Wise Words from Ed Glaeser

In a post about smoking bans coupled with marijuana legalization occurring simultaneously:

Some people think that the libertarian viewpoint is undone by an increasing acceptance that people are not all that rational. I disagree. Accepting the limits on human rationality makes me more uncomfortable with allowing our elected or appointed officials to make decisions for us, because the effects of individual irrationality can be significantly increased when we delegate authority to elected officials. In Boston, government officials want to “de-normalize” smoking. In other places and other times, governments have wanted to “de-normalize” homosexuality. Perhaps we are better off without trusting the state to de-normalize anything.