In one short letter to the editor he slays the liberal dragon.
Here?s a letter to the New York Times Book Review:
A theme that runs with approval throughout Jonathan
Alter?s review of recent books on modern ?liberalism? is that
?liberals,? in contrast to their mindless Cro-Magnon opposites,
overflow with ideas (?The State of Liberalism,? Oct. 24).Indeed they do. But these ideas are almost exclusively about how
other people should live their lives. These are ideas about how one
group of people (the politically successful) should engineer everyone
else?s contracts, social relations, diets, habits, and even moral
sentiments.Put differently, modern ?liberalism?s? ideas are about replacing an
unimaginably large multitude of diverse and competing ideas ? each one
individually chosen, practiced, assessed, and modified in light of what
F.A. Hayek called ?the particular circumstances of time and place?
? with a relatively paltry set of ?Big Ideas? that are politically
selected, centrally imposed, and enforced not by the natural give,
take, and compromise of the everyday interactions of millions of people
but, rather, by guns wielded by those whose overriding ?idea? is among
the most simple-minded and antediluvian notions in history, namely,
that those with the power of the sword are anointed to lord it over the
rest of us.Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
