I thank the 2012 Property and Freedom Society Conference for reminding me that my opponents are bureaucrats, that their obstacles are weak and fake. They are centrally planned and therefore stupid and inefficient.

They can’t touch me. They can’t even come close. Commerce is as powerful and inevitable as the blossoming of flowers in the Spring. No amount of laws and bureaucrats can stop it.

I am reminded of the legend Dan Gable:

“If I knew I was going to Wrestle in the finals of the Olympics against a Russian and I knew he had been training specifically to beat me, but then I knew the guy was on Steroids, That would HELP me. Whereas some might think ‘oh he’s cheating, for me you didn’t pay the price. You’re not as committed as I am. It’ll tear him apart. He may be strong, but all I have to do during that 9 minutes of wrestling is loosen one single wire in his brain, make him do something that isn’t perfect, and he’ll fall apart.”

I am reminded of a conversation I had in Iraq in 2003.

Some context: Since the fall of Sadaam’s regime, farmers were no longer scared to take more than their quota of water from Iraq’s open air canal system. The farms down stream were drying out. My job involved escorting incompetent police in support of their stupid, archaic irrigation system. We’d go harass the farmers tapping the canal illegally. One industrious farmer had dug a channel and created a pond in his backyard.

When I told my colonel that enforcement was near impossible, and that arresting farmers was hurting the morale of my soldiers, he suggested we have our engineers fill up his channel, repeatedly if necessary, until the farmer gives up. “I’m pretty sure the US Army can out work some guy with a shovel.”

He was wrong. The US Army didn’t stand a chance.

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