Come Hell or High Bullshit

According to George Mason's, Bryan Caplan, and his excellent book, "The Myth of the Rational Voter", one of the the most fundamental characteristics of an irrational person is an unwillingness and/or incapacity to change one's mind. I couldn't agree with the fellow more..................................................................................I'm also kind of relieved in that it's obvious from my writings that I myself have changed more than a little (morphing from a Democratic leaning centrist independent to a small l libertarian who not only voted for Johnson but who did so proudly - as opposed to some of my prior votes for independent candidates which were much more of an impudent nature; Perot in '96, for example) and that I've done so in no small part due to the evidence; the fact that countries with strong economic freedom perform much better than those without it (Chile versus Venezuela, Singapore versus East Timor, Hong Kong versus India in the years after WW2, Botswana versus Zimbabwe, West Germany versus East Germany during the Cold War, South Korea versus North Korea, etc.), the fact that the private sector is almost always more efficient than the public sector (the Post Office versus Fedex, the motor vehicle department versus Triple A, the TSA versus that private security outfit at San Francisco's airport, etc. - the feedbacks being much more immediate, people spending their own cash being much more careful with it, etc.), etc...................................................................................Now this isn't to say that I'm going to guzzle this Kool-Aid any more than I have the previous batches. I still, for example, strongly believe in a limited EPA, a social safety net (though, yes, my preference would be much more the Milton Friedman/Charles Murray approach of a negative income tax than the present-day Byzantine nightmare), universal healthcare (providing, or course, that it resembles the Whole Foods/Indiana state employees model), a graduated income tax (my 3 rates would be 15, 20, and 25% with zero deductions), and a whole host of other issues that the left also champions. I just have a different approach toward achieving these ends now, that's all.