Laissez My Cafe

From the e-mail file -- a comment, dated April 11, concerning a story about a guy who tried to get the words "Laissez-faire" printed on his Starbucks card. "A few days later he was informed that the company couldn't issue such a card because the wording violated company policy." My comment:

It didn't take them long to get to the heart of the mystery of why many people who have profited the most from free enterprise then turn around and support collectivist politicians and programs. But I suspect it's a form of elitism, i.e. "laissez-faire" is good enough for the smart folks who can really take advantage of it, but it's a dangerous idea in general because it could lead to -- what? Basically a conviction that no one else has the right to run your life for you, even if they have a better idea. Call it the down side of liberty -- that there will be plenty of mediocrity and plenty of people who are completely satisfied with it. This seems to offend liberal utopians for some reason. I remember this way back in college -- the "activists" tended to look down on all that was plain, ordinary, bourgeois, boring. Because they weren't interested in something meant that no one else ought to be either. So there is a bit of insecurity in all liberal thinking, namely that unless my tastes are held on high as the standard, they are in danger of being -- what? Considered "just another preference", and we can't have that -- social metaphysics [a term from Ayn Rand] demands that we have, in effect, a vote on everything, so the way to get my tastes voted into dominance is to either force them on others or force them to vote for mine no matter what they really like -- or just do away with voting altogether. So we see the origin of many historical and current liberal programs.