Advice for the President

CNN posted a selection of emails from readers giving advice to President Bush.

I'm glad that the President is not likely to take their suggestions.

Take this one, for example, "Stop and listen, Mr. Bush! We've been trying to tell you what's important to us ... who is it you think you serve again? It's adequate health care, a sound economy, right to quality of life ..."

It's not that people want to give up their own rights, but they are always eager to give up someone else's rights if it serves their own agenda. There is no "right to quality of life" -- you make your own quality of life through your own hard work. There is no right to health care -- you choose how much health care you want and you pay for it.

Or this one, "What about the millions of people here that spend their days wishing, hoping that something, someone could change their life? Bring them food, or a job, or a safe place to live."

It's always nice to propose free lunches with someone else's money, isn't it?

Then there are people who don't know their history and the lessons we've learned from the benefits of moving industries towards deregulation and the negative effects of price controls. They make recommendations like this one: "push legislation to regulate oil companies as public utilities -- just like electric, natural gas and telephone companies. This would require that companies obtain regulatory approval before raising gas prices."

There are people who don't understand opportunity cost and make statements such as this: "The best thing Bush could do is revive the military draft. This war is something we should all share in and not just the bottom 25 percent of high school graduates."

My advice for President Bush will have to wait until another post.