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Tom G. Palmer

David Boaz led an exemplary life. To know him is to admire him and even to love him. Through him, so many people were introduced to the humane, decent, rational, and compassionate case for “the simple system of natural liberty.” So many successful and happy careers were launched. So many people were gently taught how to be effective promoters of their principles, to be good colleagues, and to be better people. So many tears are being shed for the loss of our guide, our inspiration, our friend.

David came from Kentucky and he never quite lost the Kentucky twang. He became active in the promotion of liberty in college. He embraced the principles of treating every human being with respect and the presumption of liberty, and those principles infused his thought and his actions until his last days. 

I was 18 and David was 21 when we met in August 1975 in New York at the national nominating convention of the (then) Libertarian Party. I saw a handsome man sitting on a display table swinging his legs and parrying arguments about whether a stateless society could be stable and free; he didn’t think it could be and he defended constitutionally limited government as the best we could get. I was attracted like a bumblebee to a daisy. He was funny and clever and yet modest. 

Over 49 years that combination of wit and intellect and humility characterized him. For five decades he worked to secure equal liberty for each and every human being. It was his life mission, to which he hewed with extraordinary steadfastness. He was a passionate champion of ending the drug war and was active in and served on the advisory board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, despite never having tried marijuana, tobacco, or any other intoxicating substance. (David never drank alcohol or smoked anything. His only vice was his preference for Coca‐​Cola, which would lead him to choose restaurants on the basis of which cola products they served.)

He was honest. He was generous of spirit; he never questioned the motives of others, but sought to understand them, to learn from them, and to win them over to the cause of liberty, the only political idea that can be embraced by every human being without conflict or violence. 

His book The Libertarian Mind is one of the finest, most accessible, and most reasonable cases for liberty. David wrote it to introduce, to persuade, to motivate. Like his dear friend P. J. O’Rourke, who effectively rewrote Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson, which in turn was a rewriting of Frédéric Bastiat’s “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen,” David knew that writers who are today teenagers will need to make the case for liberty anew for their generation. And that the case will need to be made again by people yet unborn. (The Libertarian Mind will come out next year in a revised paperback edition, David’s last gift to us.)

David’s steadfastness is an example to us all. Many people become enthusiastically involved in the cause of liberty, or one of its subsidiary campaigns, and then become discouraged and drop away when the Great Victory doesn’t happen in one, two, three, or even ten years. Not David. He always knew that the changes he sought may not happen until he would not be with us to celebrate them. Some did happen. The fall of the USSR and its empire of irrationality and cruelty. The end of apartheid’s humiliation and oppression. Marriage equality. Legalization of marijuana. Through it all, through failures and successes, through slow and incremental steps, he worked tirelessly for the realization of goals that he knew would not happen until long after we are dust and ashes.

One of David’s oft used anecdotes concerned when he was challenged to name a success of the libertarian movement. 

I was asked once by some skeptics what the most important libertarian accomplishment ever was. I said, “the abolition of slavery.” Okay, they conceded. Name another. I thought more carefully and said “bringing power under the rule of law.” That was a revolutionary achievement, but it’s incomplete. It’s what we still fight for. Heroes like Mao Yushi, Chen Guangcheng, and thousands of others fight for it. We fight for it here. 

We still fight for it. We will never stop fighting for it. David Boaz is our inspiration. He never stopped. He never will, because when we fight for the rule of law, he is with us. He will always be with us.

Walter Olson

When I think of the most effective advocates of individual freedom in my generation, David Boaz is Number One, and there is no Number Two. No one has combined a more discerning judgment, a more unflagging dedication to principle, a more deft command of tone, such a relish in and curiosity for knowledge for its own sake, such a concern with being fair to opponents, such a knack for reaching so many kinds of audience. Wherever my work takes me I meet his students, readers, and admirers, those he has helped and influenced.

David was regularly described as the heart and soul of Cato. He is the reason I am at the institute, having reached out to bring me on board as a fellow in 2010. He knew Cato, he knew his old friends, and his instincts as to how I could best fit in were always right. Through Cato’s work and in a hundred other ways, my friend David’s light will shine on.

