Lefty Stooge, Imbecile, Oligarch and Rubber Checks

I was all of 14 years old. I was dragged to a speech given by a former World War II Luftwaffe fighter pilot turned economist. His name was Hans Sennholz. The first PhD under the tutelage of the great Austrian School economist, Ludwig von Mises. His lecture left me spellbound. Over the course of the next three years I read everything free market I could get my hands on. I handed out copies of Bastiat’s The Law, to all my friends. I dove deep into Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. I even checked von Mises’ massive tome and magnum opus, Human Action out of the library in Ligonier, PA.

Over the course of the next ten years I published my first book on biblical economics, sat at the feet of Sennholz at Grove City College, both attended and spoke at events put on by the Foundation of Economic Education and published a piece in their journal, The Freeman. Over the course of the next forty years I have changed not a single conviction with respect to the blessings of liberty. I remain in principle a libertarian minarchist. I have produced more teaching material on the same theme including Economics for Everybody, a popular curriculum for homeschoolers and Christian schools put out by my friends at Compass Cinema.

I continue to speak and write about economics to this day. I list my free market bona fides today not to boast, but to reveal my profound puzzlement over the reaction I received recently. I tweeted a notion that ended up, by my standards anyway, going viral. I said,

“If you think handing everyone a $5000 DOGE check is a good idea, you’re part of the problem, not the solution.”

Now I acknowledge one could make a case that I’m mistaken. I don’t think I am, but I’m often wrong. I didn’t object, of course, because I thought that the federal government should keep spending wastefully as DOGE has exposed. I didn’t argue the money saved should go to my favorite causes. No, my objection was simple enough- we don’t have any money. Everyone wants their wasted dollars returned. I do too. Who wouldn’t? But you can’t get blood from a turnip that is down $37 extra large (trillion) to his bookie.

Still, this post isn’t about basic economics but basic communication. Over 1.5 million people saw that post. Over 5,700 liked it; over 500 shared it. Two thousand people left comments. Most of them seemed to prefer I keep my ideas to myself, if not take them to my grave, and quick. They accused me of being a lefty stooge, woke, gay, an oligarch, an imbecile, Nancy Pelosi’s and Bernie Sander’s love child. (Well, not that last one.)

Now I’m not expecting the many people whose feed was invaded with my sweet smelling input to know my background. Nor do I expect them to look it up before opening their can of verbal whup tush. I do expect them, however, to not simply assume that a mere disagreement with a specific policy floated by the President makes me a bad guy. Shouldn’t people who like the President understand that arguing about who the government writes checks to ultimately changes nothing? We ought to worry less about the recipients of federal spending, more about the amount of federal spending.

My solution is as timeless and effective as liberty- why don’t we let people keep their money? Why don’t we understand that you can’t “punish” the government by taking “their” money because they have no money except what they take from us? You can’t get even with a broke junkie who stole your stereo, fenced it and shot it into his arm. It’s gone, and telling the junkie to steal someone else’s stereo and fence it to pay you back does nothing to even the scales of justice. It just multiplies injustice.

Let’s try a little discernment. Let’s pinpoint what the problem is. It’s big government, red, purple and blue. And let’s slow the rush to judgment at least a tad.