Liberty Pen: John Stossel & Arthur Brooks- 'Is Freedom Fair?'

Source:Liberty Pen- AEI President Arthur Brooks on John Stossel.

"Is freedom at odds with fairness? Not when freedom means maximum opportunity. Deroy Murdock, Arthur Brooks. 

Keep up with liberty issues and news at:Liberty Pen." 

From Liberty Pen 

Freedom vs fairness is not the right choice. We should be talking about just and justice and allowing and empowering as many Americans as humanly possible, who want to reach their full-potential in life to do exactly that. I agree with Arthur Brooks that we shouldn't be talking about what's called income inequality, but instead talking about mobility, which is the ability for people to move up in society, even if they start off in poverty in life. 

Ayn Rand Institute: Don Watkins- 'What's Really Wrong with Entitlements'

Source:Ayn Rand Institute- ARI Fellow Don Watkins.

"It's an open secret that America's entitlement state is in disarray, and that the United States faces a crushing debt, thanks to programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But according to Don Watkins, ARI fellow, that's not the biggest problem with entitlements.

In this talk, you will discover the unknown history of life in America before the entitlement state, and discover the surprising reason why the United States went from a limited government to an entitlement nation. In the process, you will find out why all of the usual solutions to our entitlement crisis cannot work — and what kind of solution can work. (Recorded February 21, 2012.)" 

From the Ayn Rand Institute

Greece represents exactly what it means and what can happen when a countries government doesn't pay its bills. Or allows its population to become so dependent on social insurance programs for their daily survival, that when you get into a fiscal crisis (which is exactly what Greece is going through right now) then not only does your economy tank, but you pile up so much debt that you become dependent on other countries to bail you out.

A reason why the European Union has been so reluctant so far in bailing out Greece is because they are facing the same issues that Greece is: like Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, and others, all social democracies that spend a lot of their public resources and their economy's. Providing all of these public services, all of these social insurance programs. And when their economy's go down like they have, their welfare states struggle as a result because thats where the money is. 

What Europe is going through right now, could definitely happen to the United States as well, if we don't move to get our own fiscal house in order (so to speak) we could making these same drastic cuts as well in the future. Cutting people's Social Security and Medicare benefits, as well as Unemployment Insurance benefits, all cuts that could do a lot of damage to out economy, especially if people have to have these benefits in order to pay their bills. 

When you create a welfare state thats so big and you tax at such a high rate to finance it, you make people dependent on it in order to survive, because so much of the money in the economy is in the welfare state. But when you empower to finance their own well-being health care, health insurance, Unemployment Insurance, retirement and so forth, but then have a safety net to catch people who fall through the cracks, especially when the economy goes down, but then its there not only to help sustain people in the short- term, but also empowers them to get themselves back on their feet, you have a strong economy with a lot of economic freedom in it. 

When you create an economic system where the people have the individual liberty to take care of themselves instead, with individual liberty the people are expected to take care of themselves. And then you have a safety net to catch people who fall but then helps them back up.

Liberty Pen: The Open Mind With Richard Hefner- Phillip K. Howard: The Death Of Common Sense (1997)

Source:Liberty Pen- author Phillip K. Howard on The Open Mind With Richard Heffner, in 1997.

"Who killed common sense? Liberty Pen" 

From Liberty Pen

When we are dealing with problem solving, we have something thats not good for the country and we feel the need to fix it for the good of the country. And we feel we can not only fix the problem in a way, thats cost-effective and won't hurt us in anyway.

When it comes to solving these problems, it should be about just a few things:

What's the problem?

How serious it is?

What's working and what's not and what we should do about it, if anything?

Not finding a solution that works for everyone, but where no one is completely satisfied but where all sides agree that it's better than doing nothing. And you basically mush things together from both sides, whether those things work together or not. But what's the problem and how's the best way to fix it. 

And if we can't get to whatever is the best solution to fixing the problem, because there isn't enough support to get it done, then you look at, look I prefer Plan A: "Because thats the best course to take but we just can't get that done right now. So what's the best alternative to Plan A." And then you look to others to find the next best thing but the next best thing that actually works.

