Though it was penned nearly half a century ago in support of a losing candidate, many Americans are still familiar with the phrase, authored by speechwriter, Karl Hess, for presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater, which stated: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”

The truth, however, is that the opposite is almost always the case: Extremism – particularly as it has come to be practiced in modern, “libertarian” conservatism – is a very destructive vice. And the dangers posed by this extremism go well beyond the threats posed to civil liberties. One can see evidence of this in the “libertarian” argument that property rights should always trump employee rights, consumer and environmental protections, minority discrimination statutes, and union formation and bargaining rights.

At first read, though, libertarianism and the case for a minimal state have a great deal of persuasive appeal and clarity. Progressive and liberal views can seem messy and complicated in comparison.

Libertarians possess a simple rule to be applied in all circumstances: “Everyone has the right to carry on his or her own affairs as long as one does not violate others’ similar rights.”

This point of view means that government’s only role is securing these individual rights. Property rights are absolute and coercion is not permitted – even if it could help to achieve another good end, such as curbing racial discrimination. Further, taxation is “theft.” Contracts between consenting adults rule.

In every legislative, judicial, and executive situation, one basic rule governs: use state power to protect or advance property rights.

So, in this drama, there is a clear good and bad option.

But, of course, the real world is messier than such a simplistic ideology implies. Most political and policy controversies entail trade-offs and wrestling with the fact that both sides can be right about something.

We need to be exploring more inventive and inclusive choices, not polarizing or over-simplifying the issues.

This is not to fall into relativism and imply one choice is good as the next.

It is to claim the following:

• Property rights do not “pre-exist”: they are conventions that are grounded by state actions to make and enforce contracts and ownership.

• Individual freedom to shape one’s life can be constrained not only by an over-stepping, coercive state, but also by limits imposed by private economic power and social institutions that give privileged access to political influence, personal security, economic opportunity, and criminal justice.

• We must “remember the little people” – children. Kids are not equipped to look after themselves. They have little control over their choice of parents and vulnerability to poverty and its negative effects. And as economist Nancy Folbre puts it: “You can’t create human capital without creating and nurturing, as well as educating little humans.”

• Libertarians also confuse the issues of consent. Not all obligations are contractual. (Think about sons’ and daughters’ duties to their parents or what we owe our country.) And we will never obtain total and willing consent to governmental actions. This is why democracy and the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution matter.

• Taxation cannot be replaced by charity, because of severe free rider problems. This is why fairness in ability to pay and the actual benefits provided are so important to citizenry.

This not to say that government can or should do it all. To the contrary, individual freedom and liberty are absolutely essential components of the American experiment. Often, however, freedom and liberty are dependent upon government intervention to limit the excesses of private wealth and power. At some point, we need thoughtful, right-sized government, not just the arbitrarily limited government urged by modern “extremist” conservatives. Let’s hope that, in the long run, these forces meet with as much success as their hero did in 1964.

William Schweke is a Senior Fellow at CFED in their Durham, NC office.

Children in North Carolina public schools were hit more than 1,400 times last year as a form of discipline according to report presented to lawmakers this week by Action for Children. That doesn't appear to trouble state education leaders, who don't even collect the statistics.

The State Board of Education hasn't weighed in on the issue at all, despite compelling evidence that corporal punishment negatively affects students' psychological and educational development and shapes their view of violence.

Thirty states ban the practice. North Carolina law allows local school districts to decide if adults can strike children to teach them a lesson. Sixty-nine of the state's 115 districts have banned corporal punishment, 46 still allow it.

The report finds that 90 percent of the hitting last year came in just ten districts, with Burke County topping the list, and that it doesn't appear to be helping students behave better. There's no correlation for example between corporal punishment and suspensions.

Schools where children are spanked don't seem to do any better keeping kids in school. Many have higher than average dropout rates.

Most disturbingly of all, the study finds that there is no exemption from the policy in state or federal law for students with disabilities, however severe. There are no numbers about how many times children with disabilities were struck last year, but it is almost certainly happening.

A 2006 report by the U.S. Department of Education found that students with disabilities in North Carolina were hit 290 times in 2006 and a national report last year by Human Rights Watch and the ACLU found that students with disabilities were hit twice as often students in the general population.

Action for Children and other advocates have proposed a ban on corporal punishment for the last several years, but state lawmakers have refused, usually after debates that are as disturbing as this week's report.

In one House floor debate a few years ago, Rep. Ronnie Sutton told his colleagues that when he was growing up, he was "beaten like a rented mule once or twice a week at school." Of course, he didn't mention that mules can't be beaten. They are protected by state animal cruelty laws.

