Columnist.
"The heavens reek, the waters below are foul ... we are in a crisis of survival." That's how Walter Cronkite and CBS hyped the first Earth Day, back in 1970. Somehow we've survived since then, and most of life got better, although I never hear that from the worrywarts. Of course, some things got better because of government: We passed environmental rules that got most of the filth out of the air and sewage out of lakes and rivers. Great -- but now we're told that we're in big trouble because greenhouse gases cause global warming. I mean, climate change. "Crop yields are down, deaths from heat are up," says the Los Angeles Times. The "Worst Is Yet to Come," warns The New York Times. This hype is not new. Alarmists always fool the gullible media. They once fooled me.
It's tax time. I'm too scared to do my taxes. I'm sure I'll get something wrong and my enemies in government will persecute -- no, I mean prosecute -- me. So I hired Bob. Bob's my accountant. I like Bob, but I don't like that I have to have an accountant. I don't want to spend time keeping records and talking to Bob about boring things I don't understand, and I really don't want to pay Bob. But I have to. What a waste. Once, I calculated what I could do with the money I give Bob. I could have a fancy dinner out 200 times. I could buy a motorcycle. I could take a cruise ship all the way from New York to Venice, Italy, and back.
Did you fill out a March Madness bracket this year? In many states, if you put money in a pool, that's illegal! The NCAA website warns, "Fans should enjoy ... filling out a bracket just for the fun of it, not ... the amount of money they could possibly win." Give me a break. Americans bet more money on March Madness this year than on the Super Bowl. Politicians can't quite make up their minds about gambling: They approve certain casinos and promote state lotteries but crack down on sports bets and some charity poker games. It seems that government dislikes gambling, unless government gets to be the house.
We're told government protects us, but protectors quickly become bullies. Take the Food and Drug Administration. It seems like the most helpful part of government: It supervises testing to make sure greedy drug companies don't sell us dangerous stuff. The FDA's first big success was stopping thalidomide, a drug that prevented the nausea of morning sickness. It was approved first in Europe, where some mothers who took it proceeded to give birth to children with no arms and legs.
Spring cleaning is a healthy tradition. If only politicians did it! They don't. When Barack Obama ran for president, he promised to clean house, "I'm not a Democrat who believes that we can or should defend every government program just because it's there. There are some that don't work." I cheered when I heard that! But politicians *always* say they'll get rid of waste. Then, once in power, they spend *more*. Obama sure has.
You've probably heard that Democratic Party leaders decided that a way to win votes this November is to shout loudly that Republicans wage "war on women." Politico calls this a "proven, persuasive argument." Give me a break. The idea of a conservative "war on women" is as silly as propaganda I was taught in college: Aside from sex organs, genders are exactly equal, said my leftist professors, and any admission of differences between men and women is oppressive. I was taught that the only reason boys and girls behave differently is because we're raised differently. If society and parents were to treat genders the same, behavior differences would vanish. I believed it.
This week, President Barack Obama proposed "a budget that will create new jobs in manufacturing and energy and innovation and infrastructure, and we'll pay for every dime of it by cutting unnecessary spending, closing wasteful tax loopholes!" What? I must have fallen asleep and woken up in 2008. That could not be something he'd claim after five years in office -- years after making similar claims and not delivering on them. Does he think we have no memory, or that we're just ignorant? Are these just poll-tested phrases that work because most voters are too busy to pay attention?
America's most popular cable news host is upset. "Marijuana use, video games and texting (are) creating major social problems," says Bill O'Reilly. "This is an epidemic that will lead to a weaker nation!" Give me a break. Crotchety old geezers always complain about "the kids." The Boston Globe frets about "Idle Trophy Kids." The New York Post asks if millennials are "The Worst Generation?" Older folks (my age) complain that young people spend so much time texting each other that they can't communicate. And because they spend hours playing violent video games, violence is up.
On Saturday, some 1,500 students from all over the world gathered to discuss freedom at the Students for Liberty Conference in Washington, D.C. Economist Donald Boudreaux showed the students a department store catalog from 1958 to underscore how the free market, while contributing to income inequality, also dramatically improved the lives of the poor: "The typical American worker back then had to work 30 hours to buy this vacuum cleaner. Today, a worker has to work only six hours to buy a much better vacuum cleaner. And that's true for clothing, food, all sorts of things."
