Liberty & Power: Group Blog
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Legitimate State Secrets Extremely Rare
The website WikiLeaks has published an Afghan War Diary which contains over 91,000 reports documenting our abject failure and totally reprehensible inhumane behavior in Afghanistan. The founder of this invaluable source of information, Julian Assange, granted Der Spiegel an interview. The magazine asked him if any state secrets were lawful and Assange replied that “there is a legitimate role for secrecy, and there is a legitimate role for openness. Unfortunately, those who commit abuses against humanity or against the law find abusing legitimate secrecy to conceal their abuse all too easy. People of good conscience have always revealed abuses by ignoring abusive strictures. It is not WikiLeaks that decides to reveal something. It is a whistleblower or a dissident who decides to reveal it. Our job is to make sure that these individuals are protected, the public is informed and the historical record is not denied.”
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
U.S. Out of Pakistan!
That is the purpose of a resolution proposed by Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. It received thirty-eight votes, including six Republicans. Not a bad start. Hopefully, Ron Paul is yet again ahead of the political curve.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Workplace Drugtesting
Considering that China’s foolish policy of buying US Treasury bonds is the only thing keeping our Middle Eastern misadventures from running out of gas and ammo, Hillary Clinton's granting yet another example of her stunning talent in introducing the slack-jawed stupid into the world of international relations is troublesome.
I’d ask “what on earth is she thinking” with her poking China, but at this point in her storied diplomatic career I’ll make no such attempt. I've read her "It Takes A Village", and believe you me critical thinking is not her strong (pants)suit. There must be a deeper problem, though.
Keeping in mind that she is a child of the 60s, it is high time we instituted a policy of drug testing Mrs. Clinton on a weekly basis, live and on TV, if not for her own health then for the security of our country. Fox TV will undoubtedly pay a pretty penny for the rights to "Mrs. Clinton Meets The Cup" and we, and the world, may be able to breathe a little easier.
Friday, July 23, 2010
A Splendid Essay on the Two Great Classes in Contemporary America
Angelo M. Codevilla, professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University, has written an extraordinary essay for the July/August issue of The American Spectator. It’s called “America’s Ruling Class – And the Perils of Revolution,” but it deals much more extensively with the anatomy and functioning of the class system in the United States today than with the prospect of revolution.
Codevilla cuts immediately to the core: the United States today is divided into (a) a ruling class, which dominates the government at every level, the schools and universities, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and a great deal else, and (b) all of the rest of us, a heterogeneous agglomeration that Codevilla dubs the country class. The ruling class holds the lion’s share of the institutional power, but the country class encompasses perhaps two-thirds of the people.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Prometheus Awards Announced
The Libertarian Futurist Society has announced the winners of this year’s Prometheus Awards.
Best Novel: The Unincorporated Man, Dani and Eytan Kollin (TOR Books)
Hall of Fame: “No Truce with Kings,” Poul Anderson
The winners will receive their awards at a ceremony at this year’s World Science Fiction Convention, Aussiecon 4.
From the LFS:
The Unincorporated Man is the first novel publication by the Kollin brothers. It is the first novel in a planned trilogy to be published by Tor. The Unincorporated Man presents the idea that education and personal development could be funded by allowing investors to take a share of one’s future income. The novel explores the ways this arrangement would affect those who do not own a majority of the stock in themselves. For instance, often ones investors would have control of a person’s choices of where to live or work. The desire for power as an end unto itself and the negative consequences of the raw lust for power are shown in often great detail. The story takes a strong position that liberty is important and worth fighting for, and the characters spend their time pushing for different conceptions of what freedom is.
Poul Anderson’s novels have been nominated many times, and have won the Prometheus Award (in 1995, for The Stars Are Also Fire), and the Hall of Fame Award (1995 for The Star Fox and 1985 for Trader to the Stars). He also received a Special award for lifetime achievement in 2001. This was the first nomination for “No Truce With Kings."
Poul Anderson’s “No Truce with Kings” was first published in 1963. Like many science fiction stories of that era, it was set in a future that had endured a nuclear war. Anderson’s focus is not on the immediate disaster and the struggle to survive, but the later rebuilding; its central conflict is over what sort of civilization should be created. The story’s title comes from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Old Issue,” which describes the struggle to bind kings and states with law and the threat of their breaking free. Anderson’s future California is basically a feudal society, founded on local loyalties, but it has a growing movement in favor of a centralized, impersonal state. As David Friedman remarked about this story, Anderson plays fair with his conflicting forces: both of them want the best for humanity, but one side is mistaken about what that is. This story is classic Anderson and, like many of his best stories, reveals his libertarian sympathies.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Two Very Different Incidents Same Lesson
The firing of the Agriculture Department's director of rural development in Georgia, Shirley Sherrod, for allegedly making racial remarks reminds me of something from my childhood. In my twelfth year we went to a family gathering in the Finger Lakes region. There, because I was studying German at the time, parental pressure resulted in a brief Teutonic conversation with an older distant cousin who had emigrated from Germany during the 1930s. I never saw the man again but later learned that he had been a Brownshirt who had to flee for his life when Hitler decided to eliminate Ernst Röhm and his followers on the last day of June 1934.
