Why Am I Running For Governor?

Government matters for the way that people live their lives. The ideal setting for human flourishing is a society of free and responsible individuals. Responsible individuals are sovereign over their own lives, subject only to the laws of space and time, and only those additional laws they give their consent to. No one should be coerced into sacrificing his or her values for the benefit of others.

As a responsible individual I must accept the consequences of my choices, and refuse to use political means to coerce others into sacrificing their values to compensate for my bad choices. And I can't use the "needs" of others as a bludgeon to secure benefits for my political cronies and supporters. As H. L. Mencken put it, "Whenever 'A' annoys or injures 'B' on the pretext of saving or improving 'X', 'A' is a scoundrel."

America is the freest nation on earth. But we are becoming a society of scoundrels and victims, with those in power promising to annoy or injure for hire. Government has become an extortion racket, justified by fuzzy good feelings and the sense that no one should have to responsible for their failings, or bad choices. Citizens are actively encouraged to become professional victims, believing they suffer the noble grievance of oppression rather than a simple dullness of the spirit.

Respect for individual rights of action, belief, and property, can create a free and prosperous world. These rights are both necessary and sufficient: All, but only, those societies that protect economic and political rights will prosper and grow. The key animating forces in history are human creativity and entrepreneurship. The main tasks of government is to banish fraud and coercion from human interactions.

There are also some truly "public" public goods that government can legitimately and effectively provide. But only great vigilance can ensure that the scope of government power does not expand beyond its legitimate ambit.

I have spent much of my adult life preparing to administer the state of North Carolina, though I didn't realize that until about five years ago. North Carolina has been my home for more than 20 of my 47 years, and it is the greatest state in the Union. I want to give something back, and as Governor I have a lot to give.

While I was working at UNC-Chapel Hill, I served as Director of the Master of Public Administration Program, where I worked to develop tomorrow's leaders in city, county, state, and federal government positions. I have worked closely with a number of North Carolina government agencies and offices, and have a strong relationship with city and county managers around the state. As MPA Director, one of my jobs was to visit city or county administration offices, and talk with key officials about their needs, and the needs of their citizens.

A theme that often came up, when I talked to citizens and to city officials, was a sense of dissatisfaction with government. But most people are confused; they think that the problem is too little democracy, too little responsiveness to the will of the people. I think the opposite: our fundamental problem is too little attention to the fundamental rights of the people to be free from the tyranny of democracy, or the arbitrary power of government. Consider this passage from Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International:

For people in the West, democracy means "liberal democracy": a political system marked not only by free and fair elections but also by the rule of law, a separation of powers, and the protection of basic liberties of speech, assembly, religion, and property. But this bundle of freedoms-what might be termed "constitutional liberalism"-has nothing intrinsically to do with democracy and the two have not always gone together, even in the West. After all, Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany via free elections. (Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom, p. 17, emphasis mine).

If all we mean by democracy is a civil myth, basically a synonym for "good government," it could be a useful conceit. The idea of democracy honors common people, calming the mind and pleasing the agora. If democracy is a fraud, however, then we are in bleaker and more sinister terrain. The pretense that in the multitude we find rectitude is dangerous: many of us would love to impose our "wisdom" on others. Saluting the collective wisdom is simply a way to hold other citizens down whilst we steal their purses, or pack their children off to war.

America is a federal republic, with horizontal separation of powers among executive, legislature, and judiciary, and vertical separation of powers between the central government and the states. The claims of the Declaration of Independence are straightforward: the American system is based on the claim that all citizens have rights, and "That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed…" That means that democracy is important. We need democracy, literally depend on it to make the whole system work. But democracy is not the end of government, it is only the means by which citizens can withhold consent.

So, the reason I want to run for Governor of North Carolina as a Libertarian is that I want to restore good government to our great state. My themes, a moratorium on capital punishment, control of municipal aggression against property, a broad-based education vouchers system and ending corporate welfare, are all echoes of this one central theme. I am a liberal, in the way that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were liberals. I believe in the human spirit more than I believe in government direction and control of human activity. As Governor, I will lead North Carolina towards a rebirth of liberty, tempered by the requirements, and the ethics, of personal responsibility.