You go to the next best thing after Plan A, when you aren't able to get accomplished what you actually want to do, what's your first choice. And is it better than doing nothing because it actually works, not because it's the next best thing available but because it actually works. 

Commonsense in government is as common as ice fishing in Cuba, or beach houses in Minnesota. It almost sounds like God's largest Oxymoron. So I think Phillip Howard is being way too optimistic when he talks about commonsense in government. But we can only get the best politicians and leaders that we vote for, especially when we don't bother to un for office ourselves and don't hold the crooks accountable for being crooks. 

NC Tea Party: John Stossel- 'What If Libertarians Were in Charge'

Source:NC Tea Party- Nancy Photenhauer a spokeswoman for the Koch Industries.

"Stossel What if Libertarians Were In Charge" 

From the NC Tea Party 

What if Libertarians were in charge? That's sort of like asking what if the kids ran the house? Or if the inmates ran the prison? The mental patients ran the asylum? If this sounds insulting, then I'm getting through, because Libertarians or what's supposed to pass as a Libertarian today, are people who don't believe in authority, let alone government. And when someone is put in charge of something, they become an authority. 

Libertarians today sound like the Right's version of the 1960s and 1970s antiestablishment Hippies. At least the Hippies put what money they had where their mouths were and set up their own communities and communes and moved away from society. Today's Libertarians take advantage of the government sponsored road, are protected by government law enforcement and the military, even send their kids to government schools, and pay the government the taxes that fund those government services. 

Imagine what the Federal Government would look like, if you eliminated every Federal Department. Except Department of Defense, that would rarely do anything, because Libertarians are isolationists.

Department of State that would rarely talk to anyone, because again Libertarians are isolationists.

A Treasury Department that would just print American dollars. You really need a Federal department to do that?

Maybe a Justice Department, but again who would they be prosecuting? Libertarians are against the FBI and Department of Homeland Security.

Libertarians also tend to be against the CIA. So where would the intelligence come from?

The Federal Government that they don't trust and believe in. Libertarians don't believe in Federal law enforcement, so if a murderer murders someone in Tennessee and makes their way up to let's say Ohio, who would go after that person?

Libertarians are also against things like labor laws, minimum wage, so we could return to the days of people making 30C and hour or back to child labor. People working in unsafe working conditions and making basically nothing working there.

That is the state of American libertarianism right now, not that government is too big, but that it even exists is a problem for them. They want a complete free society, but perhaps even in an anarchist sense. And perhaps they would prosecute people who abuse innocent people, but that the Federal Government just wouldn't have any role in it. 

As I blogged last week, Libertarians today and perhaps always don't sound Libertarian. But they sound like Anarchists, that government is incompetent and shouldn't really be doing anything. And ask questions like what can government do, that the private sector can't and again ask most Americans that question and they will name several things. 

Today's Libertarians don't sound like believers in small government, but sound anti-government. Basically across the board. Or they wouldn't ask questions like, what can government do that the private sector can't, or what can government do better than the private sector.

I understand the need in limited government and as a Liberal is something I believe in myself. Which is also something that Gary Johnson the presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party also believes in. He's a Classical Liberal like myself. But more libertarian, where I'm liberal across the board. Governor Johnson is not looking to dismantle the Federal Government. But wants to reform it, so it's doing the things that only it should be doing and does well. Which is where libertarianism needs to move too, for them to ever be a major power in American politics.

Harry Browne: 'The Coming Devaluation (1970)'

Source:Amazon- Harry Browne's 1970 book about inflation.

"What happens when central banks lose control of the monetary system&? We don't have to speculate The Great Depression of the 1930s tells us everything we need to know about what to expect in case of a financial collapse. The problem is, very few people understand just how close we really are to repeating this slice of history. All the warning signs are there --asset bubbles, explosive debt, social inequality, and political tensions, to name a few. And yet, we have been able to look the other way, potentially to our peril&--until now.

In The Great Devaluation: How to Embrace, Prepare, and Profit from the Coming Global Monetary Reset, national bestselling author and leading gold investment strategist Adam Baratta shines a spotlight on the state of the monetary system and the Federal Reserve. Baratta brings a fresh and engaging perspective to a topic that investors urgently need to understand. He tells the story of how the Federal Reserve grew to be the secretive, ultra-powerful institution it is today, and how its tactics have resulted in an economy that is on its last, wobbly legs.

