Voice For Liberty in Wichita

Community service: involuntary servitude dressed in polite language. Change … Obama Announces Creation Of His Marxist Youth Corps. See also Emanuel Discusses Compulsory Civilian Youth Force.

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Sarah Scrafford has produced a very useful list: The Top 100 Libertarian Blogs. I’m happy to report that my blog, The Voice For Liberty in Wichita, made the cut.
This list is divided into categories, which should make it easier to find just the right blog for your interests.
Thank you to Sarah Scrafford and Kelly Sonora [...]

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My friend Eric Odom publishes the Ultimate Libertarian Quote List.
Well, maybe. My quotations book is pretty good, I think.

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I just returned from Austin, Texas, attending a conference put on by Americans For Prosperity partnering with Sam Adams Alliance, Heritage Foundation, Leadership Institute, and Media Research Center. Thank you to my friend Erik Telford for inviting me to this conference.
We had some great speakers. Robert Novak is a favorite person of mine. I devoured [...]

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According to Americans for Tax Reform today, July 16, 2008, marks national Cost of Government Day:
On July 16, Americans mark the national Cost of Government Day (COGD), the date on the calendar year when the average American finishes paying off his or her share of federal, state and local spending, and the regulatory burden. Cost [...]

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Later this week I’ll be traveling to Austin, Texas to attend Americans For Prosperity’s Defending the American Dream Summit, also known as RightOnline Summit.
There will be many excellent speakers, including a favorite person of mine, Robert Novak, whose recent autobiography The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington I highly recommend.
Naturally, I’ll be blogging [...]

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A writer in the Wichita Eagle’s WE blog recently wrote this cautionary note about what our country would be like if libertarians were in charge: “… you can HOPE that the acid factory down the road didn’t taint your well water and the food you buy isn’t disease ridden.” This writer seems to believe that [...]

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Some commentary regarding Wichita’s half-passed smoking ban that I received.

University of Kansas School of Medicine professor Dr. Rick Kellerman is on the front page of the May 30 Wichita Eagle. Kellerman is upset that a complete ban on smoking is not expected to be adopted by the city council at their June 3 meeting.

Who appointed Dr. Kellerman to be Wichita’s doctor? The doctor’s elitist and authoritarian statement in today’s Wichita Eagle indicates that he is either trying to become the 21st century version of the Prohibition era’s Carrie Nation or the 20th century’s version of the infamous Nurse Ratched (see Ken Kesey’s classic One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) for improper behavior. The arguments that Kellerman uses could also be used to ban everything from firearms, cars, risky behaviors from hang gliding to bungee jumping, and a host of activities that free people exercising their freedom in a responsible way may decide to engage in performing.

While it is a common leftist trait to call their political opponents “fascists” it is a historical fact that the most famous anti-tobacco and anti-smoking advocate in the first half of the 20th century was Adolf Hitler, who was happy to use his tyrannical powers to impose his will upon his subjects. This was (and is) part of the authoritarian elitism that underlies all totalitarian ideologies.

Dr. Kellerman’s desire to follow in these footsteps here in Wichita as part of his campaign to destroy individual liberty, property rights for individuals and business owners, as well as broadly restrict human freedom. Dr. Kellerman knows better than the peasants what is good for us.

Obviously this arrogant professor has never read Thomas Sowell’s the Vision of the Anointed, a book that describes Kellerman’s ideology and elitist arrogance perfectly. The same issue of The Wichita Eagle has a small story about how California’s state senate has passed a ban on smoking within one’s own apartment. Friendly fascism of the nanny state elitists like Dr. Kellerman are active all across this country.

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Wichita Area Chapter Americans for Prosperity Dinner Meeting

Monday, April 28, 2008
6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Program:

Does trade create wealth and prosperity?

How a private citizen can get involved in local grassroots politics?

Location: Spangles Restaurant, 612 S. Broadway, Wichita, Kansas
(On the northeast corner of Kellogg and Broadway in downtown Wichita)

There is no cost for this program. Dinner and refreshments are optional from the Spangles menu on an individual ticket basis in Spangles private meeting room. (No food or drinks brought in please.)

Guests are welcome and encouraged!

