2 0 1 6 I N I T I A T I V E

THE BLUEPRINT: RESTORING LIBERTY TO GOVERNMENT

 Restoring Liberty to Government

Introduction

The basic purpose of this paper is to establish a way forward for the libertarian and
conservative movements in the coming years as those movements relate to the renewal
of American promise and the revitalization of American strength. Key to our success
will be a renewed commitment to and emphasis upon individual liberties and self-
determination. We must communicate our ideas to the individual voter in such a way
as to align our future with his own.

Our primary focus should be one of property. Individuals in this country resent the
profligate spending and corruption of Washington, D.C. and they are right to do so. We
must position our movements in such a way as to provide redress for individual griev-
ances against government excess. Chief among the individual grievances against gov-
ernment excess are the onerous taxes that individuals are assailed with on all sides.

At the gasoline pump, anywhere from .30 to .70 cents of each gallon of gasoline can be
nothing but pure tax. Income taxes, Social Security withholding, property taxes, sales
taxes, gift taxes, capital gains taxes, corporate income taxes that are passed on to indi-
viduals in the form of higher prices and lower wages, lodging taxes, toll taxes, licensing
taxes, the list goes on and on. By positioning ourselves and our cause against taxation
and government spending, and following through on our commitments with action, we
can build an electoral majority for years to come. However, we must link taxation to
property. We must sear into the minds of voters that their wages and earnings are their
wealth. Their home equity is their wealth. The interest on their savings accounts, and
the yield on their 401(k)s are their wealth, and their property. We must inculcate a deep
resentment towards government encroachments on individual wealth.

Educating and conditioning voters to react skeptically to government proposals which

require increased funding in the form of taxation in order to benefit specific demograph-
ics in society rather than the common interests of society must be our primary task. We
must condition individual voters to react to increased taxes in the same way that they
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would react to a theft or robbery. They must see government as an entity to be battled
at every turn, and they must come to understand that the chief responsibility of voters
is eternal vigilance against government expansion.

If we accomplish this, we can destroy liberalism and its appeal. Make no mistake about
it, the primary mission of libertarian and conservative causes is the extinction of leftism
as a politically viable theory around which to organize and rally. The future security of
these United States and our continued progress forward into the future depends on the
vanquishing of liberalism as a political ideal. For this to occur, we must define not only
our own theory, we must also dominate the dialogue to such a degree as to define liber-
alism in the context in which we choose to frame it. We must best the liberals by articu-
lating their cause with greater clarity and honesty than they themselves can muster.

At the core of liberalism is the idea that property rights are not sacrosanct; property
rights are instead flexible and negotiable. The many should be able to appropriate the
wealth of the few in order to fund their political initiatives and desires. The key to re-
framing the debate in our favor is to point out that we live in a republic, not a democ-
racy, and that the rights of individuals are sacred. Since rights include property con-
cerns, we can systematically delegitimize liberalism by reframing the conflict between
the right and the left as one of majoritarian tyranny against individual freedom founded
on constitutionally legitimate traditions and rooted in constitutionally based ideals.

Article I, Section 8, Clause I of the Constitutions says the following: “The Congress shall
have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts
and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United
States...(emphasis added)” This is antithetical to the various entitlements programs and
subsidies which benefit specific demographics to the detriment of others. Taxation is to
fund the mission of the government, which should consist of the common defense and
the general welfare of the United States; that is, what we all use and need as citizens in
the United States.

By stressing this fact, we can systematically delegitimize the entitlements, subsidies, ex-
emptions, and various other expenditures which run away from the constitutionally
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defined mission of the Congress and the constitutional purpose of taxation. Key to our
cause is the redefinition of the focus and mission of government.

Limiting the Focus and Mission of Government

Government should focus on four key areas: Infrastructure, Trade Policy, National De-
fense, and Enforcement and Administration. These are the core areas which benefit the
common defense and general welfare of every citizen.

We all use roads and bridges, and we benefit from strong levees and flood control sys-
tems to protect our property. It is only proper that we should all share in the cost of
their construction and maintenance. This is infrastructure, and we can sell it politically
to the American people. As we will see later on, investment in infrastructure will be key
to our long term goals in revitalizing American manufacturing.