Now, I am not comparing Shirley Sherrod to my cousin, nor am I comparing the Obama Administration to Hitler’s regime, but I do believe that the situations are similar in that they both teach the same lesson. Just because you are part of an organization or culture pursuing evil policies does not mean that you are immune from the consequences of those malevolent practices. There are, of course, important differences between the two cases. First and foremost my cousin joined an organization that persecuted Jews and used violence to advance political ends, while Shirley Sherrod did absolutely nothing wrong.
When the victim of your supposed racial bias comes strongly to your defense it seems to me you have been wrongly accused and punished. Barak Obama should apologize to Sherrod and give her job back immediately. However, plenty of other people and groups also share responsibility for her plight. For example, the reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who both work so assiduously to maintain a climate of hyper-racial sensitivity. Also, the website, biggovernment.com who essentially manufactured this controversy. There is nothing wrong with exposing the very serious problem of real incidents of racial discrimination committed by the Obama Administration, such as the Justice Department’s decision to drop the charges of voter intimidation against New Black Panther Party members, though, when you create them yourselves, as in this case, you are no better than Jackson or Sharpton.
However, just as my cousin should not have been surprised when the violence his party espoused became an instrument to be used against him, neither should Sherrod be taken unawares when an accusation of racial bias, comes from her organization, which uses this political tactic on a regular basis.
Why This Gigantic “Intelligence” Apparatus? Follow the Money
The Washington Post published yesterday the first of three large reports by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin on the dimensions of the gigantic U.S. apparatus of “intelligence” activities being undertaken to combat terrorist acts against the United States, such as the 9/11 attacks. To say that this activity amounts to mobilizing every police officer in the country to stop street fights in Camden only begins to suggest its almost unbelievable disproportion to the alleged threat.
Among Priest and Arkin’s findings from a two-year study are the following:
The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.[We] discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings – about 17 million square feet of space.
Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.
Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year – a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.
Celebrating A Pioneer of Islamic Feminism
In my latest "History of the Genre" segment for StarShipSofa, I focus on the contributions of Bengali author, educator, and crusader for women's rights Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain. Her pioneering story "Sultana's Dream" turns 105 this year.
Listen here.
(On a side note, thanks to everyone who listens to and supports StarShipSofa. Thanks to you, SSS has become the first podcast ever to be nominated for a Hugo Award. We appreciate it!)
Sunday, July 18, 2010
The ACLU Defends Gun Rights....Yes, Really
For decades, civil libertarians associated with the ACLU have generally ignored the second amendment and/or claimed that that it is the only amendment in the Bill of Rights that fails to guarantee an individual right. This may be changing. In a major shift, at least one state ACLU chapter has embraced the individual rights approach with no ifs, ands, or buts.
The Florida ACLU is suing a local sheriff to get a citizen's gun returned.
Florida ACLU attorney Barry Butin observes matter-of-factly: "Under the Second Amendment, he has a right to have his guns in his house. He's not a convicted felon. It is unusual for the ACLU. But the ACLU supports all constitutional rights. We don't pick and choose."....
Hat Tip: Brian Doherty at Reason's Hit and Run.
Friday, July 16, 2010
An Obituary for Neoconservatism?
A new book has rocketed to the the top of my already too-long reading list: Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea. It is already winning praise from across the political spectrum ranging from Richard Epstein, the distinguished professor of law at the University of Chicago to Thom Hartmann, an Air America Radio Network host.
The author C. Bradley Thompson, the Executive Director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism, has come forward not only to be the academic grave digger of the movement but expose its history beginning with neoconservativism's godfather, Leo Strauss. As someone who once often moved in Straussian circles, he can write with rare authority. I only hope that his "obituary" is not premature.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
A Little Less Hubris and A Little More Humility
The US Chamber of Commerce recently issued an open letter to President Obama and Pals taking them to task because, “Through their legislative and regulatory proposals the congressional majority and the administration have injected tremendous uncertainty into economic decision making and business planning.” It’s a crying shame eighty years after the carnage of the Great Depression that we learned absolutely nothing from it - we still hold fast to the idea that political intervention into economic matters is proper, rational, and just.
