Common myths about America

If you want to know how to foment a libertarian revolution, look no further than the complete abolition of government's unholy alliance with education. Thanks to our wonderful government schools, countless children are exposed to an array of lies about America history, economics, politics and government. Critical discussion of ideas is a no-no; school boards are just fine with children accepting whatever dogma is presented to them in the classroom. It's no wonder so many people grow up ignorant about the morality and benefits of a free society.

These are some of more prevalent myths circulating out there. Feel free to add your own.

Myth #1: America is a democracy.
Fact: no, it isn't.

It's true that America is a de facto democracy, because pretty much anything people want, they can get from government, but it was never intended to be so. The word "democracy" appears nowhere in the Constitution, and for good reason: the Founding Fathers hated it. Democracy was rightly seen as mob rule on the way to statism. Even Alexander Hamilton, the archetypal big government advocate among our forefathers, once declared, "We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy."

The word "Constitution," of course, refers to that governing document, the supreme law of the land, that Republicans and Democrats trot out every so often whenever it fits their agenda, but which neither party consistently defends. National politicians take an oath to defend it, and then most subsequently turn their backs to it.

Myth #2: the Republican Party is conservative.
Fact: the GOP is neo-conservative, liberal, and statist - but is not conservative.

The public generally perceives President Bush to be a rightwinger or a conservative, and the Republican Party to advocate limited government. If only that were true! The Republican Party is controlled by neo-conservatism, a fake brand of conservatism owing its existence to Leon Trotsky, a revolutionary communist of the old Soviet Union. Irving Kristol, a prominent neo-con, wrote in 1995 that neo-cons "[accept] the New Deal in principle, and ha[ve] little affection for the kind of isolationism that [once] permeated American conservatism." Note the phrase: "accept the New Deal in principle." A true conservative who believes in individual freedom despises FDR and the statism he stood for. Libertarians, even more so. As for "isolationism," this slur is a bit of a myth in its own right. America has never been "isolationist," even from the early colonial days. Our forefathers traded with and welcomed foreigners to our shores. We needed international commerce to survive as colonies; why would be make ourselves into a fortress?

The correct term for the true conservative point of view - which is certainly not represented today by the GOP - is non-interventionism. It's based in part on George Washington's Farewell Address, which warned against meddling in foreign affairs. America is not, and cannot be, the world's police, and we have no business telling other countries what to do. Republicans used to know that before 9-11 "changed everything."

Myth #3: you can own property in America.
Fact: you never really own property in America; you rent it from the government.

You can never actually own a home, or anything else, in America. With a home, at some point, you will pay off your mortgage. And with a car, at some point, you will have paid the bank. But you will always owe a property tax on both. Real property is also subject to zoning and anti-discrimination laws, and commercial property to a host of regulations and laws. And if that's not enough, well, government can use its eminent domain power to legally steal your land outright and force you to settle.

You also own nothing you have purchased. Everything you buy, you pay a sales tax on. The sales tax is doubly evil because it forcibly robs the consumer and, at the same time, enslaves the retailer by forcing him to be a tax collector for the government. It might be a little slavery - but it's still slavery (being forced, at the point of a gun ultimately, to produce and live for others).

If you cannot control something 100%, then you do not really own it. You don't own a home; you pay the government rent for the "privilege" of living in it. Same with a car. And if you run a business, you are subject to an array of laws ranging from labor regulations, minimum wage requirements, anti-discrimination laws, zoning ordinances, and so forth. Try disobeying our sovereigns, and they'll come arrest you; resist, and you may lose your life. The same goes with all other taxes, especially income tax. You don't really own the money you earn; you owe part of it to the government. And when you die, if your estate is worth "too much" (if it's "not fair" that you have "too many" things while others have less), the government takes a slice out of that as well.

The reality is that we are all serfs, renting our property out from a government that can come take it at any time. And not one of these laws, including and especially taxation and zoning laws, is actually necessary.

Myth #4: America's economy is capitalist.
Fact: it's a mixture of command economy and capitalism.

America has never been a capitalist country, which is why Ayn Rand titled her book: "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal." True capitalism is laissez-faire, the absence of any and all government regulations and controls on the economy. It's insane to say that this is the state of the modern American economy. There are a plethora of laws and regulations which destroy and enslave some businesses while favoring and coddling many others. Everything from corporate welfare to subsidies to insider trading laws to incorporation is an example of government intervention in an otherwise free economy. It's easy to hate "big business," but try getting a job from a poor person and see where you end up. Nonetheless, bashing business makes good politics, and the lemmings are led straight over the cliff.

Myth #5: capitalism leads to Great Depressions, slavery, and imperialism.
Fact: these and all other alleged "evils" of capitalism are only possible with government.

We have had, in America, a Great Depression, slavery, and imperialistic policies. What we have never had is capitalism. So it's only the ignorant who make such a demonstrably false claim.

The reason we had a Great Depression was that we have a Federal Reserve whose job it is to artificially set interest rates and manipulate the nation's monetary supply. This is government intervention - the very opposite of laissez-faire capitalism. The Great Depression was brought on because Fed policies encouraged the cancerous growth of speculation. It had nothing to do with free enterprise. In a purely free market, there will be recessions, but the market is self-correcting and simply does not permit the sort of extreme losses witnessed during the Great Depression. Despite the historical reality that government caused the Depression, it was business that needlessly took the fall and government that looked like the hero in the form of FDR and his repulsive socialist policies. But try telling this to a statist liberal, who knows next to nothing about history or economics.

As for slavery and imperialism, these are prohibited in societies where the initiation of force is outlawed - that is, truly capitalist societies. Rand recognized that capitalism is "a SOCIAL system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned." (Emphasis added). Capitalism by definition banishes the initiation of force by one man against the other, and prohibits slavery of all kinds. Slavery is enforced by the state, and imperialism is an act of government; again, both have nothing to do with true capitalism.