TURNABOUT IS FAIR PLAY

At least, I think that's how the saying goes. An interesting anecdote follows. It illustrates how knee-jerk reactionism overshadows sense and sensibility. To wit:

On June 27, I registered my phone number with the newly created FTC National Do Not Call Registry. You'll recall that recently, in response to tens of thousands of emails, Congress enacted a law that now allows tens of millions of people (as of last count, some 60,000,000 registrants) to lawfully avoid telemerkating calls. Like I said, I signed right up.

Over the last few days, I read Charles Murray's What it Means to be a Libertarian. Before that, I read this startling article (unless you're a subscriber, you'll have to endure a brief commercial to read the whole thing -- and you should read the whole thing) by Farhad Manjoo about how "helpful" regulation by the federal government will once again result in significant losses of jobs. Manjoo never uses the L word, but his case is clear: historically and practically, government regulation of markets is damaging. Charles Murray, in his book, extends the case: government regulation of markets applies solely to natural monopolies, and even then, only under sunset provisions.

Today, I removed my name from the National Do Not Call Registry and urge you to do the same. Nobody loses a job when you just hang up.