It’s a frustrating choice to be sure, but let’s take a few minutes to think about what Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton have in common.  At root, they and their supporters think they have the right to direct our lives in very important ways.  They differ, of course, in the specifics of how they want to run our lives, but both do.  Mr. Trump wants to deny me the opportunity to freely engage in mutually beneficial exchange with someone in China, because he knows that its for the greater good.  Mrs. Clinton has (of course!) flipped on this, and wants to do likewise, despite her voluminous support of TPP prior to last fall.

Rather than focus on the specific ways this control manifests, however, I’d like your comment on the idea that the “right” elites have the requisite knowledge and abilities to better plan our lives than we do.  To begin, you must read Don Boudreaux’s latest missive from Cafe Hayek–its a true gem.  Then come back to engage here at Bereans.

Now that you’ve read it, I’d like to add an additional consideration, which I believe is even more important than Mr. Boudreaux’s insightful analysis.  It is not simply that the elites don’t (and can’t) have the relevant knowledge to make these kind of decisions for us. It is more important that individuals be given extremely broad freedom in choice because it is inherent in human dignity to be able to freely choose many of these kinds of issues.*  It is beyond the hubris of elites that is at stake–it is the elite’s attack on the dignity of individuals to care for themselves.  In many ways it is dehumanizing.

* Not all of course.  We should not allow the selling of suicide kits, for example, since it is not part of the inherent dignity of an individual to choose when they live or die.  That is God’s choice, not ours.