That's true enough but it sidesteps the reality that there is no economic activity that these people don't favor regulating to the nth degree. They talk of privacy and civil rights, but when it comes to commerce, they recognize no right of privacy and no individual rights. All property is up for grabs to control and meld in the name of national well-being.
Hence, it is our major task to oppose and desanctify their entrenched rule, in the same spirit that the first libertarian revolutionaries opposed and desanctified their rulers two hundred years ago.
Otherwise, I will add, our hope is that, when public policies violate our rights to be secure in our persons and our property, public opinion will change upon the demonstration of the disastrous consequences of those policies, in terms, yes, of poor economic performance, but also in terms of political conflict and social upheaval.
The "art of central banking" is the art of pretending to know what one does not know. Not only is it not a science; it is not even an art. At best it is alchemy; at worst it is a gigantic cheat.
Judge Posner, rather than recognize this and the threat it poses to life and liberty, instead mongers fear and urges us to cede more power to government over highly speculative possibilities, all the while dismissing civil libertarians as "ignorant."
Thus, we are left with the prospect of Congress forcing us to use less fossil-based fuels (which are cost-effective and efficient) and replace those fuels with government-approved fuels, which are prohibitively expensive and inefficient.
It is no coincidence that many who oppose immigration also oppose free trade, support the war on drugs, and repeatedly suggest as remedies for every social ill more prisons, more regulations, more prosecutions, more fines, and more government.
I was caught off guard by just how poor the case for human-caused global warming really is.
The discrepancy between the relative position of the US economy in the world on the one hand and the relative position of the United States as to its military presence and the role of the US dollar on the other hand is moving towards a cracking point.
We don't have capitalism in New Orleans or anywhere else, of course. Only government can grant monopoly privilege to put obstacles in the way of people getting what they need.
