Collection of quotes today. Some raw milk buffs petitioned the FDA to lift their ban on the substance… Here are some choice bits of their response: “There is no absolute right to consume or feed children any particular food.” [p. 25] “Plaintiffs’ assertion of a ‘fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which [...]

Via Coyote, after seeing an E-Verify poster that states “If you have the right to work, Don’t let anyone take it away”: This is fairly Orwellian for those of us who believe that all people have the right to work, irrespective of the country they were born in, and this right does not flow from [...]

The NYT has a story today about a student racking up a crushing amount of student debt to earn a degree at NYU, blaming everyone except the student for allowing her to build up that debt. Of course, I have some serious blame for the lenders too, when I realize exactly what they were investing [...]

Pretty much sums up one of the main problems with modern democracy: In a widely quoted book entitled The End of History, Francis Fukuyama wrote about the intellectual and practical triumph of democracy as a system of government. No further political paradigm shifts would be required. Democracy was the omega end point of the historical [...]

From TJIC: In short, 1 American out of a million obeys every single law they are aware of. The vast majority of us first consider whether a law is necessary and moral, and if it is not, we then do a cost benefit comparison, and follow they law only if we want to. Most will [...]

“You can fight fire with fire. As a rule, though, it’s better to use water.” -From Steve Chapman’s Reason article: “Meeting Stupidity with Stupidity: For every action, there is an equal and opposite overreaction” Read the whole article.

Hmm… Title of the post included below: When bad economic news is good news Productivity growth slowed from more than 6 percent during the final three quarters of 2009 to 3.6 percent during the first quarter of 2010. Generally, you want productivity growth to be as high as possible, but this is actually good news [...]

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him. -Leo [...]

From Matt Welch, @ Reason: I have also “knowingly employ[ed] an unauthorized alien,” and “intentionally employ[ed] unauthorized aliens” (or at least, I had a pretty good idea that the dudes in front of Home Depot had a non-trivial chance of being “unauthorized”). Speaking of which, “unauthorized” is my new favorite illegal/undocumented term of art. “Unauthorized.” [...]

From Walter Block, Defending the Undefendable (pg 194 of the Mises printing): Anything goes between consenting adults, and (implicitly) nothing goes but that which is between consenting adults. Restraint and coercion are two sides of the same coin: the use of improper force on another. Restraint of behavior between consenting adults is imprisonment, coercion to [...]

First, Megan McArdle: I am a big fan of roundabouts, and wish that America used more of them in place of intersections or interchanges. Unfortunately, because we don’t have a lot of roundabouts here, drivers don’t quite get them, and they tend to behave very aggressively–particularly, for some reason, those coming off of K Street. [...]

This is an excerpt from a post from the blog Classical Liberal that was written in response to the post Doug wrote yesterday regarding the University of Maryland student police beating caught on tape. As long as men and women in uniform (State-issued costumes) carry out these violent acts, we think it’s okay, because they’re [...]

Call this one the “MSM Edition”: The law promises that people can keep coverage they like, largely unchanged. For members of Congress and their aides, the federal employees health program offers much to like. But, the report says, the men and women who wrote the law may find that the guarantee of stability does not [...]

Ezra Klein, reviewing Michael Lewis’ The Big Short, on the financial meltdown: Like the poor, idiots will always be with us. In fact, we’ll frequently be among them. The seductions of group-think, the tendency to trust experts, the incentives for employees to go along with their bosses rather than contradict them and the need to [...]

The Economist’s Lexington, on Nancy Pelosi: Her autobiography contains less substance than Sarah Palin’s, which is saying something.

Jim Harper @ Reason, on the security of electronic medical records (emphasis added): Transferring control of health care to the federal government transfers control of health information to the federal government. The government has interests distinct from patients, and no matter how hard one fights to protect patients’ privacy interests, the government’s interests in cost [...]

From Billy Beck: I keep hearing about how this DeathCare deal will be the end of the Democrats in November. I cannot think of a single reason why that should matter, and there are many why it doesn’t. (For instance: when this thing is in the bag and done, who do you think is going [...]

From the LA Times, a story about the LA City Council. Electronic auto-voting allows council members to avoid actually attending council meetings, much to the chagrin of voters: Still, their physical absence frequently infuriates members of the public who show up to testify only to find themselves addressing one or more empty chairs. Advertisement “We [...]

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. – Thomas Jefferson

Economist Donald Marron: I often tell my students that, in my humble opinion, one purpose of government is to help people be happy. The DC government did a good job on Wednesday. I disagree with that on so many levels. The government’s job is to secure people’s rights, and as Thomas Jefferson so eloquently said, [...]