However, this just means I’ve been making my case in shorter messages on social networks that I frequent. I’m convinced some people have blocked my updates on their Facebook feeds. I have been unfriended and blocked on Twitter for bashing the Federal Reserve and the Obama administration.

But, I will not give into terrorists! The message of Liberty is too important. Besides, those who block and unfriend me are obviously not real friends. So there is the unintended benefit of weeding out the fakes.

Of the five latest blog posts that show up here, one of them is about the right to be naked. It is entirely coincidental that I am again writing about that six months later. This time, I am prompted by a tweet from one of my favorite–and real–friends. The NY Times ran a story about a nude window display in Greenwich Village, NYC.

Reading Right to be Naked will explain why laws disallowing nudity violate Liberty so I won’t go into that.

The question that we need to answer is not which opinion we have is the right one. They are both right. Whether you believe people should be allowed to walk around naked or not is not the issue. We cannot make laws for an entire population based on the whims of a majority or minority in any given time period. The question to answer is whether or not we are a free people.

I will quote a paragraph from the article and then smash it to pieces:

“If you’re walking down a street in New York City and someone is naked in the window — and so children and whoever can see it — you’re depriving people of their choice,” said Daniel S. Connolly, a managing partner at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, and a former lawyer for the city who handled public nudity cases. “That’s where you butt up against other people’s rights.”

This sounds good and reasonable. We obviously shouldn’t deprive people of their right to free choice. Afterall, if we do that, we are violating another’s rights and that is a problem. I have no qualms with that idea: it is the fundamental principle of Liberty. The problem is the way this is framed.

It is completely rubbish.

Which right is being deprived when there is a naked person on the street? Is it the right to see people naked or clothed? That is not a right. We don’t have a right to see people clothed or naked. If we did, that would mean we can demand someone take off their clothes at any time. This is ridiculous and no one would agree to it.

For argument’s sake, let’s replace naked people with clowns. Some people have a fear of clowns or, for whatever reason, do not like clowns. So a clown walks down the street and there are people around who do not want to see a clown. By the logic of Connolly at Bracewell & Giuliani, we should disallow clowns from walking down the street because it deprives people of their choice. How ludicrous is this?

Replace clowns with anything you want and it is all equally insane. No one is harmed, has their property stolen, or forced to do anything against their will. The choice we have is to walk away or look away. To demand that every clown or naked person be removed from the street because you have a problem with it is depriving people of their choice; not the other way around.

On a side note, the article continuously framed the right to be nude as something that is or is not protected by the first amendment. This is not a first amendment issue. This is an issue of property rights. Without property rights, every other right is moot. The right to free speech only makes sense if you have a right to yourself. You are the property of yourself.

Trying to make the case that the right to have your own body nude is not protected under the first amendment is meaningless. It is protected under property rights which underlies all other rights.

Unbeknownst to me, women were marching topless in Central Park on Sunday, August 23rd, 2009. I support their cause because this is an issue of Liberty. I like breasts as much as the next guy and I hardly believe any man would be too opposed to women walking around topless. Now, not all women are equal and there are breasts that we want to look at that those that we’d rather not. Different people like different things. But, the point isn’t whether men like breasts or not.

This is an issue of Liberty.

Because of that, it doesn’t matter if your breasts or young and perky or old and saggy. There should be no reason why women or men should not be allowed to walk around topless or even bare naked. As long one is out in a public place, there is no legitimate reason to disallow anyone from presenting themselves in any way they wish.

If one is on private property and the owner of the property doesn’t want it, they can ask that you be clothed and in the same light, if they allow you to be naked, you can be naked within their property.

There are some who believe this is wrong as the Daily News article quoted:

“This is extreme liberalism and why America’s in decline,” shouted one woman, who said she was a doctor but declined to give her name. “It’s degrading to women to tell them to expose their breasts publicly.”

America is in decline for many reasons–none of which is due to excess Liberty. The women’s opinion is as valid as anyone else’s opinion. Other women might say its degrading to tell them to hide their breasts in public! Is there something wrong with breasts? Why should women be forced to hide them? All such opinions are valid. The beauty of Liberty is that nothing is judged on opinions. It is a matter of property rights. We own our bodies and if we want to put clothes on it, we can; if not, we should also be allowed to do so.

