Liberty

People sometimes ask me, “Hey, didn’t you use to be a Libertarian? What happened with that?” (Okay, nobody asks me that. Anybody who knows I once subscribed to Libertarian principles is probably unaware I’ve changed. So I should probably say: I no longer consider myself a Libertarian, but a Liberal, albeit with certain caveats, such as the fact that I think people should still be allowed to pack heat.)

This article taking Governor Palin to task on cap-and-trade doesn’t really have much to do with Libertarianism, except for one excerpt:

My decision to drive creates traffic that imposes a cost on society. A company’s decision to fish in the ocean imposes a cost on the world’s common stock of fisheries. A banker’s decision to take on a huge amount of risk creates danger for the economy as a whole. The problem is that none of these private actors adequately bears the cost of their decisions.

The short version of why I no longer consider myself to be Libertarian is that “Every man for himself” doesn’t seem like particularly good public policy.