Lilliputian Liberty

Looking at the concept of governmental involvement in citizens' personal lives.

This video is meant to illustrate the importance of pausing to consider whether government involvement is the best way to address an issue. While individual governance is extremely useful in a great number of situations, one must also recognize that state involvement can be beneficial in certain situations, such as a reasonably sized national defense.

Video transcript below:
Lilliputian Liberty
The United States of Lilliput has some work to do. The Lilliputians are debating over which part of their eggs to crack. The leading contending opinions claim that it is best to crack them from either the smaller, or the larger ends. Lilliput happens to be composed of fifty states and they are nearly evenly divided in support of the two most popular methods of egg cracking. About 60% of the Lilliputians in 25 of the states support a bill called Plan A, for cracking their eggs from the smaller end, while about 60% of the other 25 states of Lilliput support Plan B, for cracking them from the larger end. The national government of the United States of Lilliput could decide which of these opposing plans should be implemented but if it does so then only 50%, at most, of the Lilliputians will be happy with the outcome and at least 50% of the Lilliputians will be unhappy with the result. Fortunately, one enterprising state governor of Lilliput realizes and points out that they can make many more Lilliputians happy by allowing the individual states of Lilliput to decide what plan to follow. That way the 60% of each state that supports plan A can use that one, while the states where 60% of the Lilliputians support plan B can use the plan they prefer. The Lilliputians soon realize that, when the various states of Lilliput are allowed to decide which plan to follow, not only will more Lilliputians be under the plan they desire, but others who aren't so fortunate will be able to more easily move to other places that do use the plan they prefer. They've also discovered that out that when states are allowed to adopt their own plans many more systems can be tried out then just plan A and plan B, allowing some Lilliputians to call on their states to adopt plan C, or even Z! The Lilliputians are over-joyed at these revelations and are ready to celebrate when a wise mayor of a Lilliputian city points out that 90% of the Lilliputians in his city support Plan A and that in other cities 90% of the population support plan B. When cities and counties of the United States of Lilliput are allowed to decide which plan to adopt about 90% of the Lilliputians are able to live under the plan they desire! Once again the Lilliputians are ready to celebrate in the streets at this great increase in the freedom of Lilliputians to live under the systems they prefer. But is the best these United States can do? Or can some innovative individuals, benefiting from a bit of common sense, point out that this pattern has one final step that can allow 100% of the people to live as they wish? What, then, was the most important decision the citizens of Lilliput were faced with? Which plan to implement? Or what level of governance should be used to answer that question? And why hasn't this question been asked in our United States? Are we really going to let ourselves be out done by Lilliputians?

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[Akatam0t0ma]

Awesome! Would you mind if I mirror this video?

[YALibertyatUVA]

@Akatam0t0ma Sure, go for it.

[YALibertyatUVA]

The thing you have to keep in mind is that privately owned resources are NOT routinely abused in the free market because they are very valuable when kept in a healthy state. This is why farmers and loggers re-plant and maintain soil quality. Also, even non-renewable resources like metals are managed wisely on the free market when private owned since the scarcer they become the more expensive they become and consumers will tend to conserve, recycle, and replace them.

[chinito0604]

A point of criticism what about efficiency and practical aspect?

[YALibertyatUVA]

@chinito0604 Actually it IS more efficient to keep the government out of social programs and regulation because of the overhead involved. Government overhead is the amount of money lost within the bureaucracy of the state. In the article "The Costs of Public Income Redistribution and Private Charity," Dr James Edwards references an estimate that two thirds of every dollar is lost to overhead in the state. This is because the government does not compete and has no incentive to be efficient.

[chinito0604]

@YALibertyatUVA Well first of all thanks for responding. Now i do agree the government should stay out of social programs( except for education). But on the regulation part i don't agree. Imagine this in europe we have fish quota, (this mean a fishboat can catch an X amount) Well why do we have this fishing quota?

[YALibertyatUVA]

That's an excellent point about the fishing regulation, the tendency for publicly owned resources to be abused is called the "tragedy of the commons" and is nearly inevitable, even with government regulation. This is because politicians, who must always do what gets them the most votes in order to stay in office, have incentives to allow over-use of public property. The TRUE solution to the tragedy of the commons is privatization of the resource in question. I might just make a video on that.

[Malinaccier]

Great video!

[sandersondavis]

Great! Great! Great! BRAVO!!!

[LucisFerre1]

Penn Jillette's rule: Ask, "Is this something that can be solved with more liberty".

[LucisFerre1]

@YALibertyatUVA said [[Dr James Edwards references an estimate that two thirds of every dollar is lost to overhead in the state. This is because the government does not compete & has no incentive to be efficient.]]

If memory serves, only 17 cents of every dollar allocated for welfare actually gets to the welfare recipient and 83%, 5 out of every 6 dollars, is bloated bureaucratic overhead. So the "redistribution" plan really moves wealth from the producers to the control of wealthy bureaucrats.

[Malinaccier]

@OzzyBMG The feudal construct failed because citizenry were not able to move about. There were significant exit barriers that prevented things from working as they should.

[HellKitsune69]

@OzzyBMG sorry but about that last one it has been human nature to do both things, gravitate toward government because they dont like the mobs and gravitate to anarchy and mobs because they dont like thel government. Humans by nature feel they should do what makes them happy, and thats different for everone. so yes anarchy and mob rule are natural human behaviors, sorry :P

[OzzyBMG]

@RuddODragonFear - Oh brother...

Right...anarchy and mob rule are natural human behaviors. Oh wait! Humans have naturally gravitated towards centralized goverment throughout all observable history? Weird! We should definitely try to come up with a competing philosophy that goes against human nature and then force this square peg into the round hole of our collective asses!

[OzzyBMG]

@RuddODragonFear - What weird assumptions you jump to. This has nothing to do with some sociopathic desire to kill, but everything to do with the lack of desire to take responsibility for indirect polution if it is going to make their business unprofitable. If you can't find the parallels in reality, then you are truly a lost liliputian.

[RuddODragonFear]

@OzzyBMG correction, I meant a quarter of a BILLION. Cuz that's how many people governments in the 20th century have killed.

You are advocating for actual sociopathic murderers to protect you from hypothetical "poisoners". Do you realize the insanity of your position?

I bet you don't...

[RuddODragonFear]

@OzzyBMG if you believe that there will be a group of thoroughly perverse and powerful people who intentionally want to poison people, well then, you should be AGAINST creating a group of people with OVERWHELMING POWER (a GOVERNMENT), because then these perverse people could take over it, and do much, much worse than poisoning. Such as, oh, for example, murdering a quarter of a million civilians in the space of a century.

Obviously you didn't foresee the endgame of my previous comment...

[OzzyBMG]

Keep in mind that history of civilization is not on your side. Examine the longest-lasting empires (hint: not europe) and find out what type of government brought them the most success: centralized or decentralized (feudal)?