This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, August 29, 2011.

I'm Caleb Brown.

How should we think about the task of crafting effective public policy?

At Cato University in July, Cato's Dan Griswold

tackled that very big question and getting to the goal line of expanding

individual liberty, he says often means making the case for pro-freedom policies that simply aren't politically feasible today.

Why should we care about public policy?

Well first it can't be ignored.

Maybe you can find a cabin up in the mountain somewhere,

but they'll come for you eventually.

We're all affected.

Here's a quote from Pericles, just because you do not take an interest in politics, doesn't mean politics, won't take an interest in you.

You can't avoid it, and you might as well stand up and try to be a positive influence and secondly a related point

if people who appreciate liberty don't step forward and take a stand, the vacuum will be filled by people who don't appreciate

liberty or have another agenda.

And here Thomas Jefferson put it beautifully, the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government

to gain ground.

And then of course our ultimate goal in being involved in public policy should be to make

public policy less important to help

advance civil society that would draw government from all the areas of life that

it's involved in and where it shouldn't be.

And here I think I and Ran captured it well.

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