Andrew — I don’t get it. If I like capitalist freedom of choice, does that mean I can’t find it sad when people choose badly? Why on earth would that be so? It seems to me you steal a base when you suggest that lamenting the choices generated by the free market is tantamount to indicting the free market. There are so many things I support which result in sad outcomes I don’t know where to begin. At some point, most parents understand their kids are free to make their own choices, that doesn’t mean parents can’t feel sad when they make the wrong ones. Most of us believe that their should be some places where bears and lions are allowed to roam free. We also believe that people should be allowed to visit these places at their own risk. Are we not allowed to find it sad when these people get eaten by bears? Does finding such events to be sad mean that we don’t support wilderness areas?

I suppose if you had your way and drugs were legalized, you’d poo-poo anyone who found it sad that someone overdosed on legal drugs, freely purchased in the marketplace. “Sadly?” you might ask, “Why sad? It’s the freemarket at work!”

I like the free market as much as the next guy, but one way you influence it is by saying things like “it’s too bad people want to buy that crap.” It sometimes makes some people think twice about buying it again.