Milton Friedman, Racecars, and Iron Man

Mere hours after noting Milton Friedman’s grandson in yesterday’s entry, I watched the man himself debating school choice on an old Firing Line DVD (up against Al Shanker and other anti-choice villains).  Milton could fight even bigger battles very effectively, of course (while wisely avoiding the kind of foundational philosophical arguments that draw a few people to Rand and alienate so many others, and likely always will).  Here, then, a six-minute video of Milton explaining and defending free trade as a whole (pointed out by Don Boudreaux, who also praises this comedic video clip documenting what happens to a young woman when she learns free-market economics, about as accurate as that skepticism poem I linked to three days ago).

For even broader video-based education, Katherine Taylor years ago recommended to me this very brief “insanity test,” which surely any sufficiently rational, Rand-like mind should be able to endure without laughing.

The most important free-market video message of the year so far, though, may well be the trailer for the impending superhero blockbuster Iron Man 2.  Watch as capitalist bad boy/hero Tony Stark tells Congress: You want my property?  You can’t have it.  I’ve privatized world peace.

(Amen, and this may be a real glimpse of the only way left forward for free-marketeers in pop culture: resign ourselves to playing the likable bad boys for a while, like mercenary Han Solo, but take some comfort, however problematic, in the thought that people like bad boys.  Played right — especially by young actors — the characters of Atlas Shrugged might actually come across this way on-screen, especially d’Anconia.  And congrats to Downey on having two bad-boy-hero franchises going at the same time, since Sherlock Holmes turned out to be surprisingly good, too.)

You know what would make Iron Man 2 the best film ever made, though?  A final battle on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.  Think about it.  This has to happen in at least one of the Avengers-related movies.  I’m going to be rooting for this scene roughly every fourth time I enter a theatre for the next three years.  Seeing the 90s version of the Helicarrier in the TV-movie with David Hasselhoff as Nick Fury was OK, but we need Samuel L. Jackson on the flight deck throwing someone into one of the big props, obviously.