Window repairman arrested for practicing "economic stimulus"

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“Times were so tough for Redlands window repairman Timothy Carl Klenke, police say, that he decided to take proactive measures. So he armed himself with a slingshot and began cruising around the city, shattering at least five windows and car windshields as he went.” – David Kelly, Los Angeles Times (see full article here)

It’s really funny to me how life tends to come full circle and often in the strangest ways.

While speaking with friends last night, one of them mentioned a discussion she had with an individual who insisted that government spending is the most efficient way to stimulate an economy. Naturally we drifted towards Fréderic Bastiat’s “Parable of the Broken Window” wherein he makes the case that breaking windows to stimulate economic activity is a fallacy common to simple minds in general. Yet this well thought out argument from 1848 was laid to rest when statist governments, including that of the US, adopted Keynesian economics as the default standard.

So coming across this article this morning of poor Mr. Klenke who decided to put this fallacy into practice for himself, I thought for a moment it has to be a joke. This man should not be punished for breaking the law. He is merely practicing Economic Stimulus on par with the boys and girls in Washington.

When will Americans come to the understanding that one should not give the government the power to do anything that the individual does not posses the right to do on his own. So if “breaking windows” is illegal for Timothy Carl Klenke, it must by right be illegal for the government. Or maybe I’m missing something.