RSVP optional but appreciated to John Todd, Wichita AFPF coordinator
john@johntodd.net, (316) 312-7335 cell

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Craig Bolton writes with these additional recommendations:

Bob’s recommendations are great. But here are several more [with my evaluation of the "level" you should be at before you tackle them and how centrally or tangentially important they are in developing an accurate understanding of libertarianism].

At some point, if you haven’t done so long ago, you should read some of the principal “classics,” such as:

John Locke, Second Treatise On Government [elementary and essential]

Baruch Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise and Political Treatise [intermediate and recommended]

Thomas Paine, Common Sense and The Rights of Man [elementary and essential]

Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth of Nations [advanced and requires a prior knowledge of Smith's terminology; absolutely essential at some point]

Herbert Spencer, The Man Vs. The State [elementary and recommended]

Then you might try:

(1) Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. [Intermediate and recommended]

(2) Jim Powell, The Triumph of Liberty [Elementary and essential]

(3) Frederic Bastiat, Economic Sophisisms and Selected Essays On Political Economy [two different books] [Elementary and essential]

(4) William O. Reichert, Partisans of Freedom [advanced but marginal]

(5) Pierre J. Proudhon, The General Idea of the Revolution In the 19th Century [Proudhon was certifiable, but a very interesting writer] [intermediate and marginal]

(7) Jeffrey R. Hummel, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men [Intermediate and highly recommended]

(8) Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism [Elementary and essential]

(9) Ludwig von Mises, Socialism [Intermediate and essential]

(10) F.A. Hayek The Road To Serfdom [new critical edition edited by Bruce Caldwell] and Individualism And Economic Order. [Intermediate and important]

(11) F.A. Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order [Intermediate to Advanced and essential]

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Rothbard, Murray: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto

An absolutely awesome book. If you are interested in liberty and how we could thrive with less or even no government, this is, in my opinion, the most important book to read. I think Lew Rockwell, who I recently had the pleasure to meet at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, says it best about this book:

Once you are exposed to the complete picture — and For a New Liberty has been the leading means of exposure for more than a quarter of a century — you cannot forget it. It becomes the indispensable lens through which we can see events in the real world with the greatest possible clarity. … Its logical and moral consistency, together with its empirical explanatory muscle, represents a threat to any intellectual vision that sets out to use the state to refashion the world according to some pre-programmed plan. And to the same extent it impresses the reader with a hopeful vision of what might be. … He never talks down to his readers but always with clarity. Rothbard speaks for himself. … The reader will discover on his or her own that every page exudes energy and passion, that the logic of his argument is impossibly compelling, and that the intellectual fire that inspired this work burns as bright now as it did all those years ago.

And finally, from Lew again:

The book is still regarded as “dangerous” precisely because, once the exposure to Rothbardianism takes place, no other book on politics, economics, or sociology can be read the same way again. What was once a commercial phenomenon has truly become a classical statement that I predict will be read for generations to come.

Learn more about this book and read it at http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newliberty.asp.

Read, Leonard: I, Pencil

I, Pencil is one of the most important and influential writings that explain the necessity for limited government. A simple object that we may not give much thought to, the story of the pencil illustrates the importance of markets, and the impossibility of centralized economic planning.

From the afterword to I, Pencil by Milton Friedman:

Leonard E. Read’s delightful story, “I, Pencil,” has become a classic, and deservedly so. I know of no other piece of literature that so succinctly, persuasively, and effectively illustrates the meaning of both Adam Smith’s invisible hand — the possibility of cooperation without coercion — and Friedrich Hayek’s emphasis on the importance of dispersed knowledge and the role of the price system in communicating information that “will make the individuals do the desirable things without anyone having to tell them what to do.”

