My Political Roots

My political roots are anti-intervention and anti-big-central-government.

My old-school conservative parents gave me that attitude. But I took it to its simple and logical conclusions.

In studying history and politics, I finally found that you can't draw a line and say "this part of government is okay to have intervention and big centralized power, and this other part is not okay." You pull the string, and the whole ball of yarn comes undone. The more you look into the history of political meddling, the more you find out that everything the government does is NOT good for morality and NOT good for business. Even so-called "just" wars. Even well-intentioned programs like welfare, the park service, anti-drug laws, consumer protection laws, and public utility monopolies.

Warfare: I was taught the old-school conservative idea that trade was the best way to exert influence on foreign countries. The US should be beacon of freedom and prosperity that leads other nations by shining example, and not by threats and intimidation.

War should be a last resort, and for defense only.

Welfare: Same with domestic government programs;

The more the government can keep it's hands off voluntary human associations,

the more we will have maximum prosperity and benevolent social arrangements.

Welfare should be a last resort, a safety net for those in most dire need.

I found out that the Warfare/Welfare State excuses for foreign and domestic intervention as a "last resort" could be stretched and stretched, until just about anything goes as far as domestic meddling and foreign meddling by the US government.

Everything I ever studied about the history of these "last resorts" led to the conclusion that the "problems" which necessitated more warfare and more welfare were problems created by past government warfare and welfare. The small interventions always created more and more conflict, until the government jumped in, claiming that it was intervening as a last resort. Government always claims that it has no other option but to jump in and interfere. For the good of "the people" of course.

This all boils down to my favorite quote from the beloved Harry Browne, master of the libertarian soundbite; "The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, See, - if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk."