attitude matters

For the Reason magazine, John Stossel argues that Americans are focused too much on negative news:

Longing to be a Victim

America was founded by people who were the opposite of victims, by people with grit. Overcoming obstacles is the route to prosperity — and happiness, too.

Whether people have real physical ailments or just see the economic deck stacked against them, the most damaging thing say to them is: Give up. You can’t make it on your own. Wait for help.

America is full of success stories. But if we obsess over stories about victimhood, that is what we’ll get.

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too many laws

Nobel laureate Milton Friedman makes a case for less regulation and legalization of drugs:

One of the most effective remedies for the problem of crime is to reduce the number of things that are crimes.

If you had a legal source of drugs at relatively low prices, which they would be, you would drastically eliminate this whole category of crime.

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government and society

Great quotation by Frederic Bastiat:

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.

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private charity

Milton Friedman on the single most important side effect of social policies:

One of the things I hold against the welfare system most seriously is that it has destroyed private charitable arrangements which are far more effective, far more compassionate, far more person-to-person in helping people.

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free enterprise system

Decades ago, Nobel laureate Milton Friedman discussed the impact of intellectuals and businessmen on the free enterprise system:

You must separate out being pro free enterprise from being pro business.

The two greatest enemies of the free enterprise system have been on the one hand my fellow intellectuals and on the other the big businessmen. For opposite reasons:

The intellectual is all in favor of freedom for himself and all opposed to it for everybody else.

Almost every businessman is in favor of free enterprise for everybody else but special privileges for himself.

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pay the price

The other day I came across yet another great quote by Thomas Sowell:

I don’t want people making decisions who don’t pay the price of their decisions. And that’s what politics is all about: you don’t pay the price of the decisions.

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the next paul

Senator Rand Paul, son of former Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul, discusses his political ideas with Peter Robinson for Uncommon Knowledge:

There is a route to victory for Republicans nationally without diluting our message.

If you care about small government, there is almost a requirement of care about supporting the family.

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selective freedom

Some great quotations by Friedrich Hayek about freedom:

Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom.

If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.

From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time.

We shall never get the benefits of freedom, never obtain those unforeseeable new developments for which it provides the opportunity, if it is not also granted where the uses made of it by some do not seem desirable.

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice;
it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.

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false dilemma

Aaron Ross Powell, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, dissects a false dilemma that is frequently used against libertarian policies.

Libertarianism, Bill Maher, and False Dilemmas

A person commits it when he limits the available choices in an argument too much. You can pick between A or B, he says, when in fact there’s an option C (and D, E, and F), as well.

Libertarians bear some of the blame for this. Quite often when choosing our rhetoric, we have a tendency to focus on “not A” instead of saying, “B’s not good either, so let’s instead do C.”

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democracy, federalism, and freedom

Adding to my recent blog posts on democracy and federalism, I’d like to share an article by Charles C.W. Cooke, published in the National Review:

Repeal the 17th Amendment

It is liberty, not democracy, that is America’s highest ideal.

The Senate was not intended to be the people’s representative body, but that of the states.

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