Posted on 10/28/2020 5:16:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
Worried about Tuesday?
Remember: The most important parts of life happen outside politics.
Love, friendship, family, raising children, building businesses, worship, charity work -- that is the stuff of life! Politicians get in the way of those things. But despite the efforts of power-hungry Republicans and Democrats, life gets better.
You may not believe that. Surveys show most people think life is getting worse.
But it isn't, as Marian Tupy and Ron Bailey point out in their new book, "Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know."
"Child labor was once ubiquitous. Now it's limited to a few countries in Africa. Women did not have a vote (until New Zealand granted it at the end of the 19th century). Today, women vote everywhere except for the Vatican," Tupy reminds us.
"Gays and lesbians, persecuted for millennia, are free to marry. Slavery was universal; now it is illegal. The world has never been more peaceful, more educated and kinder."
But the nastiness of today's politics may stop progress! Make life worse!
It's possible, but "worse" compared to what?
I've lived through the Vietnam War, a military draft, 90% income tax rates, price controls, indecency laws, widespread racism and sexism, Jim Crow, the explosion of crime in the 1970s...
Overall, life got better.
With Donald Trump and Joe Biden claiming the other will destroy what's good, it's hard to see improvement. But the world has made progress, largely thanks to libertarian ideas.
"For millennia the world was marked by despotism, slavery, hierarchy, rigid class privilege, and literally no increase in the standard of living," says Cato Institute Vice President David Boaz in the May/June 2020 Policy Report.
"Then libertarian ideas came into the world. Of course, they weren't called that at the time. ... (T)hey were the ideas of human rights, free markets, property rights, religious toleration, the value of commerce, the dignity of the individual - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
These ideas created a wave of progress unlike anything in history.
"Look at the chart of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, or any measure of economic growth," adds Boaz. "It looks like a hockey stick: flat for almost all human history, and then it rockets upwards."
The media shriek hysterically about every problem, and we have problems: pandemic, lockdowns, unemployment, wildfires, bad cops, violent riots, crime...
But no matter who wins on Tuesday, life will probably get better.
Entrepreneurs will invent cool things.
This year, while Democrats and Republicans fought, the private sector found cheaper and better ways to send people into space.
The World Bank complained about governments not providing all people clean drinking water. So private companies are doing it. A billboard in Peru turns humidity into potable drinking water. A drinking straw, LifeStraw, removes bacteria and parasites from water.
Forests are expanding because modern farming uses less land, allowing the forests to regrow.
Thanks to often-despised free markets, poverty continues to decline. In 1981, 42% of the world lived in extreme poverty. By 2018, only 8.6% did. Do politicians ever highlight those gains? No.
Probably because most of those good things happened in spite of them, not because of them.
Most good things do.
Yes, we still have lots of problems: trillion dollar deficits, mental illness, crushing regulation, endless wars (although fewer of them), criminal injustice, inequality, climate change...
But it's always been that way. Evolution programmed humans to focus on problems. Our ancestors survived in a very dangerous world. If they weren't hypervigilant, they wouldn't have lived long enough to give birth to the people who gave birth to us.
I obsess about problems. But I try not to let that distract me from the big picture:
More people in more places enjoy prosperity, religious freedom, personal freedom, democratic governance, largely equal rights, civility, better health and longer lives.
Neither Trump nor Biden is likely to destroy that.
Not with Biden.
Ummm, I gotta take issue with a couple of these “positives”- women getting the vote hasn’t exactly been a boon to rationality or conservatism, and what’s so wonderful about the rise of the lavender mafia?
Maybe, but Harris will destroy it...
To serve man, it's a cookbook.
“ “But no matter who wins on Tuesday, life will probably get better.””
************
The key word is “probably”. If the Dems run the table and own both houses and POTUS and subsequently take the country to a hard Left I agree that they will eventually fail as all socialist countries eventually do. But sadly, not before millions of lives are ruined.
>>Worried about Tuesday? Remember: The most important parts of life happen outside politics. Love, friendship, family, raising children, building businesses, worship, charity work — that is the stuff of life!
I respectfully disagree
If you found yourself in Russia on the eve of the Communist Revolution, Germany on the eve of the rise of NAZIsm, Italy on the rise of Fascism, Iran on the rise of Islamic theocracy....
you’d realize that you are faced with a game changer and a severe limit on your personal liberties going forward.
These are the same Red Guard advocates who rioted in the 1960s, mailed thousands of bombs in the 1970s, and colluded with the Soviet Union in the 80s to try to defeat Ronald Reagan.
And as things stand now, with lockdowns in place and threats of tightening things down further again, so go public options to worship, build a business, meet someone to fall in love, send your children to school, travel to visit your parents or grandparents, etc.
I have to disagree with the opening statement. It sounds good but that just is not how thing are.
I am an optimist Stossel is a Pollyanna.
I’m hoping the same torpor that keeps folks from attending Biden non-events will prevail when it comes to getting to the polls.
Things can go disastrously bad and just get worse and worse for a long time. Germany, 1933-1945. Stalin. Pol-Pot. Or Venezuela for the past 20 years.
Stoessel has been hitting the weed a little too hard.
>>Slavery was universal; now it is illegal.
Still exists. And Imam agree that slavery is still legal because Mohammed approved and in their eyes he is the perfect man. According to the Imam, to comply kufir must be seized in jihad and then taken to Islamic territory before they can be sold into slavery.
And not all slavery is Islamist. Also in Africa their are parents apparently selling their children into slavery to work on farms.
If that communist bastard is elected he WILL start Civil War part Dux.
Ditto (well, optimistic on Pres Trump being re-elected, not so much on the overall trend of the US or the world in general re “progress”).
>>I’ve lived through the Vietnam War, a military draft, 90% income tax rates, price controls, indecency laws, widespread racism and sexism, Jim Crow, the explosion of crime in the 1970s... Overall, life got better.
Actually a lot of these are returning lately. Especially in regions controlled by Leftists.
The leftists’ tantrums, expressed in mayhem, arson, and violence, are the problem - not Plugs himself.
Life will likely improve superficially if the leftists get their way - for about a week to a month. After that, the effects of their policies start kicking in, which results in a tremendous downturn in life for everyone.
Eventually we the people will have to fight back against the leftists’ collective tantrum. If we don’t, we will suffer both their violence, and then their policies.
>>Yes, we still have lots of problems: climate change...
And what does he propose we do to keep the Sun from eventually burning out?
And he calls himself a libertarian?
Yeah, back up some more. See where that gets us. Cuba is only 90 miles off the Florida coast, let’s poll them on how politics really ain’t shit...
This article is wrong in every possible way.
>>Forests are expanding because modern farming uses less land, allowing the forests to regrow.
If we start growing more crops for “oil” (or additives) then we are back to using more farmland.
And then there are the large patches of land for wind farms and solar farms. So we can power the electric cars everyone will be mandated to drive.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.