03/13/15 – James Ostrowski – The Scott Horton Show

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Darren'scoffee.com All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
And I figured out basically the one and only way that I can get myself to read books is if I go ahead and schedule the interview in advance and then I have to read the book.
Sometimes they get bumped a day or so, but I've read the book now.
I read the whole dang book.
It's great, too.
I love it.
It's called Progressivism, a Primer on the Idea Destroying America.
It's by James Ostrowski, and he's a lawyer from Buffalo, New York, and is some kind of fellow at the Mises Institute and, of course, writes for LewRockwell.com.
His previous books are Political Class Dismissed, Government Schools Are Bad for Your Kids, and Direct Citizen Action.
Welcome back to the show, Jim.
How are you doing?
Real good, Scott.
Thanks for having me.
Great, great.
Very happy to have you on.
Sorry it took me so long to finally get to it, but I got to it.
Hey, I love your book.
It's a lot of fun.
So tell me, first of all, what is the difference between liberalism and progressivism?
That's a big one.
I know it.
The words are often used to mean the same thing, but liberal originally meant in favor of individual liberty, and it's a movement that goes back 350 years or so.
They didn't even call it liberal back then.
They started using it, I think, in the 19th century.
But liberal changed meaning around 1900 with the Progressive Era.
The progressives sort of stole our word, and what I would prefer is that really we call them progressives, the people who believe in big government as the solution to all of our problems.
And I really think the word liberal needs to be sort of taken back by those of us who have been using the word libertarian for a few decades.
I'm not a huge fan of that term, oddly enough, for reasons I explain in the book.
But words are really important.
I think we need to put a word on the ideology that is bringing our country down, and I think progressivism is about the best word we can come up with.
It's been around for a long time, and a lot of the progressives themselves use the word to describe themselves.
So I think that's the word we should use, and I'd like the libertarians to steal the word liberal back.
It's a great word.
All right.
Well, that's going to be a tall order there.
Now, I'll tell you what.
It seems to me now, and I could be wrong about this.
This is just my own kind of impression.
The way the terms are used now, to me, liberal is basically interchangeable with somebody who votes for the Democrats and actually doesn't have any other principle other than they like the Democrats.
And someone who's progressive is someone who's further to the left than that, and probably worse on economics but probably better on empire, and they at least have priorities other than just supporting the damned Democratic Party.
And then to the left of them you get socialists and communists and that kind of thing.
That usage is in currency, and I know things can be confusing, but I've been really just looking for a word that describes the mindset of government can solve any particular problem that comes up.
And I think that's the word that we have to use.
There's always going to be some confusion.
The word conservative has a number of different meanings.
Even libertarian can be used to mean some different things.
But I think that the way I prefer the word to be used is not entirely new.
It is historically based, and I think it's useful to be able to, if you can't name what you're fighting in politics, which is basically war with words and paper, it's difficult to get a handle on what you're fighting.
It's difficult to get your people focused on what we have to combat.
So I think words are really important, and I spent a lot of time in the book trying to discuss what words mean and the words we should use to mean our views versus their views.
Right.
And you make a great point about the term libertarian being used to describe this individualist philosophy post-World War II, but it kind of separates us then from the longer history and all the great heroes of liberalism that go back to the 19th and 18th centuries, who we're the sons of, basically.
Yeah, I think that's one of the problems with our movement, is this perception that it's kind of a new thing, it's some sort of a personality cult.
But the truth is, and I spent a lot of time in the book demonstrating this, it's an old movement.
It's certainly applicable to the problems of today, but it's a movement that goes back about 350 years and that created what's really best about the modern world, free markets, individual liberty, free speech, habeas corpus, which until the War on Terror, they weren't able to throw you in a dungeon like the old days and throw away the key.
So many of the things that make modern life pleasant and good really are gifts of the great liberal thinkers of the past, such as Locke and Thomas Jefferson and many other lesser figures, and I try to give some of those lesser figures their proper due in the book.
