Arnold quotes two sentences by Ken Silber. I can’t recall the last time that one sentence was so sensible, and the next so wrong-headed.

The sensible:

The idea that people should be, say, lying down in front of police cars to protest hair salon regulations and the like is disproportionate, counterproductive and inane.

If I’d be laughing – and I would be – I can only imagine how bemused a normal person would be.

OK, now the wrong-headed:

It amounts to saying libertarian ideas aren’t compelling enough to win out in political and legal competition.

Libertarian ideas have been ably defended by an army of smart, thoughtful people for decades. And yet only a tiny minority remains convinced. Clearly these ideas are not “compelling enough” to win out in political and legal competition – though perhaps it would be better to say that politics, like religion, is a subject where objectively compelling ideas usually lose.