Link to a pdf of I, Pencil: http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/I,%20Pencil%202006.pdf

Link to Leonard E. Read reading I, Pencil: http://www.fee.org/events/detail.asp?id=6239

Friedman, Milton: Capitalism and Freedom
http://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Freedom-Anniversary-Milton-Friedman/dp/0226264211

Friedman, Milton, and Friedman, Rose: Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Choose-Statement-Milton-Friedman/dp/0156334607

James Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, and Dwight Lee: Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity
http://www.amazon.com/Common-Sense-Economics-Everyone-Prosperity/dp/031233818X/

See review at http://wichitaliberty.org/node/192

Callahan, Gene: Economics For Real People: An Introduction to the Austrian School
http://www.mises.org/books/econforrealpeople.pdf

Hazlitt, Henry: Economics in One Lesson
http://www.fee.org/library/books/economics.asp

A very important book that has inspired several generations of thinkers. See review at http://wichitaliberty.org/node/226.

Boaz, David: Libertarianism: A Primer
http://www.libertarianism.org/

Doherty, Brian: Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement
http://radicalsforcapitalism.com

This huge book is more about the people and the movement rather than the principles of libertarianism.

Murray, Charles: What It Means to be a Libertarian
http://www.amazon.com/What-Means-Libertarian-Charles-Murray/dp/0767900391

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For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto by Murray N. Rothbard

An absolutely awesome book. If you are interested in liberty, this is, in my opinion, the most important book to read.

I think Lew Rockwell, who I recently had the pleasure to meet at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, says it best about this book:

Once you are exposed to the complete picture — and For a New Liberty has been the leading means of exposure for more than a quarter of a century — you cannot forget it. It becomes the indispensable lens through which we can see events in the real world with the greatest possible clarity. … Its logical and moral consistency, together with its empirical explanatory muscle, represents a threat to any intellectual vision that sets out to use the state to refashion the world according to some pre-programmed plan. And to the same extent it impresses the reader with a hopeful vision of what might be. … He never talks down to his readers but always with clarity. Rothbard speaks for himself. … The reader will discover on his or her own that every page exudes energy and passion, that the logic of his argument is impossibly compelling, and that the intellectual fire that inspired this work burns as bright now as it did all those years ago.

And finally, from Lew again:

The book is still regarded as “dangerous” precisely because, once the exposure to Rothbardianism takes place, no other book on politics, economics, or sociology can be read the same way again. What was once a commercial phenomenon has truly become a classical statement that I predict will be read for generations to come.

This book is available for purchase at the Mises Institute at http://mises.org. It may be read in its entirety from that site, and an audio recording is available there as well.

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The ending of For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, by Murray N. Rothbard:

Toward a Free America

The libertarian creed, finally, offers the fulfillment of the best of the American past along with the promise of a far better future. Even more than conservatives, who are often attached to the monarchical traditions of a happily obsolete European past, libertarians are squarely in the great classical liberal tradition that built the United States and bestowed on us the American heritage of individual liberty, a peaceful foreign policy, minimal government, and a free-market economy. Libertarians are the only genuine current heirs of Jefferson, Paine, Jackson, and the abolitionists.

And yet, while we are more truly traditional and more rootedly American than the conservatives, we are in some ways more radical than the radicals. Not in the sense that we have either the desire or the hope of remoulding human nature by the path of politics; but in the sense that only we provide the really sharp and genuine break with the encroaching statism of the twentieth century. The Old Left wants only more of what we are suffering from now; the New Left, in the last analysis, proposes only still more aggravated statism or compulsory egalitarianism and uniformity. Libertarianism is the logical culmination of the now forgotten “Old Right” (of the 1930s and ‘40s) opposition to the New Deal, war, centralization, and State intervention. Only we wish to break with all aspects of the liberal State: with its welfare and its warfare, its monopoly privileges and its egalitarianism, its repression of victimless crimes whether personal or economic. Only we offer technology without technocracy, growth without pollution, liberty without chaos, law without tyranny, the defense of property rights in one’s person and in one’s material possessions.

Strands and remnants of libertarian doctrines are, indeed, all around us, in large parts of our glorious past and in values and ideas in the confused present. But only libertarianism takes these strands and remnants and integrates them into a mighty, logical, and consistent system. The enormous success of Karl Marx and Marxism has been due not to the validity of his ideas — all of which, indeed, are fallacious — but to the fact that he dared to weave socialist theory into a mighty system. Liberty cannot succeed without an equivalent and contrasting systematic theory; and until the last few years, despite our great heritage of economic and political thought and practice, we have not had a fully integrated and consistent theory of liberty. We now have that systematic theory; we come, fully armed with our knowledge, prepared to bring our message and to capture the imagination of all groups and strands in the population. All other theories and systems have clearly failed: socialism is in retreat everywhere, and notably in Eastern Europe; liberalism has bogged us down in a host of insoluble problems; conservatism has nothing to offer but sterile defense of the status quo. Liberty has never been fully tried in the modern world; libertarians now propose to fulfill the American dream and the world dream of liberty and prosperity for all mankind.

