Contributors
Mike Flynn joined the Reason Foundation as director of government affairs in 2007. He spends his days "looking for opportunities to work with policy makers to advance liberty." In this issue, he and Reason Foundation senior analyst Shikha Dalmia assemble a chart (page 32) illustrating how hard it is to become a U.S. citizen. "We wanted a quick visual image of how broken and dysfunctional our immigration system is," Flynn says cheerfully. "The Lou Dobbs yahoos say that immigrants should get in line, but there is no [stinkin'] line." Flynn got his start working on political campaigns in Chicago, and he came to Washington in 1996. "My time at Reason is penance for the stuff I did before I came here," he says.
Johan Norberg's first book, In Defense of Global Capitalism (2001), was hailed as the definitive European response to No Logo, Naomi Klein's anti-globalization manifesto. Originally published in his native Swedish, Norberg's book is now available in 26 languages and sublanguages. In "Defaming Milton Friedman" (page 54), Norberg takes on Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine. "I have gone from being a bit impressed by her, even though I didn't agree with her," he says, "to losing that respect for her. This time around she is not being intellectually honest." Norberg is currently working with Bob Chitester, director of Milton Friedman's miniseries Free to Choose, on a documentary about global trade.
In "Why Opting Out Is No 'Third Way,'" Cato Unbound Editor Will Wilkinson takes on Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler's controversial Nudge (page 64). Sunstein and Thaler outline a theory they call "libertarian paternalism"; Wilkinson, who wrote the "paternalism" entry for the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, was not impressed. "I fail to see the point of moral paternalism, since I am tempted by almost no vices," he jokes. In August, Wilkinson returned to his native Iowa, where he plans to write a book on "the psychology and authority of liberal morality."