For last week, most of the economic talk has been about either the pending auto industry bailout, or Obama’s purposed new stimulus plan. (And the fact that we are now ‘officially’ in a recession, but that’s not a policy question.) Everybody has their own opinion on these two plans. Most of the liberals say that the auto industry bailout is just the same thing that was done for the financial industry, except that the auto industry counts as ‘main street’, so now, it’s okay. The stimulus plan is supposed to have the same effect as the tax refund – increase spending, and get the economy ‘moving’. The difference? It’s supposed to be better, because the states will have more control of the money. The conservative answer to all of this? “Where’s the money going to come from.”

They’re all wrong.

Yes, I realize I simplified in the above paragraph. But here are the problems with the above plans:

The auto bailout: Cars are wasteful and horrible. The use immense amounts of resources to manufacture. They pollute the environment. They use huge amounts of energy. An electric car, which is at least not polluting directly (there is, of course, coal and nuclear pollution!) likely uses more energy than a gasoline car! Americans buy cars far more often than we need too – leading to even more waste. And cars kill a tremendous number of people during operation! We don’t need more cars. That money would be much better spent in finding way to help people avoid needing cars, not to prop up a mismanaged industry. Find some other way to help the auto employees.

Of course, we needed the wall street bailout even less than we needed this one, but two wrongs don’t make a right.

Economic Bailout. We don’t need to spend more! Spending is what got us into this mess to begin with. Americans consume more per capita than any other country, and that is:

1. Unfair and exploitive, and

2. Impossible to sustain without resorting to force, to keep the other countries giving us stuff for free.

What we need is to consume less, and keep the percentage of the population who consumes a disproportionate amount of value from doing so. More spending is not the answer!

I wish that, instead of the Democratic and Republican parties being the two major parties, that the Libertarian and Green parties were the major parties. I think that they would balance each other out nicely.

Here’s what the Libertarian Party has right:

1. Small government. The smaller, the better.
2. Economic theory. supply and demand really does work out. Debt is a bad thing.
3. Military isolation. We have absolutely no business playing world policeman.

And the Green Party?

1. Social policy. The government exist the serve the people – and especially those who are being exploited.
2. Economic practice. Those with power (capital), abuse that power, and all the free markets in the universe can’t stop that.
3. General foreign policy. Fair trade. The idea that the world does not revolve around the US.

I think it would be a great improvement if the power were to shift to those two parties, rather than the present state.

Here are my problems:

1. Abortion. I was under the impression that the libertarian position was, “It’s morally ambiguous, so the government should let everyone make their own decision.” Apparently, the local candidates never thought about it that way. Every. Last. One. is pro-life!
2. Gay Marriage. Okay – I’d much rather be working to abolish all government recognition of marriage, but if we’re going to have it at all, gay people must absolutely have it too. Guess what the candidates say? They’re in favor of a federal marriage amendment! Legislating by Constitution! That’s about as un-libertarian as you can get.
3. ‘Family/Moral Values’ This isn’t really am issue, just something they like to blab about. Morality is yet another subject that I thought libertarians believed should be left to the individual. Not these guys. It’s like they actually meant to run for the Constitution Party, or something!
4. Economics. Some of the local candidates are pretty much clones of the GOP here. (WTF are they even doing in this party anyway?). The others are old-school hard core libertarians. They’re completely Laissez Fair, etc. Now, I respect that position, but I don’t think it’s practical. So, why aren’t there any candidates who hold a more moderate view?
5. Illegal immigration. They’re all against it. Libertarians should be pro-immigration. I would understand if the more isolationist ones were, well, isolationist, but why all of them?

In the end, I think that the only issue I agreed with most of them on, was the war in Iraq! (The policy is get out as fast as possible, if you didn’t know).

That was it! I think that this is really horrible. What on earth happened to the old Libertarian Party, anyway?

So as far as I can tell, the only party left with any sense is the Green Party (Yes, I’m a Classical Liberal who likes the Green Party. This is a contradiction. I’ll explain some other time!)

Therefore, this country sucks.

QED