All right, now, you also mention Rothbard's great article from 1968, Left and Right, The Prospects for Liberty, which is my favorite, especially to give to liberals and progressives to read, to get them to understand about libertarianism.
And you quote Rothbard in there as saying that what happened was basically the liberals decided they were tired of waiting for all of the positive results of liberalism to flow to everywhere that they were needed, and so they adopted the conservative means of using the state to accomplish their liberal ends.
And so then in that same article, you know, he talks at length about Gabriel Kolko, the new left historian and his work in the book, The Triumph of Conservatism.
And Rothbard also echoes this quite a bit, I think, and portrays really progressivism in a sense as a conservative scam, basically.
How do we get liberals to quit being liberals?
We'll make them statists like us, said the rich, old, white, conservative bankers, industrialists, et cetera, of the late 19th century, no?
Yeah, totally, totally agree.
And what I try to talk about in the book is the dual nature of progressivism.
It is both a sincerely held belief that government action, government force can improve society, but it's also an ideology that all along and right from the beginning was used by a wealthy elite to put a public relations veneer on basically their desire to use the government for power and health and greed.
And that's the difficulty fighting this two-headed monster.
It's got the dark, evil, secret side.
It's got the very pleasant, you know, we want to improve the lives of everybody side too.
So you have to deal with both those sides if you're attacking this destructive ideology.
Yeah, it reminds me of, well, way back when now.
A friend of mine was – I was asking my – let's see, how was it?
He's a libertarian and I was more of the conspiracy kook.
And I was – he was saying, well, how come all conspiracy kooks aren't libertarians?
Because after all, who cares who's in charge if they don't have anything to be in charge of, right?
The problem is the state.
And that made a big impression on me, and that was one of the big steps that moved me from conspiracy kookery more toward just kind of libertarianism.
But at the time, I turned it back around on him and said, well, how come all libertarians aren't conspiracy kooks?
How in the hell do you think the socialists were so successful throughout the 20th century?
They were bankrolled by the billionaires the whole time.
You know, look at all the big foundations are the ones who support all the liberal – so-called liberal – sorry, progressive economics and all this kind of crap.
It all comes from those on the right who know that – and meaning the people who are already rich – knowing that there are people who are going to be against them.
And basically this is how they trick people into building up the state as though they oppose that, when in fact that's what empowers them.
And so anyway, now I said something crazy all the way up into the break.
So hang on one second.
We'll be right back with Jim Ostrowski, and he's going to address that for us here.
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All right, you guys, welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton.
Right now we're talking with Jim Ostrowski about his great new book, Progressivism, a primer on the idea destroying America.
And so where we left off was about how I'm not so sure, and maybe we're kind of both of two minds about this, and there's a little bit of a confluence of I don't know exactly what points, but on one hand, progressivism as, I don't know, an ideology, an excuse for doing things to people, is pretty damn shabby and serves as the excuse for a lot of horrible things to be done to a lot of people.
But I wonder if ultimately, Jim, if progressivism isn't just really a scam of the conservatives to undo liberalism as you define it and to bring us back to those pre-American revolutionary days where, eh, well, you know, they stand and thwart history and yell, stop, we get to keep all the stuff we have and you can't have any either.
Conservatism.
Right.
I think you're correct.
And the history of it is that the progressive party and era was in many ways bankrolled by wealthy people who really didn't like the laissez-faire economy.
They wanted more control and they created various mechanisms, antitrust laws and so on, which inevitably they, it's called regulatory capture.
Regulatory bodies are usually captured by the industry they regulate.
The average person doesn't have the time to go down to Washington and lobby, but wealthy people do.
They can hire people and inevitably it turns out that they control the regulatory agencies for their own benefit.
And one important example is occupational licensure.
This was portrayed as something that would be to the benefit of the public.
We would eliminate incompetent lawyers, doctors and so on.
