Freedom is as Freedom Does August 26, 2011
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Capitalism, democracy, Dr. Robert Owens, free enterprise, Representative republic
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Is there any one political or economic system that God wants everyone to follow? I do not believe God has ordained any one type of government or economy as the divinely ordained path.
The only government He ever instituted was a kingdom with Himself as the king and that was rejected by His own people when they instead wanted to be like the people who surrounded them. And even though God had His prophets warn them that this earthly king would take their lands, their children, their goods and their freedom they persisted in rejecting a divine King for kings who would claim divine rights.
The only economy God has instituted is the divine economy where there is never a lack and always abundance. With cattle on a thousand hills God does not participate in recessions and He has promised many times that those in His hands cannot be plucked out. He promises that though a thousand fall on one side and ten thousand on the other destruction shall not consume those who trust in Him. And though in the eyes of this world it may appear that the evil often triumphs and the good are forsaken He tells us, “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
Free choice is a major part of God’s plan. As a matter of fact that is His plan. He could have just as easily created humans who had no free choice, could not disobey, never fall and always remain just as He designed them. But instead He desired the loving family that can only come about from love freely given and freely received.
Individually God has given each of us free choice. Therefore, I believe freedom to make choices unencumbered by outside interference is a fundamental building block of human nature and thus a required element of any society which matches the reality of the human condition. Each of us gets to decide which we are going to believe, our eyes of flesh or our eyes of faith. Is the world true or is God true? As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. That is my free choice and you are free to make yours.
I believe that God desires us to make free choices with regard to faith and lifestyle. Therefore, personal freedom is necessary for life as God intended. And this has a great impact upon the first half of our question, is there any one political system that God wants everyone to follow?
It is apparent that the only form of government ever devised by man that requires personal free choice as a prime component is democracy. All other forms of government are some variation of the divine right of somebody to tell everybody else what to do. By the way, that’s democracy as in one-citizen-one-vote not as in Democratic People’s Republic. And since all forms of direct democracy eventually devolve into a tyranny of the majority the only thing that works over time is a representative republic which operates on democratic principles. Meaning a system wherein the people have the opportunity to select their own representatives as long as those representatives actually represent the people and do not become the pawns of powerful special interests.
Also based upon the fact that personal freedom is a fundamental component of life as God desires for humanity which brings us to the second half of our question: is there any one economic system that God wants everyone to follow? It is apparent to even a casual observer that free market capitalism is the only economic system ever devised by man that requires personal freedom to operate. All other economic systems ultimately translate into some variation of a command economy. Some bureaucrat somewhere decides how many widgets to make and that’s how many widgets are produced regardless of need or demand. Command economies foster disequilibrium and maladjustments. There are always either too many widgets or not enough. In a fee market capitalist system demand always dictates production and inherently guides supply.
America was originally launched as a representative republic based upon democratic principles with a free economy which based upon the above exemplifies the ideal for a nation-state. This is what we have known. If the Progressives continue to succeed in their efforts to fundamentally transform America what can we expect?
Look at the areas of American life so far transformed, massive government take-overs either through outright purchase or indirectly through regulation of industry, insurance, and finance. Taking this as a guide we should expect further intrusion of the central government into the economy thus transforming America into a command economy with all the problems inherent in that type of system.
The health care take-over which is scheduled to phase in like boiling water phases in for a frog, feeling so comforting until it’s too late to jump out. Using the need to modify our behavior to cut health care costs we should expect the central planners to inch-by-inch transform our daily routines of eating and exercise until they are telling us when to jump and how high. It is often the unintended consequences which have the greatest effects as a result of the Progressive impulse to create a Utopia.
The only way Utopians ever try to create a heaven on earth is to build nanny-states to protect us from ourselves with no thought of how the unintended consequences actually harm the people the intention was to help. Eventually there is also no limit to the amount of force it takes to compel compliance once the bureaucracy has decreed something is good for the collective. An example from Obamacare is the provision forcing insurance companies to accept pre-existing conditions for all children insured. This sounds great. And it will surely protect the Kids. But what it really does is prompt many insurance companies to quit insuring children because they realize this government mandated provision will cause them to lose money, and despite the progressive belief that people should open and maintain private businesses as non-tax supported social agencies people who own businesses do so to make money.
Another example is businesses either dropping insurance for their employees because the fines imposed will be cheaper than the insurance or seeking an exemption. It is projected that 30% of employers will drop their employee healthcare once Obamacare is fully instituted. So much for “If you have your plan and you like it,… or you have a doctor and you like your doctor, that you don’t have to change plans.”
