The Total Freedom Act is, quite simply, the right idea at the right time.  It is a realistic plan to restore true freedom in America.  It is also just about the only way I can think of to actually have an honest conversation about the idea of getting the government off our backs for those who want just that.  It is fair, presumably not a huge hit to the tax base (as I doubt many of even the loudest proponents would take the leap into this program if given the chance), and it is entirely realistic.  If you have a better idea, then I’m all ears.  Thank you for the opportunity to present mine.

For at least three decades now, America has been stuck in this never-ending cycle of arguing for smaller government, shouting about the evils of government, and touting the virtues of the free market.  Yet all we’ve seen each year (almost without exception) is a government that gets bigger and bigger, intrudes further and further into our lives, becomes more and more corrupt, and funnels more and more of our tax money into big business.  Enough is enough!  The Total Freedom Act is a simple idea that can put an end to all of this.  Now can we finally move forward?

Just to be completely clear, I’m not arguing any of this on a theoretical basis.  Remember, I’m only interested in discussing reality.  I don’t mean to suggest that this idea for the Total Freedom Act is something that should “enter the public discourse” in order to “make us think long and hard about the role of government in our lives”.  God no.  I mean, quite simply, that someone should deliver this book to President Obama tomorrow, and in his haste to reach out and make nice with the other side of the isle, he should tell the American people that he plans to rush right down to the Republican-led House of Representatives and ask them to enact this immediately so that he can sign it.  At the same time, I mean that the House should be working through the night to draw up this legislation so that it can be put on the President’s desk by the end of the week.  They should be doing this so that they can take credit for this great idea before the President does!

Now, right after that happens, I’m sure Washington and the cable news programs and all of the blogosphere can go on humming along as it usually does.  Those who want to opt-out under the Total Freedom Act can finally tune-out and go on to live their government-free lives in the real world.  Those of us who remain as tax-payers can start to have a conversation about some of the things that matter in the real world.  We can finally get unstuck from this never-ending train of thought that always ends with the conclusion that government is the enemy.  We can start to consider what we do want our government to do.  More specifically, we can think about what kinds of things the government has to do so that we don’t reach the point of wanting to opt-out from it.

The successful passage of the Total Freedom Act is just the beginning.  I’ve already described what it is and what it would mean in the lives of real people.  I think I’ve also explained that those who choose to remain as tax-payers and as participants in the US Government would become part of the solution and start seeing things more clearly (but maybe the government can form a committee to do research on this idea just to confirm my hunch…kidding).  When we have eliminated today’s false and misleading notion of ending government through government, we can finally begin looking for other kinds of solutions that might actually make government work.  We can finally start to end this downward spiral, this long losing season in the game of American politics.

Yet today, as things are, so many Americans believe that government isn’t just a problem, it is the problem.  This infers that there are no other problems, right?  I have to admit that I don’t think this is entirely true.  I do feel oppressed at times in my life.  I do feel sometimes that my human dignity is not respected.  In truth, the source of this disrespect, this lack of dignity, isn’t always the government.  I remember applying for jobs in the private sector and being forced to urinate in a cup.  I remember working in a window factory back in college (a factory that is now out of business because the jobs were shipped overseas) where showing up five minutes late could get you fired.  In the corporate office environment, visiting the wrong website or sending the wrong message on your work computer can also get you fired.  They can spy on you all they want and you have nothing to say about it as long as you still want a paycheck.  It doesn’t feel right.  It is a really paranoid way to live.  I actually feel dirty and violated by the private sector, in these cases, not by government.

Restaurant or customer service workers also know that if they aren’t polite enough to customers, if they don’t smile the right way, if they don’t stay cool even if being disrespected or completely berated by a rude customer, that they can lose their jobs.  It feels like nothing other than oppression when we are forced to smile and say the same line 500 times a day (even on a really bad day where you might have broken up with your boyfriend or something) just so that you don’t face losing your source of income.  I don’t mind if my waiter or waitress is a real human.  I certainly don’t want a fake, smiling robot.  Why do we always have to pretend?

Miners, construction workers, and electric company repair people have to risk their safety or even their lives to do what they are told to do at work.  My good friend lost his father, who was an electric company employee, due to a terrible accident at work.  We have to put up with these risks, we are told, because someone is waiting in line right behind us to take our job if we don’t want it.  That’s the free market at work, right?  Tragically, the free market didn’t work so well for my friend’s father.

If we are to be intellectually honest about the situation, I think we have to consider that, through strong Unions and Governments, people in advanced countries have improved conditions greatly over the years.  Long ago, before most of us were born, our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents achieved some important victories that improved workplace conditions substantially.  These brave, idealistic Progressives fought for and earned the 40-hour work week, vacation time, and holidays off.  Civil Rights legislation even curbed unfair discrimination in society and in the workplace.  These are things that the market, alone, wasn’t prepared to offer us.  These are things that people had to fight for in other ways.  The government ended up being a strong ally in this fight. 