The opinions of the majority change with the times. Natural rights do not.

France has a law that specifically states women are allowed to be topless. While I agree with the idea of the law, I do not support having a law that tells us what we can do. A system of governance that starts writing laws for what we are allowed to do is a bad precedence. We should be allowed to do whatever we want as long as no one else’s Liberty is violated.

While I have no intention of telling my mother, sister, cousins, girlfriend, or friends to go walk around topless–nor do I want to see all of that, it doesn’t give me the right to tell them they can’t do it. Whether I like it or not is irrelevant. We have no right to control another person’s Liberty.

That’s what this issue should be about. It isn’t about whether women should bare their breasts in public or not. It is about whether we live in a nation founded on Liberty or not.

I was going to go to bed and perhaps have an early rise in the morning but, I decided to surf Facebook and found myself tagged to a note on someone’s thoughts about capitalism. I had debated this person on the topic of Obama’s economic policies in the recent past. What was obvious from the debate is that I am in support of Liberty and freedom and he is in support of central planning and big government.

It is certainly not rare to have big government supporters in the State or city of New York. Since Obama has become President, I have become more and more a fish out of water when it comes to political debates. Where everyone was against Bush’s idiotic policies, no one dares criticize the Messiah’s idiotic policies. The scariest thing is that they don’t see the similarities.

I consider myself a student of Mises and have learned a great deal from economists, philosophers, and statesman–not statists–who are knowledgeable of his work. While Mises has long ago refuted Marx, it has not stopped the boneheaded Marxian ideas from spreading.

So, while every centrally planned form of government has failed since Marx and before Marx, we are still debating whether a free society is the best one to live in. It was Einstein who defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. In that sense, all Marxists are insane–and so are their policies.

My motivation to write this instead of sleep was from a Facebook note. This note came about because of a quote I posted by Henry Hazlitt:

“The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are.”

The author of the Facebook note was outraged. Before I had read this note, I did not know the author was a Marxist. I knew he supported big government and believed it to be a good idea to steal from one group to give to another–in this case it was stealing from the poor to give to the rich or what is known as bailouts.

That is the great irony of all centrally planned societies. They promise prosperity for all and that no man shall be better off than another. In practice, it is true, the masses are all equal–equally poor–and the elite few running the show live like royalty.

“The average person becomes wealthy in the United States through one of a limited amount of things. The most common: Luck. People with the set of skills necessary to profit in the system are actually a dime a dozen. The only difference is that some of them were at the right time and place. I think there’s a book out that recently addressed the subject in great detail, actually.”

I will not disagree that it has become more difficult to make it in the United States. The government has gotten bigger and people have become less free. The only result of that is a lower standard of living for everyone. The problem is not freedom–the only way one can blame freedom that is to ignore all of history.

Of course, when people criticize systems and name them the United States, they are really talking about free markets. Sadly, the free market has been on life support for a long time now in the United States and all the criticisms of how this system is not working is really a criticism of how big government doesn’t work.

In an actual free market, hard work and savings is what makes people wealthy. Creating products and services that benefit the masses is how one is rewarded. There is always luck but, to credit all good things to luck is underestimating yourself and giving yourself a free pass when you fail.

The culture of laziness and not taking responsibility for oneself seems to be greatest draw to Marx. We want to feel that we are “safe” at the expense of being free. We don’t want to do any real work, we just want to complain about how hard we are working and how the “man” is keeping us down!

The book that the above quote refers to is Fooled by Randomness. I have not read the book but, I am aware of it. From what I understand, the book talks about economic success in stocks and financials as being random. Anyone who actually understands economics would know that there is nothing “random” about what happens.

When governments create bubbles, everyone is going to look smart. When the bubble pops, all those previously “smart” people are going to look real dumb. The reasoning is that they weren’t that smart–it was just too hard to fail in the bubble. It isn’t random. The “business cycle” isn’t random–it is created by government and it is predictable.

The better title for that book would be Fooled by Ignorance and Misinformation.

“[W]e have every right to hate the wealthy man- he has no right to that wealth.”

Any free person would find that appalling. Apparently people have a “right” to a house and a “right” to health care but, a person who works hard and saves has no “right” to his own money! Classically Orwellian and also classically Marx.

