Controlling Leviathan: The Battle for Limited Government

[trajan74]

The one problem with all this is no matter how much showcase there is for the failure of the nanny state the people will always demand more services. And unfortunately there are two remedies available to us, either repeal the 17th amendment or reinstate property requirements. Only then can the income tax be repealed.

[ojciec2]

One thing: Sweden has actually HIGHER standard of living than US, both measuring it by GDP per capita or by HDI. Lol!

Other than that, nice speech Dan!

[jjrglobal]

@ojciec2

GDP or HDI are horrible measures of standard of living, they both include gov expenditures.

[CPAsheldon]

Great speech on reining in our government spending. Thanks for posting and I hope many new Congressmen in 2010 will have determination to do this.

[Ecosse57]

this was phenomenal. thanks for posting.

[attilabeats]

hahahahaha, stupid americans, ..will they ever learn? probably not..

[iiooioooi]

Dan Mitchell you should run for congress or senate.... its not too late for 2010

[Surhotchaperchlorome]

Deficit spending IS a tax increase.

Unless you believe in the tooth fairy, where is the wealth going to come from?

[vllmer]

Awesome video.

Politicians must be accountable for how they spent all this money. Bush and his cronies = democrat lite. When people raised objections to it they got labeled extremists, even racist by republicans. Now here we are speeding up cycle of taxes, spend more, more taxes, spend more, pay lip service to compassion, smear questioners as heartless racists etc.

You & I can't run our budgets that way. Guess what, the repo man, bill collector don't care.

Don't let big gov decide your fate!

[LowcountryJoe2]

Dan, I really enjoy the intensity you're displaying during this conference and the message of limiting government. So, please, keep it up. But let's never slip back into the old mode where you try and sell lower federal tax rates as a way to raise more revenue to the government. The idea you should sell from here on out should be not a tax rate to optimize revenue, but a tax rate that puts us well to the left [not the political Left] of optimal so as to starve the beast!

[lapiz1969]

I agree with almost everything!!!! you got one thing wrong, I do use deodorant, shower twice a day but my army will surrender against the muslims... damn.

[sbrawler]

I am scared

[irisojects]

I heard the angels in heaven signing in Heaven! Finally someone giving us the truth. No more government spending.Less government. This is great stuff. Lets FIGHT!

[bertly71]

They are taxing us and our children into poverty.

[EsotericThrone]

I like the rhetoric, but I'm still uneasy on these Cato fellows concerning Foreign Policy. At least you can trust the Misesians to oppose absurd wars.

[dogatron]

what are their foreign policies?

[EsotericThrone]

Well, I don't know much, but I've read that Brink Lindsey, CATO's Vice President for Research, supported the Iraq war when it began.

[TheRealFallenDemon]

He probably just got blindsided by the Bush rhetoric like the rest of the US. A lot of the libertarians here in Australia did :(

[EsotericThrone]

Yeah that's possible. I'll look into what he said during the early period of the war and after 9/11. The Bush gang really did lie through their teeth, and even manipulated the already hawkish CIA reporting. I still feel like my brand of libertarians should have been able to see through the bullshit, though. I don't mean to be harsh.

[bittergunowner12]

I think most of us did, it turned out to be a total ruse...... of course Afghanistan is no better.

[032125]

And how exactly does the opinion of Brink Lindsey on the Iraq war relate to the words of Dan Mitchell on limited government?

[EsotericThrone]

Simmer down. If you actually read what I said, it was that I like the rhetoric, but I am uneasy on ***CATO FELLOWS*** stances on Foreign policy. They're both prominent ***CATO FELLOWS****. That's what.

[032125]

Simmer down? Don't be a dismissive dick, and don't imply that if I take issue with you I must be incapable of reading.

The people at Cato are individuals and as fallible as any of us.

There is a puritanical streak in the libertarian movement (of which I consider myself a part) which tends to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I know that I'm not going to find very many pure libertarians, and I'm thankful for every bit of exposure our ideas get.

[EsotericThrone]

Everyone but you understood what I meant.

[032125]

Oh good you've transitioned from an ad hominem fallacy to a bandwagon fallacy. What a charmer.

[EsotericThrone]

You need to get a grip. Telling you to "simmer down" IE "calm down" is not an ad hominem fallacy. I told you to simmer down because your initial comment was needlessly aggressive. My point wasn't that everyone agreeed with what I said, but that everyone understood, and as such, is not a bandwagon fallacy. You've failed completely here. My initial point was obvious: I am uneasy about the CATO institutes stances on foreign policy, and their consistency in opposing war. Everyone knew what I meant.

[032125]

You've failed to answer my original question, which was what does that have to do with this.

Let's start over without the aggression.

The Cato institute as a whole gets it right (from a libertarian perspective) far more often than they get it wrong, based on what I've seen.

I don't think that it's fair to Dan, who gave a very good monologue here, to inject doubt based on the view of on of his fellows. Perhaps we should look up Cato's official position on our current foreign policy.

[EsotericThrone]

Kudos for initiating the re-start. I chose the word "uneasy" intentionally... I'm just expressing a personal feeling I have about the Cato institute compared to the Mises institute. I didn't actually intend to undermine Dan. I did say a few posts back that I don't actually know what the institute's stance was in 2003, but that I would look into it. Trust me, I want to be able to endorse the Cato guys completely - I'm not planning on being hyper-critical.

[LowcountryJoe2]

Of course there is the whole "Do we enforce cease-fire agreements (from 1991) and UN Security Council resolutions or do we run the risk of playing the paper tiger role" argument. Perhaps we shouldn't have eneterd the first Gulf War and let Kuwait permanently become an extention of Iraq; that may have been preferable. But, after our 90-91 involvement and the conditions we set forth, we could not have just let things go...that kind of avoidance-behavior leads to airliners smashing into buildings

[LowcountryJoe2]

"that kind of avoidance-behavior leads to airliners smashing into buildings"

In other words, showing any sign of weakness to crazy people could result in signaling that you'll just lie down and take it if confronted...sort of like making an apology to China after they've just downed a military spy plane supposedly flying over international waters. That's the kind of signaling that shows weakness.

[EsotericThrone]

No. That's complete bunk. Building military bases on the land of other countries, invading countries and occupying them, arming their enemy neighbors with nuclear weapons, and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians via bombs and etc.... THAT kind of behavior leads to airliners smashing into buildings. You have it perfectly reversed.

[LowcountryJoe2]

Outstanding job connecting those dots; not. The only one that makes any kind of sense to me pre-September 11th, 2001 is Israel acquiring nukes from the U.S. and France.

More seriously, though, I admire your principled stance. I sure hope you continue to hold it when our government feels it's time to intervene in the Darfur region of the Sudan.

[lexilicious74]

The US was not involved in Israel's nuclear program.

France helped provide the technical foundations. Once Israeli scientists had learned enough to grasp the technology the partnership was dissolved. Then, Israel continued development and testing with South Africa.

The US was largely indifferent towards Isreal during our Eisenhower years.

[TheObjectiveReality]

Always a pleasure watching your speeches, Dan.