The Best Public Policy Is ...
January 30, 2005
8:38 a.m., MT
I've long found the realm of public policy intriguing. How, and why, did it spring up? Was it to counter the growing trend of the state supplying "news" to increasingly lazy and illiterate journalists, or was it foisted on us by do-gooders who wanted to expand their reach? Whatever the explanation, I recall being highly skeptical from my first exposure to a think tank's public policy pronouncement. How dare they try to tell me what's best for me?! They don't even know me!, I remember thinking.

When I began working with libertarian and quasi-libertarian think tanks as an editor for Free-Market.Net, I was pleased to see the wide range of pro-freedom ideas being put forth; but I remained uncomfortable with the fact that they, too, were simply pushing policies that they deemed best for society. My discomfort gave way to dismay when I discovered so-called libertarian think tanks pushing statist ideas -- and worse, claiming that the new socialist policy would be better than the old socialist policy! [Digression: The best example I've found of this is the Cato Institute's long history of pushing a national sales tax. The Fair Tax web site expands on this idea, which purports to improve our slavery by replacing the income tax (and IRS) with a national sales tax. I addressed the flaws in their approach in an essay, and JPFO published a dynamite piece exposing the fair tax proposal as a Trojan horse.]

For a time after discovering that many "libertarian" think tanks are really leashitarian organizations (I gotta fix a comments glitch to make the full relevance of that link clear [and it is now fixed]), I toyed with the idea of writing a satire chronicling the failed formation of an anarchist-individualist public policy institute. I didn't get very far with it, and the idea languished until I read Cat Farmer's recent piece Other People's Business. As her thoughtful essay points out, there are times when it's appropriate for a person to mind another's business -- parents must do it to raise their children successfully, for example; and many individuals pay others for services that require some elements of this dynamic.

Many individuals seem to have lost the ability to discern when it's appropriate to mind another's business -- perhaps the decline in that skill is linked to the rise of the nanny-ninnies, in which group I include all the think tank/public policy pushers. Hence the disturbingly popular refrain, There otta be a law!, and the increase in parents who can't cut the metaphorical umbilical cord binding them to their now-adult children.

How about all of us stubborn individualists begin promoting our own public policy agenda? Lest you think that's an oxymoron, here's what I propose:

Mind Your Own Business

If that doesn't work, then the next pronouncement should be one made popular by F. Paul Wilson:

KYFHO!*

That's it for public policy ... if the busybody still insists on intruding into one's business, he or she gets a suitable physical reminder that he or she is aggressing. I recommend a caliber of at least .38 Special.

*For those unfamiliar with this and unable to decipher it, it stands for "Keep Your Fucking Hands Off!"

Sunni

Replies: 1 brave individual has opined

On Sunday, January 30th, Pat said:

AMEN!!!