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John Stossel starts us off with “Live and let live.” Could be the motto of Pickings.
… there are only two ways to get people to do things: force or persuasion. Government is all about force. Government has nothing it hasn’t first expropriated from some productive person. …
… Thomas Jefferson said, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” Was he ever right! Liberty yields as well-intentioned busybodies try to “fix” the world by stopping you from using gasoline or forcing you to finance antipoverty programs.
No behavior is too small or private to escape the schemers. When a New Zealand couple recently named their child “4real,” the Washington Times said it was “unfortunate” that the government doesn’t forbid that. The “conservative” newspaper named the couple “Knaves of the Week.”
That prompted Donald Boudreaux, chairman of the economics department at George Mason University, to write the editor: “I choose you as my ‘Knave of the Week’ for asserting that the decision on naming a child should belong to politicians and bureaucrats rather than exclusively to that child’s parents. True knaves are those who arrogantly impose their tastes and preferences upon others.”
Exactly. “Live and let live” used to be a noble approach to life. Now you’re considered compassionate if you demand that government impose your preferences on others.
I prefer “live and let live.”
Adam Smith with a great idea for rebranding protectionism.
… They pointed to an analysis by the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs of leading US companies, which recommended that economist use the term ‘economic isolationism’ instead of ‘protectionism’ when addressing an audience of non-economists. “While a person may instinctively want to be protected, no one wants to be isolated. To the broad public, the phrase ‘economic isolationism’ conveys the meaning of the term ‘protectionism’ better than does ‘protectionism’ itself.”
Marginal Revolution asks an important question.
The British Parliament was debating how much slave owners should be compensated for their losses, 20 million pounds as it turned out, when a furious John Stuart Mill rose to his feet thundering, “I should have thought it was the slaves who should be compensated.”
I am reminded of this story, which is probably apocryphal, whenever I hear about how we must compensate “the losers” from globalization. Really? Why should they get any compensation at all? …
WSJ editorializes on Congress’s treatment of Peru and Columbia. Brings to mind Bernard Lewis’ description of the U. S. – ”America is harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.”
Claudia Rosett finds a sweet one for July 4th. She calls it the best play in baseball. It was 1976 and Rick Monday of the Chicago Cubs rescues a flag.
Mark Steyn and his fellows at The Corner, one of the National Review Online blogs, have had a field day posting on the news of the England’s current bombers.
Samizdata finishes up after 12 Corner posts.
… Still, it could be argued, that is just as well that they were NHS (Britain’s National Health Service) people. Had they not been their enterprise might have been successful.
Yahoo News found the Islamic “Rage Boy” we had fun with in June 25th Pickings.