A Conversation With John Stossel
students learn, maybe they sleep through it, but at least some of them figure out that, “Gee, there’s another side to this.” Dan Ferris: I have to say, all I need to do is show up at one of the neighborhood gatherings and make one little comment about how the government shouldn’t be involved in something, and people look at me like I have three heads. The thing that shocks me is, it’s not even that I’m disagreed with. Disagreement is great, let’s disagree all day long. But it’s when they’re just shut down and kind of pushed out... John Stossel: Right, like “How can you argue that Trump’s slashing of regulations is a good thing?” “Well, because we have too many regulations.” “Yeah, he slashed the environmental regulations, you know, like, clean air?” There’s real anger behind it. And by the way, he didn’t slash any environmental regulations, he just removed some of them, additional ones the Obama environmental regulators planned to add, and – you know, the EPA was a good thing... The air and water were filthy. But now it should stand for “Enough Protection Already.” But they always want to add more. Dan Ferris: Right, and as soon as you start that good thing, you know it’s going to grow into something ugly one day... It always does. John Stossel: Government always grows – look at Japan and Germany and their prosperity in the ‘60s – why? Why suddenly in those two countries? I say because we bombed them to smithereens and they had to start over. It’s the only way government
shrinks and allows for the leeway for free people to create prosperity. Hong Kong went from third-world to first-world in just 40 years. Because the British rulers basically enforced rule of law, they punished people who stole or killed, and then they sat around and drank tea. They left free people alone. And that’s the best creator of wealth and safety, but it’s not intuitive. Intuitive is, “Let’s pass another law,” so all these older countries become stagnant. It’s the way Europe is being passed by younger, newer countries. Dan Ferris: Philosophically, the idea of enough government is extremely difficult because people look at that first layer that prevents infringements against persons and property, and they say, “Well, this worked gangbusters. Let’s have more.” And we knowwhat more does, don’t we? John Stossel: And one way to fight it is to get people to think in terms of what percentage of the economy should government control or manage, and people would say 10% to 15%. Or what should the tax level be, people say 10% and 15%. You tell them, “Well, it’s 40% now,” so, can’t we just keep it at 40%? Nah, that’s a bad idea, because as the economy grows, the percentage would go up. But if there were some cap, some way to measure that and sell that, that would be a good thing. Dan Ferris: Yeah, let’s not hold our breath for that. John, if you could leave our readers with just one thought today, what would it be? John Stossel: Make a donation at Center for Independent Thought.
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July 2020
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