But the truth is that it was this effort towards licensure was led by the very industries to be licensed because they didn't like the competition.
They wanted to create a government cartel.
But they, of course, weren't going to say that.
Doctors weren't going to say we want to put the midwives out of business so we can charge more money.
They were going to say that this would be a safer way to deliver babies and so on.
So it's always the dual nature of it.
There is a sincere desire by some people, but there's also a desire to use the government basically for an economic advantage over competition.
Yeah, and, you know, it's pretty easy to see.
I mean, if anybody, well, in my life I don't know how many millionaires I've met, a handful, and one or two of them were decent, but mostly my experience with really rich people is most of them were born that way and they have such a sense of entitlement.
They wouldn't give to charity unless you held a gun to their head.
They're usually, usually really mean, scummy people compared to regular working class folks.
I don't know if that's your experience or not, but it makes sense, clearly it makes sense on its face that, you know, Mr. Born with a zillion dollars in his bank account, we ought to eat him for sustenance and burn his clothes for warmth.
Why the hell do these few self-chosen elites, and I mean in the private sphere, why do they get to have all the capital and nobody else does?
And that's not necessarily an argument for the state taking over the capital, but, you know, some of these millionaires and billionaires, they don't want to do nothing but drive around in their yacht all day while other people are starving to death, Jim.
So you could see why people would think, you know what, if that's how you're going to be, then I'm going to tax your ass and I'm going to force you to give to charity since you won't because you're scum.
Well, I could see that point of view, but what happens is that it used to be pretty easy to become a millionaire around 1905, 1910, where you could work hard and keep the fruits of your labor.
And now it's very difficult to do that.
I mentioned in the book, there's an idea I have for a business that I think would be fabulously successful, but it's actually technically illegal in New York state to start the business.
So a lot of the high taxes and regulations, they do keep, you know, working people down.
They do prevent poor people from, from rising to the higher levels.
And so this existing body of billionaires and millionaires actually has relatively more power and, and they use, they leverage that power to control the government.
I can tell you in, in Buffalo, New York, the various levels of governments are controlled by about 50 wealthy people.
And I, I've never heard them complain when I was trying to browse up the masses to change the system around here.
Not one of them called me and said, Hey, good job.
They like the system where they can sort of pick the judges, pick the prosecutors, pick the congressman.
So the, you know, they like the current, they like the current system that libertarians.
And I prefer the word liberal are trying to change.
And really, I think the people on the left who do have a populist streak should take a second, look at our program and perhaps join, join up with us.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the thing is it's, it's easy to see, Hey, take all their money and give it to the people who don't have any, but it's another kind of second order.
Got to think longer and harder about it to see what the further effects of that would be.
And then, you know, really slow down and ask why it is that the people are so poor that they need all this help in the first place.
Well, absolutely.
And I, I talk about this in the book that the government itself manufactures poverty and then purports to come to the rescue or throw a few crumbs to make sure that the proletariat doesn't doesn't revolt against the current system.
So I, I think, I think it years ago, the left did have sort of a realistic view of welfare, but it was basically just buying people off or shut out of the system.
And I don't know where that sentiment went.
Libertarians still, still believe that.
But now it seems that the left is just sort of mindlessly is going to defend welfare without looking at the underlying reasons why people need it.
Because if you, if you look at those reasons, you've got to get into the economic analysis of the corporate state versus the free market.
And I don't think they're comfortable going in that direction.
Well, speaking of which, talk to us a little bit about the ghettos in the inner cities here.
Other than just kind of the basics that everybody knows that if you pay people to not work, they won't work and that kind of thing.
But there's a lot more to the government's economic wars against or economic wars against the poor in the inner cities in the United States.
Like what?
Well, yeah, I mean, I, you know, I've lived in Brooklyn and I used to work in the Bronx.
I go, I go through a number of vacant blocks to get to the courthouse where I was doing some criminal work at that time.
