I’m quote-worthy for an extreme free-market view
October 20th, 2007 | by Brian |Last Saturday Jason Salzman of the Rocky Mountain News cited me and Ari Armstrong as people in Colorado he’d quote for “an extreme free-market view”:
In response to my last column documenting how Denver journalists love and embed the conservative/libertarian Independence Institute, some people asked whom I’d quote instead of institute President Jon Caldara. … For an extreme free-market view, there’s Ari Armstrong (ariarmstrong.com) and Brian T. S[ch]wartz (wakalix.com), among others.
Ari wrote some insightful comments on this on his blog, here. An excerpt:
Unlike most politicians and commentators these days, I don’t get ruffled when somebody suggests that I’m “extreme.” If this strikes you as odd, allow me to ask you a few questions.
Do you want to be extremely happy, or just sort of happy? (I’m not talking about a superficial giddiness, but a deep enjoyment of life.)
Would you like to live in an extremely just society, or a society that’s just only some of the time?
Should we strive to be extremely good, extremely virtuous, extremely moral, or just pretty good?
The alternative to extreme happiness, justice, and goodness is some amount of unhappiness, injustice, and destructive vice. (Please don’t confuse “vice” with activities that can be healthy in the right context, such as moderate drinking.)
Imagine yourself in the mid-1800s. The abolitionists called for the abolition — the complete abandonment — of slavery. They took the extreme position that slavery is morally wrong and should be completely outlawed. The moderates, on the other hand, argued that slavery should merely be restricted. Would you have been on the side of the abolitionists or the moderates?
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