On Feb. 9, members of the Fort Walton Beach Tea Party had an opportunity to listen firsthand to the plight of charter fisherman Capt. George Eller and how federal and state regulation threatens to ruin a large segment of what remains of Destin’s charter fishing fleet.

We responded as typical good citizens. Various proposals to fix the problem ranged from calling our federal and state representatives and urging them to support corrective legislation, to writing letters, to having face-to-face meetings with the chief Washington bureaucrat who caused this mess by issuing edicts with the power of law, a Dr. Roy Crabtree.

As useful as these steps may appear to be, they miss the point.

Limited government has become a thing of the past in our land of the free and home of the brave. Fishermen who supposedly have the right to own property, contract freely and enjoy the protection of the 10th Amendment, in fact, do not.

By bureaucratic decree supported by federal legislation and a Supreme Court ruling (Wickard v. Felburn, 1942, where the Supreme Court decided the federal government has a constitutional right to regulate how much wheat a Kansas farmer grows even on his own property for his own use), the federal government overrules the state of Florida in fishing matters. In turn, Florida overrules its own fishermen in the pursuit of their livelihood, forcing them to get permits and thereby placing limits on the wealth they can accumulate.

Neither the feds nor the state go out and sweat for fish; neither do they take on the financial risk of running a fishing company. But they are in a position to dictate how a fishing company must operate and share the catch.

Worse still, the feds and the state of Florida are controlled by legislators who have no direct stake in the success or failure of the fishing industry. To them, a fishing fleet is just one more source of tax revenue to be exchanged for any other.

It should not be this way. Limited government does not mean a government that decides not to interfere. It means a government that cannot interfere.

Individuals must succeed or fail on their own circumstances. The purpose of government is not to own businesses or grant favors but to protect individual rights.

There is a false enlightenment in America that thinks government control is necessary to prevent depletion of the environment or to ensure a steady market when individuals would ruin what they have.

As Capt. Eller made abundantly clear, fishermen have a vested interest in what they do, and they did selfregulate — either through moral persuasion, or by association contracts, or even by the power of the marketplace.

If depletion takes place, fewer fish means higher prices. Higher prices mean fewer fish are bought and sold, restricting the size of the fleet.

How is this different from what the government is doing now? The government is artificially restricting the amount of buying and selling of fish, resulting in higher prices and a reduction of the fleet.

Government regulation doesn’t ensure anything except a bigger government, and all it does is transfer the ability of Destin’s fishermen to run their own lives over to a government bureaucracy that must be bowed and scraped to.

The Tea Party must get more to the root of what ails us.

Peter J. Blome is a retired military officer and chairman of the Libertarian Party of Okaloosa County. He is also a member of the nonpartisan Fort Walton Beach Tea Party.

First published 7 August 2008

America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, is also the land of government intervention.

This is especially true regarding the economy.

Many of us are actually in favor of it. The popular thinking is that working within the constraints of the Constitution would be too great a price for the USA to pay. If we followed established law and enforced contracts the pain would simply be too great. It is easier to just sacrifice a few nameless, faceless people, and our principles, in the name of stability, smoothly functioning markets, and control.

I mean, what is not to like about Politicians creating a solution that business could not? If you do not like what the free markets brings, change it to suit your immediate needs. Government programs will make sure you and everybody else gets a piece of the action. Intervention is good because it keeps people in their jobs and keeps the money flowing.

No one notices the price you have to pay.

Living with injustice is one.

The trillion dollar bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is injustice of the most immediate and palpable type. When times were good, non-investors did not get a check, but now that times are bad everyone gets to pay. Worse still, the costs are so big, the value of the dollar may collapse. That will increase the cost of everything based in dollars forever. You think milk is expensive now, just wait.

Another example is the recently passed housing rescue bill which rewards those who bought more house than they could pay for. It actually reduces the mortgage for some people. What you do not hear is what happens to those people who live by their mortgage contracts, are responsible, and live within their means. They foot the bill for everybody else.

When the Federal Reserve arranged the JP Morgan buyout of Bear Stearns bank last March, they did it using funds the Fed created at the cost of greater inflation for the whole country. Since those who run large banks are a relatively small fraternity (our current Treasury Secretary came from Goldman Sachs), it also stands to reason that JP Morgan personnel are a big part of the rank and file of those who run the Federal Reserve.

Lets see, JP Morgan people deciding if the Fed should create money out of thin air to help out JP Morgan. Suspicious?

