The Future Is In Your Hands - An Article By LPQC Member Ed Konecnik

Ed Konecnik, a member of the Libertarian Party of Queens County, submitted the following article for publication:

The Future Is In Your Hands

by Ed Konecnik

Flushing, New York

November 5, 2012

It has been prognosticated that the two momentous and consequential events of 2012 will be the end of the Mayan calendar and the possible re-election of President Barack Obama. Either event has the potential to cause some dismay and discomfort.

Before you vote, please consider the following: are we as human beings not really responsible for our own acts, so that we need a government to direct and control us? Must we yield our individual rights to a ruling elite that makes laws it wishes and forces them upon everyone in any manner it wishes? Do we wish to institute the welfare state policies of Greece and other European Union countries whose economies have been devastated to the brink of ruin? Do we really believe we can legislate the poor out of poverty and multiply wealth by dividing it?

Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged warned: "When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you, you may know that your society is doomed."

Should we prepare for more than one cataclysmic event in 2012?

We can't change the Mayan calendar but we can vote.

Democrats & Republicans Will Give You More Of The Same - An Article By LPQC Member Ed Konecnik

Ed Konecnik, a member of the Libertarian Party of Queens County, submitted the following article for publication:

Democrats & Republicans Will Give You More Of The Same

by Ed Konecnik

Flushing, New York

November 2, 2012

Don't be despondent if your candidate does not win. Let me assure you it matters not a whit. For over a half century, Democrats and Republicans have taken turns at presiding over the economy, guiding and managing our national debt, deficit and social programs to the brink of bankruptcy. We have spent many decades switching seats but changing nothing. Both parties continue to debate how to spend more money we don't have and matters that are trivial in comparison to the fiscal crisis we face. We have been doing the same thing, that is, voting for one or the other expecting different results, a process Albert Einstein called insanity.

Do you think this election will be different? Check your premise. Both parties endorse the core principle of a powerful beneficent government and supported TARP, bailouts for the auto industry, banks, etc. Few politicians speak of solutions and even fewer about our debt crisis, impending bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare and unsustainable social welfare programs. There's no way to increase taxes to the degree necessary to cover those benefits without draining capital from the economy and sharply reducing the middle class standard of living. There aren't enough taxes to raise from the wealthy and businesses to deal with what we face and no one is talking about scaling back the size of government in order to live within our means. Americans owe a sum of money we can never ever repay. 

The results of this election will ensure the size of government and our debt will continue to grow and we will again be lulled into a false sense of security and apathy. As a nation, we are inexorably moving towards an illusory utopia of social justice and equal outcomes for all - that is, until we run out of other peoples money.