Speaker 1: When the weather outside is frightful. The hunt Santa Fe
Speaker 1: is what's the word delightful because it's got available h
Speaker 1: track all wheel drive to make being out together better.
Speaker 1: Enter for your chance to win the newly redesigned Santa
Speaker 1: Fe packed with all the jingle bells and whistles you
Speaker 1: need to go dashing through the snow together to winter.
Speaker 1: Visit Amazon dot com slash Hunting, or scan the QR
Speaker 1: code on specially marked bread and green Amazon boxes. No
Speaker 1: purchase necessary. Called five six two three one four four
Speaker 1: six zero three for complete details. The Armstrong and Getty Show, Andy,
Speaker 1: they we're talking with Tim and the lawyer Tim Sanderfer,
Speaker 1: who is joining us on the Armstrong and Getty Show
Speaker 1: as he has for thirteen years, he claims, which is
Speaker 1: a long time. Started as a caller fact check back
Speaker 1: when you used to have calls. Of course, that was
Speaker 1: also because they hadn't yet invented text messaging. So you
Speaker 1: consider yourself a libertarian? Yes, and um, so I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you this. We were talking about this leer.
Speaker 1: There was an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: about the way we've um calculate income inequality, which ends
Speaker 1: up being the talking points for a lot of programs
Speaker 1: for wealth redistribution, and they use um, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you heard us talking about, but that's what the
Speaker 1: argument was. You take somebody who makes a million dollars
Speaker 1: and you say, Okay, that person has a million dollars.
Speaker 1: You don't say, well, they actually have five hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars after taxes. And then you take someone he makes
Speaker 1: four thousand dollars a year and you say they've got
Speaker 1: four thousand dollars. You don't actually say, well, they've got
Speaker 1: sixty dollars, because that's how much they have after they
Speaker 1: get all the programs they qualify for. And so we
Speaker 1: were not comparing the actual realities. And I was just wondering, um,
Speaker 1: from the libertarian sort of point of view, or for
Speaker 1: just from a freedom point of view, what the Founding
Speaker 1: fathers would have wanted how much wealth risk redistributions read
Speaker 1: spreading money around should we be willing to accept? Oh,
Speaker 1: in principle none? Uh? In reality, well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: would you say, would you say none? So the Founding
Speaker 1: Fathers were quite clear that, as the Federalist Papers says
Speaker 1: that the equal protection of unequal ability is the first
Speaker 1: rule of government. And the problem is that if you
Speaker 1: have a redistributionary state, it will not be the equal
Speaker 1: protection of unequal abilities. It will be the unequal protection.
Speaker 1: It will be the It will be taking from some
Speaker 1: who have justly earned those things or justly own those things,
Speaker 1: and giving them to people who don't. And that is
Speaker 1: inherently a violent act. Confiscation by the state is an
Speaker 1: inherently violent act, whether it's done politely through the form
Speaker 1: of bureaucracy or not. In the end, what you're talking
Speaker 1: about is government forcibly taking things that rightly belong to
Speaker 1: people and giving them to those things to other people
Speaker 1: in the service of some vision of the ideal state.
Speaker 1: And you're right about this, this problem of calculating inequality,
Speaker 1: and it goes further than that, by the way, because
Speaker 1: a lot of the time we don't measure where individuals
Speaker 1: go from those categories. We act as if these people
Speaker 1: stay in these categories their whole lives, and they don't.
Speaker 1: People move from one category to another. They go from
Speaker 1: modern an income to high income over the course of
Speaker 1: their lives, and these measurements of equality or of income
Speaker 1: inequality fail to account for that, and so it acts
Speaker 1: as though these are permanent things. When they're not, people
Speaker 1: move from one category to another, and that's how it
Speaker 1: should be. Freedom is going to end up in unequal results.
