Zeal For Truth

Despite being across the pond - I gladly seized an opportunity to watch John Stossel’s latest 20/20 special: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics.

Part one is spent dispelling the general idea that politicians can’t do anything they promise and that people are foolish for trusting them. Stossel quickly moves away from the ticky-tacky Obama/McCain “debate” and demonstrates that both candidates are making promises that they can’t/won’t keep and that it is government itself, despite the good intentions of politicians and their supporters, that is the problem.

Stossel uses a skating rink to demonstrate that order is best achieved “spontaneously” with the mutual self-interest of people slipping into harmony as people desire a) to be free and b) to be safe. He then tries to “plan” the skating rink by making rules and giving orders to the skaters, who subsequently fall, crash and otherwise fail. They no longer have fun either. People acting based on their own decisions and priorities are also the most cooperative and move society forward.

Part two moves into practical applications of this basic premise, starting with the credit crunch. He challenges the idea that many on the left make - that “deregulation” has led to this problem. He brilliantly shows how the past two presidents intervened in the economy to encourage home ownership by people who could never afford to own one - in other words, it was government meddling that blew up the housing market.

But not only did the government create the problem - they now want to solve it by more intervention. The economists he interviews argue that bailouts only encourage and reinforce bad behaviour. It is best that those companies that made poor decisions be allowed to fail.

In the third part, Stossel shows how incompetent government has been at disaster relief. The ninth ward of New Orleans is still in ruins. Many home-owners and others physically cannot rebuild because they are being held back by multiple approval processes. The decrepit ninth ward is highlighted against a nearby neighbourhood which was rebuilt by private charity, from Habitat for Humanity to drivers passing by to Brad Pitt.

Mayor Ray Nagin argued that government was making it easier to build a home. Stossel tests this out by going in to the permit office to get the right authorisation. It took more then ten minutes for the secretary just to list the forms to him. Nagin was unapologetic about the red-tape, arguing that it was necessary to protect historical districts.

In part four, Stossel shows the unintended consequences of McCain-Fiengold and campaign finance laws. He shows how these laws have basically destroyed the possibility for new candidates to run and even for non-candidates to participate in politics - even to just support a ballot measure. He cites a couple women in Colorado who made a couple signs against a local annexation measure and were sued for not establishing the right committee or reporting their expenses.

And for dramatic effect - he shows how both McCain and Obama have circumvented the laws anyway. The money, instead of going directly to politicians, still floods into politics through affiliated groups.

Farm subsidies are attacked by Stossel in part five. The idea that these are going to small family farms is dispelled and it is shown that these subsidies are just being collected by wealthy farmers.

Stossel’s special, like many he has done, is brazenly libertarian and equally attacks the fallacies present in both conservative and left-wing thinking.