Atlas Shrugged movie

Here's a clip showing the passage in which Dagny Taggart meets with a union rep about the John Galt Line:



This movie DEFINITELY needs to come to OKC! Do you hear me, theater owners?

"Right sizing" doesn't cut it

Here's the comment I posted at NewsOK.com this morning in response to Oklahoma state Treasurer Ken Miller's op-ed:

Here's the basic contradiction: "When government is too small, it cannot provide basic enforcement of property rights and personal safety or the infrastructure necessary to facilitate markets."

A small government can provide effective protection of individual rights if it focuses exclusively on doing ONLY that. It's way past time to cut loose the idea that infrastructure is government's responsibility. It's not. Private citizens took care of it before. They could do so again if the government would just get out of the way.

"Public sector size" IS the main problem. It is the source of "non-essential" services & agencies. It is the cause of government inefficiency.

Don't be afraid to cut too much. The federal budget was cut by two-thirds at the end of World War Two. I'm sure some people at the time were sorry to see the government let go of all those lovely tax dollars and the power that went along with it. Fortunately, they were not in the majority.

This, by the way, is one of the reasons why fiscal conservatives should reject social conservatism, which leads to more government, not less.

I do agree with Miller's assertion that the term "right sizing" is ambiguous, though I think Governor Fallin made her meaning clear in her State of the State address when she said that "the growth of government shouldn’t outpace growth in the private sector."

This does not sound to me like a commitment to smaller government. Given her recent statements regarding state-based health insurance exchanges, I fear Governor Fallin may be turning out to be another Mitt Romney. She certainly has no understanding of what a genuinely free market is.

(Here's someone who does: Michael F. Cannon - Obamacare Can't Be Fixed, and Now Is the Time to Dismantle It

Rather than beat their plowshares into swords, Obamacare opponents in most state capitols are laying the bureaucratic foundations for the law's new entitlement spending and lending it legitimacy by accepting its debt-financed federal grants.)

What is the proper role of Government?

Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute, debates Miles Rapoport, president of Demos, on the proper role of government. The debate took place at New York University on March 10, 2011.

Two fundamental essays by Ayn Rand

Man's Rights

The Nature of Government

We did it before - we CAN do it again!

There's a fantastic Forbes column by Richard Salsman which I wrote about at my other blog, The Morality War, when the column was first published.

Here's (part of) what I wrote about it:

Here's a great column by Richard Salsman who argues that, yes, there really was a time when it was possible to cut the federal budget - and by susbstantially more than the measly 2% or whatever that the Republicans are currently promising:

U.S. federal spending was cut by 5% in the year through July 1960 compared to the year earlier, and cut by 10% during a previous two-year period (1954-1955), but the biggest cut came with the “demobilization” after World War II. Total federal spending was slashed from a peak of $93 billion in 1945 to $55 billion in 1946, $35 billion in 1947 and $30 billion in 1948, before rising again.

The total, three-year reduction in federal outlays after World War II (1945-1948) was 68% of the prior peak spending level.

The fact that the federal budget was cut - and the cuts were initiated by Democrats! - certainly gives the lie to complaints that too much cutting would be catastrophic.

We cut the budget by TWO-THIRDS! AND we survived!

Yes, I get that we had just ended a major war during which we were spending a lot of extra money. But too many people seem to think that an outbreak of peace is no excuse to let go of all those lovely tax dollars - and the power that goes along with them.

This is why I am so heartened by Rand Paul's proposal to cut 4 TRILLION DOLLARS (!!!!!) from the federal budget. Finally, a legislator with the guts to do something genuinely radical! THE biggest threat to American liberty right now is the runaway growth of government, and Senator Paul's proposal addresses this in a genuinely fundamental way that no one else seems willing to even hint at.

This gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, the Tea Party movement will actually amount to something, rather than merely giving social conservatives a platform to promote their tired old agenda which only gives the government more power, not less.

In fact, if Rand Paul was running for President, I'd be ready to vote for him right now!

The wrong foot

On Friday, Mary Fallin signed her very first bill into law as governor:

Governor Mary Fallin Signs Bill Providing Additional Funds to Department of Corrections

Okay, I get that incarcerating criminals is a legitimate function of government. I have no desire to jeapordize public safety by making it harder for the Corrections Department to do its job.

But still, couldn't Governor Fallin find another bill as her very first signing that didn't involve spending more money rather than less?

Argh.

Get out of the way!

Here's what I posted this morning in response to other commenters at "Oklahoma state government spending continues to climb":

Wow! Look at the liberals squirming! "Waaah, don't take our big government away from us! Waaaaah! The country will self destruct!"

You know, there was a time when government spending accounted for only 3% of the country's economy. There was no central bank. No income tax. A MUCH smaller government that stayed pretty much out of the way of private industry - which did so much more of what many today claim are "essential" government services. I look at India & China with their VERY mixed economies and I wonder what OUR growth rate was back then. 5%? 10%? More?

So, all you liberals, corporate welfare addicts & social conservatives: just stay out of our way.

OK?