Whenever I point out the predictable (and often predicted) negative consequences of a particular government intervention, someone will invariably come back with, “Oh yeah, what’s YOUR solution, smartypants!”
Like that’s some sort of zinger.
In almost every case, the inquisitor is looking for me to propose an alternative government solution, when the obvious recommendation implicit in my post was, “Stop letting the government…”
No matter how high the past failures mount up (drug war, education, health care, war on “terror”), they’re always ready to call in the government again.
It’s almost as if they can’t confront the reality that, as the great John Bender put it, “The world is an imperfect place; screws fall out all the time.” They are constantly looking for someone, usually a politician, to wave a magic wand and make realities like scarcity go away.
How many examples will it take? How many thousands of repetitions do they require before every day isn’t their first day?
What would it take for people like this to acknowledge:
1. Some problems can’t be solved. We just have to learn to live with them.
2. In a world of scarce resources, the voluntary cooperation of the market always produces the best outcomes.
3. In that same world, the government always produces the worst outcomes.
Freedom is impossible without confronting reality.
Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.
