As a conservative libertarian who supports the decriminalization of drugs--here's a touching report from Maine about Montel Williams fighting multiple sclerosis and needing marijuana to cope with the pain--and the abolishment of the IRS and the regressive "progressive" income tax, I've read more than a handful of economic books.
Full disclosure: I smoked pot about a dozen or two times my senior year of high school, 1985-6. Since then, no, not in over twenty years, that's for sure. I've grown to dislike marijuana on ideological grounds. But that doesn't mean I can mandate my disapproval to others through intrusive legislation. I wish the same could be said of NH legislators who a year or two ago saw fit to ban smoking from all bars and restaurants. Damn busy bodies!
The best book on economics has been Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. I remember the blurb on the back by the great journalist H.L. Mencken saying Hazlitt, who used to be a mainstream American editorialist and journalist way back when, is one of the few economists who could actually write lucid English. I think the book is absolutely mandatory reading for the Skip Murphy Brethren.
It turns out the left doesn't really have as good a grasp on economics. Thanks, Doug Bandow, my ole Cato buddy from the summer of 1990, for the link.
Having been a superannuated college student, count me as supremely unsurprised. I saw it every day.
Also, while we're on the Left's intellectual deficiencies--their moral ones are legion--I also recommend a book by Thomas Fleming, The Politics of Human Nature, I found extremely enlightening.
Full disclosure: I smoked pot about a dozen or two times my senior year of high school, 1985-6. Since then, no, not in over twenty years, that's for sure. I've grown to dislike marijuana on ideological grounds. But that doesn't mean I can mandate my disapproval to others through intrusive legislation. I wish the same could be said of NH legislators who a year or two ago saw fit to ban smoking from all bars and restaurants. Damn busy bodies!
The best book on economics has been Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. I remember the blurb on the back by the great journalist H.L. Mencken saying Hazlitt, who used to be a mainstream American editorialist and journalist way back when, is one of the few economists who could actually write lucid English. I think the book is absolutely mandatory reading for the Skip Murphy Brethren.
It turns out the left doesn't really have as good a grasp on economics. Thanks, Doug Bandow, my ole Cato buddy from the summer of 1990, for the link.
Having been a superannuated college student, count me as supremely unsurprised. I saw it every day.
Also, while we're on the Left's intellectual deficiencies--their moral ones are legion--I also recommend a book by Thomas Fleming, The Politics of Human Nature, I found extremely enlightening.
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