bobbyw24
03-23-2010, 05:26 AM
Ron Paul is a courageous standard-bearer of pure libertarianism, but his conviction and consistency couldn’t produce more than a handful of delegates to the 2008 Republican convention. American voters seem skeptical about electing someone on the basis of an uncompromising devotion to a minimal state. Pragmatic libertarianism will never have the elegant clarity of the pure faith of Frederic Bastiat and Robert Nozick, but it might deliver what more Americans want.
All libertarians — pure and pragmatic — are defined by their belief in the value of liberty.
Some think that individuals will always be the best judges of their own needs and wants. Indeed, mainstream economic analysis typically judges an intervention to be benign if and only if it expands the range of choices available to the population.
Other libertarians accept that while private individuals often make poor choices, delegating decisions to elected officials and bureaucrats, who are prone to their own errors, is unlikely to make things better.
Libertarians see virtue in individual responsibility. As every parent knows, the only way that children get wiser is to give them the freedom to make their own mistakes.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/pragmatic-libertarians/
All libertarians — pure and pragmatic — are defined by their belief in the value of liberty.
Some think that individuals will always be the best judges of their own needs and wants. Indeed, mainstream economic analysis typically judges an intervention to be benign if and only if it expands the range of choices available to the population.
Other libertarians accept that while private individuals often make poor choices, delegating decisions to elected officials and bureaucrats, who are prone to their own errors, is unlikely to make things better.
Libertarians see virtue in individual responsibility. As every parent knows, the only way that children get wiser is to give them the freedom to make their own mistakes.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/pragmatic-libertarians/