I'd like to report that I have successfully ordered and had approved a customized Starbucks gift card with the slogan "Free minds and free markets" written on it.
I think that fairly well refutes the innuendos that David Boaz was throwing their way in the WSJ, claiming that they were somehow anti-capitalism or anti-free markets (and thus hypocritical) when they didn't approve "laissez faire" as a phrase on a gift card.
In Boaz's "research" on the subject, he tried liberal slogans in English and Spanish and got them approved. He didn't try either a liberal slogan in French, or a pro-market slogan in English.
Free minds and free markets was the first and only slogan I tried. It just seemed obvious that a fair test of Boaz's anti-Starbucks thesis was to use English. Not that many people in the real world know what the heck laissez faire means!!
So, lovers of liberty, set your minds at ease and consider these two pieces of advice: (1) go ahead and get your coffee at Starbucks, (2) Be wary of empirical work from CATO.
5 comments:
How can you be sure 'free markets' wasn't interpeted as suggesting people shouldn't have to pay for groceries?
...or, they just saw 'free minds', and had hippie flashbacks.
laissez faire seems a little risky. We have ladies - Virginia state employees - in Richmond whose task is to keep bad stuff off the personalized plates. But, English is the language they know. Consequently, MO FAUX got through, as have some truly vile things in Vietnamese. Embarrassing for the ladies, once explained to them.
I learned the word "laissez-faire" in 9th grade. Despite its origin as a French slogan, I don't see how an educated person today can say it's not a part of the English language.
It could also be that the negative publicity in the WSJ caused a hasty shift in the original policy.
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