Yesterday’s post at forbes.com:

A former student from my course on Libertarianism e-mails the following:

I thought you would find amusing that I just met someone on JDate two days ago, and I made him purchase Libertarianism from A to Z. It is officially a prerequisite to dating me.

My question: does the suitor have to pass a quiz to prove he actually read the book?

At dailycaller.com.

Abortion opponents fought passage of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul to the bitter end, and now that it’s the law, they’re using it to limit coverage by private insurers.

An obscure part of the law allows states to restrict abortion coverage by private plans operating in new insurance markets. Capitalizing on that language, abortion foes have succeeded in passing bans that, in some cases, go beyond federal statutes.

“We don’t consider elective abortion to be health care, so we don’t think it’s a bad thing for fewer private insurance companies to cover it,” said Mary Harned, attorney for Americans United for Life, a national organization that wrote a model law for the states.

Abortion rights supporters are dismayed.

Yeah, no kidding. 

Proponents and advocates of Obamacare will discover more suprises as implementation unfolds. That is one problem with trying to re-engineer one sixth of the economy. Read the rest here.

Today, May 18th, at the Cato Institute, 12:00 noon.

ROBERT, La. — As BP’s experimental efforts to reduce the flow of oil spewing from disabled well in the Gulf of Mexico met another obstacle, the Obama administration sought assurances from BP that it would not attempt to limit its liability to the $75 million prescribed by law.

Can it possibly be correct that existing law limits BP’s exposure to $75 million? Yes.  According to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, BP is liable for only $75 million of private damages, although it is also on the hook for “cleanup costs.”

Does the 1990 law make any sense? I cannot think of a good rationale, but perhaps I am missing something.

That issue aside, should the administration be strong-arming BP into paying more than its obligations under existing law? No: the law is the law, and BP should be free to take advantage of a bad law, if it so chooses.

BP may well decide on its own, of course, that public relations benefits of paying more than $75 million are worth the costs. And the administration can reasonably support repeal of the 1990 law going forward. But the rule of law is crucial for a productive society, and this sometimes means accepting unpleasant consequences of existing laws.

Priced out of the legitimate alcohol market, the poor are turning instead to deadly homebrews.

The story illustrates perfectly one unintended consequence of alcohol prohibition or exhorbitant sin taxes: the poor quality control that occurs in underground markets.

The story also suggests that the prohibitions on local liquors were partly attempts by colonials to promote their own brews and partly attempts to control the local population.

The full story is horrifying but fascinating as well.

At nytimes.com.

At forbes.com.

In a recent post, I suggested that private mechanisms for discouraging fraud might be more effective than legal penalties. 

In response, a friend (guess who) e-mailed the following:

What do you think of this argument?

 The problem with policies that criminalize murder is that government cannot possibly discover or prosecute all murder. Yet the existence of government policies that purport to prevent murder might cause private parties to be less vigilant in avoiding being murdered in the first place.

 Do you agree?  If not, why is murder different from fraud?

My response is that I agree: policies that criminalize murder might cause private parties to be less vigilant about avoiding murder. And private actions - such as living in a safe neighborhood, not frequenting dangerous parts of town, installing locks and alarms, owning guns and guard dogs – play a large role in helping people avoid murder.

A related fact is that evidence for the deterrent effect of police, prisons, and other criminal justice actions against murder is mixed, at best.

None of this means I necessarily oppose laws against murder. Nor am I positive that laws against fraud are undesirable. But in both cases, the laws seem likely to have unintended consequences, including less private vigilance, and a thoughtful evaluation should take this into account.