Kevin Porter

Figuratively, I have been running away from my parents in the recent past. I have essentially abandoned the ideals, principles, and other things that I had been taught and took for granted. I always thought that the statement “ignorance is bliss” was a little funny, but I now truly appreciate the statement. Along with my venture to attain truth, I have come to the realization that truth might not be fun to live with, necessarily. I will expound on this.

Although I would expect that any maturing teenager will at some point dump certain ideals that his or her parents taught him or her, I have been told by many a friend and confidant that I have gone above and beyond the call of the typical teenager’s idea rebellion. Anyhow, you might say that I have categorically ignored the views of my parents and have been searching for the most logical, rational ideas to follow politically, philosophically, and otherwise. This has taken me places that not too long ago I could never have imagined myself in. I live in the “Bible-belt” of the American midwest. My parents are conservative evangelical Christians. Not too long ago, I would have gladly proclaimed that I too was a conservative evangelical Christian and damn proud of it. As you can probably imagine, this is no longer the case.

Why did I change my views? One event led me on a chain of events, taking me to where I am now. I had been essentially led to believe that gay people were inferior human beings. I had been taught that sexual orientation determined whether God would forgive or curse you. Once I was enlightened to the moral wrongness of this and the irrationality, I began questioning a lot of other things. It is quite ironic, because the doctrine of “childlike faith” I had so believed in was actually the thing that caused me to lose my “childlike faith.”

Ironically, I am right now sharing a story that I find very personal with essentially anyone who wants to read. But, I feel that honesty is one of the best virtues. So, where do I stand now? I am a libertarian. I believe in the freedom to do whatever one wants, so long that it does not affect humans or other creatures negatively. Religiously, I am currently in a bit of a conundrum. I thought I had no faith, but having read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, I realized that I did have faith in God and the Bible still. Now, I cannot say. It is certainly tough, and I will as I always do choose the answer that makes the most logical, rational, and scientific sense. Having read The God Delusion and The Case for Christ, I definitely have a lot on my plate right now.

I will certainly update later on how my internal religious battle is going, but I will not elude to my current thoughts.

We need a worldwide forest fire.  Now, I am not being literal, as you may have guessed.  The worldwide economy needs the equivalent of a forest fire—a dismantling to save it, if you will.  Now I am nearly positive that you have seen or heard of this idea before, but I think this is a truly ingenious principle.

Consider the world economy as it is today.  Currently each market is typically ruled by a select number of companies or organizations.  Regardless of how these companies have come to their current position, they are now enormous.  Such companies include Wal-Mart, Microsoft, McDonald’s, etc.  If you compare the current economy to the economy of decades earlier, you can see that now these companies are able to dictate a relatively huge portion of economic decisions, including methods of production and the items that are produced.  Placing their political implications aside, these corporations have an absolutely massive impact on what happens to the world economy.

With these things in mind, I would like to make a few points.  Because they are so dominant in their industries, their mere existence in a local market stamps out all competition.  At this point, this implies two things: there is either an inherent monopoly in a large company’s industry (e.g. Microsoft), and now the consumer (or the “normal citizen”) has lost a large portion of his choice that he used to enjoy.  As a result, a vast majority of the world is now operating under the (benevolent) dictatorship of these monopolies.

Here comes the money.  When a company continues to grow in market area, its income is obviously significantly increased.  As a result, it can continue to expand in both size and power.  Unfortunately, as we have seen, a capitalistic world is driven by money, whether in politics or otherwise.  Even more unfortunate is that people are so easily influenced by money, and as a result we see that large companies have a huge influence on big government.  When you combine big companies with big government, you can only expect to receive some pretty big problems.

With our current economic state, the term “bailout” has become more and more familiar.  Just what does a bailout do, exactly?  The expressed purpose of a bailout is to prevent companies that are “too big to fail” from failing.  In other words, the government has determined that companies like AIG and General Motors are more important than American citizens (because, of course, bailouts come from tax dollars).  Now big companies that have received government funding are debtors to the government and are now truly too big to fail.  If General Motors failed today, I daresay there would be riots in the streets—and rightfully so.

Up to this point, I suspect that I have merely expressed what you have probably already heard.  Consider banking for a moment.  With systems such as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the practices of big banks are encouraged.  If the government treated everyone the same way, there would be no failing businesses.  Ancient business models would remain simply because we are afraid of failure.  It is important to recognize that while the initial pain of the failure of a business will be difficult to handle, the outcome afterward will provide an important pruning service of sorts.  Economic cycles are natural and are actually important in removing the unimportant and ushering in the best, most competitive, and most advanced.  And, of course, when monopolies exist, failures act as an important method of wiping the slate clean.

I think that regardless of what exactly happens to a failing business or business model, the importance of not favoring certain companies over others is absolutely paramount.  Without it, competition cannot exist.  When the government hoists large companies over small companies, there is no possible way to compete—especially when government funding allows these companies to lower their prices drastically.

Nothing is too big to fail.  Government and businesses alike have a huge amount of power over us—the “little people.”  Although we tend to enjoy our conveniences, sometimes it is best to sacrifice in order to progress—both personally and as a society.

I’ve been fairly frustrated lately with how issues in life are dealt with (or not) by way too many people.  When certain ideals, regulations, and such are passed by people, they can be removed by people.  If something is instituted by a human being, another human being can destroy it.  This seems to make sense to most people until we hit the establishment of law.  It is almost as if we have elevated laws, often made by people who are now dead, to be above human reasoning or comprehension.  Instead, we complicate things and decide that only certain people are capable of understanding, interpreting, or enacting specific laws.

While specialization is helpful, it is not necessary.  Should I mention that the first American president had no prior political experience?  His credentials consisted of leading an important front of the American army to victory.

I think that the downfall of any system of government is the raising of some individuals over others.  Every person is equal.  We are all of the species Homo sapiens.  The American constitution tried to create a government that functioned solely to protect the rights of people.  Whether that is the right to live or otherwise, this was a step that had never been taken before.  Now, however, we live such a misconstrued version of what the original founders of America had envisioned.  If you are totally pragmatic, you will understand that the entire world is a complete mess, and that’s putting it as lightly as I possibly can.  America is part of that mess.  Obviously something went wrong.

I could say that we should work with the current system and try to reverse what has been already done.  However, I have to say: did we not get here through the current constitution?  I have been saying this for a while now.  We need to start anew, I believe.  While too few people will initially agree with me, something has to change.  The current system failed, quite miserably actually.

By the way, I am no anarchist.  However, I would say that too little government is far superior to too much government.  Remember, government has been established by human beings.  Any human institution that is not recognized by humans, does not exist.