The forgotten American value of minding your own business
Liberalism means not caring if someone spends $10,000 on their pet bird
People should be allowed to do what they like unless there is a very good reason to stop them. This is what I call a presumption of freedom, and it's foundational to a liberal society. This presumption does not resolve all or even any policy debates, since people, of course, disagree about which reasons are good or which restrictions of freedom are acceptable.
But in a healthy politics, a strong presumption of freedom would at least structure debates. We want to keep heroin illegal because we have overwhelming evidence that doing so saves a large number of lives. Similarly, it is well documented that air pollution is a major contributor to premature deaths, and a large body of suggestive evidence indicates significant cognitive harms as well. These are major problems that can overcome a presumption of freedom, though governments still owe it to their people to think seriously about addressing them in the most freedom-preserving way possible.
Postliberal rightists like JD Vance reject the presumption of freedom because they believe Americans need to be forced into a particular vision of the good life. But the principle is also under threat from an unhealthy dynamic on social media, where complaints about idiosyncratic irritations are amplified by an algorithm that punishes indifference and rewards engagement.
Thus, in July, a homeschooling influencer and social conservative named Caitlin Francis opined that people shouldn’t spend more than $1,000 on pet health care before putting the animal down, only to be rebutted by Helaine Olen of the perversely named American Economic Liberties Project. Olen proposed a ban on private-equity ownership of veterinary practices on the grounds that PE shops raise prices.
Olen has a real bee in her bonnet about this "problem" — AELP even has model legislation they are pushing on states to “stop corporate takeover of vet practices.”
On the one hand, I am inclined to agree with Francis that these days, people are overly invested both emotionally and financially in their pets. On the other hand, it’s your money to waste.
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