The Alternative

Fluid and contradictory policy
    I'll have to join the chorus describing politics in the USA as being bizarre. But I have to admit, not any more bizarre than in the past. We forget the politics leading up to any war or social program foisted on us for decades.
    At any rate, I've just got to write about Trump to become relevant. His opinions are so fluid and contradictory, I've stayed away in a confused state. His protectionist ideas are at the root of my skepticism. We've got people calling themselves conservatives who rejoice at the thought of protecting inefficiency, at a cost to consumers that is totally ignored. I remember shopping for snow tires a few years ago, a week before President Obama slapped a $35 per tire tariff on Chinese tires. All tires went up $35.
    The trouble with economic interventionism is that the further down that road we go, the less sense it makes. It's like when I was caught lying as a kid. My dad said, “If you tell a lie, you will have to tell another one to cover the first one, and then another to cover those and so on. No one is smart enough to keep it all straight and you will get caught.”
    Government incentives for business are also lies. Willing buyers and sellers acting in their own self interest is the truth.
    These truths are extremely far reaching in today's world. Trump's picks for his bureaucracy show promise unless we step back and ask why these positions exist in the first place.
    Andrew Puzder for Secretary of Labor, as an example, makes me wonder... Secretary of Labor? What's he do? Make coffee, take dictation, set up appointments? We don't need no stinking secretary of labor. Work there. If you don't like it, work somewhere else. It is between you and your boss or employee. Only slavery involves a third party.
    Puzder runs Hardees. My working life began at McDonald's but Hardees' food and service make McDonald's look like an old Polack joke. There are two sides to labor. Having an extremely successful CEO is a plus for workers. Employment is mutually beneficial, despite what old world communists will claim.
    As I write this, Trump's pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Rep. Tom Price, has been exposed as sponsoring and co-sponsoring 44 health related bills in the House while trading more than $300,000 in stock in health related companies. This is another example where the overarching hand of government invites corruption. The issue is not the impossible task of controlling corruption but the need for so much legislation that makes that task impossible.
    I'll skip over Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State because his friendliness with Russia sounds so much better than war (I'm not invested in Northrup Grumman or General Dynamics). John Bolton as an adviser in that office is another matter. The guy wants to bomb Iran. Let's get past the nonsense that Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Ask Madeleine Albright about what was “worth it” in Iraq. Were all those Iraqi children not terrorized as they perished under U.S. sanctions?
    John Bolton will not be happy until each American's net worth is absolutely equalized through a failed attempt by people like him to abuse our military into a Roman style world domination.
    The funny part is that what Trump doesn't like about Bolton is his mustache. What I don't like about him is that he wastes his time shaving the beard. He could put that time to better use considering what The Prince of Peace might say in the matter.
    Gridlock is the best we can hope for.  
    Please join the discussion through a letter to the editor or directly to me at 4selfgovernment@gmail.comor visit my blog: www.alternativebyfritz.com