Gabriela Calderon de Burgos

I met David Boaz when I was an intern at Cato during the summer of 2004. He was such a great speaker. Soon, I found out he was also a great writer. One of the first books I read about classical liberalism was David’s The Libertarian Reader. This was the first time I read John Stuart Mill, Isabel Paterson, Richard Epstein, Mary Wollstonecraft, Benjamin Constant, Frederick Douglas, Charles Murray, Lao‐​Tzu, Herbert Spencer, Bertrand de Jouvenel, and so many others. Looking back at my Libertarian Reader copy from that summer, I now realize that my personal library is filled with books that I was inspired to read after being introduced to these authors that summer by David’s fabulous guide to libertarian/​classical liberal thought.

After my internship, I became the editor of Cato’s Spanish‐​language publications, including the Institute’s Spanish‐​language website, www​.elca​to​.org. I was always surprised by David’s attention to detail, especially when he noticed a comma was misplaced in a text in Spanish. In a way, David has embodied what Cato strives to be: a clear, clean, and precise presentation of libertarian/​classical liberal thought.

Ryan Bourne

I was deeply saddened to learn today of the passing of my colleague and friend David Boaz, after his short battle with cancer. David has worked for the Cato Institute for 43 years and was a long‐​serving vice president for public policy and executive vice president. In many respects, he was the Cato Institute, or at least came to be seen as synonymous with it. In his own right, he helped craft an answer to the question “what is libertarianism?’“ through his Libertarianism: A Primer, which was later updated to The Libertarian Mind. For his institution building and consistent propagation of core libertarian values, he has a claim to being one of the most influential libertarians of the past forty years.

Up until a couple of years ago, every Cato study or book that was published went through a “David Boaz review” prior to publication. This extra hurdle sometimes irked scholars, but we all came to appreciate the huge value added. David saw himself as a backstop to protect Cato’s institutional brand. Unlike some other think tanks, Cato does not have a “one voice” policy. But to the extent that our work consistently upheld libertarian principle, it was policed by David. His review ensured that a) what we were saying was actually compatible with libertarianism, b) the work was credible and serious, and c) for good measure, that there were no obvious grammar and spelling errors. He was an utter master in spotting even the tiniest mistakes.

When faced with questions about whether Cato should engage in a new venture or product line, David used to ask himself “What would the Brookings Institution do?” This wasn’t because he wanted Cato to cease advocating radical ideas, or to replicate Brookings. He just thought that for libertarian ideas to be taken seriously, they needed to be presented in a way that people in Washington DC would take seriously too. This included how staff presented themselves, such as how we dressed. And it meant Cato’s scholars not being unnecessarily rude or attacking the motives of politicians in public too. This earned him flak at times—the moniker “beltway libertarian” is now hurled as an insult for think tanks like Cato by some. But David cared little for that criticism. What he was interested in was preserving Cato’s reputation as a serious, principled, libertarian policy shop, something that was achieved in no small part because of his efforts.

When I was invited to interview at Cato, I approached a visiting fellow who I knew from the UK. His advice was clear: “The person you need to impress is David Boaz.” Yet David happened to be away the day I came to interview for eight hours in DC. I have always wondered if I’d have still gotten the job had I faced his apparently stern interview technique.

On my first day, I found a signed letter from David on my desk welcoming me to Cato, alongside a pile of books for me to read to get up to speed with the think tank’s history and ideas. He took me to lunch soon afterwards (not least, I think, to test if I’d read his Libertarian Mind!) and we’d continue that tradition every few months. He took a keen interest in all that I was doing and proved remarkably insightful on how to present economic issues in simple ways. Though not an economist, he always asked probing questions that tested the limits of your knowledge or reasoning and had sage advice for memorable turns of phrase. He also regularly cut out or printed articles that might be of interest for me to write about or respond to. This advice and guidance made me a better scholar.

David was incredibly adept at giving Cato employees a historical perspective about liberty and pushing back against “libertarian nostalgia.” Libertarians tend to believe, he would say, that Hayek’s Road to Serfdom was not a warning, but a description of the world. And, yes, there have been some very real erosions of our economic, civic, and social liberties as the government has grown this past century. But Justice Clarence Thomas really changed David’s perspective on the long sweep of progress towards liberal ideals. As David describes it:

The Cato Institute’s boilerplate description of itself used to include the line, “Since [the American] revolution, civil and economic liberties have been eroded.” Until Clarence Thomas, then chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, gave a speech at Cato and pointed out to us that it didn’t seem quite that way to black people.