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The opening words of Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman, written around 1962:

In a much quoted passage in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” It is a striking sign of the temper of our times that the controversy about this passage centered on its origin and not on its content. Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. The paternalistic “what your country can do for you” implies that the government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man’s belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organismic, “what you can do for your country” implies that the government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary. To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served.

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From Dan Mitchell:

Walter Williams Warns Against Tyrannical Majoritarianism.

Most people assume that decisions should be made by majority rule, but that assumes 51 percent of the people should have the right to rape and pillage 49 percent of the people. The sign of a free society, as Walter Williams explains, is that people have inalienable rights:

What’s so great about majority rule? Let’s look at majority rule, as a decision-making tool, and ask how many of our choices we would like settled by what a majority likes. Would you want the kind of car that you own to be decided through a democratic process, or would you prefer purchasing any car you please? Ask that same question about decisions such as where you live, what clothes you purchase, what food you eat, what entertainment you enjoy and what wines you drink. I’m sure that if anyone suggested that these choices be subject to a democratic process, you’d deem it tyranny. … Our founders intended for us to have a limited republican form of government where rights precede government and there is rule of law. Citizens, as well as government officials, are accountable to the same laws. Government intervenes in civil society only to protect its citizens against force and fraud but does not intervene in the cases of peaceable, voluntary exchange. By contrast, in a democracy, the majority rules either directly or through its elected representatives. The law is whatever the government deems it to be. Rights may be granted or taken away. …In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison wrote, “Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.” That’s another way of saying that one of the primary dangers of majority rule is that it confers an aura of legitimacy and respectability on acts that would otherwise be deemed tyrannical. Liberty and democracy are not synonymous and could actually be opposites.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2007/02/28/democracy _or_liberty

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The problem is that politicians are not supposed to have power over us – we’re supposed to be free. We seem to have forgotten that freedom means the absence of government coercion. So when politicians and the media celebrate political power, they really are celebrating the power of certain individuals to use coercive state force.

Remember that one’s relationship with the state is never voluntary. Every government edict, policy, regulation, court decision, and law ultimately is backed up by force, in the form of police, guns, and jails. That is why political power must be fiercely constrained by the American people.

The desire for power over other human beings is not something to celebrate, but something to condemn! The 20th century’s worst tyrants were political figures, men who fanatically sought power over others through the apparatus of the state. They wielded that power absolutely, without regard for the rule of law.

Our constitutional system, by contrast, was designed to restrain political power and place limits on the size and scope of government. It is this system, the rule of law, which we should celebrate – not political victories.

– Congressman Ron Paul

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Writing from New Orleans, Louisiana

The recent passing of Milton Friedman, a personal hero of mine, was marked by praise and admiration for him from almost all sources.

At the end of chapter 2 of his important book Capitalism and Freedom, Dr. Friedman lists some things that the U.S. government currently does that can’t be justified in terms of the principles of limited government and individual liberty and freedom. These are:

1. Parity price support programs for agriculture. I believe he means farm subsidies here.
2. Tariffs on imports or restrictions on imports …
3. Government control of output, such as through the farm program …
4. Rent control … or more general price and wage controls …
5. Legal minimum wage rates …
6. Detailed regulation of industries …
7. … the control of radio and television by the Federal Communications Commission.
8. Present social security programs, especially the old-age and retirement programs compelling people in effect (a) to spend a specified fraction of their income on the purchase of retirement annuity, (b) the buy the annuity from a publicly operated enterprise.
9. Licensure provisions in various cities and states which restrict particular enterprise or occupations to people who have a license …
10. So-called “public housing” and the host of other subsidy programs directed at fostering residential construction
11. Conscription to man the military services in peacetime …
12. National parks …
13. The legal prohibition on the carrying of mail for profit.
14. Publicy owned and operated toll roads …

This list is far from comprehensive. To this list we must add Dr. Friedman’s support of school choice through vouchers, something that is very unpopular in Kansas.

