Christian Schneider and Michael New have nice tributes up for David Boaz, the libertarian scholar who has sadly succumbed to his battle with cancer. I would just want to add a quick word.

I can’t say I knew David well, but we had met on a number of occasions over the years, dating back to the 1990s when I was still in college and I went to a dinner where he gave a talk about his book, Libertarianism: A Primer, which provided an overview of libertarian political philosophy. Personally, David was kind and gracious. As a thinker, he aimed for intellectual consistency and was somebody you could always engage with, even when you disagreed.

Christian describes David as “the reasonable radical,” and I think that’s right. For decades at the Cato Institute, he sought to distance libertarianism from crankish debates while advancing the ideology of limited government. Like many libertarians, he was critical of what he saw as contradictions within conservatism and the emptiness of Republican rhetoric on reining in government, but unlike some other libertarians, he was not sanguine when it came to the threats to liberty posed by Democrats.

Ronald Reagan once said, “If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.” In an era when the populist strain is making many conservatives increasingly comfortable embracing the use of the state to combat the Left, I think it’s important to consider the arguments of reasonable libertarians in resisting this temptation.

So, it’s sad to see such an evil disease rob us of David Boaz’s contributions to the conversation. He will be missed.

For more on his life and work, you can check out Brian Doherty’s tribute over at Reason.