2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #256 "PLEASE! A BALANCE FOR LIBERTY!"

         So have you seen the recent news?  3.3 million workers in the United States of America filed unemployment claims in the one week that ended on March 21!  3.3 million lost jobs lost in one week alone!  As stated recently in this 2 Paragraphs series, yes, the Coronavirus presents us with serious situations.  But governments ordering businesses to close and people to stay home is decimating our economy and probably destroying more lives than they are saving!  Governments should not by fiat be able to decide which business is “essential” and which is not.  For example, a mattress store owner was complaining that his business had been closed as “non-essential,” but Costco was still open, where people could still purchase mattresses.  So government was arbitrarily assisting his competitor while running him out of business.  Sounds like a legitimate beef to me!  The Libertarian Way would be to “allow” the managers of stores to be able to establish precautions for the health of their employees and customers and advertise those precautions widely.  Then, in turn, customers would be able, armed with that information, to make intelligent decisions about when and under what circumstances to do business with the various stores.  The best results come from individual people making decisions based upon timely and accurate information, and this would result both in both safety and substantially fewer lost jobs.  So, once again, Liberty does a better job.  Yes, governments have a function, but one of them is an obligation to plan in advance for things like earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, pandemics and even the possible poisoning of our water systems – and boy did governments fail to be prepared for this pandemic!  So why trust governments to make your safety decisions?

Similarly, we all should understand how the private sector is equipped to respond much more quickly to distribution problems with products like testing equipment, masks and ventilators when government regulations are lifted.  So governments once again are the problem! The same thing is true regarding today’s shortage of nurses.  Since many state governments do not recognize the certification of nurses from other states, this has artificially restricted the supply.  And does anyone really think that a one-time gift of $1,200 to people who earned less than $75,000 in the year 2019 will go very far?  (We should also understand that this gift came from the $2.2 Trillion fund voted virtually unanimously by Congress, which is money that we don’t have and which will contribute substantially to our National Debt – much to the financial detriment of our children and grandchildren!)  Of course the health and safety of people are important.  But health and safety are also adversely affected by people losing their jobs, not having money to pay for food and other essentials like rent, and companies going out of business.  (Think homelessness and suicides, if nothing else.) A balance for Liberty would reduce the number and size of all of those adversities.  And one more thing: today the homeowner’s association where we live closed the swings that children use at our private park.  Why should a parent not be able to decide appropriate risks they would encounter when pushing their young child on a swing?  What if no one else is around, what if they wipe the touchable areas of the swings with a disinfectant – would that present a danger to the child?  Let the parents decide.  What if another child was swinging 15 feet away?  We need a balance because only individuals will have the added information necessary to make good decisions, instead of an associational government that only has a “one size fits all” edict!  Liberty promotes the goal of people being responsible for the decisions they make which, in turn, promotes making good decisions.  That is how our country was founded.  I hope you agree with me, and continue to vote for Liberty! 

Maybe you heard this one: “Our cleaning lady just called and told us that she would be working from home and will be sending us instructions on what to do.”

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 on demand as well.  And, by the way, these 2 Paragraph columns are now on my website at www.JudgeJImGray.com, 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.  In addition, my new book entitled “2 Paragraphs 4 Liberty: Solutions that are Practical, Effective, Responsible, Libertarian, is now available at Amazon.com.   Please read and discuss it with friends, and send in a review.

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.