People with too little time

Paulie's one of these:

"If I wasn't flat out at the moment, you'd be reading a fantastic post here challenging the general assumption on almost every blog I read (including the ones that I like) that people always know what is good for them better than the government do, and that it is 'illiberal' to disagree with this view (like that's a bad thing)."

It's too bad; that would have been interesting. And if I had time I'd challenge his assumption about other people's assumptions.

Can't speak for the people who call themselves libertarians but the liberal case for limited government does not rest on the assumption that people always know their own good. Rather they tend to follow JS Mill's assertion that while people often clearly don't know their own good, when it comes to 'self-regarding actions' government intervention tends to do more 'mischief' than the behaviour it attempts to control in the first place.

Drugs would be an obvious example here. Obvious, that is, to anyone who knows anything about them. I'd say more but like Paulie I just ain't got the time.