2 Paragraphs 4 Liberty: #131 “How Liberty Saved The Bees”

            Last week we talked about how Government is Money.  In other words, people in government have their own biases and, often, personal desires for power and influence.  So Liberty —in this context defined as instituting a system for private individuals to have incentives to prosper by producing (legal) goods and services that other people will desire and purchase – will almost always triumph over government bureaucracy, controls and regulations.  And that is what has happened over the past few years with the survival of bees.

According to an article by Shawn Regan in the August/September edition of Reason, large numbers of honeybees started disappearing in 2006.  And not only were they dying, they were mysteriously abandoning their hives.  The situation became so widespread that in 2013 some experts predicted “a world without bees.”  In response, the Obama administration set aside $82 million in funding and formed a task force to deal with this “crisis” by creating a “national pollination strategy.”  But this crisis was averted because of Liberty, which rendered the federal monies and efforts unnecessary and even wasted.

What happened?  Commercial beekeepers, who make a profit both by “renting” their bee colonies to orchards during the blooming season, and also selling the honey that is produced, had incentives to deal with the losses of bees.   So they responded in two ways.  First they privately determined that two parasitic types of mites were killing the bees.  So they countered by the use of miticides, fungicides and other treatments.  Second, they artificially stimulated the production of thousands more queen bees which, in turn, generated hundreds of thousands more honeybees.  The advocates of Big Government felt good about themselves in spending the taxpayers’ money and “rallying to the cause,” but no government involvement was really needed.  What is needed instead in to nurture a climate that supports Liberty!

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)
2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President,
along with Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

 

Please forward this on to your circle of friends for their consideration and to further the discussion. And by the way, these columns are now on Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejimgrayOAI, and wordpress at judgejimgray@wordpress.com.  Please visit these sites for past editions, and do your part to spread the word about the importance of Liberty!

(Okay, I know this was three paragraphs.  I could have combined the last two together, but I didn’t want to make my 9^th grade grammar teacher, Ms. Menazian, mad at me!)

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