The Last Ditch

Booze crisis?

The booze crisis!.

Hie thee over to Tim Worstall's blog for an interesting (and sometimes scary) discussion on the extent to which it is right to use state power to achieve social goals. "Jacob" began the discussion on Tim's post about the economics of alcohol consumption, by saying;

I’m not sure I understand. Why exactly do we not want to corrall people into making certain choices? Seems to me that threat of a prison sentence corralls people into not breaking the law.

An interesting debate ensued, with more such interventions by "Jacob" Eventually this led "Stephen" to make my favourite blog comment of the week;

I’m wondering if Jacob is a bot. That’s possibly the first time I’ve seen a human fail the Turing Test…

Touché. Stephen of Zenvestor, blog commenter at Tim Worstall's blog, is hereby appointed my "Person of the Month."

Dr. Arif Ahmed

Link: Faculty of Philosophy: Dr Arif Ahmed.

...is my person of the month. Here's why. Well said, that man although - to quibble slightly - I don't think we should feel free to mock the over-sensitive only when their beliefs are "...a tissue of superstition and prejudice..."

In a free society, one should sometimes mock beliefs just for fun, if only to test them, or to harden the believers up for life as free men. They will thank us for it one day, when they are no longer mullah-struck victims clinging to the apron strings of the Nanny State.