I don’t post fan mail very much, but it’s 5 in the morning and, well, I feel like it and I think the last point the reader makes is worth addressing:

Jonah I am a pretty regular reader from the UK – and hugely enjoy, and mostly agree with, your writing. Your piece, banned by the man , is the single best piece that I think you have written. It is a cogent, comprehensive and cant free assessment of a very real political theme which has gained acceptance seemingly across the old Left / Right divide and whilst written with the US in mind holds up well in a UK context. I wonder if in time the theme of legislation in all things, an attempt at a governmental guarantee that all risk will be reactively legislated against, vs. individual freedom and personal risk / responsibility (including the freedom to abuse that) will be a more important divide than the old Left / Right split. Best wishes

Me: I think there’s something there, there. I think the frustration many libertarians feel with the right is precisely this objection; that the Republicans want to nickle-and-dime our liberties as well. But at the end of the day, I don’t think the freedom divide will become bigger than the left-right divide. I think the left-right divide will become ever more informed by this sort of thing. The great task for small-government conservatives is to avoid becoming a rightwing version of the left in terms of its willingness to invade the routine sanctities of civil society. Victory in that contest is far from assured.