Travel

In many ways, the travel industry has been nationalized to accommodate our interventionist foreign policy. Using the phrase "nationalized industry," however, would tend to undercut the freedom that our administration claims to hold dear to its heart. Nonetheless, airport searches, pat-downs, long lines, and the seizure of "threatening" objects such as nail clippers are not typical of free-market transactions. Similarly, the taxpayer-subsidized TSA employees loitering in huge, but easily duped numbers have been imposed by the government.

This ... will require the region's voters and lawmakers to ask themselves some tough questions about personal travel. The first is: do people have a right to roads? More important, is transportation even a government problem, and might government involvement actually be contributing to the mess? To suggest that driving is not a right comes as a shock to most people. A free person has the "right to travel," but this does not include a corollary obligation ... to provide the means to do so. Americans have the right to free speech, but not a right to a government-funded newspaper service.

The government "closed" this week ... It would be preferable to keep the monuments and national parks, like the Grand Canyon, going while closing the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA, the NSA, ICE, FBI, ATF and all related so-called national-security agencies. The government is so entwined in our lives that some innocent people are hurt by the partial shutdown ... If you were planning a trip abroad, but now won't have your passport renewed in time, you are a victim. That is a good reason not to have government issuing passports. Before World War I, you could travel without a one.