Why is Haiti so poor?

Almost 30 years in this newspaper racket and I can still be surprised about what gets readers riled up and engaged. I did this blog post on the Register's Orange Punch blog, quoting one of GMU econ prof Don Boudreaux's letter to the editor suggesting that a primary reason Haiti is so poor is that it has no economic freedom. It brought out the commenters like crazy, including one of our resident orthodox "liberals" devoted to defending the conventional wisdom against us libertarian ignoramuses and bearers of naivete. Nice to see that the exchanges mostly stayed civil. Feel free to chip in if you like.