Welcome to Two Dollar Bill

Two Dollar Bill will explore and discuss contemporary issues in government, politics, public policy, economics and business from a moderate Libertarian perspective. Like the $2 bill, Libertarianism is often forgotten and rarely seen in circulation. Rather than being cattle-branded as "Democrats" or "Republicans", Libertarians tend to buck against the herd mentality. Sports, television, film, music, pop culture, etc. are also fair game.

Tomorrow, barring an upset of monumental proportions, we will elect Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. Yet, can we trust that he will govern from the center when he will likely secure the most liberal landslide victory in electoral history? Will Obama embrace a moderate stance if he not only clobbers McCain, but the Democrats gain further control of both the House and the Senate? One can hope, but what was it Bush said about spending political capital after winning the 2004 election...

Guiding Quotes:

"A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
-Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Archibald Stuart, 1791

"Excessive taxation will carry reason and reflection to every man's door, particularly in the hour of election."
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Taylor, 1798

"If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?"
-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821

"The yearning after equality is the offspring of envy and covetousness, and there is no possible plan for satisfying that yearning which can do nothing else than rob A to give to B; consequently all such plans nourish some of the meanest vices of human nature, waste capital, and overthrow civilization. But if we can expand chances we can count on a general and steady growth of civilization and advancement of society by and through its best members. In the prosecution of these chances we all owe to each other good-will, mutual respect, and mutual guarantees of liberty and security. Beyond this nothing can be affirmed as a duty of one group to another in a free state."
-William Graham Sumner, What Social Classes Owe Each Other

"In general, it can probably be said that the conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. He believes that if government is in the hands of decent men, it ought not to be too much restricted by rigid rules. Since he is essentially opportunist and lacks principles, his main hope must be that the wise and the good will rule - not merely by example, as we all must wish, but by authority given to them and enforced by them. Like the socialist, he is less concerned with the problem of how the powers of government should be limited than with that of who wields them; and, like the socialist, he regards himself as entitled to force the value he holds on other people. When I say that the conservative lacks principles, I do not mean to suggest that he lacks moral conviction. The typical conservative is indeed usually a man of very strong moral convictions. What I mean is that he has no political principles which enable him to work with people whose moral values differ from his own for a political order in which both can obey their convictions. It is the recognition of such principles that permits the coexistence of different sets of values that makes it possible to build a peaceful society with a minimum of force. The acceptance of such principles means that we agree to tolerate much that we dislike...To live and work successfully with others requires more than faithfulness to one's concrete aims. It requires an intellectual commitment to a type of order in which, even on issues which to one are fundamental, others are allowed to pursue different ends."
-Friedrich Hayek, Why I Am Not a Conservative

"In a much quoted passage in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." It is a striking sign of the temper of our times that the controversy about this passage centered on its origin and not on its content. Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. The paternalistic "what your country can do for you" implies that government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man's belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organismic, "what you can do for your country" implies that government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary. To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served. He recognizes no national goal except as it is the consensus of the goals that the citizens severally serve. He recognizes no national purpose except as it is the consensus of the purposes for which the citizens severally strive. The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country. He will ask rather "What can I and my compatriots do through government" to help us discharge our individual responsibilities, to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect?"
-Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom

"A theory is like government: often useless, sometimes necessary, always self-serving, and on occasion, lethal."
-Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan