Reason's 40th anniversary

I am very much lo0oking forward to the Reason Foundation's 40th anniversary dinner tomorrow night (actually, it's Reason magazine's 40th -- the Foundation wasn't formed until later, 1978 if I'm not mistaken). I broke out my tux tonight to make sure it's in good shape. Bob Poole, Manny Klausner and Tibor Machan, the three who took over the magazine from Lanny Friedlander early on, are all friends of long standing. I've spoken at a couple of Reason events, attended many more, and was the Washington correspondent for a while in the late 1970s. I've never met Jeff Flake, the congressman from Arizona who is the featured speaker, so I'm looking forward to that as well. Of course I'll see a lot of old friends, and look forward to meeting some new ones.

Reason will give a special award to the Dave Threshie and Dick Wallace families, in recognition of the fact that they have kept Freedom Communications in the family and determined to continue propagating libertarian ideas during a really tough time for the newspaper business. Doing so has literally cost them millions of dollars (although they're hardly hurting for money).

It strikes me as a particularly critical time for the freedom movement. Although the financial crisis was sparked almost exclusively by the government, there's a widespread notion out there that it was the result of excessive deregulation; that comes from the Republicans talking incessantly about deregulation but never doing it when they have power; they get the reputation without the reality. We have our work cut out for us reminding peoiple of reality, and the outcome is far from certain.