Bastiat

Hello BPReader!

Welcome to Bastiat.

For some reason the people who run this fine publication decided to give every editor of the magazine a pew to preach from on the website. So, here’s my timid step into the fray with a view that I hope you will not only enjoy reading, but will challenge you, excite you, educate you, expand your horizons and in rare cases may result in mild stomach pain and explosive diarrhea. This column is not FDA approved.

And why would it be? Bastiat, if all works out as planned, will be one of many options available to you (though not necessarily within BPR) to imbibe the glorious nectar that is Grade-A dark amber thrice-distilled mountain-brewed college libertarianism. No need for some bureaucrat to get their hands in on this voluntary transaction we’ve got going on right here.

If you’re playing the libertarian blog drinking game I’m just inventing right now, by the way, please don’t use the ‘every time he says bureaucrat’ rule. EMS has their hands full as it is.

Anyway, let’s move past the fluffy stuff and get on to what Bastiat is actually going to be about. And there’s no better place to start than the man himself. Frederic Bastiat was an early-to-mid 19th Century thinker in France, and one of the most prolific advocates for personal liberty, property rights and limited government in the history of the Western World.

But don’t think I’m deifying the dude. As Freddy himself once said: “There are too many ‘great’ men in the world.” And he didn’t mean we should all try to suck a little more, or that women weren’t up to snuff.

What he was saying is that there were too many people claiming they were the panacea for our problems, the cure for all our ills. Bastiat tried to remain a humble man in his writings and his philosophy, and, as one of the bearers of his name, so will I.

I’m not going to expect to convince you tomorrow to put on your anarcho-capitalist hat (yes, we do get hats; it’s awesome) and go out and privatize your police force. I’m not going to presume that I know more than most of you about anything in particular. I just think that it’s in both of our best interests that we hear each other out, give an oft-neglected opinion its due and discuss some core issues that our modern political discourse seems to shunt aside.

So, get ready to read everything from utilitarian solutions to budgetary problems from a reduced-government viewpoint, to philosophical cases for why we shouldn’t legislate income equality. From End the Fed manifestos, to what Brown University can specifically do to minimize its totalitarian footprint along with its carbon one.

And hopefully we’ll have some fun along the way.

My parting message on this first post is: give libertarianism a shot. It’s side effects are very temporary and it comes with no annual contract (not even a social one). So debate me like crazy, call me a social darwinist,  be the girl who always has to have her comments removed from my posts because of expletives, but as long as we hear each other out, I think, in our own little way, we’ll be making the world a better place.

‘Til next time, keep it free my friends