Those who believe one has no right to his money–his property–but, believes in a right to own a home or a right to health care has zero understanding of Liberty at best. I recently wrote a large piece about Liberty and so I won’t repeat it but, do read it.

“Freedom is not a thought that is readily adaptable to the masses.”

That is even more appalling to free people. It is certainly not unexpected for a Marxist to want to enslave everyone. That is the only way the Marxian utopia can be founded: by force.

“Of course, you are free to stab yourself in the leg. The adrenalin would give you a high, even. What would you do when you started bleeding to death?”

Then you die. If you freely choose to kill yourself–you can do it. I can’t kill you and you can’t kill me but, you can kill you. i don’t recommend it but, it is your choice. Every choice has its consequences and it is our responsibility to deal with them. We have no right to forcibly spread the pain to other people. Other people are free to burden some of our pain if they choose to.

“In this society we have people lacking intelligence, wisdom, or even common sense, running around with the idea that they can do whatever they want with their capital because it is a ‘free’ country. They have no idea what that even means, the true beauty of that concept. Ignorance is indeed bliss.”

They can do whatever they want with the capital outside of hiring someone to kill someone else. Liberty is not a complicated idea–it is a natural one. The irony in stating the people don’t understand what it means to be free is that people understand even less about the effects of government legislation on their lives.

The choice here is to let people live peacefully in “ignorance” or allow one group to enslave another without the other knowing it or consenting to it. To criticize Liberty and then offer an alternative that is even worse is hardly a good argument.

“In considering this, I remembered why I loved Marxist writing. He recognized that in order for wealth to exist, someone must put in the effort needed to create it. This he called labour power. Marx was extremely naive, in that he assumed the human race would be able to put aside greed and selfishness and testosterone in order to assure each person would receive the appropriate result of his labour power. He assumed that we all cared for our fellow man.”

This quote contradicts itself before it is finished. Marx didn’t have all this economic understanding wrong, he just came to wrong conclusions with some of the right concepts. Wealth can only be created through production and savings–absolutely correct.

The author claims Marx is wrong in assuming men are good yet, believes that there should be a big government to regulate everyone else. The classic argument to this is: where do you find these angels? If men are greedy and selfish and you give men great power to regulate and tell others what to do, how are they not going to act in their best interest? If men are evil, the last thing we need is a big government.

History is witness to the fact that big governments only rape and pillage those it governs. Never has a big government done something in the best interest of its citizens over doing what is in the best interest of those in government. This being the greatest fallacy of Marx and all central planners.

“I believe in the America that John Locke and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin believed in. I don’t believe in democracy, because they never believed in it and they were right not to. Seriously, does it make sense to any of you? A person with no college education and no background in politics has the same vote as a doctor, a lawyer, the President! Talk about unqualified for the job. I don’t believe in capitalism, but the free trade system has its uses.”

Everything above contradicts this last paragraph. This final paragraph is the case for Liberty and free markets. There is no system where you can avoid having someone unqualified to rule everyone else. The reality is that we are all unqualified to tell others what to do. We never know what is best for an individual–only they do.

Democracies are garbage and I, like Jefferson and Franklin, do not believe in rule by the majority. I am for Republics as our Founding Fathers were. So while our politicians keep trying to confuse us and tell us that we are a Democracy, we are not. Recite the Pledge of Allegiance and you will note that we pledge allegiance to the Republic. And no where in our founding documents is the word Democracy present.

Ultimately, that last paragraph is hopeful. Hopeful that Americans still understand freedom. It is just a matter of exposing the truth behind financial meltdowns like the one we are experiencing.

They want us to believe it is a “defect” of the free market when the reality is that this was a government creation. They want us to believe this is due to a lack of regulation when the government has never had a heavier arm in the market. They want us to believe that government can protect us from another collapse when they have engineered every major economic collapse since the Great Depression.

There is a reason why the depression in the 30′s is called “Great”. All other depressions didn’t last so long because the government never intervened. Depressions have gotten worse since the creation of the Federal Reserve and the rise of ever greater government–this is not a coincidence. If there is one thing we don’t need, it is more government.

Arguing the case for Liberty is never easy. People say they want to be free and know they should be free. It is the means by which we want to get there that is misguided. We will willfully violate Liberty as a means to achieve a free society.

