The Problem With Dealing With Social Costs

The Problem With Dealing With Social Costs por Don Boudreaux:

Innocent Americans are today at greater risk of being victimized by violence unleashed in reaction to the anti-Muslim 14-minute-long (supposed) movie trailer recently posted on YouTube.

Put differently, many people recognize that government suppression of freedom of expression poses all manner of potential dangers even though keeping government from suppressing free expression makes more likely other genuine and large problems.

Or put differently in yet another way: the mere existence of a negative externality is insufficient to justify government taking action to suppress the actions that give rise to that negative externality.

Many folks on the political left not only readily recognize the truth expressed in the previous paragraph, but also are very passionate in opposing those who call for government efforts to suppress free expression and similar activities that unquestionably often unleash negative effects (“social costs”) on innocent third parties.

Given this reality, shouldn’t we at least more widely recognize the potential downside of empowering government, .. empowering government to take action .. is not the slam-dunk that “Progressives” and other people on the left (and some on the right) typically assume it to be?