“Those who would argue today that we must have a single standard of education, a single standard of health insurance, or even a single standard for settling legal disputes are making precisely the same error Queen Elizabeth made, and in no small part for the same reasons: Politics doesn’t trust people. Exit-based approaches by no means produce perfect results. People will join the Branch Davidians and lay out good money to read Jewel’s gauzy poetry, but they also are free to become smarter and better, thereby making us as a society smarter and better in the aggregate. Some people will watch the Kardashians; some will watch iTunes U.

We know from experience that having government in charge of the press or our speech or our beliefs does not produce great literature, great thought, or great faith—it doesn’t even produce versions of those things superior to what we come up with when left to our own devices. Leaving people to make their own decisions under their own standards means you get T. S. Eliot and Larry Flynt, while putting politics in charge means you get the National Endowment for the Arts and People’s Daily . . . and the guillotine.”

Excerpt From: Kevin D. Williamson. “The End Is Near and It’s Going to Be Awesome.” HarperCollins, 2013-05-01. iBooks.

This material may be protected by copyright.

 

Check out this book on the iBookstore: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/end-is-near-its-going-to-be/id569207288?mt=11

 

print