And, you know, I live in, I live in Buffalo now and have for some time.
I'm, I'm very familiar with the inner city of Buffalo and it's, it's sad.
It's, it's, it's sad and the neighborhood where my, where my father was born was German, Polish.
It was working class.
You know, my father was born on the, on the kitchen table, but there was, there was opportunity.
There was a, there was a vibrant economy today.
It's an economic wasteland.
And I trace it really to the various progressive programs such as the, the, the government schools, the war on drugs, the welfare state, but also the strangulating effect of regulation, particularly occupational licensure.
It's very, it's very difficult.
I'll give you one concrete example, which I think is mentioned in the book years ago.
When I was in college, I got a quick job as a security guard and now you have to have a license for that.
Well, you know, what if you don't have any money to pay the rent in two weeks and you need to get that job and you need to get that first paycheck and it's going to take you six months.
Maybe you don't have the $150 fee.
I don't think that progressives realize how difficult they have made life for the average person of modest means or, or a poor person to just get into the economy and get the first, the wrong up the ladder towards success.
Regulations, particularly difficult to explain to people how destructive it is because we don't have, as Donald Rumsfeld would say, the metrics really show how damaging it is.
Right.
All right.
Now hold it right there.
That's a good place to pick up this conversation.
Jim's going to do the whole hour with us.
Y'all so hang tight, Jim.
We'll be back at six minutes after the hour.
More with Jim Ostrowski from the Mises Institute on his new book, progressivism, a primer on the idea, destroying America.
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All right, you guys welcome back to the dang show.
Oh, I wasn't listening to the onion thing.
Was that funny?
I was laughing at a tweet.
All right.
I'm talking with Jim Ostrowski from the Mises Institute.
He's the author of this new book, progressivism, a primer on the idea, destroying America.
And where we left off at the break, Jim, you're describing, um, how progressive government policies impoverish people.
And then, uh, they, of course, as Harry Brown said, they like to break our legs and then hand us crutches and tell us how lucky we are for having them.
Uh, but so, uh, please continue.
You're talking about, uh, how difficult it is for people to do business in the inner city in the United States of America.
Well, absolutely.
I mean, first of all, uh, a home with no father because the government has, has replaced the father in many of these communities.
Um, and then, uh, they're getting, uh, very subpar education in, in, in government schools, whereas I point out in my other book, there's a tremendous amount of violence.
There's bullying, political propaganda.
There's a lot of health issues, uh, a lot of, uh, uh, pregnancy, STDs, um, vandalism, uh, you name it, uh, sexual abuse.
And, you know, it's difficult to actually learn anything in, in, in such a place.
So then you get out there in the marketplace and you're facing the minimum wage law, which prevents you from getting hired unless you are super productive.
And all that does, by the way, is that, you know, an employer, a small business will say, well, I'm going to take this really experienced and smart and, and, and hardworking person, pay him a lot of money.
And that, that person will do two or three jobs, uh, that I could have sold if there wasn't a minimum wage.
So again, uh, you know, progressive, they, they purport to be helping, uh, the person at the bottom, but they're actually helping the, the mid-level, um, uh, more experienced worker.
Um, many, many more and more professions, more and more businesses require licenses, um, and fees, some of which are extremely expensive.
Um, many, you know, if you, if you want to go out and sell some t-shirts, you got to register with the state sales tax people and, and send them the money.
If you're a day late in your tax form, they charge you 50 bucks, even if you haven't sold anything.
I mean, it's on and on and on.
And in each year, there's more and more of these, um, more and more of these regulations because what one of the, and I have a little checklist for what exactly is the progressive mindset.
One of the elements of progressivism is that there's no limiting principle.
So if you follow your local state legislature or a county legislature or the Congress, every year, sometimes every month, there's new laws, new taxes, new regulations.
So things are always getting worse and worse and worse.
And I think as I point out in the book, a lot of people are in denial, but the country, in my opinion, is actually declining.