Although it isn't easy to open our eyes to the imminent reality of economic collapse, it will be well worth the pain. Baratta reveals the history-proven strategies that we can use to insure ourselves against the coming collapse, recession, and depression. No matter what we do, the system is in trouble. The U.S. Dollar is in trouble. The Fed is in trouble. So, why not benefit by consciously pivoting our investments, our business practices, and our society? George Santayana famously said, "Those that forget history are doomed to repeat it." The Great Devaluation is a history lesson that offers readers a road map for what to expect and how to profit during the next, tumultuous decade." 

From Amazon 

"Taped Sept 3, 1970, this insightful economic conversation remains relevant today. Note Mr. Browne predicts that, "as an act of economic desperation," our government will have to "renege on their promise to foreign governments to pay one ounce of gold for every $35 turned in at the Treasury." On August 15, 1971, the Nixon Administration did so. " 

Source:Liberty Pen- Eliot Janeway debating Harry Browne on Firing Line With William F. Buckley, in 1970.

From Liberty Pen 

"Mr. Browne starts off by explaining that he isn't advocating devaluation--he is simply "looking at the world as it is" and saying that, "as an act of economic desperation," our government will have to "renege on their promise to foreign governments to pay one ounce of gold for every $35 turned in at the Treasury." (The Nixon Administration did so on August 15, 1971.) Mr. Janeway replies engagingly: "Frankly, I find myself a bit off balance being outflanked on the pessimistic side;... they pun on my name all the time and call me Calamity Janeway, and I really regard myself as the last optimist." And we're off on a high-energy discussion of the differences between domestic and international policies, or, as Mr. Janeway puts it, "the hamburger dollar available to us nationals within the sovereignty here [as against] the international dollar."  

Source:Hoover Institution- Eliot Janeway debating Harry Browne on Firing Line With William F. Buckley, in 1970.

From the Hoover Institution  

Eliot Janeway made a good point about Harry Browne when he called him an alarmist. Mr. Browne predicted that there was a coming depression. The 1970s wasn't a great decade economically for America, but other than the mid 1970s, the economy grew and grew fairly well that decade. We even had solid job growth for most of that decade. It was inflation and high interest rates that were the main economic problems of that decade. 

WBAL News- David Collins- ‘Maryland Senators Say Yes to Tax Hikes, Teacher Pensions’

“Senators approve a package of budget measures to increase income taxes and split teacher pension costs with local governments over four years.” 

From WBAL News 

Maryland had an opportunity, to not only jump-start its economy, but to help pay down its budget deficit by expanding organize gambling in Maryland, by expanding Maryland casinos. But despite having a Democratic Governor and Legislature, they failed to be able to do that back in April. They have a large budget deficit and debt, something Maryland up until the Great Recession hasn’t had to deal with much in recent history.

Maryland had a great opportunity to expand its economy and bring in more business and customers by expanding Maryland casinos, but failed to do that, so what they did instead, was to pass tax hikes. Even though Maryland is already one of the highest taxed states in the union. They decided to try to take more out of an already existing pot, instead of trying to expand that pot, by bringing in more revenue, that they would be able to tax. And use some of that revenue to pay for things like, schools, roads, bridges, law enforcement. Things that most if not all Marylanders care about.

What the State Legislature has decided to do, is to take more out of Marylanders that are already working very hard and who are very productive and expanding their tax burden, while other States are cutting taxes. When what they should be doing is looking to cut costs in an already very large state budget, one of the reasons why our taxes are high.

Maryland should be looking to generate more economic growth, as well as reforming the State Government to make to more efficient. Giving counties more responsibility in running some of the public services. As well as involving the private sector in running some of the public services and making them private, but non-profit community services. Moving more people off of public assistance and into the workforce, through things like job training and job placement.

If you still have to raise taxes, increase taxes on things that people don’t need, like alcohol and tobacco. Not taking more money from people, that they need just to pay for their mortgage to use as an example. Or raising gas taxes to pay for more infrastructure investment, when gas prices are already very high. And when Marylanders who live outside of the Washington-Baltimore region, have to be able to drive to get around. 