We all benefit from strong trade policy, which renders goods cheap and readily accessi-
ble to the American consumer. Trade policy requires public investment in the form of
diplomacy, negotiation of trade agreements, and enforcement of those agreements. As it
is an area of common benefit and mutual concern, the American people can be sold
trade as a core focus and concern of the government which they ought to fund.

National Defense is an area which requires no explanation. The American people have
traditionally supported a strong military, and we will continue to develop our military
capability in order to ensure American interests and national security are promoted
throughout the world. The benefits are common to all Americans: increased security
from the threat of terror, and stability in commerce and trade which enable Americans
to maintain the world’s highest standard of living.

Enforcement and Administration are also critical areas which benefit the common inter-
ests of Americans. We can benefit from specific restructuring in this area, including the
elimination of various government agencies and departments. However, chief among
the reforms we must bring to enforcement and administration is the elimination of
fraud and corruption in our markets. We must fight for free and unfettered markets, as
opposed to free and unfettered corporations.

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Financial transparency is critical to preventing fraud and achieving investor confidence
in our markets. XBRL reporting will contribute a great deal to this goal, and we must
support this sort of innovation and development in the future by requiring companies
to honestly report their fiscal condition to investors in such easy to understand and dis-
sect formats. In this way, investors can detect fraud and punish it in the marketplace,
thereby rendering a result in days rather than the weeks, months, and years it would
take government agencies to achieve the same result.

It is critical, however, to punish fraudulent structuring of debt and the misleading of in-
vestors with a great deal of severity. Limited liability ought to be revoked in the event
that executives have committed a crime. The undue gains of shareholders ought to be
recoverable as well. Simply put, we should remove every incentive which exists that
promotes short term malfeasance by exempting shareholders and executives from the
repercussions of their failure to police the company and its financial disclosures ade-
quately.

Eliminating Agencies

Initially, we must assess which agencies of the federal government are extraneous by
considering their stated intent versus their actual record. The Department of Agricul-
ture; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Fire-
arms; Health and Human Services; and various other agencies may be easily culled and
eliminated on this logic alone. Quite simply, they don’t work.

The stated intent of the Department of Agriculture was to save the family farm. We
now exist in an agricultural reality where the family farm is near extinct, replaced by
factory farming operations which have given rise to a food production system wherein
four major suppliers dominate the chicken, pork, and beef markets. The Department of
Agriculture has been reduced to a mere funnel for tax subsidies and dollars to be chan-
neled to large conglomerates and landowners who own arable land but do nothing with
that land which could justify their receiving tax dollars in support of agriculture.

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Both the DEA and the ATF function at the federal level when their roles have tradition-
ally been reserved for states and localities. Moreover, we currently spend $28,000 yearly
incarcerated hundreds of thousands of non-violent drug offenders who were arrested
for mere possession. In an environment where we are facing insolvency due to ideo-
logical crusades against this ill, that ill, or the other ill, it is perhaps best that we move
forward and begin considering decriminalization if not outright legalization of drugs at
the federal level. For those who doubt my logic, allow me to refer you to a book by
Reason magazine editor Jacob Sullum entitled Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use, in
which Mr. Sullum admirably refutes a host of myths about our drug policy with actual
facts.

We might move to prosecute those who injure others while under the influence of in-
toxicating substances in much the same way that we prosecute drunk drivers who kill
someone. Either way, the decision should fall to state and local governments, and out of
the realm of federal oversight and control. As such, I would support the abolition of the
DEA and the repeal of all federal drug laws.

Insofar as the ATF is concerned, I see no reason to have a federal agency dealing with
what have traditionally been state and local concerns. I support the repeal of all federal
gun laws, since so few of them are enforced with any regularity to begin with, and since
they only serve to perpetuate firearms laws already in existence at the state and local
levels. Tobacco is another issue best left to states who currently tax tobacco to no end in
order to fund whatever great idea they’ve hit upon during a given week or month. It’s
their tax law, so let them enforce it (Note: this mission is the purview of yet another
agency, which exists under the auspices of the Treasury Department as Bureau of Alco-
hol and Tobacco Tax and Trade). Not one area of the ATF’s focus is a legitimate federal
issue. These are matters best left to states and localities, who can determine according
to the preference of their citizens what they’d like insofar as regulation of alcohol, to-
bacco, and firearms are concerned.