The idea that we can violate Liberty in order to have Liberty is ridiculous. The Western world has taken freedom for granted. We know that a free society is the only humane way to live. What we don’t know realize is that our societies have become less free over time–less humane.

Not only have we not kept our houses in order but, we go around telling everyone else how they should live. Those living in glass houses should not throw stones. We force our way of life on everyone else and expect them to like it. We forget that Liberty means we can live one way and our neighbors another.

We have decided that temporary safety is more important than lasting Liberty. Whether the monsters are terrorists or financial crises, we want protection from them at the expense of our freedoms. So while we say we respect personal Liberties, we act in the exact opposite.

We should stop lying to ourselves and admit it: we don’t believe in freedom. We just give it lip service. Deep down we may still know that Liberty is right but, we have lost our understanding and respect for Liberty. The following are seven reasons for Liberty that will try to reawaken the free spirit inside all of us.

1. People Should be Free

We know that people should be free but, we don’t know why. Even as politicians take away our Liberties, they tell us that “freedom will be defended”. The irony is that governments historically never–and still do not–defend freedom. It is not in their nature.

We forget, as we repeat to ourselves that people should be free, that a free person should be allowed to do what he or she wants so long as it does not inflict harm on another. We say people should be free but then we support laws against marijuana, minimum drinking ages, and a slew of other laws that tell people what to do.

There are certainly bigger fish to fry than drinking ages but, if you fail to respect Liberty under more minor infringements, how principled will you be when it comes to bigger issues? It is a slippery slope. Any violation of Liberty is an act of enslavement.

If people should be free, there should be no laws governing personal choice. Laws should only exist to rectify situations where someone violates another person’s Liberty. It is not the right of the collective to tell everyone else what to do and how to do it.

2. Goodwill Cannot be Forced

People naturally want to help others. It makes us feel good. It is more rewarding than spending money on ourselves–although that feels pretty good too. Helping others is a voluntary choice. Once we take away the voluntary aspect, it is no longer help and certainly not goodwill.

It is no longer rewarding. We might even despise it. Force turns a good experience into a bad one. This is the case with everything. No one likes to do what they are forced to do. I was a rebellious teenager–I still hate authority.

I never liked being told what to do by my parents. They were right sometimes and wrong sometimes but, that was never the point. When our freedom of choice is taken away, everything tastes bitter. So why do we think that making “good behavior” a law will lead people to do good things?

Everyone has causes they support. It might not be the cause you and I support but, who are we to say that our cause is more important? When we tax the population and use their money for causes that would otherwise not have received such funding, we are forcing non-believers to support these causes.

That is no difference than going into a person’s home and threatening them with prison if they did not write a check to our causes. The end result may still be money donated to help someone somewhere but, we don’t see the resentment from the “donator” and the causes that will not receive enough funding because its supporters were forced to donate elsewhere.

The costs of using force outweigh the benefits and is an intrusion on Liberty.

3. Prosperity Thrives in Freedom

There are those who consider Liberty to only mean personal or civil Liberty. Then, there are those who believe Liberty only applies to the free use of their property and money–free markets. Liberty is both. There should never be a soul in the world who can tell you how to spend your money. You can spend all of it on big houses and fast cars. You can donate all of it to charity.

Your money, your choice. The person who spends all of his or her money on luxury items will soon find that they have no more money. It was enjoyable while it lasted but, none of us can print money. If we do not work or are not putting our money to work productively, we cannot spend frivolously.

It is the individual who uses money to improve society that gets the greatest and longest lasting reward. Those who just squander wealth will soon find that they no longer have it.

Freedom to use our money as we choose leads to the greatest benefit for society. Those who are wasteful are punished by the flow of money from their hands into those who can better use it. Money is only collected by those who are benefiting society. They offer a product or service that has lasting demand because it makes people’s lives better.

A scam can only last so long. A fad can only last so long. The money received or lost from a scam or a fad is real but, people are designed to learn from mistakes. While a fool and his money can be easily parted, a fool will still wise up.

When a force enters the picture and forces the flow of money in a direction that it deems best, there is no longer the freedom to use our money as we see fit. It is then no longer clear if those receiving vast amounts of money are benefiting society or if this force is just funneling it their way.

