One of the regular knocks on libertarians is that we are cruel bastards who want children, the poor and aged to just go away and die. According to our detractors, this view is “proved” by our seeking dramatic reductions in taxes because we are greedy and just want to keep our money to ourselves.

Unfortunately, many times we (libertarians) take the bait and launch into a diatribe on how it is our money in the first place and our right to keep the fruits of our labor should be protected, blah, blah, blah. This seals the deal for the naysayer and libertarianism is further vilified by the person raising the argument.

In this post I wish to explore another, more subtle side of the argument that I think may win some converts as opposed to reinforcing the aforementioned belief. I believe that if more libertarians use this argument, we might be able to shift the thinking of some folks who have genuine concern for their fellow man. In short, the argument boils down to this – society and the state (government) are not the same thing.

Let’s take education as an example. Do I think society should provide a basic education to all of its members? Of course! This makes sense for many reasons, some of them clearly of self-interest. I want all members of society to be able to pursue their own goals and dreams to the best of their ability. It benefits me if they do! But, do I want this to be funded by the state? A resounding, “NO!”

State funding of education is a mistake, because it allows people in society to think, “Well that is taken care of” when nothing could be further from the truth. If society funded education, and by society here I mean the voluntary contributions of the people who are members, children would be better educated because there would be a natural check on its effectiveness, namely the parents of the students.

If a school was not properly educating the kids, the parents would let the donors know about it. This in turn would put pressure on the school to get better or go out of business.

This is why I advocate for a system that is completely in alignment with the Texas Constitution which calls for a “public free education.” Notice it is not a “free public education.” A system of vouchers, or better yet tax credits, would be a bridge to this idea. If we give the parents control over the flow of money and not the politicians and bureaucrats the system would improve dramatically.

I do believe that society can, should and would have a huge impact of many of the social welfare problems that plague us. The trouble is that the state (government) has usurped the authority of society to the detriment of all.

On Society and the State (in Education) is a post from: Elect Ed Kless. Please click to view any multimedia content and/or comment on this post. Thanks.

The Huffington Post reports that Actor Will Smith “is supporting President Barack Obama’s call for higher taxes on the country’s top earners.” Specifically, the POTUS has called for what is known as the Buffet rule that anyone earning over $1 million a year should have to pay a minimum of 30 percent in tax. In Smith’s case this would be at least $20 million for 2012.

Now, let me leave the insignificance of this number when compared to the deficit or debt and instead posit that nothing precludes Will Smith or any of the 210,000 tax payers whom this affects including the sage of Omaha from making a voluntary contribution today. He should go to https://www.pay.gov/paygov/forms/formInstance.html?agencyFormId=23779454 to make his voluntary contribution of $3 million (30 percent of $20 million) to reduce the public debt.

If they are not technically savvy, they can send a check payable to the Bureau of the Public Debt, and in the memo section, notate that it’s a Gift to reduce the Debt Held by the Public and send it to:

Attn Dept G
Bureau of the Public Debt
P. O. Box 2188
Parkersburg, WV 26106-2188

After that he can encourage the rest of the 210,000 to do that same. Once they all do that then the can make any contributions to the Obama campaign.

A Suggestion for Will Smith is a post from: Elect Ed Kless. Please click to view any multimedia content and/or comment on this post. Thanks.

Tonight I had the opportunity to speak to the Plano Homeowners’ Council. As part of the setup to one of the great questions. Robert Miller, 2nd Vice-President of the Council held up this book, which contained the 76 pages of new regulation passed by the Texas Legislature during their last session in 2011.

Mr. Miller than went on to ask each of the candidates present (big surprise Ken Paxton did not attend) if they supported this type of legislation.

My answer, “I will see your 76 pages and raise you another 50 to 75 percent of the current laws on the books in the state.

On Speaking at the Homeowners’ Council is a post from: Elect Ed Kless. Please click to view any multimedia content and/or comment on this post. Thanks.

Hat tip to my cousin Eric for sending this one to me.

Especially telling is the statist about the probability of getting cancer and the probability of being killed in an attack as being equal.

TSA Infographic is a post from: Elect Ed Kless. Please click to view any multimedia content and/or comment on this post. Thanks.

Yesterday, I had the great privilege to meet and briefly speak with John Stossel of FoxBusiness.

