...is that we know what is good and what is bad. So long as no one is injuring another (physical injury, theft, property damage, forced action, etc) then things are good.
Nobody knows everything, but I'm always right.
Leave people alone, and they will take care of themselves. Don't force anyone to to anything and don't punish someone for doing what is in his best interest.
Let's apply this to an example. The Economist magazine is an old, respected magazine about economics. The problem is that many of the writers, and readers, think that they are soooo smart, and understand economics soooo well that they should therefore tell others what they should do.
When I tell someone what they should do, at least politically, it is invariably to say, "stop interfering, and stop reducing people's liberty."
Lets look at the Economist's debates. We can look at the title for past debates and the description and know what we need to know about the debate, and we can easily prove it with facts.
more freedom = good
more government interference, taxes, regulations = bad
Let's look at the past debates and see if we can find out what the correct answers are:
Should governments encourage their citizens to marry?
Who favors telling others who they should marry? Why is that anyone's business?
Undoubtedly, one of the reasons the world is massively more prosperous than it was is because stable man/ woman marriages resulted in happy, healthy, and productive children. The problem this question-asker probably wants to address is the reduction in marriages we are seeing and our societal decline. Why is this a problem? What caused it?
Its easy enough to know why men don't want to get married. We take all the risks and maybe get some reward. Women take little risk and can have the kids and half the man's assets whenever she wants it.
And the government's support of feminism (suffrage,sexual discrimination laws, etc) has also contributed to our societal decline.
The problem is government interference, and the Economist wants to know if the government should try and fix this problem. If this is the question, we've already lost the debate.
If the government should do anything to encourage marriage, it is to stop discouraging it. Give children to the most able parent after divorces. End no-fault divorce. Get out of the marriage license area altogether.
Would the economy be better off without MBA students?
What difference does it make of someone gets an MBA or not?
Once again the government is a big part of the problem. Government schools, government school loans, the inability to discharge school debt in bankruptcy are some of the many ways the government interferes with the lives of people who should make the decision to attend MBA school themselves. (I suggest avoiding it like the plague. One MBA class was enough for me.)
Related.
Would the recovery be stronger with Mitt Romney as president than with Barack Obama?
Care to guess what the biggest problem our economy faces is?
If you guessed, "government interference," then you are right. (If there is such a thing as "must read" then that link is it.)
Does Obama, or would Romney, build bridges? Does he cook food? Does he mine for coal? The president does none of those things. The president, no matter who he is can only influence the economy with taxes, and regulations. He does no actual production, which is what it takes to have a strong economy.
Both have shown a willingness, as politicians, to add new rules, and taxes, and regulations. Will creating a huge new entitlement program (Obamacare, Romneycare) with new taxes and pages, and pages, of new rules encourage someone to start a business? Or will lots of people figure that trying to figure out hundreds of pages of regulations makes starting a business not worth the bother?
Will manufacturing return to the West?
Why has manufacturing moved to the East? Because labor is cheaper and there are fewer government rules and regulations.
Want to know how to get manufacturing to move back to the West? Remove workplace rules and regulations to make it more economical to manufacture things here.
Can you see the problem the world faces? The government interferes with our lives everywhere, wonders why we are not as productive, marriage minded, or getting the "correct" amount of education, and then tries to fix problems that the government itself largely created.
I'm not claiming that the government is the cause of all the world's woes, but it makes everything worse. And many of the non-government problems that we face could be more easily fixed, if only the government would get out of the way.
Next time you see a story about a new regulation or law, ask yourself, "will this law increase liberty or will it restrict liberty?"
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