Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics by Henry Hazlitt

This book should be required reading for all elected officials and government policy-makers. It is also highly recommended for all voters, taxpayers, and citizens. Basic economics is presented as simply and clearly as possible. The numbers/statistics are used sparingly. It should not be too difficult to comprehend for most idiot legislators.

The “one lesson” is explained in the five pages of the first chapter. Every act or policy has consequences: not only immediate effects, but also long-term effects; and not only effects on one particular group, but also on all other groups. The remaining two-hundred pages contain applications of this lesson on a variety of topics, where a particular policy was enacted without realizing all eventual consequences. Topics include public works, taxes, imports/exports, price-fixing, unions, and inflation.

Governments are making the same egregious errors today as they were when the first edition of this book was published over sixty years ago. Hopefully, we can fix this. Start by sending a copy of this book to your elected representatives today.

Thursday was Constitution Day, the anniversary of the day (September 17, 1787) when the delegates at our constitutional convention approved and signed the U.S. Constitution. To celebrate the occasion at a college where I teach, booklets were distributed containing the text of the U.S. Constitution and facts about it. You can order copies of the booklet at the ConstitutionFacts.com website. (If, instead, you would like one free pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution, then visit the Heritage Foundation at AskHeritage.org.)

I opened the booklet to the foreword on page 1, and what I read angered me:

“And it is a living document. …the Supreme Court continually interprets the Constitution so as to reflect a rapidly changing world…”

I remind you that what they are doing is WRONG.

The problem is not necessarily the use of the term “Living Document”. The Constitution is able to change. It is designed to change as needed.  However, it is NOT designed to change at the whim of nine lawyers/judges. Nor is it designed to change easily.

The Constitution means exactly what it says, not what what you wish it meant. Article V states the proper procedure for amending the Constitution. It is the ONLY way to properly change the Constitution or what it means. You absolutely need three-fourths of all state legislatures to approve any and all changes. When necessary, we amend the document using the proper procedure.

If we allow anyone to impulsively modify or re-interpret it, then the document becomes meaningless. Then we become a nation ruled by men, instead of a nation ruled by law.

Any public official (executive, legislator, or judge) who does not follow the Constitution, the Law of the Land, as it is written is violating their oath to support, preserve, protect and/or defend the Constitution of the United States. This is treasonable.

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.”
-James Madison, Federalist #45

Does the federal government has the constitutional authority to meddle in areas such as health care and education?  What did the founding fathers, the people who wrote the Constitution and created the United States, think about this?

The answer is NO. The Constitution does not list control of health care and education as powers of the federal government, therefore the federal government is not permitted to meddle in these areas.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, the Federalist Papers are a series of articles written in 1787 and 1788 by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, three of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America.  The articles explained the new Constitution and advocated for its ratification.

Regarding constitutional authority, current Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas stated it best: “There are really only two ways to interpret the Constitution — try to discern as best we can what the framers intended or make it up.”

The applicable Merriam-Webster definition of a right is “something to which one has a just claim”. That something may be material, like a piece of property, or abstract, like a power or privilege.

The Declaration of Independence, the philosophical foundation of the United States of America, explicitly states that certain rights are inalienable, or incapable of being removed. It states that all people possess these rights, which were given to us by God, the Creator. Four of these rights are listed: the Right to Life, the Right to Liberty, the Right to Pursue Happiness, and the Right of the People to alter or to abolish their Government when it fails in its duty to secure the people’s rights.

The Constitution of the United States of America, the legal foundation of the United States of America, lists certain other rights, including: the Right to freely exercise religion, the Right to free speech, the Right to peaceably assemble, the Right to petition their Government, the Right to keep and bear arms, the Right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, and other rights. And Amendment Nine recognizes that the People have other Rights, whether or not they are listed in the Constitution.

Certain rights are more important than others. At the top of the list is the Right to Life. If your life is taken away, then you are unable to exercise any other right. Obvious, is it not?

These rights only exist insofar as they do not deprive other people of their rights.  And the primary purpose of Government is to secure the people’s rights, in other words, to prevent anyone from depriving its people of their rights. The United States of America is special, because it was the first nation founded upon this principle. All other nations before that time were based upon geography, or ethnicity, or even an individual ruler.

Unfortunately, even a nation as great as the United States has failed to secure the most basic of rights at times.  The two most heinous examples in its history are slavery and abortion. Slavery, which thankfully has been long abolished, wrongly deprived millions of people of their Right to Liberty because other people wrongly claimed the slaves as property. Abortion, which is currently legal, wrongly deprives tens of millions of people of their Right to Life because other people wrongly claim that their privacy trumps another person’s life.

Now, to clarify the purpose of government, it is to prevent the deprivation of the people’s rights. The purpose of government is NOT to provide anything relating to these rights to the people free of charge. You have a right to freely exercise your religion. This does not include the government building a church for you, free of charge, at taxpayer expense. You have a right to keep and bear arms. This does not include the government buying an arsenal for you, free of charge, at taxpayer expense.

This also applies to those rights not enumerated in the Constitution, including some rights appearing in the news lately.

You have a right to health care. This is covered under the Pursuit of Happiness. This means that the government (and other people) may not prevent you from buying/pursuing/receiving any health care or medicine you feel is necessary. However, this right does not include any health care or medicine to you, for free, at taxpayer expense. You may buy all the health care you want, nobody can stop you. But, you may not rightfully force others to buy it for you.

You have a right to education. This is also covered under the Pursuit of Happiness. This means that the government (and other people) may neither interfere with nor prevent you from pursuing your education. However, contrary to popular belief, this right does not include the typical government-run schooling, free to you, at taxpayer expense. You do have the right to pursue your education at a privately-run school, if you think that you will receive a higher quality education.

I hope that answered some of your questions about rights. I’m done rambling for today.