And the reason why that that's not widely recognized is because Americans don't know what the client looks like.
Well, you know what?
80% of the people are broke.
Uh, and this is, uh, you know, Mr.
And Mrs.
America, this is what the client looks like.
Just look around, open your eyes.
Yeah.
Well, and you really go through in the book and talk about, you know, people live in paycheck to paycheck, super duper majority of the American people, uh, have virtually no savings whatsoever.
And how could they with interest rates like this?
But now, so here's the thing though, and this is what we were talking about.
Actually, uh, what you were saying right at the break was about the metrics as Donald Rumsfeld called it.
We don't have the metrics, meaning a way to measure whether we're doing more harm than good.
And, um, and so, but I wonder, you know why it is, why it is that that's the case.
I mean, hell, I can think of all kinds of ways I would like to improve society this way and that.
And maybe if I could get the state legislature and the governor to, uh, to go along with me, then I could make everything better.
Uh, and, but you're telling me don't bother trying Horton cause it doesn't work.
It can't work, but why not?
Well, it's easy, you know, it's, it's easy to say, you know, how much the federal income tax costs a business.
But even there, um, if that, who knows what that person, that business would have done with the capital.
I'm, I'm a small business person myself.
I would love to hire a lot of people.
I'd love to be able to be in a position to hire a lot of people.
Uh, quite frankly, if, if my book, uh, doesn't sell well, I probably will be hiring people.
But when you, when you don't have the money because of the taxes, it's really difficult to say, well, if I'd had that capital, I would have hired this many people on that would have had a boomerang effect through the economy.
And even in with regulations, even worse, again, use the example of this type, this business that I wanted to start for a number of years.
It's an information, um, it would sell information to people.
It's, it wouldn't be limited to the United States.
It could be started in a number of different countries.
And I just can't do it.
And who knows how many people, uh, I could have hired maybe, maybe hundreds.
And there's, there's many, I'm not saying that I'm the only one in that position.
Uh, every time you afford economic activity, you are destroying all sorts of potential jobs and income for people and new products and services that would make people's lives more efficient and more productive.
And I don't know anybody who's been able to figure out, uh, what the actual cost of that is.
It's, it's, it's one of the problems that we have.
I don't think we, I, we can't prove how destructive progressive movement, um, we, you know, that, that's one of our problems.
Yeah.
You can't do the counterfactual because, um, you know, the, well, the, just the money in there, you don't know where it would go.
It's the, the old, uh, Chuck Schumer tweeted out about how sequestration is hurting the middle class because this money has got to go to our soldiers and Hey, soldiers make middle class salaries.
And, uh, you know, of course what he's ignoring quite deliberately is that he's destroying a trillion dollars a year.
And all of these, uh, you know, soldiers would be a hell of a lot better off if they got a real job making real money.
Yeah, absolutely.
Uh, you only hear about, uh, um, you know, they talked about, uh, if, if, if this court decision affects Obamacare, X number of people will, will not have their subsidized health insurance anymore.
And it never occurs to the progressive journalists to say, well, where's that money?
Um, where's that money coming from?
And now that, uh, if the court does declare it, uh, um, improper, um, tracing that money about something else, maybe something else, because again, it's this mindset of progressivism that it's amazing.
One of the elements is progressives have no theory of costs.
And I know that sounds startling, but I use the example of social security.
I counted, um, 20 different tax increases for social security.
It was actually astonishing.
And at no point along the line, did any, uh, progressive say, I don't know, maybe that 19th or 20th tax, maybe it's getting a little bit too much.
Maybe we should scrap the program.
In fact, I don't think they would ever scrap the program.
They would call for a 25th tax and the 26th tax because they have no theory of costs, which is one of the reasons I say that progressivism is not a rational system of thought, which I think is a really important insight.
Yeah.
But their answer to that is Jim, you're a lawyer, you've got a savings account.
