This was previously posted on www.anton-wahlman.com on or before 2005-09-04:
Over the last year or so, I have had several conversations with various flavors of Liberal Democrats, who profess to be very upset about religious people, presumably Republican such. The Liberal Democrats seem particularly upset about the “science vs. creationism” debate, that religious Republicans in particular allegedly have rejected “science” in favor of “creationism,” which in their mind also carries over into “values” in a broader sense.
On those terms, I actually agree with the Liberal Democrats 100%. It is no news that I find all forms of religion – at least the way the word is typically defined – to be nonsense per definition. But that is not the only thing that’s bothering me in this debate. No, what I find incredibly hypocritical is that the people who rightly find “creationism” and “values” so deplorable are themselves rejecting at least as much science as do the prototypical religious Republicans!
What do I mean by that? Specifically, the Liberal Democrats have all rejected the science of economics! There is no remotely credible economist who says anything but that the most efficient – “scientific” – economic system is 100% pure laissez-faire. Free markets, free trade, the smallest possible government, if any at all. This is nothing but basic Economics 101.
Yet the Liberal Democrats are all rejecting economic science! They are all in favor of ever-increasing socialist intrusions in people’s freedom to own and trade on voluntary terms. Why? Well, the Liberal Democrats believe that their “values” trump the science of economics. In their world, Laissez-Faire economics is also the most efficient economic system, but government policy needs to be guided by their non-scientific “values” in favor of $2+ trillion worth of annual taxes and millions and millions of pages of red tape.
Yeah, the Liberal Democrats are right when they criticize some religious Republicans about “creationism,” but who are they to cast the first stone? At least the debate about creationism has to do with deeply historical nonsense – who cares what may or may not happened some 2000 or 2000 billion years ago? The Liberal Democrat rejection of economic science, however, means that not only I, but billions of people on planet Earth are suffering today and tomorrow from lack of economic freedom and prosperity.
