Claims are too broad

DEAR SIR — In his column (Environment an excuse to gain power over liberty, May 29) Leon Louw of the Free Market Foundation states categorically, “Virtually all think-tanks, institutes, scientists, journalists, politicians and other role players who care about liberty are sceptical about environmental and other threats that legitimise controlling society at the expense of liberty.” Gosh, virtually all?

On the very same page (Social media a far cry from the ‘voice of the people’) Steven Friedman, a notable friend of liberty, opens his sensible article with the assertion, “When some people decide that their world is the world, reality is sure to suffer.” And so it is, once again, with Mr Louw. The claims of untrammelled liberty, of course, were also trumpeted at the time in defence of slavery and child labour.