United Liberty

Originally posted at Mitchell’s blog International Liberty.

Since almost everybody wants a society that is just, that presumably means we all favor “social justice.”

But in the American political system, the phrase has been adopted by those who favor bigger government and more intervention. Sort of the way “solidarity” and “social” are code words for statism in Europe.

Leftists think that this phrase gives them the moral high ground, but shouldn’t we judge “social justice” by outcomes rather than intentions?

Is statism really compassionate if it actually winds up lining the pockets of wealthy insiders?

Is statism really compassionate when it gives people an excuse to be stingy, as we see in Europe?

Is statism really compassionate when it means less long-run growth and lower living standards for ordinary people?

The answers to those questions probably depend on one’s definition of a just society.

Julie Borowski is the Policy Analyst at FreedomWorks. Recently, Ms. Borowski was a government affairs associate at Americans for Tax Reform. Before that, she was a Koch Fellow intern with the Institute for Humane Studies at the Center for Competitive Politics.

Business Insider recently named her in a list of women leading the “Ron Paul Revolution” and she is famous in right-of-center political circles for her vlogging.

You can see her fantastic YouTube videos under username “Token Libertarian Girl” or follow her on Twitter @JulieBorowski.

Matt Naugle: Business Insider named you one of the leading women in the Ron Paul liberty movement. How did you become a libertarian?

Julie Borowski: I became a libertarian because of the Internet.

I used to be a huge neoconservative in early high school. Eek, I know.

Growing up in a Republican household, I used to have the childish mentality that I couldn’t criticize Republicans ever. I supported all Republicans because they weren’t “tree hugging sissies” like the Democrats. I believed in every word of the Republican platform without any independent thought. Wow, how dumb.

I was thrilled when George W. Bush became president. But after a few years, I realized that we weren’t better off. Despite all the talk about fiscal responsibility, George W. Bush was a big spender like the Democrats. And I slowly started questioning the wars. What exactly has been accomplished?

The problem with liars and obfuscators is that, over time, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep your story straight. Nowhere has that been more evident than in the Obama administration. Is it a tax or is it a penalty (Obama’s Solicitor General argued both sides on consecutive days before the Supreme Court in order to get the ObamaCare law upheld). Is marriage an institution pre-dating government which unites a man and a woman in a spiritual and legal union, or an oppressive anachronism based on antiquated definitions of morality? Obama has argued both sides. Are massive deficits “unpatriotic,” as he accused George Bush of being, or is it a way to stimulate the economy, as he now claims? If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it under ObamaCare, right? Maybe not, as Obama now admits that nearly three quarters of current insurance plans will fail to meet new government standards. Is the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility the symbol of America’s violation of basic human rights as Obama repeatedly claimed? If so, then why is it still open nearly three years after he promised the doors would shut?

As is often the case with victorious professional sports teams, the Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins were honored this week in the White House.  Absent, though, was star goaltender Tim Thomas, a big part of the Bruins’ run for the Cup.  Thomas explained why he did not attend on his Facebook page:

“I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People.

This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government.

Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.

This is the only public statement I will be making on this topic. TT”

Now, sports figures and other celebrities making political statements is not exactly out of the ordinary.  What is unusual is that the statement carries a very distinct right-leaning, even libertarian flavor.  In fact, it sounds like it could come from a Ron Paul supporter.

Yesterday, we went over the top 10 news stories from 2011, which were mainly about news and issues that made headlines this past year. This morning, we’re recapping our most read stories from 2011.

Being a libertarian-leaning blog, we touch on a variety of issues. From those of you that aren’t familiar with libertarianism, it is a philosophy grounded in individual liberty. We believe the individual is sovereign and has a right to pursue whatever lifestyle he chooses, provided that he doesn’t harm or disparage the rights of other sovereigns in the process. The belief in individual sovereign also extends to economic liberty and a belief in free markets.

With that said, our top posts from 2011 range from civil liberties issues, including the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the Fourth Amendment, to defending free markets and fighting cronyism and corporatism in Washington and on Wall Street to covering Ron Paul’s presidential campaign and having an open discussing the libertarian philosophy.

We offer no additional commentary on these posts. If you would like to read them, just click on the title. Again, have a safe and happy new year.

We’re winding down on another year. Much like recent years, 2011 represented challenges for liberty and the Constitution. These hurdles came from all sides, including the Obama Administration and Republicans in Congress, and we are ending the year a little less free than in 2010.

Below is a recap of some of bigger stories of the year that were covered here at United Liberty (though a couple are thrown in for fun). Thanks for reading in what was a record breaking year for this blog. We appreciate the readership and hope you’ll keep coming back in 2012

Happy New Year!

— The Death of Osama bin Laden (Jason Pye): On Sunday, May 1st, word broke that the White House had called notified the press of a major announcement. You could tell that it was a significant event since the president was making such a statement late on a Sunday evening.As you probably remember, wild speculation started almost immediately as many people said that it could have only meant a couple of things, either we were going to war or Osama bin Laden had finally been captured.