If someone in your family gets sick, you can take care of it, that kind of thing.
But there are a lot of poor old people who, if it wasn't for Medicare, they just lay down and die.
Uh, well, of course they're going to say that.
And what I argue in the book is, uh, that the, all these attempts to redistribute wealth, uh, create poverty, uh, uh, themselves.
And there's no way that they can prove that any of their welfare programs have actually alleviated poverty.
I would argue, um, and I do argue in the book that one of the reasons that middle-aged people, um, are struggling financially is the exorbitant social security taxes that have been raised, the payroll tax, and particularly if you're self-employed, it's an absolute killer.
So that's causing, that's causing poverty.
And a lot of these elderly people, they were fleeced during their entire lives.
And that's arguably the reason why many of them are poor.
So I, yep.
I'm sorry.
Uh, we got to take this break.
We're not going to get a chance to talk about the wars and stuff, but I want to pick this conversation about social security up on the other side of this break.
We've got one more segment with Jim Ostrowski, author of Progressivism, a primer on the idea of destroying America.
Back in a sec.
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All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
A little bit of a divergence, uh, from the usual foreign policy topics today.
Um, there is a great, uh, section about war, an entire chapter about progressivism and war in this great book, uh, you should know.
It's Jim Ostrowski.
Progressivism, a primer on the idea destroying America.
But I kind of want to stick with the welfare state stuff we're talking about here a little bit.
You know, um, I think it's pretty obvious, as we referred to earlier, Jim, um, you'll hear conservatives say this a lot.
And so liberals don't like to admit it, even though, I think they kind of recognize that it's true, at least in some circumstances, that when the government offers welfare to single mothers, that they are, in effect, paying people to kick their man out of the house.
In fact, I know a lady who we were friends when we were kids, and she's not political at all.
I hadn't known her since I was even much of a political person.
So it wasn't like this was, you know, a story that was specifically directed to me or anything, uh, just because it confirms my bias.
But, uh, she's Hispanic, not black, but same difference.
Went down to the local, um, office and was told that, uh, because her, her husband, uh, was doing tree trimming work and it was a bad season.
He wasn't making much money, working class kind of guy.
Um, and they needed a little bit of help with the groceries.
So she went down there to the office and they told her, if only you'll kick the father of your four children out of the house, we'll pay you.
And in fact, it was even more explicit than that.
It was, we will pay you to kick him out of the house.
And she was kind of astonished by this.
She was saying, well, no, he's a good father.
He's a good husband.
I liked the guy.
I'm not trying to get rid of him.
I'm just saying I could use some help with the groceries.
And they're saying, sorry, we only give money to single mothers.
So that's what you have to do to get the money.
Right.
And, and so even though that's like the argument ad absurdum, um, in effect, we have that same kind of incentive structure going on.
It's basically undeniable, but you know, what was surprising to me was years ago I talked with, um, I think it must've been David Thoreau from the independent Institute who said, Oh, and I think this is in the book, raw deal, a new dealer, raw deal as well.
That when the feds invented the dole during the great depression, that that was how they got all the grandparents kicked out of the house, all the aunties and uncles and extended family.
And that was the beginning of the nuclear family was in order to get on the depression era dole.
You had to say, no, it's just me and my wife and the kids and no other extended family.
That we can rely on.
And so usually, again, it's not as explicit as, listen, we'll give you money if you never see your uncle again, but it's just, you know, in essence, there's subsidizing this kind of behavior in this kind of life.
And, and according to Thoreau, that was the birth of the nuclear family in the first place was now it's the government's job to take care of your parents instead of yours.
Uh, I hadn't, I hadn't read that, uh, that particular piece of history, uh, but, uh, it, it makes sense to me.
And, uh, David, uh, a very good, uh, scholar.
But, I mean, the larger issue really is it's as Rothbard, uh, has said many times, uh, history is a battle between society and the state.
