Hennessy's View

I’m proud to know David Rose.  Dr. Rose is chairman of UMSL’s economics department. He’s also the President of the Discussion Club, one of St. Louis’s most valuable intellectual assets.

In this interview with Russ Roberts, Dr. Rose discusses his new book Moral Foundations of Economic Behavior.

This is great stuff for everyone, especially economic liberty fiends like me.

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In the course of our lives, we sometimes lose our way. We wander off the good path. Or we fail to blaze the trail we should.

THE Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.

“I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?” said Scrooge.

The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.

–Dickens, Charles (2004-08-11). A Christmas Carol (p. 53). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

Nations are no different.

Dickens warned us about the dangers of putting money before God, about worshiping wealth rather than using wealth to do good.

Sometimes, the luxuries that surround us blind us to the real purpose of wealth. I’m not talking about charity, and certainly not about government redistribution. I am talking about the good society.

Liberty, the right to pursue happiness and acquire property, lead to wealth—a surplus of goods and currency.Our wealth literally buys our futures. 

If we invest in earthly things, things that gratify our temporal sensations, our investments will rot and blow away with the wind.

If we invest in higher things, our investments will be repaid. 

Scrooge invested in things of the earth. They made him miserable and despised. Just as his treasured decayed, so did his soul. And his body.

Simon Sinek, a man who’s dedicated his life to helping others find their purpose, learned the Scrooge lesson in Iraq. He shared his story in an amazing video.

Just before the the appearance of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, the Ghost of Christmas Present introduced Scrooge to two wretched little children, dirty and pale, who clung to the spirit’s legs.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!”

“Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.

“Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. “Are there no workhouses?”

The bell struck twelve.

–Dickens, Charles (2004-08-11). A Christmas Carol (pp. 50-52). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

Do we dread or celebrate our glimpses of America’s future?  Is our Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come bright or dark?

Midnight approaches, America. 

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A college student asked me a question:  Why join the Tea Party?

He was wondering why anyone would want to associate with people who behaved reprehensibly at two earlier Republican debates.

Here’s how I replied:

Johnny,

Sorry that I’m just getting to this.  I get a lot of email, and sometimes I miss things.

I organized the tea party in St. Louis in 2009. I did so because I’ve seen that governments accumulate power until they crush liberty and freedom. Governments use every means to increase their power over the people.  Most recently, it’s been debt.  

Did you know that you owe about $50,000 in federal debt–in addition to all other debts and taxes? You.  If you get married, you’ll have a combined $100,000.  

You’ll pay that debt in one of three ways:  taxes, inflation, or reduced income.  Either way, you have no chance of out-earning me if you follow my exact career path and work just as hard.  

But that’s just money. What about life and liberty?  

No weak government ever committed a holocaust.  But powerful governments do it all the time.  The Nazis.  The Soviets.  Pol Pot.  Ho Chi Minh. Mao.  Castro.  

Talk to someone who fled one of those regimes.  Learn what happens when all the power, all the police forces, all the taxing and permits and borrowing and judging accumulate to a small group of people.

Hell is what happens.  

Show me what happens when good people, people of character, are free to live their own lives. 

Prosperity.

Were there idiots at those debates?  Sure.  Then again, look at the idiots at OWS encampments, defecating on police cars and raping women. Put 100 people in a room and 5 will lack the ability to form human bonds.  

Do we need police and anti-trust laws and other regulations?  Of course. But we also need a constant and vigorous defense of our liberty. 

That’s why I called for a Tea Party in February 2009, and that’s why I hope you’ll join our little band in St. Louis. We stand on guard for your liberty.  And that’s one of hell of an important job. 

Here’s some other people’s views on Why I Tea Party

Cordially,

Bill Hennessy

Why do you tea party?

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A friend of mine told me this story.

He sat that there bragging about getting a tax cut for friends of his.

I said, ‘you do realize, don’t you, that you’re just like the Democrats, except you’re giving taxpayers money to a different special interest.’

He looked at me and said, ‘but our special interests do good with the money.’

My friend was talking about the second highest-ranking Republican in the Missouri House at the time.

That’s Establishment thinking. The idea that legislators can spend . . . I’m sorry, “invest” . . . your money better than you can.

Okay, so maybe I have a fixation with the Establishment.  Just maybe, though, my fixation is justified.

The Establishment does some good.  It has access to lots of money and media.  It has database and training programs to help candidates win.  It throws great parties in really cool hotels, allowing ordinary people to watch drunk Republicans skinny dipping with Dumbo-ear water wings. 

Most importantly, the worst, most corruptible, most cynical, most self-serving of the Republican Establishment is still better for America than the best of the Democrat Establishment.  (Don’t forget when when you’re vilifying a candidate between now and the primary.)

There’s still something wrong with the Establishment.  It’s purpose is to advance and perpetuate the Establishment. 

Our purpose is to advance and perpetuate a uniquely American freedom.

In 2010, our purposes happened to blend very well with the GOP’s. That led to harmony on the right and a big win for Republicans.

After the swearings-in, the Establishment did what the Establishment does: like any organism from a simple protozoan to an advanced primate the GOP started working on self-perpetuation. 