Stossel has been a champion of libertarian issues in the media since his days at ABC’s 20/20. His books: Give Me a Break; Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity; and No, They Can’t, have had a great influence on my thinking.

In the interaction pictured above, I had the chance to speak with him briefly about my work with The Trading Game. He seemed genuinely interested. It was quite a thrill to meet him.

On Meeting John Stossel is a post from: Elect Ed Kless. Please click to view any multimedia content and/or comment on this post. Thanks.

My thanks to Peter Kim from www.accountingdegreeonline.net for sharing this infographic with me and allowing me to share it online.

Created by: Accounting Degree Online

How Your Tax Dollars Are Spent is a post from: Elect Ed Kless. Please click to view any multimedia content and/or comment on this post. Thanks.

Last week, friend and fellow Libertarian John Shuey wrote a terrific post on why he left the GOP. He was generous enough to allow me to repost it here in its entirety. Take it away, Mr. Shuey!

13 APRIL, 2012

Time to leave the GOP tent?

In the mid-1990s, the Republican Party left me.

I know that sounds trite, but I had been originally attracted to the GOP by Barry Goldwater and a handful of other small-government, classical-liberal politicians.  Of course Senator Goldwater got clobbered in his presidential run, but just twenty years later Ronald Reagan swept to victory on the wings of his proclaimed (small-l) libertarianism.

Unfortunately President Reagan failed to govern as a libertarian, with ever-more bloated government and exploding deficits as well as clandestine wars.  The final straw came with the Gingrich/DeLay betrayal of the Contract with America, an episode which left me no doubt that the Republican Party never had any intention, nor ever would, of returning our nation to real constitutional government.

Luckily for me I found the Libertarian Party.  I am under no delusions the LP will enjoy massive electoral success anytime soon, it is too weighted down with an anarchical wing that is simply not reality-based, along with archaic rules that make it impossible to effectively build a party capable of actually winning majority support.  But still we soldier on, if for no other reason than the LP is the only political party in the U.S. that still stands for government confined by constitutional limits and the individual as supreme per the classical-liberal philosophy of our Founders.

What is intriguing to me is the number of liberty-leaning folks, some of them friends, who doggedly stick with the Republican Party.  One only has to review the history of state legislatures and Congresses when they have been controlled by the GOP over the past twenty years.  The drumbeat is always the same, the people’s business, not to mention the Constitution, is a distant second to an undeniably anti-science, theocratic, misogynous, interventionist, and militaristic agenda.  It is as if the Islamic Parties of God occupied the very soul of this once-proud party.

The time has come, it seems to me, to permit the GOP to collapse under the weight of its own self-righteous arrogance. Rick Santorum?  Michelle Bachman?  Newt Gingrich?  Twenty-first century America does not need a flat-earth political party any more than, I would say even less than, a fascist-corporatist party under the guise of liberal-socialism.  No real lover of liberty can, in good conscience, remain any longer within their bronze-age tent.

The GOP Has Left YOU! is a post from: Elect Ed Kless. Please click to view any multimedia content and/or comment on this post. Thanks.

At the Plano ISD PTA Candidate Forum, I was asked what I thought were the three biggest challenges facing Texas today. I distilled it down to one, but with three flavors.

Here is my response:

Here are the responses of all candidates:

Texas’ Three Biggest Challenges is a post from: Elect Ed Kless. Please click to view any multimedia content and/or comment on this post. Thanks.

Earlier this month the Center for Public Integrity released a report which graded the accountability of each state in the US. Texas ranked in the middle of the pack at 27th of 50. However, the real story is the the overall grade was D+. My fellow Texans, this is just unacceptable.

In my view the problem IS the so-called two-party system. It is no such thing. Both Democrats and Republicans have played fast and loose with your money and your trust.

We need to break up the monopoly of big government. If elected I will fight to do just that.

Living in a D+ State is a post from: Elect Ed Kless. Please click to view any multimedia content and/or comment on this post. Thanks.

As it continues to feel the heat from state agencies, the Collin County Commissioners Court discussed the possibility of hiring a lobbyist to represent the populace when it comes to certain hot-topic legislative items.

Great, now we have a proposal to have government lobby government!

It’s time for a change! Vote Libertarian!

Perhaps the Size of Government IS the Problem is a post from: Elect Ed Kless. Please click to view any multimedia content and/or comment on this post. Thanks.