Health and Human Services is another ignoble effort of the federal government to inject
itself into local and state concerns. As such, it has similar mixed results. I do support a

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Centers for Disease Control at the federal level, and I regard this as critical to our na-
tional security. However, public health is best left to the states and localities which are
equipped with proximity to the population so that they can know which issues require
redress.

The Department of Education has as its legacy greater expense with far less result over
its tenure. It should be abolished as an infringement upon state and local autonomy
over education. Moreover, it should be abolished as a means for national teacher’s un-
ions to prevent parental choice in education. Parents ought to be afforded great leeway
in determining the education of their own children, so long as basic academic standards
established by state and local school boards are met by whatever institution educates
the child in question. It is doubtful that parents will stay too long with an institution if
that institutions results are obviously inferior, so the idea that state interference is
needed is dubious at best.

Public education has taken on a coercive tinge, whereby the unions associated with it
have effectively lobbied legislatures to limit the options available to parents as though
the parents are not the ones paying for the schools with their own tax dollars! This is
antithetical to our identity as a nation of individuals seeking to erect individual liberty
as the ideal.

The National Endowment for the Arts is not an appropriate allocation of federal funds
nor does it constitute an appropriate function of the federal government. Patronage of
the arts should ideally be privately funded for any number of reasons, not the least of
which is the sticky area of forcing constituents to pay for art containing subject matter
or themes which may offend their moral and ethical sensibilities. For this and other
reasons, public money should not be appropriated at the federal level to pay for art.

The general measurement of whether or not we eliminate a government agency or pro-

gram ought to be Article I, Section 8, Clause I of the Constitution, which specifically lim-
its taxation to the purpose of paying the debts and providing for the common defense
and general welfare of the United States.

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As we consider what to define those two areas as, let us go back to consider what the
Founders had to say on these matters. We may consider the views of the man who
wrote the actual Constitution, Thomas Jefferson:

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has ac-
quired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised
equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the
guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” —
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

“A wise and frugal government… shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall
leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement,
and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of
good government.” — Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from
wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” — Thomas
Jefferson

“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those
specifically enumerated.” — Thomas Jefferson

We may also consider any number of other sources, such as James Madison, who would
go on to become the fifth President:

“With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as
qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and un-
limited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which
there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.” — James Madison in a
letter to James Robertson

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“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a
right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constitu-
ents.” — James Madison, 4 Annals of Congress 179, 1794

“[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified

objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is
no part of the legislative duty of the government.” — James Madison“I cannot

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will pro-
mote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enu-
merated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions.” James Madison,
“Letter to Edmund Pendleton,” — James Madison, January 21, 1792, in The Papers of
James Madison, vol. 14, Robert A Rutland et. al., ed (Charlottesvile: University Press of
Virginia, 1984).

“An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the
powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of
magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually
checked and restrained by the others.” — James Madison, Federalist No. 58, February
20, 1788

“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual
and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
— James Madison, speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 16, 1788

We may also consider the words of John Adams: further take intaccount the following
from John Adams:
“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws
of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and
tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not com-
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mandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it
can be civilized or made free.” — John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Gov-
ernment of the United States of America, 1787

The prescient warnings of Benjamin Franklin also serve notice of the inherent danger in
allowing redistribution to become a normative standard:

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of
the republic.” — Benjamin Franklin

“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best
way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driv-
ing them out of it.” — Benjamin Franklin

“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it
yourself.” — Benjamin Franklin

In short, the redistribution which is the goal of every leftist and liberal is antithetical to
the traditions and principles our nation was founded upon. There is no confusion on
this issue. What they wrote and said in their lifetimes was clear. Despite the best at-
tempts of leftist to obfuscate and muddle the discussion, their testimonies stand the test
of time to provide us guidance on the proper way forward. We must use this guidance
when considering the restructuring and reordering of our government and its essential
functions. We must go back to the wisdom of our fathers and the traditions they be-
queathed to us as heirs to the Republic they erected.

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