I actually believe that none of these points go against the fundamental idea of free-market theory (though some would have us believe differently).  Think about it.  You could easily say that there is a sort of “demand for” or a “market for” strong governments and even unions.  Why else did people fight for them if there wasn’t a market demand for them?  Perhaps people have a need to live with some minimum level of dignity and, out of this demand, there is a market incentive for us to work together and fight together for our own interests.  Indeed, I guess we have a demand for human dignity that goes back way before our demand for the flat-screen TV!  And in developed “human-dignity markets”—that is, in every advanced democracy in the world (perhaps other than the US) – people have come to a consensus on the idea that Government is a part of the solution.  A strong and functioning government is seen as the primary way that people can fight against the exploitation and dehumanization that we otherwise experience if left to the free market alone.

It is true that market forces have fostered the kind of innovation that has improved our quality of life as consumers, but the free market has also led to harsher realities like children laboring in sweatshop.  In countries around the world, so many of the people who find themselves living under corrupt, authoritarian governments are working in terrible conditions and for very little pay.  Young children come from poor villages and, with only the modest hope of perhaps feeding the family, they work ridiculously long hours in inhuman conditions.  We all know about this because they make most of the stuff we enjoy as consumers.  Some people argue that the market will fix this problem, that wages will go up in these places as local skills increase or as demand for labor goes up.  But it seems to me that there are more people around the world willing to work hard than there are available jobs.  And even after wages do go up in one place, companies will only move manufacturing to somewhere else where the profit margin is higher.  Maybe it is just a coincidence that wages are higher, that the standard of living is better, and that human dignity is higher in markets with a tradition of strong pro-worker, pro-people movements (Europe, Canada, and the US historically).  Or maybe I’m imagining all of it and it is just a coincidence that somehow the market just tends to work better in these countries?

There is still another side to this story.  I guess if I were a wealthy business owner looking for cheap labor so that I could make a larger profit, then I would argue that things “work better” in countries with corrupt governments and terrible labor conditions.  So if you earn your living as an investor or as a business owner and, indeed, you want to have operations in China or Mexico or India or wherever, then I can see why you would not support a strong government that fights for the well-being of the common person.  But if you have a job, then I’d be surprised if you do not support a strong government that will fight hard for you.

Sometimes I even wonder whether we truly have a government at all, even today.  Have you ever heard the argument that, essentially, corporations own the government and that government is only an arm of corporate power?  I can see where some people might get this idea.  First of all, so much of the funding for political campaigns comes from corporations.  This being the case, who do you think our politicians are serving in their policy-making?  Can we be sure, for example, that they cannot be persuaded to take us to war just to please weapons manufacturers and security companies?  Wouldn’t it be a damn good plan for them to funnel our tax money to themselves while, at the same time, using brute force to obtain access to and ownership of huge oil reserves in Iraq?  I can’t make a bullet-proof argument that most of the recent wars were done in the interest of resources and corporate profit, but it is at least worth considering as an explanation for what would otherwise appear to be very foolish decision-making.  This is exactly what the rest of the world thinks that the US is up to, so I think it is at least worth considering. 

Then, when you look at the big bank bailouts, you wonder who we should be angry at.  Are we supposed to believe that the government was only acting foolishly when they offered billions of dollars to the banks, or is there something else to it?  I find myself feeling most angry at the reckless bankers for messing everything up and then threatening to crash the economy if they would not be able to get their hands on our tax money to fund their bailout.  Why would the US Government go along with such a plan?  Are they acting out of their own free (political) will or are they simply serving the corporations who put them there?  Exactly how many Goldman Sachs people are actually at the highest levels of our government, anyway?  See what I’m saying?  I mean, most people don’t even know this, but the Federal Reserve is not the government.  The Federal Reserve, which is responsible for printing and managing our money supply, is owned and operated by the largest banks.  Rich bankers print paper and the rest of us are meant to covet that paper more than anything else in life.  We all know that money is the mechanism that pretty much controls everything.  So when the private banks have this much power over the economy, are we supposed to believe that the government actually had any power to say no to the bailout…to let the troubled banks go bankrupt?  Does our government actually have any power anymore?  Is the US a democracy at all, or are we just playing the sport of democracy?  This is actually an important question.

What about the oil spill in the Gulf?  That was clearly done by a private company.  Tell me, would the free market clean that up or does it take a strong government with plenty of resources?  What about the loss of jobs in our economy?  The government is only at fault because it caved to the pressure of big business when all those free-trade agreements were negotiated in the 1990s.  This made it possible for companies to hire cheap labor in other countries instead of more expensive labor (i.e. jobs you could have) in the United States.  Who should we be angry at here, the government for interfering in our lives or private companies for using our government to undermine our lifestyle only to create larger profits for themselves? 

Who exactly is the enemy, anyway?  Is government good and business bad?  Is business bad and government good?  Are business and government one-and-the-same?  See, if we are going to believe that there is some large, powerful force that is working against us in modern-day America, you have to choose your answer.