There are those who say a guiding hand is necessary to direct resources to projects that bring future prosperity. Certainly, these projects may bring future prosperity but, at what cost? How is a single individual or a group of individuals supposed to know which projects are best? What if there were other means that would have been better and would have been developed had it not been for the forced flow of money into other less beneficial projects?

The only entity that can best direct money to the most useful projects are the collective decisions of the masses on a daily basis. The freedom to use our money the way we see best is the means by which society prospers most.

4. Liberty is Colorblind

Liberty respects the individual because our rights are not granted by government or any man-made higher authority. Our rights are natural and are ours from birth. To this degree, it does not matter what color, size, or shape we are.

No one has less rights or more rights because of their physical attributes or family fortunes. People are not to be categorized as belonging to this group or that group but, as individuals. You are no less free to live the way you choose than I am.

There are factors that limit how we live such as financial standing or physical handicaps. My life is not the same as your life. Lives are rarely–if ever–equal. However, life is always fair. We get just as many opportunities to do well for ourselves as we do to lose everything we were given.

Being born into a specific ethnicity is a game of chance. There is no way to choose beforehand. You have as good a chance of being born into one ethnicity as an another. The cards that we were dealt may differ but, our opportunity to use them well or poorly is entirely up to us.

A society that understands Liberty would never use force–government actions–to give one group an advantage over another. Fairness is not measured by how much we can handicap those we envy or despise. It is about how free we are to use what we have to get to a better place.

5. Theft is Always Wrong

Virtually everyone agrees that stealing is wrong. People generally do not steal from their neighbor or rob a bank. We know it is wrong. However, we lose sight of this when we empower government to do the stealing on our behalf.

When we use government, it is suddenly okay. In actuality, it is not okay. Theft is theft no matter what channels we go through.

If I threaten a person with violence and force them to give me their wallet, we know that this is clearly wrong. If I petition government to provide me with unemployment pay after I lose my job, no one sees this to be wrong.

It is wrong and it is a form of theft. We just cannot easily see who we have stolen from. The victims would be every citizen who works and pays taxes. I wouldn’t go to the local businesses and homes and demand payment because I lost my job. So why would I tell government to do it for me?

This is why income taxes–and virtually all taxes–are an act against Liberty. No form of aggressive force is compatible with Liberty. Theft is an aggressive force.

Friends, family, and kind strangers can choose to help me when I’m in a tough situation. They can also choose not to help me. Either way, I need to find a way to get back on my feet. It might not be easy but, only I am responsible for me.

6. I Belong to Me

The idea that my life belongs to me is the foundation of Liberty. Everything else is derived from this concept. No one has the right to tell me how I should live because I own my life. I am free to destroy myself through drug and alcohol abuse. I am also free to try and live forever by being meticulous about what I put in my body.

The acts of doing well or doing poorly to myself are nobody’s business but mine. The only time it is a problem is if I try to force others to live the way I do or harm others while I’m living the way I do.

While we only think that people on drugs or alcohol can harm others, it would be shortsighted to say that some other addiction–less frowned upon by society–is not just as bad. We are no more allowed to physically harm others for eating meat if we find it savage than we are to attack someone because we are under the influence.

We cannot force others to join our religious beliefs and certainly cannot harm others who vehemently disagree with our views. While I belong to me, you also belong to you.

7. Peace Can Only Coexist With Liberty

Peace is something people have tried to achieve for as long as time. It is never a good idea to fight if you don’t have to. The risk of hurting yourself is no less than the risk of hurting your opponent. The best approach for both parties is to avoid harm–and possibly death.

This is why peaceful cooperation is always more beneficial to everyone involved. Peace can only be achieved where Liberty thrives. Where Liberty is not understood, the collective or an elite group want everyone else to live their way.

The only means to do this is to use force. It may be war or it may be threat of prison, fines, or execution. None of which are peaceful. Peace requires no threat of force, threats of any kind, or force of any kind.

While one is clearly justified to defend themselves from an aggressive force, it is not justified to then harm the attacker with an equally aggressive force. It is always our right to defend our life but, not our right to take the life away from an attacker after successfully protecting ourselves.

An eye for an eye will leave us all blind.

Only in a society where we understand and respect Liberty can there be peace. A society that is built on theft and force is destined to result in violent revolution from those who have been wronged.

