Columnist.
Democrats trash businesses. But if businesses promised things the way politicians do, the owners would be jailed for fraud. It's not legal to promise more than you can deliver. I don't suggest that prosecutors should go after politicians who lie. Voters can do that. Political speech should be free. But politicians' promises are routinely repulsive. I'm thankful that most of their promises will be broken. For my TV show, I listed this presidential season's *worst* promises. Here are a few.
In this year's Republican presidential primaries, Sen. Rand Paul got little traction. In 2012, his father failed. That year, the Libertarian Party candidate, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, got just 1 percent of the vote. We libertarians must be doing something wrong. Maybe our anti-government message is too radical, says Jerry Taylor. Maybe we should soften our approach. "Libertarians need to be more realistic," Taylor told 500 young people at a taping of my TV show at last week's International Students for Liberty conference. In electoral politics, he said, finding libertarians is "like trying to find a daisy in Hiroshima" after the nuclear blast.
Government pretends it's the cause of progress. Then it strangles innovation. We know government understands that new technologies are important. The military invests in robots and traffic cops use radar guns. But when the rest of us use robots or fly drones, government gets eager to put rules in place before things get "out of control." When it's hard to innovate in the U.S., innovation happens elsewhere. The Japanese already offer largely automated hotels. At the Henn-na (or "Weird") Hotel, the front desk clerk is a robot dinosaur — popular with the kids. Another robot stores your luggage, and another takes you to your room.
According to Betfair.com, Jennifer Lawrence probably won't win best actress at the Oscars Sunday. I'm rooting for her, though — not because of her acting, but because the movie she stars in, "Joy," celebrates the difficulty of entrepreneurship. Lawrence's character is based on real-life entrepreneur Joy Mangano, who invented the self-wringing Miracle Mop and other "Ingenious Designs," as her company is known. Now she hawks them and other products on the Home Shopping Network. The film accurately depicts struggles businesses face. Joy goes deep into debt to finance her idea, overcomes manufacturing problems, persuades skeptical marketers and deals with such menaces as patent trolls.
The Tesla S is the closest thing to a totally driverless car available now. I had to leave my state to test-drive it. New York's archaic laws forbid taking both hands off the wheel. Once outside New York, the Tesla representative in the passenger seat had me turn on the autopilot. Suddenly, I was doing nothing. The car drove itself. Actually, I didn't do *nothing*. I hyperventilated. It's not natural to sit passively while "driving" at 65 mph. Then came my accident! In a narrow tunnel, the car drifted left, and a tire banged against the side of the tunnel. If I hadn't quickly grabbed the steering wheel, we would have crashed.
Politicians tailor their messages to different audiences. Facing New Hampshire's primary, Ted Cruz talked more about "free-market principles" and a "commitment to the Constitution" and said "no one personality can right the wrongs done by Washington." Politico ran the headline "Ted Cruz, born-again libertarian." I'm skeptical. Campaigning in Iowa, Cruz had emphasized religion and social conservatism. But politicians no longer just target voters state-by-state — they target by person. Last election, President Obama beat Mitt Romney partly by doing just that. Obama had 50 people working in data analytics. Romney had four.
After the Iowa caucus results, it looks like Hillary Clinton vs. Marco Rubio in November! They lead the betting at ElectionBettingOdds.com. This scares me. Neither candidate shows any interest in limited government. They scoff at anyone who suggests that their grand schemes do more harm than good. But big government *does* do more harm than good. I shouldn't single out Rubio or Clinton, or even Donald Trump. Almost everyone running for office today declares himself a "leader" who "gets things done." There's no modesty, little acknowledgement that so much of what government does is costly attempts to fix problems that government created at home and abroad.
Cars run on fuel. Politicians run on votes, and they'll do almost anything to get them. That includes supporting mandates that force us to use ethanol, a fuel made from corn that Iowa farmers grow. They support ethanol because Iowa is the first state to vote on presidential candidates. Candidates want to look strong at the start of the race, so every four years they become enthusiastic ethanol supporters. Even those who claim they believe in markets pander to Iowa's special interests.
