If government were less important in our lives, politicians would have fewer goodies to trade. In return, we'd have more money and more freedom.

If individuals can take from a common pot regardless of how much they put in it, each person has an incentive to be a free rider, to do as little as possible and take as much as possible because what one fails to take will be taken by someone else.

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.

Asking someone in the media about liberal bias is like asking a fish about water. 'Huh, what are you talking about? Where is it?'

If government were less important in our lives, politicians would have fewer goodies to trade. In return, we'd have more money and more freedom.

The political class can't imagine a decentralized world where good things happen...without them. But in the real world, that's exactly how good things happen, and how jobs are created. When government sets simple rules that everyone understands and then gets out of the way, free people create jobs.

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