You can also see this post on WordPress.

The Guardian: 'Ron Paul Suspends Presidential Campaign – But Supporters Stay Loyal'

Source:The Guardian- U.S. Representative Ron Paul (Libertarian, Texas) and 2012 presidential candidate.

"After building a political campaign that was long on passion and grassroots support, if ultimately short of votes, Texas congressman Paul announced today that he is suspending his hunt for the presidency.

The candidate urged supporters to continue their efforts to amass delegates at state conventions, however, as part of a strategy to gain a voice at the Republican National Convention – and influence over the direction of the party.

"We will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted," the Paul campaign said in a statement sent to reporters. "Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have." 

From The Guardian

"Ron Paul Has Not Suspended His Campaign"

Source:The Southern Avenger- conservative talk radio show host and blogger Jack Hunter.

From Jack Hunter

Whether Representative Ron Paul suspends his presidential campaign or not, the facts are clear: a Libertarian will not win the presidential nomination in a right-wing, fascist, fundamentalist, religious, populist party, that calls itself the Republican Party. I know that sounds like I'm stating the obvious here, but even Representative Paul knows this. 

Ron Paul's presidential campaigns was about spreading his Libertarian message, not winning a presidential nomination in a party that sees Libertarians as Liberals/Satan worshippers. He only ran for President a a Republican technically, because he's more inline with the modern Republican Party on economic and foreign policy, then he's with the Democratic Party. Not because he has some marijuana high fantasy about ever winning the Republican nomination for President, let alone actually ever becoming President of the United States. 

Liberty Pen: Firing Line With William F. Buckley- Governor Jerry Brown (1975)

Source:Liberty Pen- Governor Jerry Brown (Democrat, California) on Firing Line With William F. Buckley, in 1975.

"Jerry Brown, 1975. An innovative free thinker before party politics ground him into a garden-variety statist. Liberty Pen." 

From Liberty Pen 

Governor Jerry Brown making the case for limited government, on PBS's Firing Line With William F. Buckley in 1975. That there's only so much a government in any country can do for simple reasons that it only has so much money and personal it can work with either because the economy is somewhat limited, or there's only so much money that's it taxpayers are willing to pay government, or there's only so much money that government can borrow, either from the private sector or from other countries, or from the U.S. Government. But that most countries, even in the developed world like in America can have unlimited problems and issues. So government has to make choices with the limited resources that it has. 

Jerry Brown doesn't sound look like the radical, lefty, hippie, from the 1960s and 70s that he generally gets stereotyped as, at least before he became Governor of California again in 2011. And I think this is because as a governor of a state you are forced to prioritize and become pragmatic, because the buck literally stops with you (to paraphrase President Harry S. Truman) and you have to deliver for your state. And are forced to save the partisan, extreme, political rhetoric, for the campaign trail. 

Liberty Pen: John Stossel- 'Free People Vs Government'

Source:Liberty Pen- Reason Magazine reporter Lisa Kennedy.

"Who is more efficient at performing a task? Government or free people acting in their own self-interest? Liberty Pen." 

A Libertarian is supposed to be someone who believes that free adults should be left alone to live their own lives, as long as they are not hurting innocent people with what they are doing. Liberals believe in the same thing, which is one reason why I'm a Liberal. They also believe government should only do, what the private sector can't do for themselves, or can't do as well for themselves. Liberals believe in the same thing. Again why I'm a Liberal, but we differ on what government can and should do. 

An Anarchist essentially believes in no law, no government that people can do whatever they want to and that they should be held accountable for what they are doing by the people, but not by government. But if you listen to so-called Libertarians lately, like John Stossel who I do respect, or Peter Schiff who I respect less, you would think that all government is incompetent and that it can't do anything well. They haven't been sounding like they are pro-limited government, or pro-small government, which is different. But they've been sounding like they are anti-government all together. 

In this video John Stossel said there's no evidence that government can do anything better than the private sector and he posed that question to his audience. And someone said that the government military is better than a private military. And Stossel said: "There's no evidence that the military is more efficient than private contractors. But he's not sure if he wants a private military." Well, if private contractors aren't more efficient than the military, then why not privatize the military as well? 

