the powers of the federal government to the few powers enumerated in the document.
Immediately after the enactment of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights was enacted. It made it clear that the federal government was prohibited from abridging people’s natural, God-given rights. It also outlined the judicial procedures that had to be followed before the federal government could punish people with arrest, torture, incarceration, or execution.
Thus, while the United States was established as a system in which people could peacefully oust public officials from office and replace them with others, our ancestors understood that that wasn’t sufficient to establish a free society. A free society necessarily involved severe restrictions on the powers that democratically elected federal officials would be permitted to wield.
Of course, it’s no surprise that U.S. officials try their best to convince Americans that democracy is freedom. If Americans are convinced that democracy is freedom, then they’ll be satisfied with the fact that there is an electoral process. They might even participate in it by voting, making them feel even more free. The idea is that Americans will look on the United States as a free country because there are elections, even as public officials assume the power to seize people, torture them, incarcerate them indefinitely without trial, or execute them with a kangaroo tribunal rather than after a legitimate jury trial — i.e., the same powers wielded by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, Cuba, and other non-democratic dictatorships around the world.

Nicely Said.......

If one rejects laissez faire on account of man’s fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.– Ludwig von Mises
Planning for Freedom (1952), p. 44

Another way to look at it is, if we’re too stupid to make decisions for ourselves, how can we be smart enough to elect the right people to make decisions for us?

Great Moments In Good Government

I wonder if its because companies have to beg for government permission, and then pay a hefty bribe, to get permission to hire more employees:

The city council in Menlo Park, Calif., is set to approve a deal that will let Facebook employ thousands more people at its headquarters there.
Mayor Kirsten Keith says officials are expected to green light the environmental impact report and the development agreement at a meeting Tuesday night. City staff has recommended the city approve the deal.
That means Facebook employees, currently numbering about 2,200 in Menlo Park, will soon be able to stretch out. If the deal is approved, Facebook will be able to employ about 6,600 workers in Menlo Park, up from its current limit of 3,600. That was the constraint on Sun Microsystems, which previously occupied the campus.
Facebook will pay Menlo Park an average of $850,000 a year over 10 years to compensate for the additional load on the city. It will also make a one-time payment of more than $1 million for capital improvements and set up community services such as high school internship and job training programs. Facebook is also creating a $500,000 local community fund that will dole out grants and charitable contributions to communities surrounding Facebook’s campus.
Facebook is making the payments because Menlo Park can’t collect sales taxes from Facebook.

The last is a dodge – this is a protection racket, pure and simple.  Presumably Facebook pays property taxes on its corporate offices, as do its employees who live nearby.  Also, these new employees will all spend money in the local economy that will generate sales taxes.  Facebook presumably pays for water, sewer, trash and other utilities, and their employees are paying gas taxes as they drive that pay for the roads.  Facebook pays California income taxes, as do their employees.  What are these mystery costs that are not getting covered?  The community services bit is a hint that this is a stick-up, with Menlo Park demanding its cut of the recent IPO.
The truth is that cities and counties in California see business expansion plans the same way that Tony Soprano looks at the Museum of Science and Trucking — as a way to maximize their skim.  I operate a campground in Ventura County that DOES pay sales taxes the County so far will not let me increase my live-in staff without making a big payment.  Even the remodeling of our store required 7 separate checks written to Ventura County agencies.

Why Politicians Don't Cut Spending (Besides Being Spendthrifts At Heart)

Why do politicans never seem to cut government spending? Using public choice economics, or the economics of politics, Prof. Ben Powell shows how voters are rationally ignorant of what politicians do. This leads to a phenomenon called "concentrated benefits and dispersed costs," which favors recipients of government payments at the expense of the average taxpayer.

Economic Freedom in 60 Seconds - Are You Part Of The 1%?

There’s a good chance you are. Why should we limit the scope of who is a 99%er or a 1%er to just the U.S.? Or North America? Or even the Western Hemisphere? They seem like arbitrary/convenient limitations. I think we should care about everyone in the world, not just Americans.

Anger over Christine Lagarde's tax-free salary

It was called her "Let them eat cake" moment. Now Greece will be saying: "Make her pay tax".

