… is from page 182 of my late Nobel-laureate colleague Jim Buchanan‘s 1973 paper “America’s Third Century in Perspective,” as this paper is reprinted in Vol. 19 (Ideas, Persons, and Events [2001]) of The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan:
Any political leader or party that promises to haul down the flag of federal government internal imperialism faces frustration at almost every turn. He finds himself advancing proposals that seem derived from “gut” reactions, and without the academic, intellectual respectability that is considered proper for serious media discourse. This is not because such proposals are inherently less amenable to such treatment. They can, in fact, be derived from arguments that are equal to if not more sophisticated than those which often accompany proposals advanced in opposition. Such arguments are absent because of the dominance in the media and in academia of a near-monolithic point of view on social issues, a point of view that is, at base, dirigiste or collectivist.
DBx: Thomas Jefferson – born in Shadwell, Virginia, 277 years ago today – would, were he still alive, surely agree with Buchanan.
