2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #223 "WHO BEST SETS PRICES?"

     Maybe I have been somewhat remiss in this series by not speaking enough about why the Free Market System tends to be so successful.  Of course, it is based upon free choice, private property rights and incentives.  But probably the most important aspect of this successful system is that it sets prices at a rate that both the buyers and sellers agree upon.  If not, the products and services won’t sell, so adjustments will be made.  In a socialistic system, the prices are set by central planners, who have little incentive to learn about, much less respond to, the needs and demands of the consumers.  So who is in a better position to decide how many red cars or electric cars or flat screen televisions to manufacture and at what price, a seller whose business relies upon successful sales, or a bureaucrat?  Everyone will – or at least should – agree that the manufacturer is better placed and motivated.

                China still has government control over many manufacturing businesses, but has been increasingly successful since the death of Mao Zedong in allowing individuals within the companies to make those business decisions.  Otherwise, virtually every other place that has ever tried to have manufacturing and pricing decisions made by central planners has ended up in misery, if not starvation.  So why do we not celebrate the Free Market System more fully and broadly?  Because people like us tend to be quiet when other people who get carried away by emotion sing the praises of socialism.  Literally, they don’t know what they are talking about.

Spirit of Optimism: “If you think you can do something you are more likely to try.”  Anon

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)

2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with

Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

Please listen to our weekly radio show entitled “All Rise! The Libertarian Way with Judge Jim Gray” as we discuss timely issues, and show how they will be addressed more beneficially by employing Libertarian values and approaches.  You can hear it every Friday morning at 7 Pacific/10 Eastern by going to www.VoiceAmerica.com, clicking on the Variety Channel and then upon the word “live.”  You can also hear past shows as well.  And, by the way, these 2 Paragraph columns are now on Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, 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.

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #222 "WORDS TO LIVE BY"

                As often stated in this column, we often cannot control the events that confront us, but we virtually always can control our responses to them.  So this brings me to something I would often relate to people on the few occasions when I was presiding as a judge in Traffic Court.  We all know that sometimes when other drivers cut us off, or are otherwise rude in their driving behavior, some of us (mostly males) respond by glaring or gesturing at the offender or, worse yet, trying to cut him off in return.  And often the initial recipient of the bad behavior would be the one who received the traffic citation.  So what did I say in court on those occasions?  What if you knew that the driver who cut you off was under the influence of methamphetamines?  Always the answer came that we would hold back and let that person have his way (almost but not always it was a male).  Just leave me alone!   

                So my advice to that person and everyone else in my courtroom was to treat all drivers who are involved in aggressive and rude behavior when behind the wheel as if they were on meth.  (And frequently you will probably be right!)  In fact, I myself have followed my own advice on several occasions after having the (mostly male) impulse to respond more aggressively.  And maybe that has saved me from harm.  So I believe these are words to live by.  If you agree, pass them on.

Quote for the week:  “Any publicity is good, except in the obit section.”  Dennis Rodman

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)

2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with

Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

Please listen to our weekly radio show entitled “All Rise! The Libertarian Way with Judge Jim Gray” as we discuss timely issues, and show how they will be addressed more beneficially by employing Libertarian values and approaches.  You can hear it every Friday morning at 7 Pacific/10 Eastern by going to www.VoiceAmerica.com, clicking on the Variety Channel and then upon the word “live.”  You can also hear past shows as well.  And, by the way, these 2 Paragraph columns are now on Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, 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.

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #222 "RESTORATIVE JUSTICE"

                Yes, lots of bad things are happening in the world, and we seem to be hit in the face constantly with that reality in our media and elsewhere.  But there are also lots of good things that are happening, and this edition will discuss one of those, which is the movement called Restorative Justice.  The fundamental basis for this approach is to bring the victim(s) of an offense and the perpetrator together, face to face, in a meeting monitored by a therapist.  The emphasis is basically to show the offender what effect the incident had upon the victim(s), on the one hand, and to explore the concept of forgiveness by the victims, on the other.  The intent is both to humanize the act in the eyes of the offender and to begin an important healing process for the victim(s).  And we are seeing success a great amount of the time in both of those areas.

                The idea of the criminal justice system is not to punish the offender, but is instead to reduce crime.  A big example of this is in the area of domestic violence.  If the batterer (mostly but not always a man) is forced to focus upon the position of the victim, as well as the physical and emotional trauma he has inflicted, statistics show that he is not nearly as likely to re-offend.  In addition, the healing and self-esteem process often get a jumpstart with the victims, which enables them more fully to get on with their lives.  But, all importantly, the victim is consulted by the court at time of the sentencing of the offender and, if leniency is being considered, this almost always requires the consent of the victim(s).  Happily, the approach has also been found to work well with burglaries and even assaults and batteries.  (But it doesn’t seem to work with tax offenses. . . .)  The lesson?  Like in many other aspects of life, humanizing the interactions among different parties can go a long way toward reducing friction and harm, and increasing empathy.  So progress is being made in the criminal justice system, and I thought you should know. 

