From The Author
#1 in a series of Think Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right: A 21st Century Citizen Guide (2nd Expanded Edition)
Admin note: As an incentive to subscribers, I’ll be publishing “Think Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right: A 21st Century Citizen Guide (2nd Expanded Edition)” as a weekly serial leading up to and following the July 4 publication date. In addition, I’ll continue to publish new articles monthly. My hope is that you can’t wait for the entire book to appear on the site and instead decide to preorder it here.
i. NOTES ON THE SECOND EXPANDED EDITION
The second expanded edition of “Think Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right: A 21st Century Citizen Guide” contains updated examples of current events to illustrate many of the timeless themes in the book. It also includes new sections covering inflation, taxes, and infrastructure, issues that are more prominently on our minds today than when the 2020 edition was published. Enjoy!
ii. FROM THE AUTHOR
Having lived my first 30 years in Sweden, and another four in other European countries, I have an appreciation for and understanding of the allure of societies that provide a so-called safety net from cradle to grave. Many Americans idealize these countries where healthcare is supposedly free; where new parents enjoy extended paid parental leave, often for a year or more; where childcare, K–12 education, and college are, if not free, at least heavily subsidized; where unemployment benefits extend long past what is the norm in the U.S.; and where, come retirement, the government guarantees you a basic income. After all, wouldn’t it be nice if the government shouldered those responsibilities, removing the financial and easing the emotional uncertainty of parenthood, health scares, unemployment, and old age, so you can focus on the more important things in life?
But Americans are often unaware that a government safety net comes at a price. Free stuff tends to be consumed freely, meaning that, to make ends meet, the government sooner rather than later has to increase taxes and fees, ration services and financial handouts, and implement stricter regulations. Healthcare may be nominally free but is hard to come by; education may be heavily subsidized, but the quality is inferior; the guaranteed basic income in retirement may remain, but is slowly eroded by inflation. And as government involvement increases, innovation and progress are stifled, because new ideas either don’t get off the ground or die in the regulatory maze. The result is a shift of who is in control of large portions of your life from you to society. Instead of you retaining the right to be the master of your destiny, your fellow men, with the government as intermediary, become the master of yours, violating your rights one safety net program, one tax, and one regulation at a time.
Swedes will most likely tell you that they are happy, and that Sweden is a good, if cold, country. They may grudgingly comment on waiting lines for health care and note that their children’s education is not as good as they would like. But in the next breath they will tell you it is the price you have to pay for the “safety net” the welfare state provides. You will get the same answer from the majority of Brits, and from Germans, French, and other Europeans.
What explains this willingness to give up control of certain aspects of your life in exchange for perceived safety? I think your outlook on life is conditioned when from generation to generation, from grandparent to parent to child, your freedoms are gradually eroded and you become more and more dependent on the state, and when the government (public) education system from preschool and up teaches you to take the system as given without offering any fundamental alternatives. You gradually lose your independent mind and your self-reliance—you lose the individualist spirit. You start to look to the state as the guarantor of your welfare, despite it violating your rights to be in control of your life. I observed this from the “inside” for the better part of my upbringing and young adulthood.
America has already traveled quite far down this path. We’re closer to the European model than what most people realize. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and government (public) education are staples of our government safety net, and millions upon millions of us are dependent on these programs for our livelihood. And new programs are added at regular intervals, the most recent, large-scale expansion being the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). And, being products of a government (public) education system that largely teaches us to take this system as given, more and more of us are being conditioned to think like Europeans, believing this is the price we have to pay for the safety net the government provides.
I was fortunate to eventually be exposed to alternative ideas and solutions, allowing me to break out of the welfare state mold. As Americans, we have a choice either to continue down the path of giving up control of our lives and permitting that our rights be violated, or to embrace the alternative of freedom and reclaim what is rightfully ours. This book attempts to put that choice in a moral and political context that explains why neither of today’s main political alternatives are fundamentally opposed to the current direction, and why neither are champions of your and my rights. And it outlines a path forward that lets you and your loved ones increase control of your life’s choices. This path requires a serious but common sense reset one individual at a time. You will most likely find the discussion challenging but hopefully also enlightening and refreshing. And I hope as a result you will be inspired to take action.
November 2020 / July 2022
Anders Ingemarson