Dr. Stephen Davies, of Learn Liberty Explains How to Solve Our Public Debt

[This article is reposted from Diego Lucero's blog "How A Mormon Thinks"]

Directly below, I have typed the full transcript for the Youtube video called, "How Should Governments Deal With Debt?", in which Dr. Stephen Davies explains the different possible approaches that governments can take to deal with the debt crises that happen around the world.  I have also embedded the video at the bottom of this post.

In my opinion, the below is a strong, simple, and succinct argument for increasing personal liberties and for decreasing government spending.

“Nations that spend too much face very difficult choices and options.  One is to actually return to the paths of virtue and bring the public spending under control—through a combination typically, of raising taxes and cutting spending. This can be done, but it can often take very a long time—but it is certainly better than the alternatives.

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Genealogy

This page links to Stanley Lucero's website, complete with his music, and the genealogy of the people of Las Trampas.

You may want to read the articles he's written here:

TLAXCALAN INDIANS IN NEW MEXICO By Stanley A Lucero

Trampas Land Grant

The Document, "Sovereignty"

False Choices

BY DIEGO LUCERO
(originally posted as "The Scourge Of False Choices" at The Moral Liberal and at How A Mormon Thinks.)


In today’s world, we have choices. We can choose which Supermarket we can shop, we can choose which car we drive, we can choose which restaurant we take our family to eat. We choose our careers, we choose our mates, and we choose our elected officials. We can choose right or wrong. We choose our faith. It could even be said that our individual moral codes are actually a complex system of the choices that we have made throughout the courses of our lives. Here in America, we are accustomed to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of our choices. We have choices because we have freedom.

However, we also have ‘false choices’.

"The logical fallacy of false choice is a correlative based fallacy in which options are presented as being exclusive when they may not be. It’s often used to obscure the likelihood of one option or to reframe an argument on the user’s terms."(1)

Simply put, false choices are based on misinformed or misrepresented facts. This is usually because they are the products of narrow-minded worldviews, which have been closed off from outside or opposing opinions. They can also be called ‘biased’, ‘partisan’, and/or ‘divisive’.

False choices fool us. They disarm us by causing us to believe that we are solving problems, even if the choices presented yield the same result or no result.

This is why I believe ‘false choices’ are a root cause for the mass confusion present in our world.

Dallin H. Oaks (Apostle of the Lord in the LDS church) gave a powerful address concerning false choice and deception in October of 2004. He stated:

“From your position on the road of life, you . . . have many miles to go and many choices to make as you seek to return to our Heavenly Father. Along the road there are many signs that beckon. Satan is the author of some of these invitations. He seeks to confuse and deceive us, to get us on a low road that leads away from our eternal destination.”(2)

Most of us can agree that this is true. We wrestle with deception at various levels on a daily basis. One of the best ways this concept is represented is through an analysis of our tradition of choosing politicians. After all, haven’t we all heard the statement, “Choosing the lesser of two evils”?