Quote for the week:  “Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  Viktor E. Frankl

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)

2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with

Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

Please listen to our weekly radio show entitled “All Rise!  The Libertarian Way with Judge Jim Gray” as we discuss these and other timely issues, and show how they will be addressed more beneficially by employing Libertarian values and approaches.  

You can hear it every Friday morning at 7 Pacific/10 Eastern by going to www.VoiceAmerica.com, clicking on the Variety Channel and then upon the word “live.”  

You can also hear past shows as well.  And, by the way, these 2 Paragraph columns are now on Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, 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.

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #221 "ISideWith.Com: WHERE DO YOU STAND?"

               Here is a poll that I strongly suggest you take.  Go to www.isidewith.com, answer its questions and see where you stand on a wide ranging number of political issues.  It won’t take long, it’s fun and I think you will find the results to be interesting (although it should have included more free market questions).  Of course, most of life is more complicated than “yes or no” questions, but this test is fairly sophisticated, and allows for gradations of responses.  So I truly think that it has merit.  (The poll is private, but you can share the results with others if you wish.  It’s completely up to you.) 

                After the isidewith program digested my answers, it told me that am a slightly left of center Libertarian, and that I agree with Governor Gary Johnson about 85 percent of the time.  (That’s pretty good, because I don’t even agree with myself 85 percent of the time. . . .)  But none of this surprised me because, as I have frequently written in this column, I support Milton Friedman’s concept of a national stipend for people who make less than a certain amount of money (and then doing away with all other welfare, except for those with truly special needs).  But try it yourself, and I anticipate that you will surprise yourself about how Libertarian you are!  As such, you may very well join me in believing that the Libertarian Party is the only real mainstream political party in our country today.  Socially we support a “Live and Let Live” policy, and financially we support responsibility at all levels of society, including individual, group, corporate and governmental.  This makes us the only political party that would actually confront our nation’s deficits – which are the biggest threat both to our nation’s security and to our children’s financial future.  (So take the poll and see where you fit.  I’ll bet you a hamburger that you are much more Libertarian than you thought!)

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)

2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with

Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

Quote for the week, told to me directly by a retired stewardess from Southwest Airlines: “On occasion our plane would hit hard on its landing.  So when I saw the chins of the passengers in the first few rows touch down to their chests, I would get on the microphone and say: ‘Yes that was a hard landing.  But I want you to know that it wasn’t the crew’s fault, and it wasn’t the plane’s fault; it was the asphalt.’”

               Please listen to our weekly radio show entitled “All Rise! The Libertarian Way with Judge Jim Gray” as we discuss timely issues, and show how they will be addressed more beneficially by employing Libertarian values and approaches.  You can hear it every Friday morning at 7 Pacific/10 Eastern by going to www.VoiceAmerica.com, clicking on the Variety Channel and then upon the word “live.”  

              You can also hear past shows as well.  And, by the way, these 2 Paragraph columns are now on Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, 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.

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #220 "A P"

     Historians tell us that poverty was the pervasive norm all around the world before the Industrial Revolution.  Before that remarkable achievement, most people lived off the land, and if their crops failed they often starved to death.  In addition, there was little clean water and less sanitation for sewage, disease was rampant, and giving birth was a dangerous situation for both mother and child.  That situation began to change with the Industrial Revolution, which resulted in more people moving into cities, gradually having refrigerated and canned food to eat, more safety slowly coming to the workplace, diseases beginning to be more understood and addressed, and generally people’s lives becoming safer, healthier and longer.  Of course, poverty in the 1800s and 1900s still widely existed, but the quality of life for those in poverty was demonstrably higher.

      So what does poverty look like today?  Most people at least in our country have a roof over their heads, indoor plumbing with clean running hot and cold water, enough food to eat, a cell phone and a color television set, access to emergency medical care, and their children get free K-12 education, along with a free lunch when needed.  Yes, there still is often found a wide disparity between the wealthy and the poor, and that doesn’t address the plight of the homeless,* but the life of the poverty-stricken today is far better than that of most of the wealthy people of the 16^th Century.  Of course, that does not mean that people of good will should not continue their efforts today to help the poor, but everyone, including the poor, should also keep a perspective about what poverty today truly is.  Far better to live now than before the Industrial Revolution – which was brought to us by the Free Enterprise System along with Private Property Rights.  Without those highly successful approaches, many of us would probably be starving right now.

*As previously stated in these pages, I suggest the homeless issue be addressed institutionally, instead of occasionally having governments throw money at it, by having a safety net for every adult citizen and holder of a green card in our country, which would consist of a monthly stipend of a certain amount of money – except for those who truly have special needs.  Then we could abolish all other welfare systems and let the Free Market take over from there.

Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)

2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with

Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President

Quote for the week: “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”  George Eliot

Please listen to our weekly radio show entitled “All Rise! The Libertarian Way with Judge Jim Gray” as we discuss timely issues, and show how they will be addressed more beneficially by employing Libertarian values and approaches.  You can hear it every Friday morning at 7 Pacific/10 Eastern by going to www.VoiceAmerica.com, clicking on the Variety Channel and then upon the word “live.”  You can also hear past shows as well.  And, by the way, these 2 Paragraph columns are now on Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, 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.