I'm not a mindreader, obviously (hopefully that's not a newsflash for anyone) but it sounds like even John Stossel believes that government should be doing things instead of the private sector, even if he argues the opposite publicly. 

Liberty Pen: CATO Institute- Harry Browne: 'Smaller Government (1996)'

Source:Liberty Pen- 1996 Libertarian Party nominee Harry Browne speaking at CATO Institute in Washington.

"Would you give up your favorite federal programs if it meant you never had to pay income tax again? Presidential candidate Harry Browne lectured on returning government to its Constitutional size.  (1996)  Liberty Pen

Source:CSPAN" 

From Liberty Pen 

"Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Harry Browne spoke about the need for a smaller federal government. After his prepared remarks, he took questions from the audience at the Cato Institute in Washington DC,." 

Source:CSPAN- 1996 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Harry Browne speaking at CATO Institute in 1996.

From CSPAN

Harry Browne speaking at CATO Institute in Washington saying that he was arguing in favor of smaller government. Well, even with smaller government you still have a government. Granted smaller government is still government. 

Harry Browne also went onto say that government doesn't work and doesn't anything do anything right and talked about abolishing the Federal income tax. So is he really in favor of smaller government, or no government? 

If Harry Browne wants smaller government, then he should be talking about what that smaller government would look like, what would that smaller government be doing, and how would it be financed. You don't hear him talking about that in this video.

Reason Magazine: 'The Real Breaking Bad: How the Drug War Creates Collateral Damage'

Source:Reason Magazine- meet Bob and Marj. 

"88-year-old Bob Wallace, and his 85-year-old girlfriend, Marjorie Ottenberg fell in love 35 years ago backpacking to the tops of the highest peaks in the world.

Wallace is a Stanford educated engineer and Ottenberg is a former chemist and decades ago they came up with a water purification product for backpackers like themselves called Polar Pure out of their garage in Saratoga, Calif.

"For an old guy with nothing else to do, this is something that keeps us occupied," says Wallace.

Today, Wallace and Ottenberg are fighting the Drug Enforcement Administration and state officials to continue to operate their business. Why? The DEA says that drug dealers are using their product to make methamphetamine... 

From Reason Magazine 

What this couple is going through represents exactly what's wrong with the War On Drugs where you not just treat addicts the same as dealers, but you treat developers as the same as hard core criminals. 

What Bob Wallace and Marjorie Ottenberg are doing here is not even illegal under the U.S. Controlled Substance Act. What the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has hold them is that they can continue to produce their product, but just under Uncle Sam's control and rules that make it so expensive and hard for private developers to do any business in this country. 

Narcotic laws if you are going to have them at all, should target predators to prey on addicts and juveniles. Not developers who make a legal, legitimate product. 

Townhall: Andrew Klavan- 'Liberalism Exposed: Beyond the Elitist, Preening America-Hating Stereotypes'

Source:Townhall- if definition of asshole is someone who speaks out of their ass, then Andrew Klavan uses the toilet face first. And that's as clean as I can make that.

"Have you ever wondered how liberals think? PJTV's Andrew Klavan takes you inside the mind of a liberal ... and it ain't brain surgery." 

From Townhall 

Before anyone accuses me of talking about something that I haven't even seen and heard before, I watched and listened to the entire Andrew Klavan video for Townhall magazine (the right-wing version of The Onion) and kept hearing him say the word liberal. But for the life of me I'm still trying to figure who he was talking about. 

Someone could keep using the word hamburger or hot dog when they're talking about lettuce, but unless you are blind and have never even tasted a hot dog or hamburger, why would someone who is sane, sober, intelligent, not currently confined at a mental institution, or an escaped mental patient who forgot to take their medicine with them. take that person seriously. 

And then my third response is maybe Andrew Klavan is just a comedian and trying to be funny when talking about Liberals. Except where's the punchlines in anything that he was talking about? 