The Financial take-over through regulation has not been unwrapped yet and even the politicians most involved in writing it say they don’t know what’s in it so its long term impact can only be imagined. Does anyone imagine it will be good for free-enterprise, competition, and capitalism? As the Progressives continue to experiment looking for some way to accomplish the impossible, heaven on earth, the uncertainty keeps people from investing, businesses from growing and the economy from recovering. After two and a half years it should be apparent the current administration has successfully turned a recession into a new normal of lower expectations and a loss of hope.
But then again my hope was never in the government to begin with, and since they didn’t give it to me they can’t take it away. My hope is in Jesus and He never fails.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com View the trailer for Dr. Owens’ latest book @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ypkoS0gGn8 © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens.
Grow The Economy Not The Bureaucracy January 15, 2011
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, economic growth, federal bureaucracy, free enterprise, innovation, Manufacturing
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Business is like water. It follows the path of least resistance. A fact which should birth shame in the hearts of all Americans is that for the last decade American Businesses have been in a mad rush for the door. They’ve left America, once the epitome of free enterprise, choosing instead to establish them in Communist China. Today Federal red tape and taxes are strangling American free enterprise.
Innovation is like lightning. It comes in a flash, burns white hot, and is impossible to bottle. When free enterprise is stifled by government interference in the marketplace the incentive to develop and produce are stunted. Americans have always been the can-do people. We’ve always been the leaders in invention and innovation. Our entrepreneurs have traditionally led the world in new patents and processes. In 2011 many sources predict China will take the lead in high tech patents applied for and new industrial processes pioneered. It takes thinking outside the box to find the new and provide the best. In America today the Federal Government has set to work making the box stronger, to weaving a mesh of regulations and taxes, and turning the box into a cage.
The grand gesture, voting to repeal Obamacare presented by the House Republicans as proof that they’ve become true fiscal conservatives, is a hat trick meant to beguile the newly awakened and lull them back to sleep. The smoke screen of denying funding as a way to stop the implementation is hollow argument offered by people who know better to people who should know better. The aspects of the national health plan which are taking effect in 2011 do not require any funding. They come in the form of regulations, fees and taxes.
Grid lock is the best we have to hope for from the 112th Congress. The very idea that any repeals or rollbacks of the omnibus thousand page take-over bills will pass in Harry Reid’s Senate and be signed by Mr. Obama is laughable. Not only will the Senate not validate the results of November 2010, it is working diligently to stack the deck with new rules to prevent the enlarged minority from interfering with the evolutionary changes the Progressives constantly seek to enact as they attempt to evolve past the Constitution. What we need now is the party of “Hell no!” acting as a roadblock to the Progressives long march to the corporate state. Reading the Constitution at the beginning of the session is a great act of showmanship. Demanding that every piece of legislation contain a clause citing the constitutional empowerment for its enactment is long overdue.
However, what we need is a House that remembers that according to the Constitution all tax bills must originate in the chamber of the people. What we need is more than showmanship and more than doing what should have been done since 1789. What we need is a House that’s willing to to call out the other branches of the Federal Government when they exceed their constitutional powers. The House has the power to investigate, subpoena, the power to impeach, and the power to bring suit in Federal Court. They have the power to expose the Progressive juggernaut for what it is: an express on the road to serfdom.
Their economic plan is merely inflating the next bubble and praying that the rest of the world considers America too big to fail. America is fast approaching the tipping-point as a global manufacturing power. Manufacturing made-up 53 percent of the economy in 1965, it only accounted for 39 percent by 1988, it accounted for merely 9 percent in 2004, and the decline continues. The warning signs are everywhere: a loss of a staggering 32 percent of manufacturing jobs since the year 2000, employment in the computer industry is lower in 2010 than it was in 1975, and we’ve lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. We are turning into merely a source of raw materials and a market for manufactured goods from China, which is the textbook description of a colony.
No matter what the rhetoric, no matter what the stated intentions, it appears the consequences of the last ten years work by the best government money can buy are the unintended consequences. These political savants are so clueless that their answer to the problem of too much government and too much regulation is to appoint new committees, commissions, and expand the bureaucracy to study the old and recommend solutions that entail new regulations and more government.
This isn’t rocket science. We aren’t trying to figure out the orbit perimeters of a sling-shot around the moon to reach Saturn. This is Political Science and Economics: the arcane arts of who gets what, when, and how.
If we want manufacturing and innovation to grow reduce taxes to the lowest in the world and take the steel boot of regulation off the throat of free enterprise and watch our manufacturing base and our industrial output soar. If you want more jobs stop stifling small business with uncertainty and watch the unemployment rate fall. If we want more consumer spending instead of the next round of bail-outs and stimulus pay-offs to campaign contributors give the American people a one year federal tax holiday and watch consumer activity go through the roof. In other words grow the economy not the bureaucracy.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com View the trailer for Dr. Owens’ latest book @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ypkoS0gGn8 © 2011 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
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