Speaker 1: That's what freedom does. But if you prioritize freedom, then
Speaker 1: that is not as much a concern, Whereas if you
Speaker 1: prioritize equality, you're going to sacrifice freedom and in the
Speaker 1: end not really get equality because people just aren't fundamentally
Speaker 1: equal in ever respect. So you're gonna have to go
Speaker 1: back and redistribute and redistribute and redistribute. For example, imagine
Speaker 1: that you have a marathon and everybody starts out at
Speaker 1: exactly the same spot. They're not going to end up
Speaker 1: at the same spot. Some people are gonna come in
Speaker 1: for a second, third and so forth. Okay, so now
Speaker 1: you have to shift the ratios in order to equalize them. Right,
Speaker 1: Make some people start way in the in the back,
Speaker 1: and some people wear leg weights and so forth, and
Speaker 1: then you run your next race once again they come
Speaker 1: out unequal. So now you have to go and shift
Speaker 1: them again. And that's why redistribution never ends. It's just
Speaker 1: he has to keep owing and going and going and
Speaker 1: going in order to try and equalize things that are
Speaker 1: inherently unequal, and each step of that redistribution is a
Speaker 1: step of coercion and inherently a step of violence, and
Speaker 1: a commitment of a committing of an injustice against people
Speaker 1: who have not done any unjust thing. Taking away my
Speaker 1: earnings and giving them to some other person because he's poor,
Speaker 1: when I'm not at fault for his being poor, means
Speaker 1: violating my rights, committing an injustice against me. Well, we
Speaker 1: won't even get to white privilege, which is a whole
Speaker 1: different conversation, because you'd make that argument that, of course
Speaker 1: you are. Now Here's another thing is that inequalities will
Speaker 1: increase as wealth increases. So let's say that I have
Speaker 1: one dollar and you have fifty cents. The inequality is
Speaker 1: fifty cents. Right now, let's double both of our incomes.
Speaker 1: Now I have two dollars and you have one dollar. Well,
Speaker 1: the inequality has doubled also, right because now the inequality
Speaker 1: is a whole dollar instead of fifty cents. And yet
Speaker 1: you are twice as as well off now as you
Speaker 1: were before. Both of us are vastly wealthier than we
Speaker 1: were to begin with. Now, where what does a humane
Speaker 1: person worry about? A humane person worries about the absolute wealth,
Speaker 1: worries about lifting poor people from the bottom by by
Speaker 1: ensuring that they have more wealth. It's the inhumane person
Speaker 1: who says, oh, no, we can't have that because the
Speaker 1: inequality has doubled. We don't like that inequality, so we've
Speaker 1: got to make sure to prevent the inequality. No, your
Speaker 1: focus is on the wrong thing. You should be on
Speaker 1: the You should be focusing on increasing the wealth, not
Speaker 1: on making sure everybody is equal. And as Margaret Thatcher
Speaker 1: famously said, socialists would prefer that people have less in
Speaker 1: order to ensure that they are more equal, Whereas what
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is, yeah, they're gonna have inequalities, but
Speaker 1: when people are wealthier, they are better off, even if
Speaker 1: they aren't as wealthy as Bill Gates or something like that.
Speaker 1: So many avidues we could discuss on that topic, and
Speaker 1: I would like to, but we're run a little short
Speaker 1: of time. And I did promise to change people's lives,
Speaker 1: which is a hell of a thing to promise on
Speaker 1: a radio show. So one of my favorite aspects of
Speaker 1: talking to you through the years, Tim is that the
Speaker 1: scales have flown from my eyes. On a couple of
Speaker 1: topics to quote the Good Book Um for instance, the
Speaker 1: idea that a government permit. Why is the government even
Speaker 1: being asked to permit me to do something? I'm just
Speaker 1: going to do it unless I'm hurting someone else. So
Speaker 1: a lot of our ideas of liberty or upside down
Speaker 1: right now, What broad principle of liberty do you think
Speaker 1: has gotten turned on its head in modern America that
Speaker 1: people ought to be reminded of. Oh boy, that's a no,
Speaker 1: you've said, a very good one, which is this idea
Speaker 1: that whether you're presumptively free unless there's some good reason
Speaker 1: to prevent you from being free, versus the idea that
Speaker 1: you are not free unless the government says you are.
