http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/ideas-and-consequences-growing-up-means-resisting-the-statist-impulse/ Ideas on Liberty Wed, 15 Feb 2012 04:40:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/ideas-and-consequences-growing-up-means-resisting-the-statist-impulse/comment-page-1/#comment-48814 John Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:10:41 +0000 http://www.thefreemanonline.org/uncategorized/ideas-and-consequences-growing-up-means-resisting-the-statist-impulse/#comment-48814 Mr. Reed, in this article you dabble in volutarism, but you shy off the root. To criticize smoking bans, you cite: "I can think of a lot of risky behaviors in which many adults freely engage but which I would never call upon government to ban: sky diving and bungee jumping being just two of them" but these are easy and involve only risk to the individual's own health and safety, not their potential to harm others. This makes you sound like a conservative, begging people to stop asking the government to protect people from themselves. The libertarian fight is a much harder one: convincing people the government is not the way to protect themselves from others. The majority who advocate bans on smoking aren't trying to protect the smoker, they want to protect themselves from second hand smoke. Too many libertarians are focused on the free market as a way to get what they want, but the free market is also the best way to disincentivize 'bad' behavior. Ostracism is more powerful a force than any government can ever be; you don't want people to smoke, stop trading with smokers, you don't want people to abuse children, stop making play dates with them, don't want people to rape women, stop selling them food. All it takes is the courage to confront that which you fear, and not hide behind the skirt of the state. Mr. Reed, in this article you dabble in volutarism, but you shy off the root. To criticize smoking bans, you cite: “I can think of a lot of risky behaviors in which many adults freely engage but which I would never call upon government to ban: sky diving and bungee jumping being just two of them” but these are easy and involve only risk to the individual’s own health and safety, not their potential to harm others. This makes you sound like a conservative, begging people to stop asking the government to protect people from themselves. The libertarian fight is a much harder one: convincing people the government is not the way to protect themselves from others. The majority who advocate bans on smoking aren’t trying to protect the smoker, they want to protect themselves from second hand smoke. Too many libertarians are focused on the free market as a way to get what they want, but the free market is also the best way to disincentivize ‘bad’ behavior. Ostracism is more powerful a force than any government can ever be; you don’t want people to smoke, stop trading with smokers, you don’t want people to abuse children, stop making play dates with them, don’t want people to rape women, stop selling them food. All it takes is the courage to confront that which you fear, and not hide behind the skirt of the state.

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