It's hard not to have a by-golly-he's-right reaction to Donald Boudreaux's observations in Stop the Bad Guys. His premise is that "Modern conservatives and 'liberals' are obsessively fixated on bad guys (just different ones)."
Modern American conservatives, he says:
believe the national government to be ignorant, bumbling, and corrupt when it meddles in the U.S. economy, but sagacious, sure-footed, and righteous when it meddles in foreign-government affairs.
But then he notes that modern American liberals:
believe the national government to be sagacious, sure-footed, and righteous when it meddles in the U.S. economy, but ignorant, bumbling, and corrupt when it meddles in foreign-government affairs.
Ordinary men and women seek freedom from tyrants, but conservatives and liberals disagree on who the tyrants are. For conservatives, the tyrants are foreign autocratic rulers who trample people's rights. For liberals the tyrants are big corporations and greedy rich people who trample workers' rights.
By golly, he might be right.
Professor Boudreaux is an economist at that hotbed of libertarianism, George Mason University, and his idea that liberals and conservatives should both endeavor to cool their animosity toward their respective bad guys is worth noting.
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