Bill O'Reilly's "The Big Lie of the Presidential Campaign": A Response

I had no plan to write a series of posts on O'Reilly talking points; I've listened to dozens of segments without commentaries; maybe it's just pent-up frustration.  Initially  Bill O'Reilly started off on a good note.:

Basically [the Founding Fathers'] vision was a limited one. [Politicians are judges] are evolving away from how this country was established. In addition, they are deceiving the American people into believing that their success and well-being will be almost assured by a giant federal nanny state, which is absolutely impossible in a nation of nearly 320 million people...[Solving America's problems] will require a cultural change in many working class and poor precincts.  If you reject the conventional road to success -- education and hard work -- you will fail in our capitalistic system 

But then Bill goes wrong on a number of things:

When a guy like Rand Paul tells Americans that they should be able to intoxicate themselves at will and public safety be dammed, he gives license to behavior that has destroyed untold billions of people the world over.  Not to mention the message that legalized drugs sends to children.

Here's what the government owes us:

A secure border system whereby our immigration laws are enforced and respected.
An infrastructure of mass transportation that is safe and efficient.  What the U.S. airlines are doing to their passengers is a scandal and the fact that we don't have a high-speed rail system is flat out irresponsible.

That means schools with strong educational and disciplinary standards; subsidized benefits for the poor and infirmed that are delivered responsibly with clear guidelines; also, protections in the workplace against companies that would violate labor laws and exploit powerless employees.
Mr. Trump, Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton all say they will punish American companies who move jobs abroad.
Mr. Trump is noble in his intent to create jobs and train Americans to do them.
But that will require much more than trade deals and rhetoric.

Now I'm picking out bits and pieces for purposes of discussion, but a lot of O'Reilly's analysis seems unfocused, incoherent, and inconsistent. I am also leaving out a lot of things I agree with. But Bill O'Reilly has a curious concept of limited government--his vision seems to include a government which has a safety net, regulates business labor policies, funds infrastructure and schools, prosecutes victimless crimes, and intervenes in business decisions overseas as if jobs are government-controlled widgets. None of this stuff is  found elsewhere in the Constitution. O'Reilly has very little to say about decades of failed public policy in education, other government programs or the economy.

On the Rand Paul point: libertarians or conservative fusionists like Paul have never said or implied that people who use drugs are not responsible for the consequences of their behavior on the fundamental rights of others (life, liberty, property). I have never been involved with illicit drugs and I certainly don't advocate or condone their use. The issue we have is a failed government prohibition which tends to be counterproductive, which drives up the black market price, attracting organized crime with obscene profits. The War on Drugs has been expensive, dangerous, and a failure. Worse yet, and O'Reilly doesn't even see this, it's the Nanny State on steroids; we are prosecuting victimless crimes of voluntary transactions. Countries like Portugal have decriminalized and have shown that social problems aren't exacerbated, as O'Reilly claims. Drinking is still a serious issue but more manageable than Prohibition.

But what makes O'Reilly's analysis particularly so incompetent is the fact that Rand Paul hasn't even called for the legalization of marijuana, never mind harder drugs. He's spoken in favor of states having the right to legalize pot under the principles of federalism, of related criminal justice reform, etc. O'Reilly has a responsibility to do due diligence and not make Rand Paul a whipping boy for his anti-drug rants.

As for the border topic, this really comes under the topic of national defense. Some of the problems on our southern border have to do with the just referenced failed War on Drugs. Other problems exist because we no longer have a viable guest worker program and we have clogged legal immigration channels. Never mind the fact that we have seen a net outflow of Mexicans over the last few years, largely motivated by family reunification and an improving Mexican economy. Now spurred on with his obsession with Kate's law, O'Reilly is exaggerating border issues, which, despite being Trump's signature issue, routinely ranks last among GOP voters. Let us keep in mind that despite Obama's controversial executive orders, he has actually deported more than not only Bush, but the number over decades. And the following plot speaks for itself:

There is no doubt that the anti-immigrants have dominated the discussion this cycle, but hyping an issue does not make it valid.

O'Reilly then goes on some bizarre political wishlist about transportation; I don't know what his issues are with airlines; what I am sure of is that government makes any problems worse. No, we don't need boondoggle mass transit systems--especially high-speed rail. There are very few business models where high-speed transit make sense: maybe the Northeast corridor given population density and limited distance, but high-speed rails, more often than not, are not self-sustaining. And don't get me started on Jerry Brown's pipedream.  What we need to see is less government and more private-sector in infrastructure. No discussion whatsoever of failed government mass transit systems, how throwing money at the problem is the solution,

He then goes on to talk about schools, where we've thrown trillions at teachers and schools and have mediocre, flatlined achievement scores. What about public education failures? No discussion. He talks about subsidies to the poor without discussing moral hazard or his point about self-reliance. He seems to buy into some sort of Marxist critique of the alleged exploitation of workers.

He seems to buy into the idea that Trump, Clinton or Sanders should intervene in companies doing business abroad, although he rightly seems skeptical that Trump can re-aource the jobs he claims. I recently wrote a long commentary on O'Reilly's trade misconceptions and don't want to repeat myself here, except to note all 3 fail to understand our tax and regulatory policies discourage investment and all their economic policies are counterproductive. Mises explained the impossibility of centralized economic planning a century ago. Trump doesn't have nearly the authority he seems to think he'll have as POTUS. The fact is the economy is always changing. Some jobs will be eliminated due to improved productivity, others because we don't have comparative advantages in their market segments. Granted, O'Reilly seems to be skeptical of Trump's ability to bring back jobs from China, but the key point is that we need to look at innovation, comparative advantages, not on trying to keep jobs without a sustainable business model.