The Security and Exchange Commission recently excluded 19 commercial banks from trading rules that every other business still had to endure, such as short stock sales. It does not hurt you unless you were bank number 20 on the list and the stock owned by your poor old grandma drops 50%.

Examples of intervention like this are happening everyday. Several government bureaucracies such as the Exchange Stabilization Bank, the President’s Financial Working Group (executive order 12631) and the Federal Reserve itself are allowed by law to secretly intervene in the market. These secret interventions affect companies, and people like you, in real dollars, everyday. What you think will go up, might go down. What you think might have value, might instead prove to be worthless.

Even though they are part of your government and directly affect your pocketbook, you cannot know what they do. Your role is to just pay taxes and support them.

Living with injustice like this takes away opportunity, and opportunity is the heart of freedom. Because the government has decided to favor some businesses over others, the unfavored businesses waiting in the wings with good balance sheets will never get a chance to grow and make money for their investors. The old business will still be there. The old business will be protected with the weight of law.

In other words, your dreams will take a back seat to someone else not because you work less, but because they were bigger and will stay that way no matter what you do. They have government on their side.

In our land of rugged individualism, government influence has become the most important , and counterproductive, commodity there is.

American business is now not so much about building a better mousetrap than being the king rat who has access to government. This will lead to more graft as more government bureaucrats realize the control they have. Government protected businesses will use their advantage to hurt their unprotected competition every way they can.

Oh, by the way, you and I pay more forever.

What is not to like?

Peter J. Blome

Labels: Federal Reserve, government intervention

An address by John Quincy Adams 4 July 1821

Presumably responding to a comment from Britain as to "What has America done for Mankind?"

"And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world [Britain], the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind? Let our answer be this:

America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government.

America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.

She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.

She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.

She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.

She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....

[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace...
This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.

John Quincy Adams served as U. S. Secretary of State, he delivered this speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on July 4, 1821, in celebration of American Independence Day.

Labels: 4 July, America, libertarians

Real Political Competition

Americans like to compete. It validates what works, and gradually eliminates that which doesn’t.

Libertarians believe in competition. The greatest amount of happiness and prosperity come from people being able to compete in a free market where their individual rights are preserved by a government that is limited in its power. This leads to lasting benefits for both individuals and society.

Most people would agree. But for the last 150 years, from Okaloosa County all the way to the Congress, our leaders can come from only the Republican or Democrat Parties. In a group of four Americans you will find five different opinions, but somehow come election time we all just fall in line behind two major parties. As ridiculous as it seems, every solution, every possibility, every good, comes from either column R or column D, and no where else.

That, of course, is not by accident. Supposed competitors, the major parties are more like an old married couple that through hard experience know what to argue about, and what not to. Over time, by the skillful use of laws they created and the timely bribing of voters with their own money, these parties have suppressed political competition to their mutual advantage. They made people more dependent on government than ever before, increased the power of government over them and reduced individual opportunities in life. When election time comes people become afraid to vote for something different because it would remove the benefits the government gives them.

You pay a huge cost for this cozy political arrangement. Whether it is under the Republican President Reagan, or the Democrat President Clinton, or even in our own county, government has grown like a weed. Your taxes are higher, there are more bureaucrats who can tell you what to do with your property under penalty of law, the wars on poverty, drugs and terror regularly consume trillions of American’s wealth, and each of us ends up carrying a share of Federal government debt to the tune of $600,000. Government promises of Social security and Medicare will be worth nothing, either because the government will not pay or the money will be made worthless by inflation. Today your financial activities are monitored, your travel restricted, and even putting up a sign on your own property saying you like candidate such-and-such without telling the government could land you in jail for a year (FS 106.071). The FBI has conducted more than 200,000 warrantless searches on Americans citizens and the Inspector General of the Justice Department says 724,000 Americans are on the government’s terrorism watch list which is growing by 20,000 a month. There is no area of life where the government cannot monitor, regulate, or intervene. As said in the movie “The Patriot” we have replaced one tyrant 3000 miles away with 3000 tyrants one mile away. And all the while the Republicans and Democrats talk about change while supporting greater government power as they always have.

Libertarians know America can do better. In our hearts, Americans cherish Libertarian values. No one thinks about their future and says “Oh, I look forward to the day for the day the government confiscates my land, gives me what they see fit for it, tells me how to use it, gives me financial support, gives me permission to travel, searches where they like, tells me how I can speak on political matters, monitors my finances, taxes my income, and tells me what I can do with my body” but that is where we are. Every solution, every good, every possibility does not come from government, but from individuals who put the time, sweat, caring and personal risk into a project to make it better. Libertarians are about making it possible to do for yourself, and allow others to do for themselves as much as possible.

