This Man Is My Hero
Don Boudreaux of GMU and Cafe Hayek that is:
Pre-Columbian peoples lived simply, to be sure, but lets stop mistaking ignorance and poverty with harmony. Its an utter myth we might say an urban myth that primitive peoples lived with nature harmoniously. Nature devastated them. Nature battered them into early graves. Their ignorance of nature prevented them from achieving much material wealth. To dance to imaginary rain gods or to chant and pray for a child dying of bacterial infection is not to live harmoniously with nature; it is to live most inharmoniously. Nature is doing its thing failing to water the crops, growing bacteria within a childs lungs while human beings who are as ignorant of nature as nature is of human beings, moan, chant, pray, dance, build totems, burn leaves and twigs, all in fruitless, inharmonious efforts to solve the problems.
April 11th, 2005 at 8:52 am
Who is this guy? That comment made entirely too much sense to have anything to do with Eugene.
April 11th, 2005 at 8:58 am
Head of the Econ department at George Mason University.
April 11th, 2005 at 9:15 am
The very Econ Dept that offers a doctorate in Austrian Economics??
April 11th, 2005 at 9:35 am
Crap.
April 11th, 2005 at 10:20 am
In fact they do tend toward Austrianism in varying degrees, probably one of the very few Austrian schools left. I’m increasingly interested in their JD/Ph.D. progam as I’m developing an interest in patent law and prescription drug markets.
April 11th, 2005 at 6:18 pm
So, you think prayer and positive affirmations do not work?
April 11th, 2005 at 6:34 pm
Good work there, George. I’ll light a candle for you at mass.
April 11th, 2005 at 10:40 pm
I love the dancing!
April 12th, 2005 at 6:42 am
George: How about this, we both get hit in the gut hard enough to rupture the apendix (or spleen or something if you’re already apendix-free). You have people dance, chant, and pray about it; I’ll go to the hospital, we’ll see which one of us is alive at the end of the week.
April 15th, 2005 at 2:56 am
I thought this is a conservative blog. I thought conservatives do not believe in science, only in religion.
April 15th, 2005 at 5:48 am
Are you even literate?
April 15th, 2005 at 9:49 am
Easy Tim, easy.
You gotta remember what a shock it would be to the extremist left if the secret got out about 50% of OC’s staff who voted for Gore and then 50% (?) who voted for Kerry in the elections against Bush.
Believe it or not, there are even some of us “conservatives” who believe in abortion, abolishing the death penalty, and that the designated hitter was the worst thing to happen to professional baseball (besides television being invented).
April 15th, 2005 at 10:58 am
I thought this is a conservative blog. I thought conservatives do not believe in science, only in religion.
Now now, y’all, don’t be so hard on him.
George, that is a common misconception spread by the media to demonize a group of people.
Supposedly, all conservatives are white male Republican church-going pro-lifers. I recommend that you shuck that crap immediately. It simply isn’t true, can’t be demonstrated, and is a dangerous way of thinking.
This is one of the big problems we have with the liberal UO: the hypocrisy. Sure, when it comes to their diversity, labels and stereotypes aren’t welcome. However, labels and stereotypes, even discrimination and physical harassment, are perfectly acceptable when it comes to “conservatives.”
There are such things as fundamentalists and that is whom you are thinking of. There are also neo-conservatives, moderate conservatives, old-school conservatives, social conservatives and economic conservatives.
On this blog and in the Commentator proper, you’ll quickly learn that we are not fundamentalist. We fall on the side of libertarian-moderate; not to be confused with big “L” Libertarian.
Personally, I’m a moderate social libertarian and an economic conservative. My one pet peeve: radical feminism. Blech.
April 15th, 2005 at 12:33 pm
I’m a civil libertarian, fiscally conservative who’s hawkish on foreign policy. My pet peeve: magical thinking.
This is starting to sound like a conservative-libertarian dating service…geeze.
April 15th, 2005 at 1:25 pm
I also enjoy sunsets, long walks on the beach, and taquitos. Press #4454 on your phone now.
April 15th, 2005 at 1:30 pm
Mmmm…taquitos.