TICAP, The Hague, March 15th 2010

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Introducing Ed Contoski


by Blad Tolstoy

I should like to introduce for your reading pleasure the work of Ed Contoski, and in particular, to draw your attention to his book entitled: MAKERS AND TAKERS.

Contoski has had a varied career and is a former director of planning for an internationally renowned environmental consulting firm doing business in over forty countries. He is a superb writer who presents his readers with and easy and fluid style which manages to encapsulate a highly specialised knowledge of many subjects.

He says the purpose of writing his book and blog is to defend individual rights against the broad assault of ever expanding government. Tobacco is just one of the areas where freedom is losing ground to government regulations that seek to control every aspect of our lives.

MAKERS AND TAKERS shows how the creation of both wealth and human progress depends on the free choices of individuals -- not government command and control. In it, Contoski explains and documents the contrasting results of freedom and government regulation. And as a review from Second Renaissance Books stated: "He demolishes the entire regulatory apparatus of the state."

Neither logic nor history shows society benefits by expanding the role of government at the expense of liberty and individual rights. But the proponents of regulations have been winning the war against freedom by relying on alarmism based on misinformation and sometimes downright fraud. Unfortunately, the public is generally not able to identify these, particularly relating to the scientific issues. The politicians do no better, particularly when they are less interested in facts to begin with than in trendy causes aligned with the ideology of Big Government. Contoski also writes a blog which is designed to provide little-known facts and analyses on important issues that are not well understood by the public -- in fact, are generally counter to what the public has been fed -- in the hope that truth will triumph.

For those interested in becoming acquainted with the writings of Ed Contoski, (who is, incidentally, a non-smoker) then please check out the following links:

For books, including MAKERS AND TAKERS, see:
http://www.amlibpub.com/top/publications.html

For the Blog, see:


http://www.amlibpub.com/essays/index.html
(Includes some excellent writings on the antics of the tobacco control movement.)