Doubtless you could find people of all political persuasions who feel this way. I have some sympathy for it myself, but I'd still rather have idiots spend money on themselves than idiot bureaucrats spend the money supposedly for the benefit of other idiots.

I saw some video with Milton Friedman where he walked through the various permutations of person A spending person's B money on person C, where to begin with A=B=C - you spend your money on yourself, and he slowly increased the distance of A,B, C in knowledge and caring, The farther you got from A=B=C, the less value C got per dollar spent.

But I asked to get liberal opinions in particular because it just doesn't make sense to me, and they may be able to make sense of it without a paternalistic interpretation. Or, they may just endorse paternalism. Either, way, I'd consider it progress in understanding.

One of the best posts recently was a liberal just asking libertarians why they favored what they did. What a great idea. It struck me that we rarely ask; we argue against instead. Thought I'd try something new.

Ouch. Careful; LW standards still apply here. I'd like to have this nice thread of mine, but this kind of shit can get it killed.

Everyone, please give the above comment 10 or so downvotes.