Proposition DD. Coloradans (who led the nation in the legalizing of recreational use of marijuana -- yeah, Rocky Mountaineers!) are now deciding whether to move in the direction of liberty on another important matter, one that could bring another major industry into the sunlight: sports betting. https://www.coloradoindependent.com/2019/09/26/colorado-sports-betting-water-plan/ In both cases, part of the sales pitch to get the public to legalize the industry involved is, "...and then the state can tax it, and do various good things with that money." I'm not enthusiastic about that part of the pitch but so long as the general direction is toward the liberty, the win will go to our best selves. ("That's a strange expression Bruce.") NOTE: The Proposition won, however narrowly.
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On a message board, I recently encountered the following question, addressed to free market advocates such as myself: "Of all the arguments against the libertarian or free market position, in your opinion, which one do you think is the most persuasive or simply the best." Fair enough. I received some training in advocacy once upon a time. I should be able to argue against even my deepest convictions. So I wrote this: The most intuitively powerful arguments in favor of statism, planning, etc., all involve long thin and useful things. Roads, railroad lines, pipelines carrying anything from fresh water to human waste to natural gas, and electrical wires all share these properties: long, thin, useful. We tend to think of real estate as rectangles, maybe even squares, of claims on the surface of the ground extending both up and down from there indeterminate distances. To satellite orbits? to the earth's core? Anyway, if we do think of RE in this way, then all those ...
Walter Block is one of my favorite free-market oriented scholars. He is the author, most notably, of a sparklingly iconoclastic book called Defending the Undefendable , the various chapters of which say positive things about: pimps, drug pushers, drug addicts, blackmailers, ticket scalpers, and dishonest cops! The argument in favor of legalizing blackmail has been especially influential: not because there has been any groundswell of support for such a policy change but because the academic reception of that chapter has shown that Block hit a nerve, among free market advocates. Block's case for legalizing blackmail drew responses in particular from Robert Nozick, Richard Posner, Richard Epstein, and James Lindgren, an honor role of libertarian theorists. Each gave his reasons why he was unpersuaded. Block has responded. Note that blackmail (for purposes of this debate) is different from extortion. Blackmail is the threat to do something you would otherwi...