‘Free money for everybody’? Is it smart for principled libertarians?

By David McElroy · March 16, 2012

You might not know Matthew Lesko‘s name, but there’s a good chance you’ve seen or heard one of his ads. He claims to have been researching government grants for more than two decades and he claims to be the expert on “free money for everybody.”

I’ve always found his ads offensive, because there’s something horribly distasteful to me in the idea of “free money.” There’s no such thing as free money. There’s only money that’s been taken from one group of people and given to another group of people — and that’s always seemed very wrong to me.

But I’ve been thinking lately about this issue, and I’m not sure the case is as simple as I’d like it to be. It’s not that I’ve suddenly started approving of governments coercively taking money from people. But the question of what it’s OK for us to accept from government is more complicated — at least for those of us who believe it’s wrong for the money to be available in the first place.

I know a couple who are having a difficult time financially right now. She’s working full-time while he finishes his college degree. They have a young child, and it’s a struggle to make it financially. But he’s a libertarian who hasn’t been willing to take any government assistance. His in-laws watch them struggle and seem disapproving that he won’t apply for any kind of government aid. Is he a principled man who we should admire? Or is he a fool for not taking the help that’s available?

The traditional libertarian answer is that an honest and principled man takes nothing from government, because whatever he receives has been taken from someone else. I think this is the ideal answer, but is it a workable answer since we’re stuck living under a coercive system? I’m not sure.

There are differing degrees of “taking money from the government.” Few libertarians would argue with someone who accepted an income tax refund, simply because it’s money coming back to the taxpayer in excess of what the government claims belong to it. What about a student loan? That’s a bit more of a gray area. What about attending a state-funded university? Since the tuition is subsidized by money taken from others, that’s taking money from others, isn’t it? What about driving on roads that the state has built? The potential conflicts are endless.

Different people are going to draw the line in different places. Yes, we’re accepting something we didn’t earn when we use government-built roads or use public libraries or government-operated schools, but most people would argue that we don’t have a choice. Since we live in a society where realistic alternatives are impossible — or at least very impractical without living completely off the grid — it seems reasonable to accept those things as a natural consequence of the total system. I think most libertarians would be comfortable with that argument.

But aren’t the economic conditions in which we live just as much a consequence of the system as anything else? In a free system, there would be more opportunity and you would be able to do a better job of taking care of yourself. So to this way of looking at it, accepting food aid or a subsidized apartment might not be any different than using roads or schools.

Honestly, I like being able to be a bit self-righteous in my unwillingness to accept financial aid from governments, but is that just because I like to feel good about myself — and simply because I’ve never faced any situation bad enough that forced me to take what was available? If you’re broke and hungry, is taking food stamps really any worse than using public highways? I’m honestly not sure anymore.

The one thing I am sure of is that accepting the aid isn’t good for the individual, because it can have a way of creating a sense of dependence. So even if taking government financial aid is no different than using streets and libraries, I still don’t recommend it. I think it does something ugly to people on the inside. I think it makes them feel that others owe them things — and I think that’s a destructive thing in the long run.

So in the end, I have very mixed feelings about what to tell someone who’s struggling and needs help. Should I encourage him to remain principled and continue struggling so he can feel better about himself in the long run? Or should I encourage him to consider taking help if it would really make a difference in climbing out of a financial hole.

The entire system of a coercive state taking money from people and making up rules for them is 100 percent wrong. But if we live in a society where that’s the system, should we live within the rules of the system until we can change it? If you’re a principled person who opposes government taking money from others, what do you think are the moral and pragmatic answers to this dilemma?

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When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

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