From then on he was always quick to point out the real progress in the spread of liberal ideals for the oppressed, both domestically and around the world, and to emphasize that libertarianism was not just defined by its economic policy stances.

My modal interactions with David were largely by email after the pandemic struck. And there were two genres of correspondence I received more than any other. The first was what I’d call the “Good blog but …” Boaz email. This would typically congratulate me on a blog post or op‐​ed, before lamenting some turn of phrase that he considered a “Britishism” that didn’t translate well for an American audience.

The other genre was perhaps more surprising: David, despite being a proud American, with reverence for its constitution, history, and national success, was utterly obsessed by the British monarchy and aristocracy and would regularly ask me questions about them. These included: “Why was Elizabeth II never the Princess of Wales?”, “Why did X receive only an OBE and not a peerage?” and complex constitutional queries about the Parliamentary quagmire during the Brexit wars. He was an avid viewer of The Crown and would regularly ask about the veracity of the events portrayed.

One of the final times I saw David, I asked him why he seemed so interested in the British upper classes. He admitted that his intrigue stemmed from a deep and abiding curiosity for rules, norms, and conventions. And this really expresses how David himself exemplifies some of the cultural and political tensions that are perfectly compatible with being a principled libertarian.

David saw libertarianism as a more radical political philosophy within the broader family of “liberalism.” All true liberals, he thought, believed that government power had to be justified according to its role in protecting individual rights. Libertarians just went further in believing “the scope and powers of government should be constrained so as to allow each individual as much freedom of action as is consistent with a like freedom for everyone else.”

With the rise of authoritarianism on left and right, David was personally keen to see libertarians work politically with “free speech liberals” and “Reagan Republicans” to create a broadly liberal center. This did not mean he wanted libertarians to junk their principles for political expediency. In fact, I remember him being irked by Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi’s book, The Individualists, which really sought to divide libertarians into “paleo‐​libertarians (America first),” “left libertarians” and “bleeding heart libertarians.”

He responded on social media that he was an “actual libertarian,” meaning, I think, that while he wasn’t a nativist or leftist, he still didn’t want to compromise on his libertarianism by making peace with an expansive welfare state, as some bleeding hearts did. His preference for building a liberal center was thus more about recognizing that the biggest new threats to existing liberties today come from authoritarians. Libertarians needed allies for that fight, but that didn’t necessitate us becoming inherently less libertarian where strands of liberals could agree to disagree.

David personally fought for years for certain issues like the freedom for gay couples to marry and against the war on drugs. But his focus on these issues didn’t mean he was a left‐​libertarian or put much heavier weight on social policy: for him, these were just quintessential libertarian issues—about extending fundamental rights to equal treatment under the law and personal consumption freedom.

Libertarians often get (unfairly) caricatured as atomized libertines. Yet David’s libertarianism went beyond getting government out of our lives to grant us the freedom to do what we want. Not only was he fascinated by those rules and norms that allow different free societies to flourish, but his personal values, observed by others over many years, were often quite “Victorian”—including a commitment to hard work, decency, honest dealing, decorum in public life and finding self‐​reliant, non‐​state familial and community solutions to problems. As such, he himself embodied what Shirley Letwin wrote of as the “vigorous virtues” that help make a free society work.

One of the things that made David special, at least in my dealings with him, was that in his major role at Cato he was able to set aside these personal views about politics in delivering on his central task of keeping the institute libertarian. He made a big intellectual contribution to spreading the ideas of libertarianism in his own right. But what he did behind the scenes in building and maintaining our institute was his true life’s work.

I shall miss his conversations and wisdom immensely, but am glad to have known him.

RIP.