We should remember that Dr. Friedman wrote this book in 1962, before the tremendous expansion of government from the Great Society programs right up through the compassionate conservatism (and tremendously fast-growing federal spending) of George W. Bush.

I wonder how many of the newspaper reporters and editorial writers praising Milton Friedman, not to mention politicians, knew of his strong belief in and advocacy of a very limited government. Would they still praise him? Would they be willing to take his advice?

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There is no doubt in my mind that smoking cigarettes and breathing secondhand smoke are harmful to health. If a young person asked my advice as to whether to smoke cigarettes, I would strongly urge them to avoid smoking.

But it doesn’t follow that we should have laws against smoking, or laws that govern how businesses such as bars and restaurants must accommodate smokers and non-smokers.

Smoking is (and should continue to be) a legal activity. It seems unlikely to me that there are adults who are not familiar with the data about the risks of smoking, and they are entitled to make up their own minds as to whether to smoke.

In a similar fashion, business owners should be able to allow smoking or not, as they judge best serves the interests of their customers. Already many restaurants have judged that their customers prefer no smoking at all. That decision may drive off smoking customers, but that’s the business owner’s decision to make.

Some businesses allow smoking, presumably because the owners decide it is in their best interests to allow smoking. If their customers tell them otherwise or if customers stay away, the business owner has a powerful incentive to change the smoking policy, either to ban it entirely, or to create a more effective barrier between smokers and non-smokers.

People, through their free selection of where they choose to spend their dollars, will let bar and restaurant owners know their preferences. After some time we will have the optimal mix of smoking and non-smoking establishments based on what people actually do, not what politicians think they should do. Isn’t that better than using the heavy hand of government to force change?

I believe that markets, if left to their own mechanism, would serve to reduce smoking. Already smokers pay more for life insurance. If it is true that smokers have more costly health problems than non-smokers, why not let health insurance be priced separately for smokers and non-smokers?

Or, when renting an apartment, a landlord could charge smokers more to compensate for the higher risk of fire and the extra cleanup costs when the renters leave.

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Writing from Miami, Florida

In a free society dedicated to personal liberty, people should be able to gamble. But that’s not what we have, as in a free society dedicated to personal liberty, people wouldn’t be taxed to pay for the problems that others cause in the pursuit of their happiness.

How does this relate to the issue of casino gambling in Wichita and Kansas?

There is a document titled “Economic & Social Impact Anlaysis [sic] For A Proposed Casino & Hotel” created by GVA Marquette Advisors for the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation and the Greater Wichita Convention and Visitors Bureau, dated April 2004. This document presents a lot of information about the benefits and the costs of gambling in the Wichita area. One of their presentations of data concludes that the average cost per pathological gambler is $13,586 per year. Quoting from the study in the section titled Social Impact VII-9:

Most studies conclude that nationally between 1.0 and 1.5 percent of adults are susceptible to becoming a pathological gambler. Applying this statistic to the 521,000 adults projected to live within 50 miles of Wichita in 2008, the community could eventually have between 5,200 and 7,800 pathological gamblers. At a cost of $13,586 in social costs for each, the annual burden on the community could range between $71 and $106 million.

If all we had to do was to pay that amount each year in money that would be bad enough. But the components of the cost of pathological gamblers include, according to the same study, increased crime and family costs. In other words, people are hurt, physically and emotionally, by pathological gamblers. Often the people who are harmed are those who have no option to leave the gambler, such as children.

Quoting again from the study: “While this community social burden could be significant, its quantified estimate is still surpassed by the positive economic impacts measured in this study.” The authors are saying that the amount of money the casino generates will more than pay for the increased social costs. While it is likely true that the amount of money the casino generates is greater than the increased social costs, whether this analysis makes sense depends on what you mean by “generate.”

