And A Chicken In Every Pot?

Rudy Giuliani makes me more than a little nervous. He tends to talk in absolutes, presumably with the intention of making those with more nuanced positions look like wafflers and half-measurers. The value of such absolutism is that reality doesn't usually intrude until it's too late to go back. (Godwin Alert! -- step away from the keyboard!)

But how about a litmus test? Candidate Giuliani, you go ahead and create a "tamper-proof" ID that costs less than $1k/copy, and promise to drop out of the race and provide a $500,000 prize for the first person to create a workable fake that is reproducible for under $5k/copy. Smart money says I wouldn't have to hear more foolishness about being an American League fan for very long.

This actually raises a broader point for me. I always have a strong sense of cognitive dissonance when I hear law-n-order types like Giuliani praising the power of the free market and the finanically interested individual to create novel solutions that are better than government regulation. Do they just forget that the same principle must apply to Mexican immigrants (and drug traffickers)?