A Modern American Treatise for the Unseen Citizen

Quietly, in response to the No Kings rallies, 90 year old Libertarian Ron Paul rolled out of bed and dropped this gem of an essay: It Didn't Start with Trump

The money quote? "Federal agencies can also target presidents’ political enemies without a presidential order to do so being issued. Some ambitious and unscrupulous individuals will target a president’s enemies believing that this is an effective way to curry favor with the president or high-level administration officials. Others will use the power of the government against the president’s political enemies or those involved with political movements seeking to change the direction of the government out of a belief that these people or groups constitute a threat to the federal government that justifies violating constitutional rights.

History suggests that abuse of power is an inevitable feature of the modern welfare-warfare-regulatory state. Therefore, instead of focusing just on electing the “right” president, we should focus on shrinking the size and scope of the federal government to its constitutional limitations. This will ensure that Americans can exercise their right to criticize the government without fear of reprisal. As Thomas Jefferson said, “in questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.”

Right now the country is bogged down in the Left vs. Right argument, the angle should be restated as Big Government vs. Small Government. Outside of nonagenarian Paul, who else champions small government?

But as Elon Musk's worth rockets to an estimated $1 trillion in 2030, smaller government would help him, but how would it help the average American?

As Americans are distracted by Donald Trump tearing down the East Wing of the White House, which is nothing more than a symbolic, or even cosmetic, change to the country, these are some changes to this nation that would actually help many of its most unnoticed residents in flyover country.

9.99% Interest Rates - You remember the mafia? Why did we fight so hard to weed out the mafia in this country? One of the reasons is that they charged exorbitant interest rates on loans, often to those who couldn't pay them back. The mafia is gone mostly, but now private companies are charging just as much organized crime used to.

Defenders of the high rates chirp that the market is the market. Uh, since stealing is illegal, there's nothing that says we can't cap interest rates.

The Flat Tax - A generation ago, Steve Forbes' Flat Tax was a hotly debated talking point. What eventually killed the Flat Tax? The perception that the poor would pay the same as the rich.

Now? The rich are paying less taxes than the middle class. You want to defang the IRS? No one under the poverty line pays taxes, flat rate for the rest of Americans. Very simple, no deductions for Top 10%, only mortgage and child deductions for working class and middle class. That would close a TON of loopholes and simplify the process.

Cheap Cars - What happened to the Pinto? The Yugo? The Jeep? Just this week, the average price of a car hit $50,000.

If you had a safe, small car, that literally had 4 seats, manual everything, and a radio, and it sold for $15,000, I guarantee you that would sell like hotcakes. Why doesn't that happen now? Because American Companies continue to focus on their high-profit, high-end models.

The Post Office - For all those wanting to abolish the Post Office, this is a reminder that its existence is guaranteed in the Constitution. Your argument is that it is bleeding money? I think if you cut daily service to 5 Days a Week and take away many urban walking routes and replace them with neighborhood mailbox units, you could make the Post Office a zero-sum game.

Real Public Broadcasting - Part of Donald Trump's issue with PBS is that it has an overarching agenda. I'm not saying whether that's good or bad, I'm saying that it's a fact. Make PBS have a minimum of 2 days local content for each station. If you're Akron/Canton PBS, 2 days of locally produced content will help counterbalance a national narrative. Broadcasting is expensive? You'd be surprised at how little YouTubers spend on certain shows. PBS should be real public broadcasting, filling the void abandoned by Public Access channels

Your hoity-toity PBS Program Director just fainted.

Stripping Corporations of Personhood - There was a greedy boss that I worked with at Iron Mountain in the 2010's and he stated that his dream was to have a warehouse with no employees employed within. Customers would be monitored as they came and went unfettered with their own data.

The Empty Warehouse Analogy has always bothered me. At some point, I don't know at what percentage or at what rate, but if a company runs with a certain amount of robots and AI, that company should be stripped of Corporate Personhood.

Home Arrest - When I was a younger man, I was convinced that house arrest wouldn't work on a mass scale. After watching a country collectively go stir crazy in a few weeks during Covid, my perception has changed 180 degrees.

Prisons should only exist for the worst of the worst or persons in the 1%, where home confinement isn't a deterrent. We have the technology to have 80% of prisoners on House Arrest. We should defund the American Penal System.

The Maximum Wage - Every time I hear a CEO complain about unions, and there's lots of 'em out there breaking unions, I'm always surprised that Union Leaders don't respond "well what about the Maximum Wage?"

8 Hours Off - Now this wouldn't work for Hospitals and Police Stations, obviously, but most companies that are open to the public should be closed for 8 hours a day. You want to curb the spread of disease? I don't believe anywhere that's open 24 hours is being cleaned sufficiently.

You think 8 hours a day off is a strange talking point? Many 24 hour operations are notorious for burning out their employees.

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You're saying some of the ideas above are interesting and some are unworkable? I am not making a blanket statement here. My argument is that just a few years ago, Defunding the Police and Trans Rights were the debates moving the needle for the far-left in this country.

Why aren't the topics above, at minimum, in the public discourse? Why don't we debate big picture ideas that would help average citizens instead trying to install fringe ideas from both the far-left and far-right.

There are more and more voice crying out from the "radical" middle.

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