Those Who Need To Seek Protection Will Never Succeed

Welcome back to the plantation. Also known as the welfare state. Yeah, so let’s start making it easier by paying you to not work. Let’s start making it easier by paying you to not get married. Let’s start making it easier for you by paying you to have children that used to be called bastards and are illegitimate. Let’s start paying you to go to schools that you’re not going to learn anything you’re ever going to use. But we’ll pay you to go while you’re there for the four years. Let’s start doing all these things. And, that’s right. Well, the work ethic and the devotion to making yourself a better individual was thrown out the window in favor of what I just described here. And that’s what really has made this an unthinkable human tragedy. You know, you see these children all across the amber waves of fuel. You see these kids with no dad, no father.
And this is the other thing. “Oh, the President ought to do something about it.” No, the President shouldn’t do a damn thing about it. And the first thing that we ought to say, hey, before we start doing things, is it constitutional? Is this something that ought to be left to the states and to the local communities? And the idea here that we have this omnipotent, all-powerful President who must be consulted on all things that matter, no matter what they may be, is itself a symptom of the disease.
Robert Higgs has chronicled all this government largesse here, this massive monster known as, as I call it, Leviathan here, and how it must be dealt with and what have you here. And he’s asked the question, “Well, Higgs, what are we going to do about it?” And Higgs, says, “I wish I had a solution, but there isn’t a solution. There certainly isn’t one single magic bullet that will fix all this.” And on a daily basis we have these discussions. Now, we have suggestions for things that need to be done. Let me frame it to you like this. Think of it like this, and think of what’s happening today with unemployment 10.2 percent and the estimated number of people without a job standing now at 16 million souls. Let me ask you a question. How is it possible that we can reemploy 16 million people without a fundamental shift in the way we are currently doing business? Hmm? Explain it to me. And don’t tell me, Mr President,“Oh, we’re going to have green energy jobs...We’re going to build new highways.” You really think 16 million people want to go off and build a highway or a windmill? And how long is that going to last, after we find out that windmills don’t work as advertised, are exorbitantly cost prohibitive and don’t yield the results that they’re advertised to yield? What are you going to do then? So explain to me, geniuses out there, how in God’s holy name are we going to reemploy 16 million unemployed souls?

There is only one mechanism that I know of on the face of the earth that is possible. And don’t tell me, “Oh, yeah, we can give them all government jobs, 16 million people, new ones working for the government.” That takes 16 million people out of the productive sector, meaning that about 30 million people need to then work to support those 16 million people because there’s launderers of the money paid to the 16 million that would work for the government. So that’s not an option. So what then is possibly the option to employ those 16 million people? Ladies and gentlemen, we can discuss this ad nauseam. You can float your theories on economics all you want. There is only one mechanism in the history of humankind that could possibly employ – and it’s not a war, either – 16 million people. What is it? Liberty. Disband the apparatus that is suffocating the 16 million unemployed.
Let me ask you that are out there that are among the 16 million unemployed: Would you rather have free and open, honest, hard work competition to try and get a job, make the best product, be the best welder, be the best craftsman, be the best salesman, be the best baker, candlestick maker, would you rather have that, or would you rather stick with this monster that has been created to protect you from racism and to protect you from sexism and to protect you from minoritism and to protect you from illegal aliens who have to have a fair shake, too? Would you rather take your shot with Leviathan, which is producing the results all around you? Or would you rather take your shot with your founders? Would you rather take your shot with the Jacobins, as they’re known? Would you rather take your shot with the Jeffersons? And I don’t mean William, movin’ on up. Choose.
Some of you fools are going to, “No, I want to be protected from racism.” All right, well, then, you’re not going to find a job. Go sit down over there. “Mr. Reader, I want to be protected from sexism.” Well, you’re not going to find a job either. Go sit down over there. “Mr. Reader, I want to be protected from people who discriminate against Muslims.” Yeah, well, go sit down over there. You’re not going to find a job, either. “I want to be protected from not being able to work an eight-hour day because I have other things to do.” Well, then, go sit down over there. You’re not going to find a job, either.
Again, this is all going to end in tears. In tears. The only mechanism that exists on earth that can fix this problem that is growing as I speak is liberty. It is the pursuit, your pursuit, of being the best that you could be and competing with those who may not be as good as you at being that best. It is the unshackling and the deregulation of all these wonderful, God-given natural resources that we are so blessed with on this northern part of the American continent. That’s it. It’s not hard to figure out. If government and if the monopolists and the corporatists are fired, eliminated, gotten out of the way, then and only then – and I’m not talking about installing dictators. I’m not talking about Cuban Castro revolutions or Mao great leap forwards where it’s all planned. I’m talking about the opposite. I’m talking about dismantling that which is holding progress back. That means that that federal judge, or whoever it was that decided that that stupid fish needs to be protected in the San Joaquin Valley, that stupid little delta smelt, that that judge is recalled by the people, his order is taken back to the state legislature, it is overturned, and that water is used to promote human happiness. Screw the stupid fish. If it dies, so what. Eat it. Can the sumbitch and ship it to China. And unless you do that, you and I are going to be sitting here for years talking about this. That’s if you can still afford a laptop, desktop, newspaper, or a radio....
This has all conspired and accrued over the growth of our governments. Your states are suffering. All of your states are suffering. And the reason they’re suffering is because they got too big. They took too many people out of the productive sector and put them into being nonproductive, into micromanaging other people’s affairs and doing things that private people, citizens, individuals and communities ought to be doing. And if you’re not willing to erase that – “No, I want my unemployment extension benefit” – well, then, you’re probably not going to find a job. Go ahead and sit out there and wait for a Fortune 500 to come along and save your life.

Thanks to Mike Church and his fine informative Show,
and thanks to The Economist Robert Higgs