ihilists, that culture is ethically demanding. Bourgeois life requires its own particular virtues. "To sing only of aristocratic or peasant virtues, of courage or of solidarity, is to mourn for a world well lost," McCloskey wrote. "We need an 18th-century equipoise, a neoclassicism of virtues. We are all bourgeois now." While courage and humility are good and sometimes necessary, to be rich and free we really need to cultivate qualities such as enterprise, integrity, trustworthiness, responsibility, and respect.</p> <p>Bourgeois culture is a culture of persuasion—of conversation, discussion, and talk. "The bourgeois must in the bulk of his transactions talk to an equal," McCloskey wrote. That's where the universal equal rights come from, even if you go home to your tribe. "One must establish a relationship of trust with someone in order to persuade him. <em>Ethos</em>, the character that a speaker claims, is the master argument." Reputation matters.</p> <p>Looking back 25 years hence, perhaps we'll realize that many of today's tribal conflicts—at least those in the United States—arise from the struggle to define <em>ethos</em> in a world of exponentially proliferating talk. Or perhaps they come primarily from the failure to honor and practice bourgeois virtues, above all respect.</p> <p><em>Reason</em>'s 25th anniversary issue came out in a time of justifiable optimism. Lomasky could confidently write that "the world during the next 25 years will almost certainly be a safer place, most likely a more prosperous place, and already it is a place orders of magnitude freer than was the case only a short while ago." Today, prospects look darker. What happens over the next generation will depend in large measure on whether we, as individuals, groups, and societies, embrace the values of the gangster or the virtues of the bourgeoisie.</p> </div> <img src="" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> From the Archives tag:reason.com,2018-11-08:363576 2018-11-08T06:00:00-05:00 2018-11-08T06:00:00-05:00 Reason Staff Behold the very first pages of the debut issue of Reason magazine, published in the summer of 1968. <div xmlns=""> <h5> <img alt="" height="474" src="" title="||| Reason" width="720" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">50 Years Ago</h5> <p><img alt="" height="143" src="" title="||| Joanna Andreasson" width="150" style="float: right;">Behold the very first pages of the <a href="">debut issue</a> of <em>Reason</em> magazine, published in the summer of 1968. With hand-drawn masthead lettering and typewritten text, founding editor Lanny Friedlander previews the content on the pages to follow—reflections on violence, racism, and poverty, three subjects that have continued to be of great and terrible concern in the decades since—and introduces to the world the journalistic philosophy that is to guide his creation. "Others preferred to be incomprehensible and incoherent," he writes. "We don't. Others preferred to ignore your mind. We won't." For 50 years, the writers, editors, and artists of <em>Reason</em> have sought to make good on the promises first articulated in this inaugural issue.</p> </div> <img src="" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> Another Republican Capitulation on Health Care tag:reason.com,2018-11-08:363930 2018-11-08T00:01:00-05:00 2018-11-08T00:01:00-05:00 Veronique de Rugy The White House plans to import foreign prescription-drug socialism to the United States. <div xmlns=""> <p.</p> <p>The spectacle of Republican candidates tripping over themselves to announce their commitment to preserving requirements for coverage of pre-existing conditions, a key component of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and the mandate most responsible for making insurance unaffordable for average Americans, is one example.</p> <p>The latest addition is the recent announcement of the Trump administration that it would base Medicare Part B reimbursements on what other countries pay for those drugs.</p> <p.</p> <p.</p> <p.</p> <p.</p> <p.</p> <p>Two days before the White House announced its plan to import foreign prescription-drug socialism to the United States, its Council of Economic Advisers ironically warned that "socialism is making a comeback in American political discourse." How right they are!</p> </div> <img src="" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> New California Gov. Gavin Newsom Has Been 'Vocally Anti-Gun Every Chance He Gets' tag:reason.com,2018-11-07:363915 2018-11-07T13:00:00-05:00 2018-11-07T13:00:00-05:00 Declan McCullagh Outcoming Gov. Jerry Brown was no gun rights advocate, but if Newsom's voting record is any indication, he's likely to be even worse. <div xmlns=""> <p><img alt="" height="225" src="" title="||| Christian Monterrosa/Sipa USA/Newscom" width="300" style="float: right;">California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, isn't exactly known as a staunch defender of the rights of Golden State voters to legally keep and bear arms.</p> <p>But once fellow Democrat Gavin Newsom—who <a href="">won</a> the governor's race last night against Republican John Cox—takes office, defenders of the Second Amendment may come to miss the state's outgoing chief executive.</p> <p>Brown signed many anti-gun bills into law. But he vetoed many as well. A list prepared by the Sacramento-based <a href="">Firearms Policy Coalition</a> (FPC) shows that, since taking office in 2011 for his second stint as governor, Brown vetoed no fewer than 26 anti-gun proposals.</p> <p>"I'm going to miss Jerry Brown because it's going to be much, much worse going forward," says Brandon Combs, president of the FPC.</p> <p>Brown vetoed a 2013 bill, SB 374, that would have dramatically expanded the definition of "assault weapon." He vetoed, twice, legislation to restrict gun shows at San Francisco's Cow Palace exhibition hall. Brown vetoed a bill, AB 2333, that would have cracked down on children's BB guns. He vetoed a bill, AB 180, that would have carved out an exception to state preemption law and allowed the city of Oakland to enact stricter anti-gun measures. And he signed AB 2151, <a href="">backed</a> by the National Rifle Association (NRA), which encourages youth to hunt big game.</p> <p>When rejecting a proposal that would have required firearm owners to obtain serial numbers from the government, Brown's <a href="">veto message</a> said: "I appreciate the author's concerns about gun violence, but I can't see how adding a serial number to a homemade gun would significantly advance public safety."</p> <p>In 2014, Brown's opposition to mandatory background checks imposed on California residents who want to buy ammunition <a href="">helped to sink that bill</a>, SB 53, in the legislature.</p> <p>Newsom <a href="">responded</a> by crafting <a href="">Proposition 63</a>, which used the state's ballot initiative process to accomplish much the same thing without the approval of the legislature or governor. In addition, Proposition 63 included a <a href="">mass confiscation</a> of standard capacity firearm magazines, including ones that had been legally owned for decades, which are able to hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.</p> <p>Newsom <a href="">told the <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em></a> at the time that his revulsion toward firearms dates back to 1973, when his grandfather killed himself with one.</p> <p>"My grandfather committed suicide, but not before putting his daughter—my mother—and her twin against the fireplace and saying he was going to blow their brains out," Newsom told the newspaper. "That's how I grew up. That's how I found out about guns."</p> <p>"I can't stand 'em."</p> <p>In 2016, Proposition 63 was <a href="">approved</a> by California voters by a margin of 63 to 37 percent.</p> <p>Newsom has "been vocally anti-gun every chance he gets," says Combs. "He doesn't shy away from saying that he's welcoming new gun control, way beyond what we have today in California." (The NRA has given Newsom an F rating.)</p> <p>Combs believes that position, coupled with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' <a href="">permissive attitude toward Second Amendment violations</a>, will usher in a wave of new anti-gun laws: Unless federal courts intervene, Californians may end up with the right to own merely one handgun, in their homes, locked up, and nothing else.</p> <p>"Anything beyond that, not only can they ban