McCormick: “Having said that, I should note that I am not a supporter of the laissez-faire doctrine embraced by strict libertarians. I believe that law and government do have important and, indeed, indispensable roles to play in regulating enterprises for the sake of protecting public health, safety, and morals, preventing exploitation and abuse, and promoting fair competitive circumstances of exchange.”
One would think that a college professor would be more careful about the fact, and a Christian one would worry about bearing false witness. Libertarians agree with McCormick on the importance of government. Where libertarians differ with conservatives like McCormick is where to draw the line of limited government. Conservatives are so anxious to compromise with socialists that they wake up one day and find they have a socialist government. As US conservatives have demonstrated over the past 50 years, conservatism amounts to nothing but gradual capitulation, socialism by a thousand cuts.

McCormick: “Moreover, the growth of crime and other pathologies where family breakdown is rampant will result in the need for more extensive policing and incarceration and, again, increased taxes to pay for these government services.”
And yet a large part of spending by the federal government is in the form of transfer payments, but not to the poor, to the middle class for Medicare and Social Security. Police, courts and prisons cost us very little in taxes.
Still, if McCormick wants to be consistent in his ideology, he should favor legalizing marijuana and cocaine so as to reduce the burden on police, courts and prisons.