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Clinton and Trump are two sides of the same authoritarian coin

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For those who seek freedom there is a Libertarian option

The subjugation to government fostered by socialism is often likened to voluntary slavery (communism is forced slavery). McKinley County just might be America’s poster child for failed socialist policies of helpless dependency on government programs culminating only in equality of restraint and servitude. If there was one place hankering for “live and let live” freedom and independence from the shackles of bureaucracy, it should be right here.

Let’s set aside the sleazy character issues of candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump which have two of every three Americans holding their noses and desperately yearning for a third choice. In this presidential election cycle, the choice for many appears to be that of an authoritarian big-government criminal vs. an authoritarian big-government demagogue rivaling our current divisive president.

Clinton represents a demented Democrat Party that has gone so far to the left it actually embraces a socialist ideology, which has been the scourge of mankind. That it can happen after a century of socialistic horrors, impoverishment, ruination, tyranny, war, and tens of millions dead, bespeaks not just deadly ignorance and delusion, but depravity.

Trump represents a fractured Republican Party that has abandoned principles of constitutionally limited government and instead champions the traditional progressive values of Democrats, which limit our freedoms while expanding government control over our lives. Both candidates embody arrogant New York City values of back-room deal-making and big-government corruption.

The progressive regulations which both Democrats and Republicans seek to impose on private sector businesses are easily adapted by big business franchises such as Walmart and McDonalds, yet put such a burden on small businesses, farmers, and ranchers who can’t compete and so must lay off employees, shut down, or sell out to larger entities, all to the advantage of the corporate giants who welcome the added consumer base.

In our destitute region of fuel poverty and excess winter deaths of epidemic proportions, affordable energy for survival is at a premium, yet both Hillary Clinton and Trump support crony corporate subsidies for obsolete, inefficient, and unsustainable alternative energy sources which drive up our electricity, heating, and gasoline bills, while stifling access to our abundance of affordable and sustainable energy resources such as natural gas.

Both parties now engage in divisive identity politics rather than determining value by qualifications or content of character. Their alienating policies guarantee the perpetuation of segregation by the heavy hand of government.

Rather than reduce government spending through principles of fiscal and personal responsibility, both will continue to enslave our children to unsustainable debt.

Both candidates support perverse welfare incentives that destroy family integrity and traumatize children.

Both Hillary Clinton and Trump are set on authoritarian force and coercion thru expansion of government powers rather than constitutionally limiting government. They disrespect Second and Fifth Amendment principles of gun rights and due process.

Both support forced purchase of healthcare insurance by government, in opposition to free-market options that would provide quality care at a much lower cost without government demands, mandates, interference, and the inevitable rationing of care.

In their zeal to protect crony corporate interests, monopolies and labor union gangs, both candidates ignore principles of free trade that benefit low-income consumers by lowering the cost of goods.

Both support minimum wage increases that stifle and deprive jobs from Natives, blacks and Hispanics — and teenagers of every color, those same minorities that Hillary claims to promote.

Imagine if you will that you live in a land where you have few freedoms. The government says you cannot own property because you are so helpless you will squander it, so they only allow you to live on allotted land owned by the government. Those who govern also deny availability of alcoholic beverages — they say you lack self-control — you can’t be trusted to make responsible decisions on your own. Those in power also prevent you from engaging in free market enterprise since making a profit from a product or service is considered theft. Any business activity must be strictly overlooked and controlled by the government since you can’t be trusted as an individual to engage in voluntary exchange. Whatever you do must be for the good of the collective group, not yourself.

What I have just described occurs when economic and individual freedoms are suppressed. McKinley County has one of the lowest ratings in North America on the Economic Freedom Index and as a result, investors avoid our region like the plague. It is no coincidence that our region has long been ruled by the suffocating grip of the Democratic Party, the party of less freedom and more government.

Wouldn’t it be nice if a political party made it easier for you to start a small business and rather than place burdens on you while giving the big businesses advantages, gave you all the abilities to compete on a level playing field? For those who crave the freedom denied by the dependency on government that enslaves our region, the choice between Clinton and Trump, Democrat and Republican, can be downright depressing.

There are options though, and one of them is the Libertarian Party candidate, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, who embraces principles of free markets, free expression, personal responsibility, more freedom, and less government. Allow me to explain using the two cow analogies.

In a land of liberalism, if you have two cows and your neighbor has none, you feel guilty, so you pass legislation to help him get a cow and then wear a ribbon to show you care. However, the actual outcome under socialism or progressivism is that the government confiscates one of your cows by force and gives it to a distant “neighbor.”

On the other hand, in a Libertarian society, one who has two cows will likely sell one and buy a bull. Those who have only one cow don’t care how many cows their neighbors have, but will applaud their productivity and moral integrity as long as they respect your own property rights – they live and let live.

In Part Two next week, Libertyland, and the price you must pay for freedom.

By Joe Schaller
Guest Columnist