So naturally when, when the state grows in power and importance, the, uh, the family and other aspects of society are going to shrink.
And that's exactly, that's exactly what's happened.
I think that the family has been devastated.
I mean, you know, I talk about this in the book, uh, quite a bit.
Um, you got two people, uh, working, the kids are, uh, daycare and then school.
I, you know, the, the, the grandparents are, are in a nursing home somewhere.
I mean, the family is, is the shadow of its former self in the United States.
I think that's very sad.
Let's see.
What was I going to say?
Oh, uh, the government steps in the role as father or leader of the family.
And then in all kinds of areas where, you know, beyond just taking care of, uh, uh, food and shelter.
But, uh, we see, you know, much more of a government role in all different aspects of our life.
Basically under the presumption that there is no limit to the role they, they play such, uh, uh, an intimate role in our family life.
Well, how could you oppose their zoning regulations or their, their, uh, you know, restrictions on commercial speech or their, uh, campaign finance or their, you know, whatever other thing that they're doing in a larger societal sense, it's kind of impossible to reject a wage, a global war on terrorism when you've already accepted them at your dinner table.
Uh, exactly.
And, you know, it's, you don't want to come off as an alarmist.
But I talk about, uh, the, you know, the current state of the country and how the government is involved in virtually everything we do.
And it's not, it's never, it's not going to end because again, uh, one of the elements of the progressive mindset is that it has no limiting principle.
I mean, they're coming at you constantly.
Obamacare, the, how much water is in your, in your toilet tank, the, the light bulbs.
Uh, there's literally, um, no area of life that these people will not, uh, seek to control.
And that's why I believe, uh, that, and I'm not the only one that we are on the road to living in the totalitarian police state.
Tell me about antitrust because you know what, if it wasn't for the government monopoly, breaking up all the monopolies, we'd all live under a bunch of monopolies.
Uh, yeah, I mean, there's that in the book.
Um, we don't need the government to, uh, prevent, uh, monopolies.
And a lot of these, uh, a lot of these laws were, were really put into effect by big business under the guise of protecting the consumer.
Uh, so they could go into court and, and sue their competitors.
I think IBM was in court for like 20 years on, on one of their cases.
Um, but the oddly enough, I mean, there is a, there is a government monopoly in American society.
The one that, uh, the progressives never seem to complain about.
And, and that's the government itself.
And unfortunately, uh, they just look at the, uh, the, the whole internet industry.
Uh, as I pointed out a number of times in various articles, the, the most progressive element of, of the economy is the one that's least regulated, but now they've got their clutches on the internet, which had been functioning, you know, perfectly, uh, as far as I'm concerned.
And now the government using their monopoly power is going to start dictating, uh, which, uh, big players in, in, uh, in the internet industry are successful or, or not successful.
Whereas the free market competition was working out extremely well.
So I think that's a current, uh, a current example that the real danger is the monopoly of government.
Yep.
All right.
Well, listen, I'm not going to talk any more about this book, but there's a lot of other great stuff in here.
The evils of conservatism, the evils of the world empire, and a lot of other stuff, man, inflation and central banking and, and income taxation and the rest.
Progressivism, a primer on the idea, destroying America by James Ostrowski from the Mises Institute.
Thanks so much for your time, Jim.
Appreciate it.
Thanks a lot, Scott.
I really appreciate it.
Oh, John Kerry's Mideast peace talks have gone nowhere.
Hey, I'll Scott Horton here for the council for the national interest accounts for the national interest.
Dot.
Org.
U S military and financial support for Israel's permanent occupations of the West Bank and Gaza strip is immoral.
And it threatens national security by helping generate terrorist attacks against our country and face it.
It's bad for Israel too.
Without our unlimited support, they would have much more incentive to reach a lasting peace with their neighbors.
It's past time for us to make our government stop making matters worse.
Help support CNI at council for the national interest.
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Hey, I'll Scott Horton here.
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