Control freaks

I keep wondering how can there be such a mixture of (not always) good (sometimes excellent!) economic policies (far better than most ‘opposition’ in the USA advocate- and that’s one problem there: the alternative might be worse, in overall terms), but absolutely insane ‘political’ ones (eventually leading to bad economic outcomes as well…), interfering with private life/ choice and meant to control, there is this obsession with controlling each and everybody’s activities, thoughts etc., for the ‘sake of security’, in the USA (unfortunately even amazing thinkers- in general- like Gary Becker and Richard Posner- sustain some tradeoffs between privacy and security in this respect- I think all that is sheer nonsense and simply shows incapacity of the government, who, let’s not forget, is supposed to serve their people, not to control them; if one is an Economist one should recall Milton Friedman’s position on all that– Ave Milton, morituri te salutant!). There is no doubt that this dichotomy in policy making only confuses the masses, since in the end you have to prioritize, you have to choose- no side seems to offer you the whole best package, which is completely non-strategic (ok, maybe not in the USA…).

But back to the concrete story here: for now, that was just a (nice?…) visit and probably some-incipient- intimidation, but I would not bet that the decision makers would not translate such attitudes in policies (some of such policies are in fact on the way) as long as President Bush and his (political; it is amazing to see that his econ advisers have been/still are some of the best in the USA) entourage have their way. The funny part is that you can find this ‘anonymous surfing’, ‘IP-hide’ software everywhere on the internet and I have been myself using some of them (not Tor, though) in the past. So what’s the problem?