Mind and matter: the little picture.

• Author: Postrel, Virginia I.

People often ask us at REASON what we mean by our motto, "free minds and free markets." First of all, it does not mean, as you sometimes hear, that we at REASON are simply "socially liberal and economically conservative." We do not take a Chinese-menu approach to politics, choosing one issue from column A and one from column B.

To the contrary, "free minds and free markets" states that liberty is indivisible. It is about freedom of conscience, the realm of ideas, the intangible mind. And it is about the expression of that mind, the tangible reality, the world of markets, the world of things.

It is about concepts, yes, but also about books, and printing plants, and paint brushes, and TV sets. Free minds create art and politics and religion. And they create new restaurants and health spas and medical procedures. They create science and philosophy. And they create airplanes and software and acrylic fingernails.

"Free minds and free markets" recognizes the connection between action and contemplation, between the economic and the personal, between life, liberty, and property. It cares about the mundane expressions of the human spirit. It recognizes the textures of human life.

We hear a lot about political correctness on university campuses these days. It is indeed a serious threat to freedom of thought, and to the happiness and well-being of lots of students and faculty. That is why so many magazines, including REASON, have devoted so much space to exposing the tyrannies of P.C.

But political correctness is not merely a campus phenomenon, a threat to intellectual life. Political correctness exists any time a faction--whether a majority or a minority--coerces everyone else into conforming to its narrow idea of correct personal behavior. This sort of P.C. is old, common, and quite pervasive. And REASON exists to challenge it.

It is, for example, politically incorrect to take care of children in your home in Culver City, California.

I know this because I met Linda Beasley in 1989. She was a mother with two young children who had quit a teaching job to spend more time with her own kids by opening a licensed family day-care home in her house in Culver City.

It was a homey place, a nurturing, non-institutional environment for preschool kids. There were usually only about a half-dozen kids at any one time, allowing Linda and her two adult helpers to give each child lots of personal attention. Both the children and their parents seemed very happy.

None...