Posted on 03/10/2019 6:59:53 PM PDT by Osage Orange
That’s a great story!
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Wasn’t it that “Free to Choose” PBS series that began Thomas Sowell’s migration from libertarian market economies to capital market economies?
Both Sowell and Water Williams are currently to best Friedman-ian (capital drive markets) economists we have. I never miss their (now infrequent) columns in the media.
I loved Milton Friedman and thought he was one of the most brilliant men there was. He and Friedich Hayeck revolutionized free market thinking. That wonderful economist AOC (sic) could take a few lessons from them but since they were old white men I guess she won’t.
After saying all of this however, I have to strenuously disagree with him on his view of illegal drugs in this Donahue piece. First off, there is no way that illegal drugs such as heroin (specifically mentioned in this youtube video) should be allowed for minors.
A minor does not have full rights as an American for a reason. The very last part of a person that matures is the brain and the last part of the brain to fully mature is the frontal cortex. This part of the brain does our high level reasoning. It does not mature sometimes until the age of 25. Someone who is 13 or 14 years old does not have the capacity to make a decision to do drugs that could physically kill him or ruin his life.
The second part of his argument concerning adults should be allowed to use illegal drugs I am also in disagreement with. Yes, I am ambivalent about legalizing the use of Marijuana. I don’t believe in the government regulating morality. I am against the legalization of other harder drugs for a different reason. Why should I as a member of society be subsidizing someone’s hard drug use? What I mean by this is if we legalize it does that mean we continue to overburden our ambulance and hospital systems with overdoses? Our police with continuously answering calls of overdoses and administering narcon when their time could be effectively used elsewhere? Or do we just decide to let these people die in the streets. Yes, things like alcohol and cigarettes and others drugs will kill you, but the difference is that heroin and cocaine and meth can kill you just by taking it one time. Alcohol will kill you over a period of 20 - 30 years and it has to be hard alcohol use.
I admire both of these men, too. I started teaching Econ as a grad student in the late 60’s. I’m hard-pressed to think of one colleague who was also a conservative economist. Since we rarely agreed on policy issues, I ate a lot of lunches alone. But, like they say: If you take all the economists in the US and laid them end-to-end, they’d never reach a conclusion.
The phrase “Free to choose” now means “Kill the baby”.
Right. There was a telephone tax enacted in 1898 to pay for the Spanish-American War.
The tax wasn't eliminated until 2006.
And Al Gore’s “let’s wire all classrooms for the internet” (now completely useless— everything is fully wireless and easily accessed without a Federal tax)=== is STILL on all phone bills... including cell phones!
A giant slush fund, no longer in service of old technology. Now let’s try to remove THAT! Good luck.
BTW— there is still red dye required for Al Gore’s diesel fuel tax.... from long ago! apalling.
Yep, all the Algor taxes are still with us. I didn’t get a second phone line because I refused to pay that tax at the time. It was only on additional lines at the time, that is, when people were adding 2nd lines for acoustic modems.
I think the diesel-dye was for tax-exempt non-road ag machinery. More than a handful of RV owners, as an example, have been caught “cheating” on highway fuel taxes
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