Celebrate May Day by lighting a candle, commemorating the millions of casualties of Mao's quest to establish a socialist paradise in China. History has taught us that absolute economic equality is neither desirable nor achievable. We should never outsource our own pursuit of happiness to a strong man nor a big government!
Celebrate May Day by renewing your driver's license and marvel at the inefficiency of a collectivized workforce! Reagan was right, "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem."
Celebrate May Day by turning on lights. Thanks to fracking, we don't have to endure regular blackouts. Instead, we can enjoy affordable energy, which in turn improves our productivity, raises our standards of living, and protects our environment!
Celebrate May Day by shopping at a grocery store, being in awe the abundance of choices we have, appreciating the power of free market economy, and being grateful that unlike Venezuelans, we don't have to stand in long lines to wait for a pound of sugar, a gallon of milk or a roll of toilet paper.
Celebrate May Day by posting something on Twitter and/or Facebook. Just remember that China's totalitarian government blocked Chinese citizens' access to these sites, and the German government is pursuing criminal charges against a satirist who read an offensive poem about Turkey's Prime Minster Erdogan. Based on what's going on on our own college campuses, we are quickly losing our own right to free speech too.
Celebrate May Day by working hard and giving your best effort no matter what you do. You are in charge of your own destiny. No weapon is more powerful in fighting the war on poverty than work, any kind of work. All work is valuable, because “work allows you to renew your life, which is part of the renewing of civilization. Work gives us purpose, stability, integration, shared mission" (Peggy Noonan).
Celebrate May Day by taking an inventory of your home. Thanks to free trade, you don't have to weave your own fabric, sew your own clothes or try to figure out how to build a toaster oven from scratch. Free trade enables us to specialize in doing what we do best and, through voluntary exchange, to obtain the best goods and services at competitive prices. Free trade improves average Americans' lives. It's protectionism, not free trade, that causes the most harm.
Celebrate May Day by mowing your lawn, or planting some flowers in your garden! Let everyone know that you take pride in private property ownership! Do you know that a homeowner in China has only the right to usage of his house but doesn't own the surface land that his house sits on? Do you know a home owner in the U.K. owns the surface land but has no claim to any mineral rights on his land? The United States is the only country in the world where a home owner owns not only the surface land but also the rights to extract minerals from that land? In other words, only in the U.S. do private individuals own much of the mineral rights, as opposed to federal and state governments. So take care of what's yours!
Celebrating May Day by gazing at the sky. An immigrant from South Africa, an American entrepreneur named Elon Musk, just announced his private company, SpaceX Corp, plans to send a capsule to Mars in 2018, as his first step towards colonizing the planet. Only in a free society that recognizes and protects individual rights and property rights, can an individual feel a sense of ownership in his future. In return, he/she is motivated to study, save, work, to dream the seemingly "impossible" dream and to take risks however they see fit. Our lives are better because of these rugged individualists and their entrepreneurial spirits.
Celebrate May Day by saying a prayer for our nation's youth, those who believe a 70-year-old socialist is their best hope for a better future. Let's hope they will soon realize that socialism is ideological crap that belongs to history's dustbin. They are not entitled to a free college education, free healthcare, or free anything else. Nothing is free in life. But they are entitled to freely choose how they want to live their lives and shape their own destiny!
In truth, we don't need to celebrate May Day. We should take a moment, however, to celebrate freedom, free markets and everything that has made our nation great!
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