Instead of debating how big a tax increase should be, the debate should be about eliminating government spending. Instead of creating bureaucracies that seem to think of themselves first, there should be serious thought about eliminating them. Instead of meekly accepting that government can do anything, lawmakers must be limited in what they can do. Let people decide matters for themselves as long as they do not use force or fraud on each other. The end result is less costs and more options; in a word, freedom.

Only a Libertarian can say that, and that is real political competition.


Peter J. Blome - Summer 2008

Labels: competition, freedom, libertarians, politics

Our political system for electing those who govern us is based on a belief that strong political parties, our freedom of political speech, and an inquiring press will provide us with enough information to cast an intelligent vote. The conflict and friction of the system makes campaigns unattractive to many and often bring out our baser natures. Money has become the dominant factor.

In theory, this process places the best candidates in positions of leadership. But the alleged two-party system with the press as referee is a fraud!

Nationally, we know nothing about our chief executive. We vote for or against candidates based on a single issue, based on their seniority, because they are members of our party, or to be on the "winning side" Locally, we have a sheriff who has pleaded guilty in connection with a kickback scheme a state legislator who's been indicted on a felony charge of official misconduct. There is a call for returning ethics to local politics, an allegation that perhaps unethical individuals were elected many years ago and we have re-elected them several times since.

This situation is an indictment of our newspapers and at least half of those who voted each cycle. I find such a call for more ethics to be politics as usual and unproductive for Okaloosa County.

It is time for those who vote only for the two major party candidates to stop holding their noses while voting against personal principles. A politician's promise of benefits at the cost of other taxpayers is too great a price for our votes.

No more politics as usual! It’s time for us to follow our values and principles. Our voting habits have produced professional politicians who go straight into government from school, are elected, and never hold a real job nor run a business.

The results are life time political careers without fear of losing re-election; one-party counties like Okaloosa and cities like Chicago; a sense of political entitlement; billions of dollars for pork-barrel projects directed to supporters; millions in bonuses with inadequate review; and corruption. Indictments for the misuse of tax dollars are a natural outcome.

What is the central issue in these indictments? These are not unethical people who have been elected to office as suggested by a recent writer ("Bring back ethics," April 22). These are examples of elected officials being in office too long! These are examples of too many voters expecting their elected officials to "do things" for them in exchange for their vote and support.

We are not upset by the bonuses and the money for the hangar in Destin, but that these favors were given to those with more pull than we. The insult is we pay for these special favors with our tax dollars.

As long as we accept as normal that our government is the source of all benefits, our taxes will continue to increase, the money available for elected officials to buy our votes will be enormous, and its misuse will continue.

Voters must eliminate the notion that their elected official "doing something" for them is a positive when voting for a candidate. The voting decision must be framed this way: Will this candidate do what is constitutionally correct and which does not take rights or freedoms from other citizens to give me a benefit I do not earn?

The tough work of citizenship demands we replace politics as usual, not call for ethics reform one more time. We must evaluate our real political values, e.g. by taking the "World’s Smallest Political Quiz" at The Advocates for Small Government. Do we truly believe in personal and economic freedom or do we want more restrictions on our lives?

Then we must evaluate where candidates stand on personal freedoms. Look more closely at those who are truly closest to us and evaluate their positions in greater detail. Our vote will determine whether our personal freedoms are protected.

Finally don't just "Spout Off" now and then. Stay engaged after each election cycle! Attend city and county business and budget meetings. Have a detailed knowledge of the parts of government that interest you most.

Our form of government may not be the best in this world, but it is far better than any other. It is worthy of more than just our vote. It deserves our continuous attention.

Lee Jackson, Chairman
Libertarian Party of Okaloosa County

Labels: ethics, okaloosa county

Fellow citizens, it is my privilege to be here with you at this great Tea Party gathering and talk with you about a government gone off track.

I would like to thank Ms. Brenda Leach for this opportunity.

You good people know that something is seriously wrong. "Bailout" has become the most used word in our language. Intuition tells us taxes will be going up and prices at the store will be going higher. Six months ago our government spoke about the budget in terms of billions and now we speak trillions. What is happening here is the crime of the bailout.

In the past seven months $12.8 trillion dollars has been printed, loaned and squeezed out of our financial system to save certain industries because they are, quote, "too big to fail." This is equal to the gross domestic product of the nation. In only seven months! A lot more is coming.