Like Obama, the Republican Establishment believes that people cannot run their own lives.  Instead, other super-people (called politicians and bureaucrats) must run our lives for us.

The GOP Establishment supports subsidies for corporations that should be able to stand on their own. It supports bailouts for company that should be allowed to die their own. It maintains regulations for matters that the market regulates better. It chooses winners and losers, from Government Motors to the failed Aerotropolis here in Missouri.

The Establishment demonstrates its mistrust of people and markets every day.

We utterly reject that notion.

The reason the Tea Party exists is not to end the Establishment.  As I wrote last week, that can’t really happen. 

Instead, we hope to mold the Establishment into a vessel of liberty and good government, not a tool for social engineering.

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The candidates blew the emotional turning point in Monday’s CNN/Tea Party debate. Blew it. Big.

Before we go into that, hear me out on the pressure on those candidates.

Lights, Camera, Panic

Imagine being on a stage. Searing white brightness reduces your range of vision to a few degrees of arc. You hear hundreds of people making the sounds that audiences make, but you can’t really see them.

Before you are journalists bent on catching in a gaffe, or unprepared, or vulnerable. On either side of you stand your ideological soul mates. They, too, stand ready to skewer you with your own words.

I only marvel that people can even speak in that circumstance.  So what you’re about read does mean I could do better.  I couldn’t.

Still, when you take the stage, you better be ready.  And Dr. Paul and his colleagues were not.

Let Him Die?

The turning point in that debate involved Dr. Paul. He had the opportunity to champion his greatest cause—liberty.  He missed it.  The rest of the Republicans missed it, too.

Clarence Page recounts the moment in today’s Chicago Tribune:

Moderator Wolf Blitzerasked Paul, a medical doctor and fierce libertarian, if a seriously ill young man who had decided on his own to forgo health insurance suddenly needs expensive hospital care, should the state pay for it?

Paul, shaking his head, lectured, “That’s what freedom is all about. Taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to take care of everybody. … ”

At that point Paul was interrupted by a burst of applause from the tea party-filled audience.

“But congressman,” Blitzer persisted, “are you saying society should just let him die?”

“Yeah,” shouted at least two voices in the crowd. But Paul, to his credit, said, “No.”

So who pays? Paul asserted that in his experience, friends, neighbors, churches and charities step forward to help.

Society vs. Government

Here’s how the scenario might have played out.

In answer to Blitzer’s second challenge, “are you saying society should just let him die?” Paul might have made a crucial distinction.

“Society, Mr. Blitzer, is not government; government is not society. Throughout the vast majority of human history, in fact, society was the unwilling slave to its unwanted government.  The history of man is a history of cruel domination.

“Two hundred thirty years ago, something changed.  On this continent, away from their masters, society woke up and said, ‘my only master is God.’  That society broke the chains that bound it to its European masters and formed its own government—a government subservient to the people.

Who Pays?

“Now you ask, ‘who pays for the sick who cannot pay for themselves.’ Well, we do. But not through some massive bureaucracy as far from Santa Monica as Philadelphia is from London. Instead, we, the people who surround our sick brothers, take care of him. This isn’t a Pollyanna dream; it’s the only way a free people can exist.

“Can we just abolish all of the systems and services that Washington has forced upon us over the decades?  No.  The good society that once occupied this land is a shell of its former self.  Most of us have lost the capacity to completely care for ourselves, much less caring for others.

“Corporate officers who believe their only job is to amass and hold ridiculous wealth, corrupt union bosses who exploit the hall to build their mansions, and ordinary citizens who turn a blind eye to the decay and want all around them—these are all the products of a government that over-reached its purpose.  Excessive government pacified us into the callous, hollow people many have become.

No Off Switch

“No, Wolf, we can’t just flip the switch on the federal programs that sweet-talked Americans out of their humanity. We need to wind them down as we, the people, restore the dignity, honor, and nobility we once carried.

“No, we’ll never reach every person—there will always be pathological money whores who exploit society. Like everyone else—everyone except the exploiters—I want government there to stop them.

“But I don’t want government to be the charity ward.  If you proxy out your decency, your proxy, not you, enters the Pearly Gates.

“Finally, no, our society should not stand around and watch a man die. But now it does. We expect somebody to do something about this. We wash our hands and say, ‘it’s government’s job.’   We seem to to have forgotten that, on this continent, the government is me.”

The After Party

The purpose of The After Party is to live that answer.  We must mend the tattered fabric of American society. We must learn how to offer our services and accept others’ hand.  Relying on government aid dispensed by a paid bureaucrat is demeaning.  Accepting the loving help of a stranger is the essence of humanity.

Twelve months from now, for thousands of participants in The After Party, government programs will become a superfluous waste of time, money, and energy.  We will be a force for good that no government can challenge.

Join Us 

If you want to mend the torn fabric of society as we ease out from under a bloated bureacracy, then fill out this simple form.  You will not receive our other, regular Tea Party news.  You will be in a special list of those who want to be prepared for that day when Washington can no longer pretend to be our consciences.

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