Bozeman on "Separation of Liberalism and State"

I love reading expounders on the free market and limited government.

In journalism, in academia, even in our public schools, too many professionals are convinced that the world can be made a better place.

Mr. Bozeman sums up the folly of such fantastical thinking:

"Traditionalists. . .realize that human imperfection makes utopia on earth impossible."

The best is enemy of the good, one old adage claims, yet Communists, social reforms, and wannabe do-gooders the world over insist on trying to prevent future failure, certain doom in a world fraught with imperfections, difficulties, and broken people.

Proponents of free enterprise have conceded that independent price systems, competition, and free trade do not create a just or perfect world, but they do acknowledge that the alternative of centralized planning and elitist control is far worse.

To say the least, liberalism is a religion that has made man a god, the basic tenet of which asserts man's basic "goodness", despite the horrid confirmation otherwise from thousands of years of history.

Contrary to the gleamy, dreamy optimism of Thomas Paine, the human race does not have it within himself to make the world anew, nor should we despair of perfection. Such an ideal has no place in the workings of diverse and interconnected communities, where individual citizens must make the most of a fallen world.