In recent years, officials with the North Carolina Association of Educators, the UNC School of Social Work and the North Carolina PTA have all spoken out for a corporal punishment ban. They have cited the culture created by corporal punishment administered by authority figures, the bad example it provides for kids, and the research that shows it is not an effective way to discipline children.

All that has yet to convince the majority of lawmakers, many of whom often point to what they claims is the deterrence value of corporal punishment. The State School Boards Association always fights the ban, supporting the right of local school districts to decide if it is ok to hit children.

Groups on the religious right are also outspoken opponents and say that spanking is an effective form of discipline.  

It's hard to be optimistic that those attitudes have changed much as the reaction of lawmakers this week to the Action for Children report was mixed at best. One lawmaker worried that even the partial step of banning corporal punishment for students with disabilities would mean some children would escape punishment.

Rep. Curtis Blackwood suggested that the report's authors deliberately used words to arouse emotions to build support for a ban.

But no specific words are needed. In a civilized world, news of children at school being struck by adults would prompt outrage, not heads nodding in approval.

Click here to listen.

According to recent news reports, a large numbers of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina customers have been hit with enormous rate increases for their health plans this year. One family received a 54% premium increase for their healthy teenage daughter because - as Blue Cross told her bemused father - she was female and had just turned seventeen. How's that for one of the private industry "innovations" that the defenders of the health care status quo continually invoke as reasons to resist comprehensive national reform?

Here is a list of the top ten such "innovations" that Americans with private health insurance must currently endure:

10. The "in-network" and "out-of-network" doctor. Want to choose your own doctor? Sorry, not with private insurance. To get covered you have to go to the right doctor and the right hospital. If you guess wrong and go to an unapproved hospital you could get stuck paying thousands of dollars in medical bills.

9. Bills that aren't bills. After any hospital stay the paper begins to pile up. Some of the papers say that you owe money and some say that you don't owe money and some say that you might owe money at some unspecified later date. Many of the papers will look exactly like bills but red writing across the top will helpfully explain "This is not a bill".

8. The for-profit "nonprofit." Many Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies across the country are nonprofit, but they often act like for-profit companies. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina owns subsidiary for-profit entities and pays its CEO more than $4 million per year. But BCBSNC does not have any real oversight from shareholders or the Securities and Exchange Commission.

7. Charging women more than men for the same coverage. Let's face it, women keep having children. When women have children they demand a room and a bed and all kinds of services that men of the same age rarely use. Luckily, insurance companies have figured out how to saddle women with the expenses of childbirth instead of making men, and society at large, share the costs. After all, men didn't have anything to do with the pregnancy.

6. Medical underwriting. Slicing and dicing the risk pool doesn't end with charging women more than men for the same coverage. Insurance companies have developed elaborate models to justify charging people more or less according to geographic area, age, gender, height, weight, eye color, shoe size, etc.

5. Drive-through deliveries. Speaking of childbirth, one of the things some women want to do after having a baby is to spend at least sometime in the hospital recovering. Insurance companies tried to end this blatantly lazy behavior by kicking women out of the hospital after less than a day. Pesky government meddlers enacted new regulations that allow women to malinger for a full 48 hours after childbirth.

4. Lifetime caps. If you break an arm or scrape a knee you should know that your insurance company is there to help you pay the bill. But if you are going to get hit by a car or take a trip to intensive care, well, the insurance company isn't going to sit around paying bills forever. After a certain amount you reach your lifetime insurance limit. That will teach you not to get cancer.

3. Rescission. We can all agree that people with sloppy handwriting or those who lie about acne medication don't deserve health insurance. To help fight this scourge, insurance companies developed something called "rescission." If you get sick then insurance companies will pore over your application to find mistakes or omissions. If you forgot to include something then you can get booted off of insurance and the insurance company can even pursue you for back payments.

2. Swiss cheese health insurance policies. People keep complaining about expensive health insurance but we see ads everyday stapled to telephone poles for plans that cost only $39.99 per month. You can't beat that. Some will complain that these policies don't cover heart attacks, ambulance rides, hospital stays, doctor visits, internal injuries, external injuries, broken bones, or cancer. But you can't please everyone.

1. The pre-existing condition. This is the king of insurance industry "innovations." Medicare will cover you even with a preexisting condition, but why would a private company that is trying to pad its bottom line want to offer coverage to someone who might get sick? Insurance companies want to collect money, not pay it out. So if you've ever had an illness insurance companies will refuse to offer you coverage. Or better yet, the insurance company will offer coverage for a mere $2,000 per month.

Federal health care reform may be imperfect, but it would spare Americans from most of these ridiculous practices. Now that's an innovation worth having.

Adam Searing and Adam Linker work for the North Carolina Health Access Coalition