In case Andrew Klavan was talking about someone else and a different political faction instead, but forgot to take his medicine and the word liberal kept coming out when he meant to use another label instead, here's a definition of a political faction that he might have been talking about instead, but instead kept saying Liberal: 

Socialist: "In 1990, the São Paulo Forum was launched by the Workers' Party (Brazil), linking left-wing socialist parties in Latin America. Its members were associated with the Pink tide of left-wing governments on the continent in the early 21st century. Member parties ruling countries included the Front for Victory in Argentina, the PAIS Alliance in Ecuador, Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in El Salvador, Peru Wins in Peru, and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, whose leader Hugo Chávez initiated what he called "Socialism of the 21st century".

Many mainstream democratic socialist and social democratic parties continued to drift right-wards. On the right of the socialist movement, the Progressive Alliance was in 2013 by current or former members of the Socialist International. The organisation states the aim of becoming the global network of "the progressive, democratic, social-democratic, socialist and labour movement".[293][294] Mainstream social democratic and socialist parties are also networked in Europe in the Party of European Socialists formed in 1992. Many of these parties lost large parts of their electoral base in the early 21st century. This phenomenon is known as Pasokification[295][296] from the Greek party PASOK, which saw a declining share of the vote in national elections — from 43.9% in 2009 to 13.2% in May 2012, to 12.3% in June 2012 and 4.7% in 2015 — due to its poor handling of the Greek government-debt crisis and implementation of harsh austerity measures.[297][298] In Europe, the share of votes for such parties was at its 70-year lowest in 2015.[299] For example, the French Socialist Party, after winning the 2012 presidential election, rapidly lost its vote share; the Social Democratic Party of Germany's fortunes declined rapidly from 2005 to 2019; and outside Europe the Israeli Labor Party fell from being the dominant force in Israeli politics to 4.43% of the vote in the April 2019 Israeli legislative election, and the Peruvian Aprista Party went from ruling party in 2011 to a minor party. The decline of these mainstream parties opened space for more radical and populist left parties in some countries, such as Spain's Podemos, Greece's Syriza (which was in government 2015–19), Germany's Die Linke and France's La France Insoumise. In other countries, left-wing revivals have taken place within mainstream democratic socialist and centrist parties, as with Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and Bernie Sanders in the US. However, few of these radical left parties have won national government in Europe, while some more mainstream social democratic parties have managed to, such as Portugal's Socialist Party." 

From Wikipedia 

Again just in case when Andrew Klavan had a different label in mind when he kept saying Liberal, because again perhaps he was off his meds and or had one too many before shooting the video, here's the definition of the people he might have actually been talking about instead of liberal: 

Communist: "Walter Scheidel stated that despite wide-reaching government actions, Communist states failed to achieve long-term economic, social and political success.[129] The experience of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the North Korean famine, and alleged economic underperformance when compared to developed free market systems are cited as examples of Communist states failing to build a successful state while relying entirely on what they view as orthodox Marxism.[130][131][page needed] Despite those shortcomings, Philipp Ther [de] stated that there was a general increase in the standard of living throughout Eastern Bloc countries as the result of modernization programs under Communist governments.[132] Branko Milanović wrote that following the end of the Cold War many of those countries economies declined to such an extent during the transition to capitalism that they have yet to return to the point they were prior to the collapse of communism.[133] According to anthropologist Kristen Ghodsee and philosopher Scott Sehon, there is a "victims of Communism" narrative which seeks to equate communism with murder, for instance by erecting billboards in Times Square which declare "100 years, 100 million killed" and "Communism kills";[114] for Ghodsee, conservative and anti-communist organizations seek to institutionalize the "victims of Communism" narrative as a double genocide theory, or the moral equivalence between the Nazi Holocaust (race murder) and those killed by Communist states (class murder). According to this view, these are suspect efforts to distract from the global financial crisis and the failures of neoliberalism.[134]

