We went to North Carolina’s Research Triangle the day after the election to participate in the “Spirit of Inquiry” award program sponsored by the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. The awards are offered to foster “a spirit of open-minded exploration within the guidelines of an academic discipline.”

Students nominated 59 courses from around NC. Pope Center staff winnowed them with finalists judged by an outside panel. The winning professors and the nominating students all receive modest cash prizes. This year the winners had degrees in economics, law, and political science. Their courses explored responsible liberty, economic progress, and political economy. This $10,000 program could easily be replicated across the nation, I certainly hope in Montana.

We enjoyed friends, relatives, and former students. We also met with two justices of the NC Supreme Court who have participated in several of FREE’s programs. One of the latter is a retired Army colonel. He and his wife, a practicing attorney, adopted two children. Who could not respect and admire such people?

The Pope Center program led me to read two new books while traveling. I strongly recommend Tom Sowell’s latest, Intellectuals and Society. Sowell defines intellectuals as professional dealers in abstract ideas. He then explains why so many of them are detached from the world’s realities.

Jane Shaw, president of the Pope Center, reviewed the book noting, “Central to Intellectuals and Society is the concept that the academy is different from most of the rest of us—and that its impact is frequently detrimental to society. ... Many prevailing claims, assumptions, and nostrums favored by intellectuals are wrong.”

Sowell is my favorite living economist, and a graduate of Harvard and Chicago. He skewers intellectuals for their reflexive criticism of the Duke lacrosse team falsely accused of rape (pp. 43-4).

An excellent companion to Sowell’s book is co-authored by Rick Stroup, a former MSU colleague. Written for the intelligent citizen, his Common Sense Economics presages a revitalized political understanding among Americans: When governments go beyond their necessary functions, they ultimately become engines of plunder. And naturally, decisions made in a political arena are normally based on political power not equity nor productivity. (Such governments, however, usually economize on bloodshed and hence are preferable to anarchy.) A renewed understanding of the dangers and damages of redistributive government explains much of our recent election.

The Founders understood that necessary functions of government are few: protect life and property through the rule of law, provide public goods including national defense, and establish and enforce rules that encourage productive rather than predatory activities. Let’s include a social safety net for the unfortunate among us while being vigilant to the serious inherent risks knowing some will always try to game the system. The political process Stroup et. al. describe works its relentless, tragic logic destroying America’s founding principles of governance.

In NC we also met with seminary professors concerned with ethics, economics, and environmental stewardship. This arena will be ever more important as governments hit budgetary reality checks. More seminary professors now understand the profoundly negative unintended consequences of good intentions exercised through political allocations.

Corn ethanol and the sugar quota are two of scores of compelling examples of costly mischief and worse. They illustrate how good intentions and pious pronouncements provide excellent fodder for opportunistic, unprincipled politicians. Here’s some good news, the above books provide honest, intelligent, articulate arguments against political exploiters. As the exploitative nature of politics unconstrained by principle becomes obvious and budgets hit reality checks, the books’ arguments will prevail.

Returning to Bozeman we joined friends to celebrate a birthday. Each dinner at their house includes this toast: “Death to tyrants!” I’ll ask its author to give it at our next Independence Eve celebration. The 2011 theme may be “New books promoting liberty and prosperity.” I hope to introduce a new FREE leader at that event. Nominations are open.