The too big to fail companies are the biggest banks, investment houses, insurance companies, car makers and mortgage buyers in the country. They are in trouble because of their horrendously poor judgment in how to invest money. Now our government has become partners with them using your labor to pay for their mistakes.

It is against the American way of life to say something or someone is too big to fail. If you or I were this incompetent we would fail, no questions asked. Instead, the government is throwing money at the problem like it is going out of style, and letting you and me pay the consequences.

Incredibly, some banks this quarter are area actually showing profits after having hundreds of billions of our debt dollars given to them.

They say without you taking on this debt that our financial system will fall apart. They say without you taking on this debt, a recovery will not be possible. They say free market capitalism has failed in America. Americans are in debt up to our eyeballs, and they say to fix our problems, we need to go into further into debt in amounts that humans cannot fathom.

All I can say is, they are wrong.

I ask you, how can a government that never saw this calamity coming possibly know how to fix it?

Our country has borrowed and spent too much, and saved and produced too little. Inefficient businesses need to go bankrupt, and for new companies that use money properly to spring up in their place.

Government regulation and taxation needs to be vastly reduced so someone with ambition and ideas can enter the market, supply what people need, and make a profit.

For decades our government has been tinkering with the economy. Banks have government guarantees that no other industry in history have ever had. Housebuilders get tax incentives. Homeowners get tax incentives. Insurance is regulated with the dedication of a soviet commissar. Other businesses get incentives and subsidies and special privileges. The list is endless.

America has become clogged with the heart attack producing plaque known as government intervention. If there were no government intervention, the economy would recover quickly from a short, sharp recession from which we would come out stronger. Instead, our government creates zombie banks, and now runs the world's biggest insurance and mortgage companies. The government has no business owning business. It is nationalization, something we laughed at our socialist foes from a generation ago.

The government is running up debts that will impoverish you, your children and your grandchildren. Every man, woman and child in the USA has $40,000 in additional debt they did not have seven months ago. This is not what made America great. This is what destroyed the socialist nations that were our enemies.

Our leaders have been seduced by the idea the government needs to run the economy. Our central bank, the Federal Reserve, a private bank that works with our Treasury, creates inflation. That is their purpose. Inflation makes paying off loans easier for bankers and borrowers, but quietly steals from those who save, produce, earn a wage, or are on fixed incomes. In other words, people like you.

And where does Congress fit into this picture? They created about 2 trillion of the debt we have been speaking about, but 11 trillion was created by our Treasury Secretaries and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. These men are unelected and virtually unaccountable for their actions by the very laws that Congress wrote. It is theft from you on a monumental scale, but invisible to most people.

Just a month ago when Congress demanded to know where 2 trillion of this Federal Reserve created money went, Fed Chairman Bernanke told them he wouldn’t tell them, and Congress does not have the collective power to make him!

By means of a bailout, Americans are now 80% owners of the great insurance company AIG. Other private insurance firms must now quake in their shoes. There is no justice when a government directly competes with a private firm. A private firm cannot change the laws and create unlimited money at will, as the government can. Any businessman knows it is impossible to compete under such circumstances.

This is not a failure of capitalism. Government intervention brought on this crisis. More intervention because capitalism has supposedly failed will make it worse.

30 years ago it was the Congress that passed legislation under the Carter administration to force lenders to make risky loans to low income families. This started the bailout process. (Fairness in lending act)

It was the government that guaranteed the massive loans of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac causing them to push other private non-government backed mortgage buyers out of business. No one checked out the quality of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds because they were guaranteed by the government.

Against all free market principles our Central Bank, The Federal Reserve, kept interest too low for too long. This lead to the NASDAQ bubble and now the real-estate crash.

It was Congress that made laws giving special tax exemptions to people owning houses that encouraged a frenzy of buying and selling.

And lastly, it was the government watchdog, the Security and Exchange Commission, that turned a blind eye to bond rating agencies getting in bed with banks to rate worthless bonds as AAA investments and then sell them to you and me.

I am proud to say I am a Libertarian. Libertarians have always been against the malignant influence of government in the economy.

If government were not propping up, regulating, and guaranteeing so many companies, Americans would use their due diligence to see which companies had substance and which were shadow. Now we see where not using our due diligence has lead; illusions of wealth, and you and I getting stuck with the biggest tab in the history of mankind.

As I end my address, I ask you all to think about the following:

Government does not produce a single job. It takes resources from those who have it, takes a cut for itself, and then directs what’s left into places the free market would not.