Politicians say, "We're all equal," and pretend that they represent everyone. But, in fact, they constantly pick winners and losers. America is now like the place described in George Orwell's book "Animal Farm": "All animals are equal," but some are "more equal than others." "Animal Farm" was about Communism, but today the allegory applies to our bloated democracy, too. During the "fiscal cliff" negotiations that Congress and the media made sound so tough -- as if every last penny were pinched -- Congress still managed to slip in plenty of special deals for cronies.
Do you like to cook? Throw dinner parties? Many people enjoy that, but paying for the food, plus accessories, is expensive. Would you host more often if you could get your guests to cover the costs? Or suppose you'd like to *go* to a dinner party to meet new people in your neighborhood. Or maybe when you travel, instead of eating at restaurants, you'd like to see how the locals live. Good news! Today both cooks and diners can get what they want. A new Internet business brings them together.
President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday wasn't what I wanted to hear. This is what the president *should* have said: "I cannot imagine what I was thinking when I pushed Obamacare. I now see it is folly to entrust government, which cannot balance its books and routinely loses track of billions of dollars, with even greater power over health care. "If something as simple as a website is too much for government to get right, imagine what government will do to complicated medical pricing and insurance plans. "Foolishly, my plan destroyed many sensible insurance plans -- some offering catastrophic-only coverage for a lower price -- exactly the insurance so many people need.
The Hill, the newspaper that covers Congress, says this year, there will be a major policy battle over "climate change." Why? We already waste billions on pointless gestures that make people think we're addressing global warning, but the earth doesn't notice or care. What exactly is "global warming" anyway? That's really four questions...
The big online retailer Overstock.com now accepts payment in Bitcoin. That's good news for lovers of liberty because Bitcoins give us an alternative to government-controlled money. Bitcoins are a currency created by anonymous, private tech nerds, not by government. Governments don't like competition, and our government sometimes bans competing currencies. But as more of us use Bitcoins, and more businesses accept payment in Bitcoin, it becomes harder for government to dismiss the currency as illegitimate, or ban it. There are two advantages to Bitcoin.
President Barack Obama says income inequality is "dangerous ... the defining challenge of our time." The pope is upset that capitalism causes inequality. Progressives, facing the failures of Obamacare, are eager to change the subject to America's "wealth gap." It's true that today, the richest 1 percent of Americans own a third of America's wealth. One percent owns 35 percent! But I say, so what? Progressives in the media claim that the rich get richer at the expense of the poor. But that's a lie.
My TV producers asked our Facebook audience to vote for a topic they'd most like to hear discussed on my year-end show. The overwhelming winner, for some reason: the education standards program Common Core. Most Americans don't even know what that is. But they should. It's the government's plan to try to bring "the same standard" to every government-run school. This may sound good. Often, states dumb down tests to try to "leave no child behind." How can government evaluate teachers and reward successful schools if there isn't a single national standard?
If you saw a fat man in a sleigh distributing presents this week, he was in violation of several government regulations. The Federal Aviation Administration has complaints about his secret flight path. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources might shoot his unauthorized reindeer the way they shot a baby deer named Giggles at an animal shelter this year. His bag of gifts definitely violates numerous charity tax rules. In real life, government barely lets people give each other rides in cars. But now the Internet has given birth to some exciting new businesses that challenge this conceit.
This wasn't a great year for liberty. A few disasters that government caused: --Obamacare. It was supposed to "bend the cost curve" downward. The central planners had lots of time to perfect their scheme. For a generation, the brightest left-wing wonks focused on health care policy. The result? Soviet-style consumer service comes to America. --Government shutdown. The real disaster was the unnecessary panic over it. Zoos would shut down, and baby pandas would starve. The media made it sound like America might not survive even slightly limited government. They were happy to echo the politicians' claim that there's no wasteful or stupid spending to cut.
I'm annoyed that so many Hollywood celebrities hate the system that made them rich. Actor/comedian Russell Brand told the BBC he wants "a socialist, egalitarian system based on the massive redistribution of wealth." Director George Lucas got rich not just from movies but also by selling Star Wars merchandise. Yet he says he believes in democracy but "not capitalist democracy."
'Tis the season for giving. But when you give, do you know your money will help someone? Social workers say, "Don't give to beggars." Those who do give are "enablers," helping alcoholics and drug users to continue bad habits. It's better to give to charities that help the "homeless." I put "homeless" in quotes because my TV producers have quietly followed a dozen of the more convincing beggars after "work," and all had homes.
