This will probably be followed by a 1.something pretty quickly, as I don't have as much time as I anticipated before my flight and I refuse to take a laptop with me on a vacation. Without further ado, the Manifesto!
1. If you don't vote, you can't complain about how the country is run. This is by far and away the least partisan thing here. The fact is that right around 40-50% of people vote in national elections, and far less vote in local ones. There can be and are lots of reasons why that is the case, but they're all bull as far as I'm concerned. Whether you like the candidates or not, whether you're interested in politics or not, get your lazy butt out of the barcalounger, do a little reasearch and go over to your local polling place. It takes 20 minutes to cast your vote for the person you decide that you want to influence your life more than anyone other than your immediate family or boss for the next so many years. If you don't feel like taking that little bit of time (amoritized, it's seconds a month) then either your life isn't worth very much to you or else you're just an out and out idiot. There's no MTVization of this here - if you don't vote, you deserve what you get, and don't come whining to me about it.
2. Less is more. I want candidates who will get less involved with my life, not more. This is in every aspect of things. I want less regulation, less big-brotherism, less taxes, less hand-holding, and so on. Even though I'm a Republican by party orientation, I'm a libertarian at heart. I want to see the unfettering of every bond imaginable. Make this nation truly free. Free up the markets, allow people to try new things without having to jump through a bunch of hoops to get it. Case in point: the government has laws where doctors can't refer patients to other health care organizations in which they have a substantial stake. Yet I can do that in any other area of business. If I'm JP Morgan Chase, I can refer a banking client to my investment group without the government hauling me away to jail. If I was PanAm, I could have refered someone to Intercontinental Hotels (which I owned, before I went belly up). Why do we have that law in healthcare? Why do we have laws that protect big agribusiness at the expense of everyone else in the nation? I don't want them to get paid to not grow wheat or to dump milk, I want them to get paid for what they produce on the market. No more, no less. If things are too up and down in that market they'll do what other people do and hedge their bets. It's not a difficult concept.
Well, unfortunately I am out of time. If I can return to this along my travels I will. If not, expect another version shortly after I return.
1 comment:
Voting--agreed.
I hate agricultural subsidies. It's a huge double tax on everybody. You pay for the subsidy and then you pay for the higher food prices. It's ridiculous! I think the best thing that could happen to the African continent would be for the EU to stop subsidizing their agriculture. Right now an absurd percentage of their GDP (I'll have to look up the number) goes to agriculture subsidies. Talk about misallocation of capital. If they would knock that off there would actually be markets for African agricultural products. Same with our sugar subsidies. We would benefit and so would Caribbean and S. American countries.
Have fun in Austria. I've been to
Vienna twice and it is incredible. I will expect a full report when you return.
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