[logician2u]

Surprising words for a "mainstream" economist such as Rahn.

Also surprising to see this in The Washington Times.

[TheDon]

adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute

Mainstream?

[First_Salute]

Bump.

[StriperSniper]

BUMP!

[AzJP]

Nice to see a definition of "liberal".

Or, as a good friend used to say "those b@*t@rd* stole a perfectly good word"!

[logician2u]

When I used the term "mainstream" economist, I meant it in the sense that nobody should have to ask "Who is this guy?"

Anybody who has lived through Nixon's wage and price controls, Ford's WIN buttons and Carter's malaise would instantly recognize the face (with one eye covered by a patch) if not the name. Rahn was chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for several decades, if that's not mainstream enough for you.

Rather than get hung up with whether Cato or Discovery favor or oppose policies having no relation to this column, could we please assess the principle thrust: that European "mixed economies" are becoming more and more authoritarian and this country is hot on their heels?

I believe Rahn has, if anything, soft-pedaled the issue.

True or not?

[colorado tanker]

I agree with these conclusions, but the pendulum already seems to be swinging back to the free market position. We have conservative governments in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. From all indications, it looks like the left is likely going to be kicked out in France and Germany, also. If the Senate swings Republican this year, there will be a real opportunity for reform in the US also. The "Third Way" governments of the '90's are disappearing.

[Wave Rider]

All this is, is nothing except an overview of the Ten Planks of Democratic Liberal Socialism that was started in 1848 and has been working towards dissolving our Constitution and the Bill of Rights since then, towards their way of Thinking and Life!

[galt-jw]

that libertarianism has surface into the wash. times is part of a pattern. the zeitgeist is changing into libertarianism, i believe, as more people wake up to the current paradigm of
"statism" -the dems, vs
"statism lite"-the repubs.

[Constitution1st]

There is only freedom of thought of free people; there is no such thing as the socialist invented term of "mainstream". I know you agree:-)

[rebelsoldier]

EU socialists are at odds with European state nationalists who seek to retain the distinctive nature of their own republics and societies. I'd hardly call nationalist groups "fascists". Compared to the Euros who more closely resemble neo-communist collectivists, they represent more devotion to individual rights and priorities than the European Unionists. In fact the EU is said to be Hitler's European New World Order won, not by outright warfare and military conquest, but by the annihilation of national identities and amalgamation into a political bloc run by a German-Swiss confederational conglomerate of banking and finanical interests, multilateral and above the national governments of the nations comprising it. This is what SOME of the protesters of the G-8 Conference were alarmed about. The socialist and the communist radicals in force there were concerned for vastly different reasons; mainly that their welfare gravy train wouldn't be disrupted. Multilateral political arrangements are inherently bad because the people in the various national societies comprising them immediately lose status and value as the collective short curcuits all the political and social achievements, rights, and liberties generations of their citizens have fought to secure. We in the US face the same loss of sovereignty whenever we enter into these stupid international binding agreements and political surrenders.