Perhaps it is a sign 6f ignominy to admit in a highbrow journal to reading comic strips, so I’ll confess only to “scanning” the funny pages of the March 5, 2002, Chicago Sun-Times. My attention was drawn to a familiar word in Bob Thaves’ “Frank & Ernest” panel. A man, standing on a mountain after apparently reading a tablet suspiciously resembling the Ten Commandments, exclaims, “The libertarians are going to go bananas!”
This codswallop is yet another example of the common confusion between libertarians and libertines. The damage caused by this erroneous perception is incalculable. And yet one cannot help but think that its cause is the failure of those who herald freedom to emphasize how man should conduct himself as strongly as they chant the mantra of liberty.