Michael F. Cannon

At its core, libertarianism is a movement to recognize and respect the equal dignity of every last human. David Boaz has been and shall remain a giant of that movement. David understood the role of the libertarian is to know and to say what is right—to serve as a lamp in the darkness—because if the libertarian fails to do this, no one else will. He did not have to win every argument. He did not succumb to nostalgia or defeatism. He knew the race is long. He brought rigor to the role. He demanded rigor of others. He was funny. If you stuck around long enough, he would surprise you with his essential humility. His status as a giant surprised him. Once upon hearing his close admirers laud his achievements, he struggled against emotion to say he would be very happy if even half of it were true. David’s work will continue to define libertarianism long after this or that batch who fail to grasp its essence.

Robert A. Levy

For more than 40 years, David Boaz has been Cato’s indispensable man—our jack of all trades and master of all trades. He’s made an enormous contribution to the development, not only of the Institute, but the entire libertarian agenda. As a prominent critic, an authoritative voice on a broad range of policy issues, a widely read author, and a cherished colleague, David has earned our enduring respect, admiration, and gratitude.

David’s book, Libertarianism: A Primer, is, from my perspective, the best book on libertarianism ever written. And his other writings have been a treasure—promoting the libertarian view on vital questions of the day. David has been our intellectual godfather and superstar of the libertarian movement. Second to no one, he’s been responsible for injecting libertarian ideas into public discourse.

Thank you, David, for your devotion, commitment, and countless accomplishments—writing, speaking, editing, tutoring and, of course, promoting the Cato Institute and our shared pro‐​liberty mission.

Peter Goettler

Our inestimable colleague, David Boaz, passed away on June 7, after a year‐​long battle with cancer. It’s impossible to express how deeply his friends, colleagues, and all libertarians will miss him. David was the longest‐​tenured staff member in the history of the Cato Institute, serving the organization and its mission for forty‐​three‐​and‐​a‐​half years. He was the executive vice president of the Institute for decades until 2022, when he ascended to the title of distinguished senior fellow of Cato—an honor held by only four others, three of them Nobel laureates in economics.

David made an incalculable contribution to building Cato into the respected institution and voice it is today, as well as to the “mainstreaming” of libertarianism as a legitimate political philosophy worthy of a seat at the table in all of the nation’s policy debates. Few did more than he did to earn it that seat.

David was the first person from Cato whom I ever met. I was a new contributor in 2001 when he visited my office in New York to thank me, to have a conversation, and, of course, to look for more and hopefully larger contributions in the future. He was a dedicated leader of a non‐​profit, after all, and that was part of his job.

My experience with David over the ensuing 23 years never deviated from the indelible impression he made on me that very first day. He was smart. He was serious. He dedicated his entire life to protecting and advancing liberty. He loved Cato. And, not least, he was a teacher.

Because I learned from David during that 2001 meeting and would never stop learning from him over the next 23 years. The visit took place about two weeks after the terrorist attack of 9/11. The building was across the street from Ground Zero, and employees were just starting to return. So David visited a near‐​empty office and a quiet trading room. We went up to the top‐​floor cafeteria to look over the devastation of what used to be the World Trade Center. David remarked, “After this, I’m very concerned about terrorism. But I’m equally concerned about what this will mean for our civil liberties.”

This was a lesson. Because at that time, I only shared David’s first concern—of terrorism. Barely a month later the PATRIOT Act was passed into law, and we would soon see the national security surveillance state mushroom in ways few might have imagined. Later came revelations of extralegal and unconstitutional spying programs. This confirmed that, in the wake of the World Trade Center tragedy, authorities’ respect for civil liberties were at a low ebb and these rights indeed had been degraded. David’s fears back in September 2001 were well‐​founded and prescient.

I recall this story because it epitomizes the most important thing I learned from David: all our liberties matter. In defending individual rights we can’t pick and choose, or somehow prioritize the ones that are most important to us. First, because they are interconnected. If we allow some to be threatened or diluted, others will soon be. Second, the ones we deem “less important” may be crucial to us in ways we can’t foresee. And even if not, they are undoubtedly critical to other fellow citizens.

David did much to imbue Cato with a similarly holistic view of individual liberty. He also never ceased to stress the Institute’s need to be truly independent, to be truly nonpartisan, and to adhere faithfully to libertarian principles. It’s now the duty of the Cato staff of today, and of the future, to honor David by upholding all of these values as faithfully and as capably as he did.

