By Caroline Baum

Have you ever wondered why conservatives are so opposed to government interference in the marketplace yet so tolerant, even welcoming, of its role in our personal lives? You could say the same about liberals, whose preferences for government involvement run in the opposite direction.
Either way, it strikes me as inconsistent. If you believe in the principle of live-and-let-live, it should apply to all aspects of your life. When the Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial page invokes “free markets, free people,” I always wonder, what happened to the free-people part?