Undeception

The lead-up to and culmination of our presidential election have obviously attracted a lot of my attention to politics and economics. For Christmas this year, I asked for books on those topics, especially those with due historical perspective. I received four books and have been unable to keep from starting all four of them at [...]

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(I’ve been out a bit this week. Hopefully I’ll be back in action by the end of next week: prayers are solicited for my performance on my upcoming exam.)
From the ever-intriguing John Stossel comes this gem:

Obama promises: “We will change the world … There is nothing we can’t do, nothing we can’t accomplish if we [...]

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Do those worshippers of government believe that free persons will cease to act? Does it follow that if we receive no energy from the law, we shall receive no energy at all? Does it follow that if the law is restricted to the function of protecting the free use of our faculties, we will be [...]

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The mission of the law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even though the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect persons and property.
Furthermore, it must not be said that the law may be philanthropic if, in the process, it refrains from oppressing persons [...]

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My good friend Kev, the excellent humor and personal finance columnist at Special Kind of Stupid, has written a great post in his inimitable style illustrating the group-think, legal plunder system that is taking ground alarmingly quickly in the U.S. these days. Check it out!

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Clearly then, the conscience of the social democrats cannot permit persons to have any liberty because they believe that the nature of mankind tends always toward every kind of degradation and disaster. Thus, of course, the legislators must make plans for the people in order to save them from themselves.
This line of reasoning brings us [...]

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You know, I’ve heard a lot of conservatives lately drawing on an unfortunate metaphor for the quintessential plank of the liberal platform, recently articulated by the Democratic presidential nominee as “spreading the wealth around”, namely that the socialistic endeavor of “robbing from the rich to give to the poor” is “Robin Hood economics”.
The fact is, [...]

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These are some thoughts I had when I read James McGrath’s post “Poverty and Biblical Economics“. A good summary of his points appears in his conclusion:

Approaching matters of economics from a Christian perspective today does not and cannot mean to emulate precisely what past generations of Christians did. It can and perhaps must mean to [...]

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The following is from an article by the Foundation for Economic Education.
……
One day in the House of Representatives, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when [...]

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Generally speaking, I am of the opinion that, all time and culture considerations aside, the political philosophy held by most of the Founding Fathers matched the basic ideals of the modern libertarian philosophy. The core belief of libertarianism, ignoring the distinctions of all the various permutations of it as well as the whole anarchist strand, [...]

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