Hillary Clinton: "Of course we want to raise the minimum wage!" Donald Trump: If we trade with China, "they suck us dry ... take everything. We get nothing!" Bernie Sanders: "Ordinary Americans are working longer hours for lower wages." But it's not true! Politicians are so ignorant about economics. On his blog, Cafe Hayek, George Mason University professor Donald Boudreaux says his main job is showing students that much of what they believe about economics is wrong. I wish he taught presidential candidates.
In the commercial that President Obama released prior to his final State of the Union address, Obama said he would tell Congress how "optimistic" he is about America's future. Good. Politicians and the media are at their most dangerous when they try to scare us, telling us disaster is on the way unless we follow, and pay for, their latest schemes to "protect" us.
Want to know who the next president will be? Don't trust polls or pundits. Betting odds at ElectionBettingOdds.com are the best predictor of who will win any election. Pundits have a terrible track record. Last election, Newt Gingrich and Dick Morris forecast a Romney "landslide." Rush Limbaugh said, "All my thinking says Romney big. ... It's not even close." Polls are better, but not much. That's because *you* are not normal. Since you read this column, you are different from most voters. You think a lot about politics. Most Americans don't.
Terrorism! Crime! Deadly storms! Hillary Clinton! We reporters focus on bad news, but at year's end, let's remember what went right. 2015 was a better time to be alive than most any prior point in history. The rich got richer. Some people think that's a problem, but why? Do rich people sit on their piles of money and cackle about how rich they are? Do they build giant houses that damage the environment? Well, they sometimes do.
I wish I were as confident as many politicians and news commentators. They *know* what America should do about ISIS and terrorism. Donald Trump, who says he can feel terrorism "like I feel a good location ... I have an instinct for this kind of thing," says he would "bomb the s—" out of ISIS strongholds, ban Muslim immigration and shutter American mosques. America should "stop pussy-footing around!" according to Fox News host Jeanine Pirro. "Bomb them. Keep bombing them. Bomb them again and again. And I don't care how long it takes!"
What should we do about terrorism? After the attacks on Paris, the French government passed a law that allows anyone suspected of being a security threat to be placed under house arrest and searches to be conducted without warrants. Reason's Anthony Fisher reports that this can lead to nasty experiences for anyone who associates with people from the Middle East.
This week my TV show is on gun control. I interviewed activist Leah Barrett, who wants stricter gun laws. I pointed out that after most states *loosened* gun laws to let people carry guns, 29 peer-reviewed studies examined the effect. Eighteen found less crime, 10 found no difference and only one found an increase. "Which studies?" Barrett snapped. "John Lott's? His research has been *totally* discredited." "Discredited" is a word the anti-gun activists use a lot. It's as if they speak from the same playbook.
What might have happened if a few of the 1,500 concert attendees in Paris' Bataclan theater had guns? The terrorists had time to kill, reload and kill again. The police unit didn't come for more than a half hour. If a few people in the theater were armed, might they have killed the killers? We'll never know.
After a terrorist attack, it's natural to ask: What can politicians do to keep us safe? One thing they could do is actually focus on keeping us safe rather than devoting so much time, energy and hot air to the many things government does *instead* of protecting lives and property. My state's politicians are particularly bad. New York's legislators regularly go to jail for taking bribes to pass, or not pass, special regulations.
Sometimes I like Donald Trump. He makes me laugh when he mocks reporters' stupid questions. Sometimes he's smart. When Maryland's lefty governor said a tax on rich people would "raise revenue," Trump told me why it wouldn't. The taxpayers would just flee: "I know these people! They're international people! Whether they live here or in a place like Switzerland, it doesn't really matter to them!" Perfect TV sound bite. And accurate. Maryland's tax on the rich brought in *less* revenue.
We love to complain about elites, people who seem to have a special advantage, privileges in life. I get annoyed by the Kardashians and other spoiled rich kids. They didn't work for their wealth. They don't contribute. Still, those elites are mostly harmless. But there's one group of truly dangerous elites: politicians. Spoiled party kids may have stupid ideas, but they can't impose them on the rest of us. Politicians can, and do. It's an important distinction to remember.
This Halloween, what do you fear? I fear fear itself because when we are afraid, we willingly give away our freedoms. Global warning? More power to the EPA! 9/11? Vote 100 to 0 to create a TSA! Kids don't learn? Common Core! Crime up? Spend on police! (Or for leftists: increase welfare!) Immigrants? Seal the border!