Thomas A. Berry and Alexander Khoury

New York City has maintained a system of rent control since the 1940s. Property owners in the city are subject to a thicket of regulations that affect their ability to lease and limit their right to exclude—arguably the most fundamental right in the “bundle” of property rights. The cornerstone of the city’s rent control regime is the Rent Stabilization Law, or RSL.

There are approximately one million units under the purview of the RSL, comprising half of all New York City apartments. The RSL authorizes a government board to set annual maximum rent increases for these “stabilized” units. This board is required to consider tenants’ ability to pay as one factor in setting rents, alongside owners’ costs and housing affordability.

The RSL severely limits property owners’ rights to occupy, use, change the use of, and dispose of their property. The RSL requires owners to renew tenants’ leases in perpetuity with very few exceptions, and those exceptions are entirely beyond the owners’ control. Additionally, these renewal rights may be passed on to any member of a tenant’s family who has lived in the tenant’s apartment for two years.

Once a tenant occupies a stabilized unit, an owner may not retake possession of the apartment for personal use. Only upon a demonstration of “immediate and compelling necessity” may an owner reclaim just one of his or her units. And the RSL also severely restricts owners’ rights regarding the buildings themselves. Owners may not withdraw their buildings from residential use, change their units to commercial rentals or cooperatives, leave their property vacant, or demolish their property.

A group of individuals and business entities that own rent‐​stabilized apartments in New York City sued to challenge several 2019 amendments to the RSL in federal court. However, the Second Circuit upheld the law. Now the owners are petitioning the Supreme Court to take their case, and Cato has filed an amicus brief supporting that petition.

Our brief makes three key points. First, the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid (2021) casts serious doubt on the constitutionality of the RSL, since New York City has appropriated building owners’ right to exclude and granted that right to third parties. All of the Supreme Court’s precedents addressing the constitutionality of rent‐​control statutes long predate the per se rule for physical takings articulated in Cedar Point, which calls for those precedents to be reexamined.

Second, there is already a circuit split between the Eighth and Second Circuits over whether property owners can allege that rent control effects a per se taking under Cedar Point. We argue that the Eighth Circuit correctly followed the Supreme Court when it held that a per se takings claim could proceed against an eviction moratorium, while the Second Circuit erred here in denying plaintiffs’ claim against New York.

Finally, we argue that the Supreme Court should take this opportunity to reconsider the approach to regulatory takings that it established in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City (1978). The Penn Central test has proven to be unworkable, and it lacks grounding in both the text and history of the Constitution. A regulatory takings doctrine rooted in the common‐​law understanding of compensable takings would be more consistent with the Constitution and would better protect property rights. For all these reasons, the Supreme Court should take the case and ultimately reverse the Second Circuit.

David Inserra

A proposed amendment to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) strays a little far from the mark of supporting military readiness or countering threats our military may face on the battlefield. Instead, it mandates that social media companies describe in detail exactly how they are handling online terrorist content, costing these companies and the government time and money that would be better spent on actually countering terrorists.

While on its face, it may claim to be stopping designated terrorist organizations and individuals, the proposal does nothing to enhance security online. The amendment mandates that social media companies tell their users about their policies regarding terrorism, how to report such content, and what the consequences might be. Most social media companies already do this, so on one hand, this is entirely unnecessary. On the other hand, the bill defines “social media platform” in a way that likely includes unintended targets like porn sites.

The amendment also mandates that social media companies provide detailed information to the attorney general on their content moderation practices and policies regarding terrorism. This includes the number of

“flagged” or reported pieces of content;

“actioned” items and a count of how exactly they were actioned (e.g., removed, made less visible, demonetized, or otherwise suppressed);

actions taken against posters of content because of their violating content;

times actioned content was viewed by other users;

times actioned content was shared;

appeals and reversals; and

how these stats and platform polices are changing over time.

And all this information must be broken down in many ways. Was it a post, comment, direct message, profile, etc.? Was it text, a still image, or a video? Was it flagged by users, civil society, artificial intelligence, or other sources? And similarly, how was it actioned?

