Selective Freedom

Don Boudreaux has some excellent things to say about the ugliness of paternalism. Telling people how to live their lives is GREAT when you're in the majority (and it's easy to create a false justification), but its hard to stay in the majority for ever. Check out the full article for complete context.

In this sweet land of liberty it is surprising how readily we modern Americans let others rule us. I'm not talking about Americans letting some foreign government rule us. That won't happen anytime soon…I'm talking about being ruled by homegrown politicians who butt their noses into the sizes of our toilets, the amount of salt we consume and countless other provinces of our daily lives.

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If I assert that I have a right to order my neighbor about for his own good, I thereby also assert that I am better than he is -- that I have more knowledge than he does about his life, or that I occupy a higher social rank that affords me the privilege of dictating his choices. Any such assertion is ethically anathema to a society of free and equal individuals.