As of 2022, states controlled by Marxist–Leninist parties under a single-party system include the People's Republic of China, the Republic of Cuba, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.[nb 5] Communist parties, or their descendant parties, remain politically important in several other countries. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Fall of Communism, there was a split between those hardline Communists, sometimes referred to in the media as neo-Stalinists, who remained committed to orthodox Marxism–Leninism, and those, such as The Left in Germany, who work within the liberal-democratic process for a democratic road to socialism,[140] while other ruling Communist parties became closer to democratic socialist and social-democratic parties.[141] Outside Communist states, reformed Communist parties have led or been part of left-leaning government or regional coalitions, including in the former Eastern Bloc. In Nepal, Communists (CPN UML and Nepal Communist Party) were part of the 1st Nepalese Constituent Assembly, which abolished the monarchy in 2008 and turned the country into a federal liberal-democratic republic, and have democratically shared power with other communists, Marxist–Leninists, and Maoists (CPN Maoist), social democrats (Nepali Congress), and others as part of their People's Multiparty Democracy.[142][143]

China has reassessed many aspects of the Maoist legacy, and along with Laos, Vietnam, and to a lesser degree Cuba, has decentralized state control of the economy in order to stimulate growth. These reforms are sometimes described by outside commentators as a progression to, and by some left-wing critics as a regression to capitalism, or as state capitalism, but the ruling parties describe it as a necessary adjustment to existing realities in the post-Soviet world in order to maximize industrial productive capacity. In these countries, the land is a universal public monopoly administered by the state, and so are natural resources and vital industries and services. The public sector is the dominant sector in these economies and the state plays a central role in coordinating economic development.[citation needed] Chinese economic reforms were started in 1978 under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, and since then China has managed to bring down the poverty rate from 53% in the Mao era to just 6% in 2001." 

From Wikipedia 

Just in case there's anyone who actually wants to know what Liberals believe in and what liberalism actually is, including the Andrew Klavan's of the world (when they're not drunk, high, insane, or suffering from brain damage) here's the actual definition of what it means to be a Liberal: 

Liberal: "Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law.[1][2][3] Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), democracy, secularism, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and a market economy.[11] Yellow is the political colour most commonly associated with liberalism." 

From Wikipedia 

And there's another school of thought here that Andrew Klavan is nothing but a right-wing, hyper-partisan, professional bullshit artist, similar to Anne Coulter, who makes his living bullshitting about Liberals and liberalism, because he's afraid of too many Americans finding out what Liberals truly believe and liberalism actually is. Which is where a lot of Americans tend to be ideologically, as freedom-loving Americans who simply want the freedom to be able to live their own lives and not be harassed by big government. 

Americans tend not want big government that comes from Washington elitists who think they know best what everyone needs to be able to live well and that individuals are too stupid to manage their own affairs for themselves. Or right-wing populists who believe that their religious and cultural and even at times ethnic and racial values are far superior to everyone else's and therefor they believe that big government should be able to force their cultural and religious values on everyone else. 

I think my last theory is the correct one here, because it's hard to believe that anyone can actually be this politically stupid in America and get paid well to be a political analyst. Of course I've been wrong about the intelligence of political pundits before. 

Liberty Pen: Firing Line With William F. Buckley- Thomas Sowell: 'Poverty & Dependence (1981)'

Source:Liberty Pen- Conservative columnist Thomas Sowell, on Firing Line With William F. Buckley, in 1981.

"Professor Sowell discusses realities of income disparities, poverty and dependence. Liberty Pen." 

From Liberty Pen

Thomas Sowell on Firing Line With William F. Buckley, essentially arguing that Americans and the immigrants who've done well in America, have done well in America because they're well-educated and because of that have marketable skills that allow for them to be successful in this country. And he used the examples of the Germans, Irish, and Jews, as Americans who came to America already having the skills that they need to be successful in this country. 

Mr. Sowell then went onto say that African-Americans (who he calls Blacks) haven't been as successful as their European-American counterparts, because of lack of education and opportunity in America. And pointed out that slavery was a big cause for that. During slavery, the African slaves weren't even allowed to get an education in America, other than learning English so they would be able to communicate with their slave masters. 

No offense to Tom Sowell, but I believe he's stating the obvious here. Unless you are a great athlete or entertainer, you inherited a lot of money or have wealthy parents who are simply willing to bankroll indefinitely, you are not going to make it in America. Everyday for you once you are an adult, at least, is going to be very hard for you, regardless of your ethnicity or race. 

The real debate and discussion here is how we as a country educate and empower as many Americans as possible, to get themselves the skills and education that they need to make it in America and live in freedom on their own.