The IMF chief Christine Lagarde was accused of hypocrisy yesterday after it emerged that she pays no income tax – just days after blaming the Greeks for causing their financial peril by dodging their own bills.

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund is paid a salary of $467,940 (£298,675), automatically increased every year according to inflation. On top of that she receives an allowance of $83,760 – payable without "justification" – and additional expenses for entertainment, making her total package worth more than the amount received by US President Barack Obama according to reports last night.

Unlike Mr Obama, however, she does not have to pay any tax on this substantial income because of her diplomatic status.
The news will intensify criticism of the former French Finance Minister following her controversial remarks on the increasingly bleak prospects for the Greek economy last week. Stating that she had more sympathy for poor African children with little education than for jobless people complaining about austerity measures in Greece, she said last week: "As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax."
Speaking to The Guardian, she added that they could "help themselves collectively" by "all paying their tax," and agreed that it was "payback time" for ordinary Greeks.
Ms Lagarde is entitled, like many diplomats, to receive her income net thanks to the 1961 Treaty of Vienna. David Hawley, a spokesman for the IMF, said: "Christine Lagarde pays all taxes levied on her, including local and property taxes in the US and France. Fund salaries, like those in most international organisations, are paid on a lower, net of tax basis to ensure equal pay for equal work regardless of nationality.

Capital Controls Have No Place in a Free Society

The characteristic mark of a tyrannical regime is that it eventually finds it necessary to erect walls to keep people from leaving.  This is why we should be troubled by the “Ex-PATRIOT Act,” an egregiously offensive bill recently introduced in the Senate.  Following a long line of recent legislation and regulations attempting to expropriate more and more wealth from hard-working Americans, this new bill spits in the face of overburdened taxpayers and tramples on the Constitution. 

Current law already dictates that Americans with a net worth of over $2 million who expatriate must be assumed to have sold all their assets and must pay a corresponding punitive exit tax on those assumed sales.  The Ex-PATRIOT Act goes even further than current law by assessing a 30% capital gains tax on all future earnings of expatriates.  Not content just with this additional tax, the bill also grants the IRS the sole authority to determine whether individuals have expatriated for tax purposes and allows the IRS to bar those individuals from ever re-entering the United States.  Finally, the bill blatantly violates the ex post facto provisions of the U.S. Constitution by extending all of these provisions to anyone who has given up their U.S. citizenship within the past decade.  

This bill, and other similar legislation, casts a chilling effect on saving, investment, and entrepreneurial activity.  The bill was introduced in response to news reports about one of the founders of Facebook who might save millions of dollars of taxes by renouncing his U.S. citizenship.  But in their blind envy towards successful entrepreneurs, the bill's sponsors ignore the fact that they will ensnare many ordinary middle-class Americans who work hard, save and invest wisely, and benefit from rising home values.  These Americans may easily find themselves pushing past the $2 million mark by the time they retire, especially as inflation continues to seriously accelerate.  If they wish to escape the Federal Reserve's inflation by emigrating to lower-cost countries so their dollars will go farther, as many Baby Boomers are starting to do, the federal government will penalize them, and continue to penalize them for the rest of their lives as long as they hold any money in the United States. 

Unfortunately, the mere consideration of such legislation, even before it has passed, has made American banking customers a potential future headache for banks around the world.  They don't want to deal with the IRS any more than Americans do, and if American account holders become a Trojan horse for the IRS to insinuate themselves into their affairs, there may be more cost than benefit to extending banking services to Americans.

We live under a federal government that has eviscerated our Fourth Amendment rights, that can detain U.S. citizens indefinitely based solely on the President's word, that assaults toddlers and grandmothers at airports in the name of security, and regulates virtually every aspect of our economic lives.  No wonder increasing numbers of Americans feel this government is engaged in outright warfare against its own citizens.  Every day the noose grows tighter, yet anyone who sees the writing on the wall and seeks to leave must pay exorbitant taxes just for the privilege of leaving, and increasingly the possibility looms of never fully breaking away from the government's tentacles no matter where they go.  Ultimately, the Ex-PATRIOT Act proposes to control people by controlling their capital, and it has no place in a free society.