• WSJ Editor Gerard Baker wonders aloud about libertarianism.
• Apparently, the legacy media didnt outlaw the word.
• If people of this caliber had been in charge in 1942, we might all be speaking German.

Intentions are Fine, But What About the Results?

??It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

The Preface

Its an unease rooted in the historic reality of one of the most powerful laws of human governance: the ratchet effect. Once introduced, rules almost always get more expansive, seldom more limited. Taxes levied for a temporary exigency become perpetual obligations. Government agencies built to administer some specific function are absorbed into the permanent bureaucracy.

When a crisis is over, authorities may relinquish some of the powers they assumed during the emergency, but you can be sure that the governments writ will run permanently larger than before. Wars, depressions, public-health emergencies lead to bigger government, more rules, more-onerous regulations.

I lived in England for almost ten years.

Ive never heard a Brit - other than my good libertarian friends (maybe 5 of them!) - utter such words.

The thing about Brits is this: they loved to be ruled. Ruled by their Queen; ruled over by their Parliament; ruled by their media and universities.

They have been anesthetized to what freedom means.

So when a Brit like Baker writes such words, frankly, its a shock.

But a welcome one!

As an aside, I loved when Trump started to rip up the Federal Register and its insane amount of rules and regulations.

It was a good omen.

Whether intentional or not, Baker alludes to what Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote in Democracy in America:

Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul. The master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are free not to think as I do. You may keep your life, your property, and everything else. But from this day forth you shall be as a stranger among us. You will retain your civic privileges, but they will be of no use to you. For if you seek the votes of your fellow citizens, they will withhold them, and if you seek only their esteem, they will feign to refuse even that. You will remain among men, but you will forfeit your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellow creatures, they will shun you as one who is impure. And even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they, too, be shunned in turn. Go in peace, I will not take your life, but the life I leave you with is worse than death.

Do you think de Tocqueville an alarmist?

Probably not after what weve witnessed since the beginning of the unknown virus of unspecified origin allowed an opening for The State to invade our lives.

If youre still unsure, ask Joe Rogan. Or Robert Malone. Or anyone who dared question the flip-flopping narrative of Tony Fauci.

The Mentions

Baker mentions a few goings-on that we should be happy about.

• Virginias new Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, is in a classic struggle with overweening bureaucrats desperate to maintain their reign of pointless mask-mandate authority.
• Ron DeSantis appears to be cruising to re-election on a record of actively resisting the authoritarian demands of experts, Democrats, and the media.
• A solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court struck down the Biden administrations legally baseless mandates requiring private employers to compel employee vaccinations and landlords to let tenants live rent-free.

He even cites Bill Maher poking fun at California regulating wood dust as a cause for optimism.

But Baker saves his KO punch for last, and its a beauty.

Its hard to see how the current crop of government leaders can make similar claims. Instead of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, we have Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Anthony Fauci and Rochelle Walensky. If people of this caliber had been in charge in 1942, we might all be speaking German.

Wrap Up

As thrilled as I am to read such excellent and appropriate writing, I dont think were quite there yet.

Even as Canadian truckers line up to blockade the US border.

Even as Bakers causes for optimism are beyond dispute, we havent reached the tipping point.

Alas, I think that the tipping point will be untold economic pain. Americans and other Westerners simply dont learn until they pay the consequences.

And by pay, I mean pay.

With their stock portfolios, houses, and currency.

When that pain sets in, when there are consequences to bad decision-making, Ill be more sanguine.

Ill leave you with one more de Tocqueville quote:

I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.

Maybe one day.

Until tomorrow.

All the best,

Sean