About Michael Wade
MichaelW on Aug 04 2006
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.- Plato
Greetings and salutations to the readers of A Second Hand Conjecture! My name is Michael Wade, and I will be posting here as MichaelW thanks to an invitation from Lance to participate in the bloggy ruminations of ASHC. For that, I want to offer a special thank you to Lance and Omar for agreeing to give this group-blog experiment a shot, and to doing so with me.
A little about me: I am an attorney living in the Washington, DC metro area; I’m married with two children; I have an undergraduate degree in European History; I am an avid lover of all genres of music, with the exception of pop; while I don’t read as much as I used to, mostly thanks to said children, I do relish spending time with a good book, which for the last several years has been in the non-fiction category; and I enjoy most sports, but especially football and hockey (yes, hockey).
As for my politics, I am unaffiliated with any political party and I don’t plan on ever joining one, including the Libertarian Party. Although I’m somewhat conservative in my personal life, I am ruthlessly libertarian with respect to politics. Please note the small “l” in “libertarian.” While my core political values are based on the same primary theme as most libertarians, that of personal liberty from state interference, I also ascribe to what some (most?) would call very un-libertarian positions — e.g. anti-abortion, pro-muscular foreign policy. Since very few, if any, candidates for office fit in with my view of governance, I tend to vote for those who will do the least harm. This usually means that I vote for the candidate that least wants access to my wallet. What I will vote against, ever time without fail, is anything reeking of collectivism, socialism, communism or any other “ism” that eschews the individual in favor of the state.
Philosophically, most would describe me as Classically Liberal, partly because of my emphasis on individual freedom and personal responsibility, mostly due to the fact that I try to view the world from an economist’s perspective which usually leads to the conclusion that decisions are best left to individuals. From my perspective, property rights are paramount and must be protected by a well-founded, predictable and transparent rule of law that is subject to the will of the people. A strong foundation of property rights leads directly to ever-growing wealth and prosperity for the greatest number of people — a laudable goal in my view.
Some of you will read the above and conclude that I am intellectually inconsistent. To you I say:
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.
– Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
On blogging here at ASHC: I will probably post on a great many topics, although politics will likely be the most prevalent. If something I write inspires someone to comment, and hope that it will, you can pretty much bank on the fact that I won’t respond to anything non-substantive. You have a criticism? Great! You prefer to challenge my manliness or insult my family heritage? Suit yourself, but I’m highly unlikely to waste my time with you. In any case, my thanks again to Lance and Omar for this opportunity, and a hearty welcome to our readers.
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The View From the Bluff: Lance’s Economic and Finance Blog
did you graduated from hopkins in 1974?
The next time you are in London, you will do well to head over to Stonebridge and check out the Ace Cafe. This one-of-a-kind landmark is sure to take you back to the rock and roll generation of the 1950’s, when the cafe racer culture was in full swing.