http://reason.com/news/show/120766.html

Heinlan, libertarian hero, renaissance man, great read. One could conclude, knowing only the little in that write up, that his was a life well lived.

It never fails to fascinate me how folks divorce economic and individual liberty, as if they were different or had a different basis for justification. Milton Friedman said, more or less, "I used to think I would trade a bit of personal liberty for more economic liberty but was delighted to find I needn't." The point being, of the two, a person can create a better outcome with high economic liberty (Hong Kong and Singapore being two examples) and less personal liberty.

Most of us think of personal liberty when we speak of freedom - how did it come to pass that a government, taking money by force and redistributing it, is not widely perceived as being a degradation of freedom. It reminds me of the 'frog boiling' analogy. We no longer seek to leave the boiling water of socialist/statist solutions because we see them as the normal temperature - sad, because there are better, non-state solutions out there, and for those who insist non-state solutions are 'too risky' there are smarter statist solutions that better align programs with incentives and would produce better outcomes (Charles Murray's "In Our Hands" for example: http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.p?ref=/interrogatory/qa200603270732.asp).

Which would keep the US from getting to this: http://www.reason.com/news/show/33915.html

Luckily for us, all the major politicians have boldly embraced their job of preventing the US from entering the death spiral ... yeah right. Instead they are fiddle frocking around with silly BS. At least their spineless inability to champion freedom and the solution freedom provides is not being totally ignored. The Fair Tax is gaining some steam:http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_main

The Fair Tax would provide amazing improvements in US manufacturing world wide competitiveness, eliminate billions in waste US businesses currently spend complying with IRS regulations and add back millions of lost personal hours of time spent submitting returns.

Formula for a rejuvenation of American competitiveness: The Fair Tax, the In Our Hands Plan for entitlement programs, and removal of the present incentives to tie health insurance to work place compensation.