None of this helps the intelligence community or our military stop terrorists and defeat threats to US interests. How does Meta telling the attorney general that 648,000 people appealed the removal of their content for dangerous organizations and individuals violations help advance US security? Or that X removed 33,693 accounts for terrorism, 92 percent proactively? All it does is give the government granular information with which it can later berate social media companies for not doing enough or not doing the “right” thing.

Many social media companies already provide some of this information in various degrees of detail, but this amendment would likely require greater detail than some companies may track. It also ignores the cooperation that already exists between the government, social media companies, and other civil society groups on issues of terrorism.

And while big companies can more easily absorb and manage these rules, every additional unfunded mandate makes it harder and more costly for companies to operate and for new companies to enter the field. While this bill is nowhere near as costly as the mandates of the European Union’s various tech laws, adding this on top of all the other government demands is simply unnecessary and bad for innovation.

We should also be careful whenever we approach an issue where American’s speech rights are potentially threatened. While many of the groups and individuals designated on these government lists are dangerous and terrible, that does not remove the rights of Americans to exercise their First Amendment rights to speak about these groups, however distasteful many may find it. Tech companies can and do often remove such content, but that is their choice.

When arguments for safety and security override expression, we see situations like in Australia where recently its E‑Safety Commission tried to force X to globally take down imagery of a terrorist attack that didn’t violate X’s content policies. The Commission finally backed down after drawing worldwide attention, but this is only the most recent example of security being used to limit speech.

The NDAA should promote peace and security that allows American businesses to prosper. Tacking new reporting mandates onto social media companies fails on all fronts.

Thomas A. Berry, Brent Skorup, and Nathaniel Lawson

“Qualified immunity” is a special legal protection for government officials, but it is not absolute. Officials are still liable for damages if they violate clearly established law. Unfortunately, in a recent case involving the arrest and prosecution of a local journalist in Texas, the Fifth Circuit applied a rule that, in the words of Judge Don Willett, “is less qualified immunity than unqualified impunity.”

Priscilla Villarreal is a popular citizen‐​journalist in Laredo who posts frequently about local police activity. Her content is often viewed unfavorably by the Laredo Police Department, the district attorney, and other local officials. She alleges that, in retaliation for her reporting, the police chief, district attorney, and police officers searched for months for an excuse to arrest her.

Eventually these officials enforced, for the first time, a Texas law that makes it a felony to engage in a routine journalistic practice—corroborating nonpublic information with a public official. After Villarreal asked an officer to confirm the identities of a suicide victim and car accident victim, the officials sprang into action. They obtained a warrant and arrested Villarreal, who promptly petitioned a judge for a writ of habeas corpus, which was granted.

However, when Villarreal sought damages from the officials involved for the violation of her constitutional rights, the Fifth Circuit deemed that law “facially valid” and granted the officers qualified immunity, largely “because no final decision of a state court had held the law unconstitutional at the time of the arrest.”

Villarreal has petitioned the Supreme Court for review of the Fifth Circuit decision, and Cato has submitted an amicus brief in support, in a case called Villarreal v. Alaniz. Our brief argues, first, that the Fifth Circuit erred in relying so heavily on a general presumption that codified laws are constitutional. An arrest would obviously be unreasonable if there were controlling precedent holding the statute at issue unconstitutional. But controlling precedent is not inherently required for an arrest to be unreasonable. To hold otherwise goes against Supreme Court precedent, the decisions of nine other circuits, and the plain text of Section 1983—the statute under which Villarreal seeks damages.

Second, our brief argues that the Texas statute, as applied to Villarreal’s conduct, violates clearly established law. The First Amendment protects not just the right to publish news but also the newsgathering process. One cannot publish information without first obtaining it. Supreme Court decisions have held that the publication of nonpublic information is constitutionally protected, affirming the right of reporters to use “routine newspaper reporting techniques.” These cases have held that the government’s interest in protecting privacy is outweighed by the First Amendment right to publish truthful information. To the extent the Texas statute justifies the arrest of Villarreal for requesting corroboration from a government source, it cannot be squared with these precedents.

Determining “clearly established law” is an objective inquiry of reasonableness, not a blind reliance on a lack of judicial precedent. This case presents the Court with an opportunity to clarify and limit lower courts’ expansive interpretations of qualified immunity. The Court should take the case and reverse the Fifth Circuit.