Speaker 1: And what what we have done is we're increasingly transformed
Speaker 1: into what I call a permission society, where you are
Speaker 1: not presumptively free unless you first get permission to do
Speaker 1: the thing that you want to do. And there are
Speaker 1: all sorts of problems with that. One is that we
Speaker 1: can't really imagine the benefits of any new innovation before
Speaker 1: somebody introduces and tries that experiment. And the idea of
Speaker 1: of having to get a government permit assumes that government
Speaker 1: bureaucracy somehow knows the right answer to something. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've done lawsuits where I did a case in Kentucky
Speaker 1: a few years ago where the question was that there's
Speaker 1: a law that says you're not allowed to run a
Speaker 1: moving company until you first get permit from the government,
Speaker 1: and in order to get to permit, you have to
Speaker 1: prove that there needs to be a new moving company
Speaker 1: in the state. Well, how do you prove that there
Speaker 1: needs to be a movement? You can't prove that there's
Speaker 1: no and and the idea that the government knows how
Speaker 1: many moving companies there ought to be in the state
Speaker 1: of Kentucky. Of course they don't know the answer to
Speaker 1: that question, and they can't possibly. So it's very dangerous
Speaker 1: that we've shifted our society from one where you are
Speaker 1: presumed to be free unless there's some good reason to
Speaker 1: to limit what you do into a society where increasingly
Speaker 1: you are not free unless you get some form of
Speaker 1: government permission. And think of all the different things you
Speaker 1: have to get permission for, everything from building a house
Speaker 1: to owning a gun, to owning to possessing medicine. That's
Speaker 1: what a prescription is is for. Is a government permission
Speaker 1: slip for you to have a medicine. So I think
Speaker 1: that is that overall is is a very good example
Speaker 1: of how we had a really important principle and and
Speaker 1: I think most Americans still hold it. But gradually we're
Speaker 1: sliding into a society where you are not free unless
Speaker 1: some bureaucrat approves of what you're doing well. And the
Speaker 1: other aspect of our conversations through the years that have
Speaker 1: really crystallized in my head that I wish I could
Speaker 1: convey to other people is this idea that that the
Speaker 1: government is in general wise and benevolent, and the more
Speaker 1: government the better um as opposed to the concept of
Speaker 1: rent seeking, for instance, that the more powerful and rich
Speaker 1: a government gets, the more awful behavior you're going to
Speaker 1: get because it becomes it becomes economically valuable for me
Speaker 1: to get the government to do my bidding. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to invest my time and money to get the
Speaker 1: government to do that do what I want them too.
Speaker 1: So that's why you have these repeat players of powerful
Speaker 1: private interests that use the government to profit themselves, whereas
Speaker 1: newcomers who don't have that kind of political influence, they
Speaker 1: can't obtain that, And so everybody talks about what government
Speaker 1: wealth redistribution as if it's going to cure problems, when
Speaker 1: all that does is it that power is going to
Speaker 1: fall into the hands of the politically effective, the politically powerful,
Speaker 1: and and it's not going to be exercised to benefit
Speaker 1: those who are most needy or most deserving. And this
Speaker 1: presumption that government is made up of angels, it's just amazing.
Speaker 1: There's this a new story I was reading this this
Speaker 1: morning about this guy named Ibram Kendy who published a
Speaker 1: book called How to Be An Anti Racist. All the
Speaker 1: talk about this this is a big deal and one
Speaker 1: of the most dangerous things that's happened in decades. And
Speaker 1: his big proposally is we have a government bureaucracy that
Speaker 1: he in his words, literally governs absolutely everything to ensure
Speaker 1: that it's anti racist, whatever that means, wellist or anti racist.
