Liberalism had come to mean spending more on everything-speech police, failed poverty programs that reward dependence, a bigger nanny state telling us we cannot eat fatty foods, workplace roles that stifle opportunity, and absurd environmental regulations.

A system that rewards politicians skilled at campaigning - which is the art of creating an illusion - and that puts hundreds of billions of coerced taxpayer dollars at the disposal of the winners will tend to attract men and women with a comparative advantage in manipulation.

David Boaz has been my guide to the history, economics, and politics of freedom for years.

Companies don't get rich hurting their customers.

..the real world's all we've got. Believers in the supernatural claim to have special wisdom about the world. But real wisdom means knowing truth from falsehood, knowing the difference between evidence and wishful thinking. Yes, the real world is mysterious and sometimes frightening. But would the supernatural make it better? The real world has beauty, poetry, love and the joy of honest discovery. Isn't that enough?

Fraud will always exist. Enforcement of anti-fraud laws is a useful deterrent, but in the end there's no substitute for investor vigilance. Government regulations provide a false sense of security - and that's worth less than no sense of security at all.

Politicians and bureaucrats clearly have no idea how complicated markets are. Every day people make countless tradeoffs, in all areas of life, based on subjective value judgements and personal information as they delicately balance their interests, needs and wants. Who is in a better position than they to tailor those choices to best serve their purposes? Yet the politicians believe they can plan the medical market the way you plan a birthday party.