Bienvenido “Nonoy” Oplas Jr.

Minimal Government Thinkers, Inc.

The effects of social media in political

awareness

UP Sapul forum

Main library lobby, UP Diliman, Quezon City

14 September 2016

Creating political awareness for less/minimal (not zero)

government, free market and individual freedom

Free market – free trade, voluntary exchange, zero to little government

intervention in many sectors of the economy. More individual freedom,

personal and civil society responsibility.

* 3 types of free marketers:

(1) Anarchist – zero state authority, zero central (and local?) government,

citizens’ self-government by voluntary organizations and individuals.

(2) Minarchist – small or minimal government, function is mainly to enforce

the rule of law, protect the citizens against aggression, their right to private

property, right to liberty.

(3) “Minimax” – one side advocates minarchy, another side advocates

more government, more or higher taxes. Confused free marketers.

* Independent -- receive or solicit no government funding or donation

(local, national, multilateral/foreign aid money). Only private and civil

society donations.

NOT advocating “good governance” under a BIG government

• Advocacy is limited, minimal governance – small government, small

and few taxes, few regulations and prohibitions.

• NOT good governance of a big, intrusive, prohibitionist and tax-hungry

government. Like “No business, no job creation allowed unless

entrepreneurs will first get the signatures and permits of regulators and

officials, dozens of permits.”

• Free society: everything is allowed except for a few prohibitions:

No murder, No abduction, No rape, No stealing, No destruction of

private property, etc. Drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc allowed so long as

none of the NOs mentioned is committed.

• Unfree society: everything is NOT allowed except with government

permits. Driving your car, putting up a business, building a house,

renovating a house or office, having a pet, etc. – all of them require

permits. Relatively easy to comply yet, but moving towards more

complicated, more costly permits.

Outlets in spreading this pol.

awareness 1. blogs:

http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/

https://electricityasia.wordpress.com/

2. website: http://minimalgovernment.net/

(not regularly updated though)

3. South East Asia Network for

Development (SEANET), KL-based

http://seanetwork.asia/,

https://seanet2.wordpress.com/.

4. Previously with “Fat-Free Economics”,

http://interaksyon.com/

Now with “My cup of liberty”,

http://www.bworldonline.com/

Also with Business 360, Kathmandu-

based monthly mag., http://biz360.com.np/

Free trade

Free market in energy policies

Climate alarmism, governments and the UN

El Nino-La Nina cycles, 1950-2015

Facebook and

the socialists

"You know that

free markets and

free trade have

won when self-

proclaimed

socialists and

communists

express their

views on

Facebook,

Youtube and

Twitter using

Macbooks and

iPhones."

Social media and pol. awareness: Bernard Ong in facebook

• Bernard is a fellow UPSE alumni, fellow student activist in the 80s, Marcos

was still the President.

• He’s not a columnist in a newspaper or online papers, he only posts in fb

and hundreds or thousands of his followers watch for his postings.

• Viral post on “Attack the west…” with nearly 5l likes and nearly 6k shares.

Rule of law and Duterte

Concluding notes

• Social media provides information competition. Along the lines of

anti-oligopoly, anti-central planning and centralized thought

conditioning. Even the most well-thought lies and propaganda

cannot succeed if they are not shared in social media. Seemingly

ordinary fb posts that become viral, shared 5k+, 10k+ and

reaching out to tens or hundreds of thousands of readers. (Talo

pa ang maraming newspaper stories or columns)

• The free market system can guarantee this type of information

competition. Not central planning and big, interventionist

government.

• Big challenge now is how a creeping PH dictatorship with little respect

for human rights and international rule of law can be countered by

vigilant citizens through social media.