The point, once more, is not that the conservatives deployed bad arguments against the supposed extremism of Mises and Rothbard. Rather, they downgraded the role of reason as such; and this rendered ineffective their resistance to the Left.
It is a feast for the eyes and ears, a look at how dramatically and sweepingly different our times are in so many ways, and yet how the themes of corruption, deception, and lies are persistent wherever public and private violence against person and property rears its ugly head.
"Every assumption of State power, whether by gift or seizure, leaves society with so much less power."
The private road would be devoted to serving the customers, not looting them at the point of a gun."
So long as Obama continues to expand the state in the domestic area — inflating, taxing, regulating, nationalizing — they will put up with abuses of the human rights that they claim to champion.
But people in a society do not find themselves in such a "one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma." Quite the contrary, they must deal with one another repeatedly.
Judge Napolitano has organized his excellent book around a central metaphor. He contrasts sheep, who follow their shepherd with unquestioning devotion, and wolves, who are alert to protect themselves:
If you do believe that they do more good than harm, consider the unseen costs. What kind of private alternatives are being crowded out by the very presence of the police?
They seek dictatorship. All the rest is illusion.