Around 11pm, President Barack Obama told Americans that, after nearly 10 years after murdering nearly 3,000 innocent people, Osama bin Laden was dead. Bin Laden, leader of the terrorist group, al-Qaeda, was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan by a group of Navy SEALS at a compound that he had lived in for five years.

One of the most disturbing trends I’ve witnessed over these last few years is a coordinated attack from the left on the institutions and principles that make America great. Maybe nowhere has this been more evident than in the vitriol spewed by our eternal Campaigner-in-Chief and his dutiful Minions of Social Justice, all bemoaning the evils of capitalism, and the inequity of wealth distribution (although oddly, their desire for more equal distribution does not extend to income taxes, where the top one percent earn 19% of the income and pay 40% of all income taxes, while the bottom fifty percent that pay exactly zero).

Obama has set so many straw men on fire that he’s now the leading cause of global warming. He accused doctors of slicing out tonsils and amputating limbs just to bill a few more dollars to insurance companies. He’s accused business owners of not caring about their employees and only about their company’s bottom line. He accused the Chamber of Commerce, without proof, of using foreign money to buy elections. His NLRB threatened Boeing for opening a new, billion dollar plant in right-to-work South Carolina, and his wife urged young students not to go into the corporate world, but rather “work for the community” like her community organizer husband, as if bringing valued goods and services and the accompanying jobs and wealth into the community was not a worthwhile endeavor.

When did we reach the point where we extol the timid and the parasitic? Where wealth creation was bad, and the American Dream had been supplanted by a desire for European-style social welfare? We don’t even have to look back in history to see what a nightmare this is; we just have to turn on the news. The Greeks are rioting in the streets at the thought of giving up an ounce of their lavish social welfare benefits, and the European Union is at the brink of collapse as it struggles under the weight of its debt driven by these welfare state policies.

“Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain - and since labor is pain in itself - it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it.” ~French Economist Frederick Bastiat, 1845, Economic Sophisms”

“There are many well-meaning people today who work at placing an economic floor beneath all of us so that no one shall exist below a certain level or standard of living, and certainly we don’t quarrel with this. But look more closely and you may find that all too often these well-meaning people are building a ceiling above which no one shall be permitted to climb and between the two are pressing us all into conformity, into a mold of standardized mediocrity.” ~President Ronald Reagan

For the past few weeks, America has been treated to a steady news coverage diet of Occupy Wall Street, a motley amalgam of former hippies, idealistic but misinformed college students, Marxist advocates, seekers of mayhem for mayhem’s sake, and the just plain clueless. Welcome to the Flea Party, the far left’s answer to the organic uprising of the TEA Party. However, that is where the comparison stops. Whereas the TEA Party uprising has been peaceful, the Flea Party has been a study in anti-social behavior masquerading as noble civil disobedience.

At the end of 2010, I concluded that Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) was prophetic in his State of the Union outburst, deciding that the Lie of the Yearwas the notion that if Americans like their health care plans, they could keep them:

So basically, although I chose to work at a place that offered me a benefit (a tax-free health savings account, coupled with a high-deductible insurance plan) that makes me a more direct stakeholder in my own health care, and a more responsible consumer of care-related goods and services, ObamaCare rules are now forcing me to see (and pay) a doctor to obtain a prescription for some of my most commonly consumed items (on a monthly basis) if I want to use my employer-based tax-free HSA to purchase them: Rolaids, Neosporin, and Advil. My HSA will cover the costs of these extra doctor visits as far as I know, but that’s not okay with me: by forcing me to spend HSA dollars on extra visits to the doctor, my overall savings become more rapidly depleted. As a result, the number of choices I can make related to my well-being drops drastically as resources must now be allocated for things I wouldn’t have otherwise spent them on. Thanks, ObamaCare!

Sometimes, I hate being right.

Bloomberg Government [$] reports this morning that

Doctors at East Louisville Pediatrics PSC in Kentucky say they’re writing as many as 50 prescriptions a day for drugs such as Bayer AG’s aspirin and Pfizer Inc.’s Advil that don’t need a physician’s nod to be purchased off pharmacy shelves.

Knowing there is no legitimate case for protectionism, its proponents are now attempting to define free trade as something that it is not. Writing for Salon, David Sirota says:

Trade policy, as I’ve previously noted, often has nothing to do with what we conventionally define as “trade” — that is, it has nothing to do with the exchange of goods and services, and everything to do with using state power to solidify corporations’ supremacy over individual citizens. In that sense, the modern era’s ongoing debates over “free trade” are a corporate public relations coup — by tricking the public and the media into believing we’re debating one thing (commerce) when we’re debating something entirely different (power), the “free trade” brand casts those who raise questions about these pacts as know-nothing Luddites (who could be against commerce, right?).

Oddly, Sirota offers no further support for his claim that free trade uses “state power to slidify coporations’ suppremacy over individual citizens” nor does he even clarify precisely what it is he means. It appears as though he is content to level that charge and move on to a different subject:

…In creating direct unprotected competition between Americans and foreign workers who have no labor, wage or human rights protections, the most celebrated trade pacts of the last two decades have — quite predictably — resulted in widespread layoffs and the hollowing out of America’s middle class job base.