You cannot spend your way out of debt.

You cannot print money as a way to prosperity.

There has been too much borrowing and spending in America and not enough saving and producing.

And the government bailouts privatize profits, and socialize losses.

The greatest amount of happiness and prosperity come from people being able to compete in a free market where their individual rights are preserved by a government that is limited in its power. This leads to lasting benefits for both individuals and society. I think many of you know this is true.

What our country is doing is the opposite of this.

Keep shouting. Left Jeff Miller know. Let Senators Martinez and Nelson know. Stop the bailouts. Stop government intervention. If you want, tell them that Libertarians know what is going on. Let the economy recover, and everyone will get back to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness more quickly.

Thank you.

Labels: bailout

The Honorable Jeff Miller
348 S.W. Miracle Strip Parkway
Fort Walton Beach, Florida 32548

Dear Sir,

I am sure you are aware that the American economy is in trouble.

It has become sick from decades of government intervention. It is ill from the misguided idea that the government can make an economy run better than those who own, work and invest in it.

This mistake is about to be done again. You will be asked to use government funds to buy $700 Billion in bad investments made by Wall Street financiers. You will be asked to make the American people buy financial paper that is essentially worthless. Along with other related debts recently assumed by the government, you will be asked to force a total of $18,900 in debt on each and every man, woman and child in America, at interest, forever, for something they had nothing to do with. You will be asked to use the threat of imprisonment to enforce this debt.

I am going to ask you, at the very least, to do nothing about this bill. My very best hope is that you will take the lead to roll back government subsidies and privileges across the board. Government intervention brought us to this point, and more government intervention will only make the problem worse. Our dysfunctional economy is the result of at least a century of special favors given to those who have influence in Washington and the use of an unsound money system. It is time that this stop.

The role of government is not to own companies, nor to grant favors, but to protect individual rights.

Our government owning companies makes a mockery of the Constitution and its rights and protections. Government makes the laws and over time will favor itself. Government has access to the Federal Reserve Bank's money printing presses, and hence unlimited funds. Government uses these powers every time to the disadvantage of every citizen that competes with them. It is inherently unjust. America deserves better from its representatives.

Since March of this year American citizens have endured the privately owned but government supported Federal Reserve Bank acting illegally and forcing the purchase of a private bank (Bear Stearns) by another private bank ( JP Morgan) using the Federal reserve's unique privilege to print money to fund the deal. Even ex Fed Chairman Paul Volker euphemistically called this "stretching the legal envelope."

This summer the American people received a $160 Billion in a "stimulus package" from the Congress. This apparently "free" package was funded by the private Federal Reserve Bank printing it and loaning it to the Government at interest.

In the past six months the Federal Reserve Bank has announced $200 Billion in privileged money sales to banks to pump more cash into circulation. It may save banks that have made bad decisions, but it also fuels inflation. Retirement accounts, pensions, fixed investments, and future payments from Social Security and Medicare will all become worth less as a result.

As you well know, a few weeks ago the United States became as socialist as any cold war adversary by nationalizing the mortgage industry to the cost of $5 Trillion dollars. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac became the massive liabilities they are because they had an implied government backing to their bonds. They used that to undercut competition and grow far larger than they should have in a truly free market. Both backing their bonds and nationalizing these companies was a betrayal of American concepts of liberty and property.

This past week witnessed a complete disregard for any pretense of legality when the Federal Reserve and the Treasury forced a private insurance company, AIG, to sell an 80% controlling interest in their company to the Treasury of the United States for $85 billion in instantly created dollars. It seems the government can take whatever it wants now, and pay for it with money created in the blink of an eye. What if a majority in Congress decides it wants what you have, Congressman?

A moral hazard has now sprung up where every company in trouble seeks a bailout. There is now talk of insuring all money market accounts to the tune of $50 billion, and bailing out GM and Ford motor companies for $25 billion each.

Over the years economic control has been centered in Washington, and now the debts accumulated can fatally flaw the US dollar. The resulting inflation will destroy the average American. It will reduce our ability to compete in the world economically and politically. It threatens to destroy the fabric of our society.

Make no mistake. Our government is changing for the worse its relationship with the American people, and the role of the market, contracts, private property and the Constitution in our daily lives.

Don't kill that which made us great as a nation: individual rights, free markets and limited government.

Sincerely,

Peter J. Blome, Secretary
The Libertarian Party of Okaloosa County

Labels: stimulus package