The Libertarian Paradise of Argentina???

Okay, the title of this post is a huge overstatement. I’ve already noted here that Argentina is not a good role model and warned here how that Obama is repeating many of the mistakes that undermined Argentinian prosperity.

But I’m nonetheless impressed that Argentina actually allows people at the Lujan Zoo to freely choose whether to enter cages with potentially deadly animals.

Here at the Lujan Zoo near Buenos Aires visitors can ride lions, cuddle bears, stroke tigers and feed cheetahs. Cages are accessible to everyone who paid $50 and signed the paper saying that if you are eaten, the Zoo is not responsible. Lujan Zoo is about 50 miles from from Buenos Aires, has an entrance fee of just £5. Visitors can even pick up the smaller animals and manhandle them at risk to themselves and the creatures. Shockingly there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of safety regulations.

I would probably be a wimp if I went to this zoo, so I would limit myself to the lion cubs or something like that. But I support the right of other people to engage in risky behavior

(h/t: Marginal Revolution)

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Tom Sowell’s Latest Column Is a Good Birthday Present for Me

As far as I can tell, everything that Thomas Sowell writes is worth reading, but I especially like how he is so effective at linking his arguments to the underlying principles of a free society.

And when he writes a column focused on those underlying principles, I can’t help but get inspired. He reminds me why I’m at the Cato Institute and why the fight for liberty is so important.

Indeed, what he says about the Constitution in his latest column is so good that I sort of view it as a birthday present for me. But the rest of you should enjoy it as well.

The American Revolution was not simply a rebellion against the King of England, it was a rebellion against being ruled by kings in general. That is why the opening salvo of the American Revolution was called “the shot heard round the world.” Autocratic rulers and their subjects heard that shot — and things that had not been questioned for millennia were now open to challenge. As the generations went by, more and more autocratic governments around the world proved unable to meet that challenge. Some clever people today ask whether the United States has really been “exceptional.” You couldn’t be more exceptional in the 18th century than to create your fundamental document — the Constitution of the United States — by opening with the momentous words, “We the people…” Those three words were a slap in the face to those who thought themselves entitled to rule, and who regarded the people as if they were simply human livestock, destined to be herded and shepherded by their betters. Indeed, to this very day, elites who think that way — and that includes many among the intelligentsia, as well as political messiahs — find the Constitution of the United States a real pain because it stands in the way of their imposing their will and their presumptions on the rest of us. More than a hundred years ago, so-called “Progressives” began a campaign to undermine the Constitution’s strict limitations on government, which stood in the way of self-anointed political crusaders imposing their grand schemes on all the rest of us. That effort to discredit the Constitution continues to this day, and the arguments haven’t really changed much in a hundred years. …A constitution exists to create a framework for government — and the Constitution of the United States tries to keep the government inside that framework. …Does the Constitution matter? If it doesn’t, then your Freedom doesn’t matter.

The column was written to debunk and mock a vacuous piece by the Managing Editor of Time magazine. If today is the opposite of your birthday, and you deserve to suffer for some reason, then you might want to track down and read that article. I wouldn’t recommend that level of masochism.

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