The largest components of the positive economic impacts are employee wages, additional earnings in the county, and state casino revenue share, along with some minor elements. Together these total $142 million, which is, as the authors point out, larger than the projected costs shown above. But this analysis is flawed. It assumes that salaries paid to employees somehow compensate for increased social costs. Employee wages don’t go towards paying the costs of treating pathological gamblers, as employees probably want to spend their wages on other things. Furthermore, the state casino revenue share is supposed to go towards schools. It is a huge mistake to treat employee wages as compensating for increased social costs.

The absurdity mounts as we realize that gambling is promoted by none other than Governor Kathleen Sebelius (and many others) as a way to raise money for schools. Often the figure quoted for the amount of money gambling would generate for the state is $150 million per year. But here is a study concluding that the monetary costs to the Wichita area alone would be a large fraction of that, and when you add the human misery, it just doesn’t make sense to fund schools with revenue from gambling.

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I, Government
Published in The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, October 2002 by D.W. MacKenzie
Click here to read the article.

This article illustrates just how large government at all levels has become.

Do we really want governments so powerful that they can do the things described in this article?

How have we let this happen? Will we ever be able to shrink the size and intrusiveness of government? Even under a president who labels himself a conservative, government spending has grown rapidly. Even the most modest proposals to take away power from the government and give it back to the people appear to have no chance of success. The proposal for social security private accounts is an example of this.

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About a year ago I became acquainted with the writings of the economist Walter E. Williams. After reading his foreword to this book, I understand — as Williams says himself — how important Bastiat’s writings are. As Williams says:

Reading Bastiat made me keenly aware of all the time wasted, along with the frustrations of going down one blind alley after another, organizing my philosophy of life. The Law did not produce a philosophical conversion for me as much as it created order in my thinking about liberty and just human conduct.

And then this:

…Bastiat’s greatest contribution is that he took the discourse out of the ivory tower and made ideas on liberty so clear that even the unlettered can understand them and statists cannot obfuscate them. Clarity is crucial to persuading our fellowman of the moral superiority of personal liberty.

I am tempted to repeat in full Dr. Williams’s foreword, but you would do well to read it yourself.

The Law is a book about liberty and justice. One of the most important things I learned from reading this book is that the proper function of the law is not to create justice, but to prevent injustice. This makes the laws we should have quite simple. Instead of deciding how much to take from us in the form of taxes (plunder) and how to distribute it, laws should protect us from plunder.

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Today, in the town of Hutchinson, Kansas, an indoor smoking ban takes effect. I hope Wichita does not pass the same law. I believe the evidence that shows smoking is tremendously harmful to the health of the smoker, and also dangerous to those around the smoker. Personally, I don’t care to be around smokers and I take measures to avoid places where I will be exposed to cigarette smoke. So shouldn’t I favor a smoking ban in Wichita?

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A recent column by Thomas Sowell titled Free lunch ’safety’: Part II (a link to part one is here) started with this paragraph:

“The government will allow you to risk your life for the sake of recreation by sky-diving, mountain climbing or any number of other dangerous activities. But it will not allow you to risk your life for the sake of avoiding arthritis pain by taking Vioxx.”

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I believe there is little doubt that it is foolhardy to be in an automobile without wearing seatbelts, or to ride a motorcycle without wearing a helmet. Someone inevitably claims that it is better to be thrown clear of the wreckage than to be trapped inside. But ask any race car driver — they who witness crashes all the time and may have even been in several — if they would dare take to the track without making use of their extensive belting systems.

I believe it would be nice if we had the right to drive automobiles without wearing seatbelts, and to ride motorcycles without wearing helmets. These acts, while dangerous to the actor, don’t pose any real threat to others. If the person who crashes into my car isn’t wearing their seatbelt, it doesn’t change my likelihood of injury to my body. It does, however, greatly increase the danger to my wallet, and that’s where I draw the line.

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I’ve never met Walter E. Williams, economics professor at George Mason University, and I don’t suppose I ever will. But I think I would like him if I met him. I certainly admire his writing. In his columns he has a way of writing very plainly, where everything makes sense. These are some of his columns that I have thought important:

Socialism is Evil This article very plainly makes the case for less taxation by the state.
Socialism is evil: Part II Follow-up.

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