It’s utterly conceivable that the government might mandate that we do (or not do) what we already ought (or ought not) to do, seeing as how social animals owe things to each other. In such cases, refusing to engage (or abstaining from engaging) in the mandated (or forbidden) behavior because the government has mandated (or forbidden) it is just wrong, edgy individualist rationalizations notwithstanding. Needless to say, I should have started this post with “Needless to say….”
Henry Hazlitt, ‘Economic Conscience of a Nation’
Henry Hazlitt’s life story reads like a microcosm of the American century. Born in Philadelphia on November 28, 1894, he lost his father in infancy and left the City College of New York to support his widowed mother. In the fluid labor market of the time he bounced...