Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Greetings from Macedonia (and reflections on my new transsexual friend)

Having spoken earlier today in Skopje, I'm finally done with the Free Market Road Show and get to head back to the United States tomorrow.

I suppose the highlight of the entire Road Show was getting to know Professor Deirdre McCloskey, who took part in four of the seven conferences. Deirdre is a first-rate economist, committed advocate of freedom, and a genuine renaissance woman with impressive knowledge of just about everything.

But what's genuinely unique (to put it mildly) is that Deirdre is a transsexual. Indeed, I first met Deirdre when she was Donald and he came to give a lecture at George Mason University (and I used his textbook when I was getting my Masters degree at Georgia).

One of the many good things about being a libertarian is a natural respect for the rights of others. So long as people don't interfere with your rights of life, liberty, and property, they should be free to make their own decisions.

That doesn't mean you have to agree with, endorse, or want to mimic every choice they make, whether it is eating onion soup (yuk) or having certain operations (ouch!).

If you want to read more about a very interesting person and her "crossing" (as she describes it), click here and here. And if you want to read Deirdre's excellent book, The Bourgeois Virtues, she mentioned at every conference that it makes an excellent Christmas gift.

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