David McElroy

What’s the difference between a libertarian and an anarchist? About 10 years.

It’s an old joke — and there are variations of it — but there’s some truth to it, because it’s a story that I’ve heard a number of times. In fact, it’s my story, too.

Most of us who’ve completely give up on the state started out in one of the mainstream political parties and then converted to the Libertarian Party, because we concluded that smaller government made sense and that there should be no distinction between economic and personal liberty. Republicans talk a good game about economic freedom, but they want to control your personal life. Democrats mostly talk a good game about personal (social) freedom, but they want to control your economic life. We see the contradiction of either of those positions, so we begin advocating the libertarian ideal of small government and freedom in all areas. For many of us, though, there’s a further step.

If you oppose government control on philosophical grounds, you soon run up against the issue of whether any form of the state can be morally justified. For many of us, we’ve reluctantly had to come to the conclusion that the state is immoral. Not just a “big state.” It applies to any state that claims the power to rule over the people and property that happens to fall within a certain geographical area — unless those people are there by their own choice and if they have other realistic choices.

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The good news for unemployed people is that Barack Obama is about to do his best imitation of Bill “I Feel Your Pain” Clinton and start concentrating on giving them jobs. How? Well, that’s not so clear. They’re making it up as they go along. The bad news is that the mainstream economists who the administration listens to are just as confused as they are about how to “create jobs.”

The Obama administration said Wednesday that the president will make a speech shortly after Labor Day outlining what he’s planning to do about creating jobs. It would probably help if he would call someone at the Mises Institute for a few minutes to get an explanation about why government can only destroy jobs, not create them. Since that’s not going to happen, let’s take a look at the beliefs of the sort of neo-Keynesians who he will be listening to in formulating his plan.

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If Barack Obama wants to know something related to a government agency, he simply has one of his many assistants call and ask the question. There would be an immediate answer, because it’s the president who’s asking. For a real taxpayer asking, well, not so much.

In the best piece of simple, basic reporting I’ve seen this year, Politico covered the aftermath of Obama’s answer to a farmer’s question in Illinois Wednesday. The farmer had heard rumors about some new regulations related to dust, noise and water runoff, and he was afraid the rumored regulations were going to hurt his business, so he asked Obama about them.

Obama advised the farmer to contact the U.S. Department of Agriculture directly and ask about the rumored regulations. He was quite insistent on this point — that the farmer should be able to get an answer to his question. During part of the answer, there was some soft laughter in the room at Obama’s naiveté. So the Politico reporter got the question from the farmer and called the USDA.

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