This is essentially a comic book that tells a story and teaches economics at the same time. I found it to be incredible useful and a good means of understanding basic economic principles. I liked it so much so that I decided to put it into an easier to use form.

So have a read when you get a chance. It is good stuff! Especailly in current times when things are all going awry and no one in the mainstream has any idea what is going on! Irwin Schiff explains sound economics in an easy to understand fashion. And who doesn’t like cartoons?

While I absolutely agree that it will be up to new businesses and innovative entrepreneurs to bring the United States and world economy out of this crisis, I do not agree with the means by which Hoffman suggests. The last thing we need is for governments to create more bubbles–we are living the result of the last government created bubble.

Hoffman says that “we need incentives for business innovators.” That is very true. However, the incentives should not be to “encourage small business with loans”. The SBA has always attached terms to their loans and it must be used for specific purposes that they deem important. This is influencing the flow of capital to industries or sectors that the government wants. This is creating a bubble.

Secondly, where is the government getting the money to lend? The government has no money today. It didn’t have money yesterday either but, it is in worse shape now than it has ever been. If the only means to get this money is to tax, borrow, or print then one group will be made worse off for another. Redistribution of capital never makes the economy better off. If an idea has merit, capital will find its way there–that is how the free market works.

While this proposal is a better alternative to creating jobs using war or public works projects, there is still an infringement of Liberty as long as the government needs to take from one group in order to lend money to another.

“Venture capitalists are biding their time — not for want of good ideas, solid management or stable capital but to ensure that they can get the most bang for their buck. Similarly, venture capital firms are waiting for the slide to stop and the recovery to begin before investing.”

I’m not sure if that is entirely true. As the founder of LinkedIn, I will assume that he knows better than I do. I am not in the VC circle. Regardless of whether that is the truth, there is an economically sound reason why people don’t want to lend.

No one knows when or how the economy is going to turn north again. The government is intervening on a weekly–if not daily–basis thus creating an environment of uncertainty. It is much riskier to make long term investments that VC’s generally make if no one knows what the rules are going to be six months from now.

Start-ups are going to lead us out of our current predicament but, it will not be because of government “stimulus” or loans. If these companies can find a way to flourish it will be inspite of the government and not because of it.

Sadly, I have not actually read these two works by Hayek–I really should. It is nice to see that Lampert is suggesting stockholders to read about the Austrian viewpoint of the situation we are in. It is good to see that not every head of big corporations are capitalists in good times and socialists in bad times.

“As a country, we need to rebuild confidence and trust and to understand what happened. Whether by business or by government, the misdiagnosis of situations leads to poor prescriptions for rehabilitation and recovery. When the misdiagnosis is done at the federal government level and involves large parts of a national economy, the consequences can be swift and significant.”

We absolutely need to understand what happened. The mainstream media has misdiagnosed the problem and is applying the wrong treatment. The swift and significant consequences of a poor prescription will be a long and extended depression.

Obama’s plan to cut the deficit by 50% to about $533 billion in 2013 is becoming less and less believable. Not only is the budget for 2010 ridiculous but, Obama intends to increase spending to $3.94 trillion for this year. All of this is bad for the economy. Increases in government spending is a decrease in productive spending in the private sector.

“The deficit would remain near $1 trillion over the next two years before dropping to $581 billion in 2012 and $533 billion in 2013, the year that Obama has pledged to cut the deficit he inherited in half.”

The first thing you do to get yourself out of a hole is to stop digging. Obama believes that you should dig at an even faster rate. We are now going to sink faster and deeper.

In order for Obama’s budget plan to work, he is assuming that the economy “will come roaring back with economic growth of 3.2 percent next year and 4 percent-plus rates in the following three years”. Right. His stimulus bill is going to make things worse so this highly optimistic idea of economic growth is wishful thinking.

These massive budget deficits planned for the next 4 years is going to skyrocket the national debt. We are talking about adding over $4 trillion to the national debt. The national debt is currently about $11 trillion. If we add another $4 trillion to that, our national debt will be greater than our GDP.

The financial and economic side of the Obama administration is clearly out of their minds. It is going to be difficult for the dollar to survive this and for the American economy to thrive with these massive burdens. It is important to remember that governments cannot create prosperity.