John Stossel's State of the Union

I watched a replay of Stossel's program of last night while riding my exercyle this afternoon--after the State of the Union. The blueprint idea really resonated--I've got a little experience with that. I know what goes into it before the stamp, and that it can't be changed or products substituted without the architect's approval. An economy can't run by a blueprint (no one uses blue these days, either). . . that called "central planning" in socialist countries.

Has Barack Obama learned nothing in three years? During his State of the Union address, he promised "a blueprint for an economy." But economies are crushed by blueprints. An economy is really nothing more than people participating in an unfathomably complex spontaneous network of exchanges aimed at improving their material circumstances. It can't even be diagrammed, much less planned. And any attempt at it will come to grief.

Politicians like Obama believe they are the best judges of how we should conduct our lives. Of course a word like "blueprint" would occur to the president. He, like most who want his job, aspires to be the architect of a new society.

But we who love our lives and our freedom say: No, thanks. We need no social architect. We need liberty under law. That's it.

The rest of it here, The real state of the union by John Stossel