No, They Can't

Why Government Fails-But Individuals Succeed

John Stossel

• Publisher: Threshold Editions
• Year: 2012
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781451640960
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The government is not a neutral arbiter of truth. It never has been. It never will be. Doubt everything. John Stossel does. A self-described skeptic, he has dismantled society’s sacred cows with unerring common sense. Now he debunks the most sacred of them all: our intuition and belief that government can solve our problems. In No, They Can’t, the New York Times bestselling author and Fox News commentator insists that we discard that idea of the “perfect” government—left or right—and retrain our brain to look only at the facts, to rethink our lives as independent individuals—and fast.

With characteristic tenacity, John Stossel outlines and exposes the fallacies and facts of the most pressing issues of today’s social and political climate—and shows how our intuitions about them are, frankly, wrong:

• the unreliable marriage between big business, the media, and unions

• the myth of tax breaks and the ignorance of their advocates

• why “central planners” never create more jobs and how government never really will

• why free trade works—without government Interference

• federal regulations and the trouble they create for consumers

• the harm caused to the disabled by government protection of the disabled

• the problems (social and economic) generated by minimum-wage laws

• the destructive daydreams of “health insurance for everyone”

• bad food vs. good food and the government’s intrusive, unwelcome nanny sensibilities

• the dumbing down of public education and teachers’ unions

• how gun control actually increases crime

. . . and more myth-busting realities of why the American people must wrest our lives back from a government stranglehold.

Stossel also reveals how his unyielding desire to educate the public with the truth caused an irreparable rift with ABC (nobody wanted to hear the point-by- point facts of ObamaCare), and why he left his long-running stint for a new, uncensored forum with Fox. He lays out his ideas for education innovation as well and, finally, makes it perfectly clear why government action is the least effective and desirable fantasy to hang on to. As Stossel says, “It’s not about electing the right people. It’s about narrowing responsibilities.” No, They Can’t is an irrefutable first step toward that goal.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Back Cover
• Description
• Author Bio
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction: Is There Anything Government Can’t Do? Well . . .
• Chapter 1: “Fixing” the Economy
• Chapter 2: Making Life Fair
• Chapter 3: Keeping Business Honest
• Chapter 4: Improving Life for Workers
• Chapter 5: Fixing Health Care
• Chapter 6: The Assault on Food
• Chapter 7: Creating a Risk-Free World
• Chapter 8: Making Sure No One Gets Offended
• Chapter 9: Educating Children
• Chapter 10: The War on Drugs: Because Alcohol Prohibition Worked So Well . . .
• Chapter 11: Wars to End War
• Chapter 12: Keeping Nature Exactly As Is . . . Forever
• Chapter 13: Budget Insanity
• Conclusion: There Ought Not to Be a Law
• Notes
• Acknowledgments