A strange thing happened recently. There I was, feeling a bit hungry. Not starving, just needing something to satisfy my bored taste buds. A cheeseburger would likely hit the spot. Finding a restaurant I walk towards a very disinterested server. Peering underneath a low cap, his annoyance that he is required to do something with me is quite evident.
I order simply, “One cheeseburger and a small drink.”
“We don’t have that.” He mumbles.
“It’s right there on the menu,” I point out.
“We don’t serve cheeseburgers anymore,” his lips tightening.
“Why not?” I inquire.
Rising up he gestures to the other people in the establishment. Like a school principal to a truant student he says, “They voted against cheeseburgers. Now we sell burritos.”
“But burritos aren’t on the…”
“Burritos!” he anticipates.
“Ok, I’ll just go next door,” I say, turning to leave.
A large man at the door stops me and says gruffly, “Where do you think you’re going?”
I shrug, ignoring him, and continue towards the door. He swiftly whips a gun from underneath his jacket and, while steadying the weapon on me, pulls my wallet out of my back pocket. Taking out a ten dollar bill he hands it to the server. A frozen burrito is retrieved from behind the counter and stuffed into the same pocket my wallet was just in. The large man mutters something about keeping my wallet (along with its contents) to pay some unspecified fine and the door is mercifully opened to let me go.
As I leave, the large man marks my hand.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“You’re only authorized to buy your food here. See you tomorrow.”
The reader of this story might shake his head thinking that of course this didn’t happen.
It most assuredly did and does happen every four years. Every election cycle we Americans are offered a choice. That’s actually not true. We’re offered a vote which is more like an empty choice. Either a frozen solid bean burrito or a hockey puck like burnt cheeseburger. The “choice” is yours.
A real choice would be like a real restaurant. The menu is bright and clear so everyone can understand it. The food is made out in the open so everyone can see the freshness of the ingredients and the skill of the chef.
Most importantly everyone has the opportunity to leave. Freely and without consequence. Anyone could go to a different restaurant serving different food or, even more intriguing, no restaurant at all.
This is one of the many miracles of the free market. A true win win. I like cheeseburgers. You may like burritos. The free market provides both and so much more in abundance. I don’t have to agree with you or even like you and we still both get exactly what we want. It is beautiful and elegant.
While this idea applies to the free market of economics, it is also meant to be applied to the free market of ideas. The Bill of Rights, among other things, acknowledges and protects the free market of ideas. Free speech, religion, press, and just as importantly, assembly and association allows those of like minds to peacefully decide how to organize and live their lives with no coercion. Retaining the absolute freedom to sever any association with no consequence from the outside state. That’s the ideal.
Does this ideal resemble, in any way, our beloved land of the free and home of the brave today?
Last November over 150,000,000 people voted in the general election. No matter the winner, 75,000,000 of our fellow citizens are disappointed, discouraged, even distraught while the other half are elated and giddy with the possibilities for the next four years. (When we do it all over again.)
In our “I win and you lose” game; friends, brothers, sisters, neighbors argue, fight, insult, and generally think the very worst of each other. I believe that carryover is awful. Our “free exchange of ideas” is now a sinister labyrinth of memes, hateful language, and violent mobs.
Here’s the thing. The obsession over who will be President is actually a rational response to the political system that we find ourselves in. Decisions that might easily be made by individuals or families are usurped by, not just the city, or the state, or even Congress, but by an increasingly powerful national administrative state led by an executive. A single man with a phone and a pen who can (and who does) affect the lives of millions in the most intrusive and arbitrary ways.
How arbitrary? How intrusive?
In 2010 AFTER the Affordable Care Act was passed, the substance of the act was finally being debated (cart before horse). Erwin Chemerinsky, now the Dean of The University of California, Berkley School of Law, stated in an interview with Reason TV, “In theory Congress could use its commerce power to require people to buy cars. In reality it’s a ridiculous hypothetical.”
How ridiculous? In 2009 the Car Allowance Rebate System (Cash For Clunkers) made it illegal to purchase or sell certain used vehicles no matter if the car was safe to drive or not. In just 29 days 125,000 perfectly fine vehicles were destroyed and unavailable for individuals (mostly the young and poor) to purchase and drive. In other words, the Federal Government forced people to purchase only government approved cars. Seems as though Dean Chemerinsky forgot that in 2010.
Of course these “acts” were passed by Congress (sorta). Power, though, is shifting even more quickly to the executive branch. Through executive orders and actions, emergency powers, expanded war powers, and other administrative “tools” at his disposal, the power of the President has become, for all intents and purposes, kingly.
Of course, leaving the kingdom or questioning the king can be problematic (Ask Edward Snowden). A jealous prince can’t and won’t tolerate a person’s attempt to reassert his authority. That person is, well… cancelled.
Can the genie be put back in the bottle? I think so. It starts with one word. Nullification. At all times and at all levels. Nullification.
The very nature of liberty is the right to leave the restaurant. To find a larger buffet or even build our own buffet. The food of liberty is not distributed from a chain. It is, in fact, the sweet nectar of nature herself.
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