This week’s theme at A.W.A.D is “words that may sound risqué but aren’t.”

By the way, one of the first things I learned about French from my wife is that risqué doesn’t necessarily mean “off-color”; it just means “risky.” She offered osé (daring) as a word the French would sometimes use for what in English we always call “risqé.” My Ultralingua dictionary also offers ribaud (ribald) and grivois (bawdy, rude, raunchy).

According to conventional wisdom, writes Robert Murphy (author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism), even though capitalism is better than socialism when it comes to varied products such as hot dogs, blue jeans, and laptops, nonetheless we need government central planners to provide us with military defense. In fact, this is so “obvious” to most people that the opposite view — namely, that a free market in defense would work just fine — is cause for ridicule. So let us rethink fundamentals. FULL ARTICLE