Thursday, July 03, 2008

On the limits of libertarianism

Dr. Wheelan strikes a libertarian balance.
I've discovered just one problem with my elegant libertarian philosophy after spending two decades in public policy: It's terribly impractical for actually governing society. My whole quibble with libertarians can be boiled down to one banal question: What's the libertarian point of view on stoplights?

I like stoplights. More to the point, they're a simple and tangible example of how government can make us better off: They enable complete strangers to interact more safely and efficiently. Given a choice between the freedom to speed through an intersection at any time and the coercive red light, I'll tolerate the red light.

That's kind of silly, so consider a more significant example, like counterterrorism. In a world of libertarians, who finds Osama bin Laden?
Read the whole thing.

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