Speaker 1: There's no such thing as I'm not a racist, and
Speaker 1: the government bureaucracy is going to ensure that everything is
Speaker 1: anti racist. Now, leaven aside from the vagueness of the
Speaker 1: definitions and all those sorts of problems, he just seems
Speaker 1: to assume that government is going to act in an
Speaker 1: anti racist fashion as if government is staffed by angels, which,
Speaker 1: if anything is there has there ever been an example
Speaker 1: of it doing that? I mean, if anything, it's been
Speaker 1: exactly the reverse throughout all of recorded history. And yet
Speaker 1: we assume that. And Jefferson in his first inagur Justice
Speaker 1: has this great line where he says, sometimes we are
Speaker 1: told that government that people cannot be trusted to govern
Speaker 1: their own lives. Have we found angels in the forms
Speaker 1: of kings to govern us? Of course we haven't. So
Speaker 1: if you're if we haven't found angels in the forms
Speaker 1: of kings to govern us, then why would we trust
Speaker 1: the government with more power. If people can't be trusted
Speaker 1: to run their own lives and make their own decisions,
Speaker 1: then they certainly can't be given power to govern other
Speaker 1: people and run their lives and make decisions for them.
Speaker 1: If I'm not we're if I'm not smart enough or
Speaker 1: or moral enough to run my own life, then why
Speaker 1: in the world should I have power to run your life?
Speaker 1: It should be just the opposite. And yet this, this presumption,
Speaker 1: the leftist presumption typically, although you also find it among
Speaker 1: conservatives quite a lot, This presumption that people cannot be
Speaker 1: left to run their own lives is then wedded to
Speaker 1: this sort of mystical notion that somehow government bureaucracy is
Speaker 1: going to be staffed by perfect people, who aren't biased,
Speaker 1: who aren't looking out for their own private interests, and
Speaker 1: who aren't going to do the bidding of their cronies
Speaker 1: and their friends and other than all of human history.
Speaker 1: They have an argument. I mean, the most racist societies
Speaker 1: in the world, the most polluted societies in the world,
Speaker 1: the poorest societies in the world, the most oppressive societies
Speaker 1: in the world, the most discriminatory these are all collectivist societies.
Speaker 1: Environmentalists think that government is going to act in some
Speaker 1: in some fashion to protect the earth against evil, greedy capitalism.
Speaker 1: Well that's true. Why are the dirtiest places on the
Speaker 1: planet the places with the weakest property rights and the
Speaker 1: biggest government the Soviet the former Soviet Union is a
Speaker 1: toxic waste land. China is a toxic waste land, and
Speaker 1: the government is in charge of everything there. So, if
Speaker 1: government is going to to protect the earth against the
Speaker 1: evils of the profit motive, it hasn't worked there. Why
Speaker 1: would we assume that it would work here? When in fact,
Speaker 1: even in the United States, the government was responsible for
Speaker 1: everything from the extinction of the buffalo to the extinction
Speaker 1: of the oh bird of Hawaii. These are things were
Speaker 1: all done by government authorities who had didn't have to
Speaker 1: answer for profit motives, didn't have to answer for the
Speaker 1: safety of private property. As Aristotle said two thousand years ago,
Speaker 1: that which is owned by nobody has the least amount
Speaker 1: of carabis ode upon it. Well, said Tim sand for
Speaker 1: Vice president of Litigation for the Goldwater Institute. You will
Speaker 1: have a link to all of his books and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing if you want to rate them, and
Speaker 1: you probably should. Tim, It's always a pleasure. Thanks. Go
Speaker 1: to Tim the Lawyer dot com for more. Tim the
Speaker 1: Lawyer dot com. You're headed over to Berkeley to lecture
Speaker 1: those people speaking at u C Berkeley in a few hours. God,
Speaker 1: I hope you don't get pelted with rocks and garbage.
Speaker 1: I might stop at the cathedral on the way and say,
Speaker 1: if you couldn't hurt right, what's the downside? When the
Speaker 1: weather outside is frightful? The hunt Santa fe is what's
Speaker 1: the word delightful? Because it's got available h track all
Speaker 1: wheel drive to make being out together better. Enter for
Speaker 1: your chance to win the newly redesigned Santa Fe packed
Speaker 1: with all the jingle bells and whistles you need to
Speaker 1: go dashing through the snow together to winter. Visit amazon
Speaker 1: dot com slash hunting, or scan the QR code on
Speaker 1: specially marked bread and green Amazon boxes. No perch necessary.
Speaker 1: Called five six two three one four four six zero
Speaker 1: three for complete details