Amity Shlaes, in her excellent The Forgotten Man, makes the very same point as the Chamber, using FDR’s unending assault on private property as her example and, taking a page from Robert Higgs, she lays the blame squarely (and convincingly) on the New Deal for lengthening and deepening the Great Depression.
Naturally, the people who make up the Obama Administration are all deep admirers of FDR and the New Deal, and they responded to the letter by stating, “we are all working toward the same goal of putting Americans back to work and getting our economy back on track.”
I agree with that statement, as I am sure Obama and his friends are working with that very goal in mind but, like an auto-mechanic tasked to perform open-heart surgery, they simply have no idea how to do what they wish to do. To the man, they all suffer from a bad education, so they cannot even fathom the possibility that through the simple act of obeying the Constitution and leaving well enough alone the economy would recover without their “help”.
A little less hubris and a little more humility on their part would go a long way for the rest of us.
Preferences vs. Incentives in Bringing About Social Change
My latest article, with Ed Stringham as senior author, is "If a Pure Market Economy Is So Good, Why Doesn’t It Exist? The Importance of Changing Preferences Versus Incentives in Social Change," Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 13 (Summer 2010): 31-52.
The Tea Party Movement and Gay Marriage
Apparently, the libertarian (or, at least, states rights) strain in the tea party movement is alive and well. According to the Washington Post, many tea partiers support the recent court decision striking down the federal law defining marriage as only between a man and woman.
As one of several prominent examples, it quotes Phillip Dennis, Texas state coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, who states: "I do think it's a state's right. I believe that if the people in Massachusetts want gay people to get married, then they should allow it, just as people in Utah do not support abortion. They should have the right to vote against that."
Sunday, July 11, 2010
The BP/Government Police State?
Are state officials acting as agents of BP to intimidate and impede the media?
Read "The BP/Government Police State" (with updates).
Going Against the Grain
In the milieu of popular political commentary I think the left is much more devoted to orthodoxy than the right. I get a daily e-mail from Townhall.com whose lineup of writers includes many of the luminaries of rightwing punditry such as Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin, and Bill O’Reilly. Most of what they say is quite predictable. However, once in awhile you get a column like this recent one by Steve Chapman on Afghanistan. I just do not see such opinions, which go against the prevailing winds, coming in the communications I receive from leftist organizations.
Friday, July 9, 2010
A Word About Comments Threads
Here at Liberty and Power, we're happy to have discussion, disagreement, and debate in comments. But we do insist on a certain level of professionalism and civility. Reasonable people can disagree civilly, and this is conducive to enhanced understanding on everyone's part; incivility is not.
We ask that participants in comments behave collegially, which includes but is not limited to: refrain from name-calling and ad hominem, do not attribute views to others without citation, exercise charity in interpretation, avoid high levels of sarcasm which might come off as hostility.
If commenters show an unwillingness to behave collegially, they will have commenting privileges revoked.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Homeschooling, A hope for America Show
I am delighted to announce that a new anthology edited by Carl Watner is available. Carl and I discussed this work during a visit last year when the anthology was in its infancy. The book sounded wonderful...but, in truth, it needs no more recommendation than the fact that it is edited by Carl. His announcement and ordering information follows....
HOMESCHOOLING A HOPE FOR AMERICA is a collection of articles taken from The Voluntaryist, a newsletter with a libertarian outlook which has been published since 1982. The anthology has been assembled by Carl Watner (from many of his past articles, as well as those of others), and contains an original Foreword by John Taylor Gatto.
This anthology argues against government education in a unique way. One who advocates voluntaryism opposes government schools, not because he opposes schooling but, because he opposes coercion, which is to be found in government taxation, compulsory attendance laws, and in the monopolization of public services. Most of us would agree that there should not be any state religion; that religion should not be supported by taxation; and that people should not be compelled to attend religious services. Why shouldn't the principles of voluntaryism in religion apply to education?
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Greaves Publishes Book on Pearl Harbor Indicting FDR
92-year-old Bettina Bien Greaves, who studied under Ludwig von Mises and was involved with the early years of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), among other groups, has published the book she inherited from her late husband: Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy. The book is being called "a 1,000-page indictment of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration."
Sunday, July 4, 2010
A (very late) review of Skoble's DELETING THE STATE
“Centralized, coercive political authority--the State--is not necessary.”
So writes Aeon Skoble, a philosopher possessed of an all-too-rare combination of rigorous logic, empathy, and imagination. This opening line ably and honestly captures the essence of his 2008 book, Deleting the State.
Something in me--at some level--says that Skoble’s desire for political anarchism must be wrong. But, admittedly, I have a hard time finding what it is, no matter how hard I try after reading Deleting the State. Not only can Skoble write very well (and, for an academic, very clearly), but he writes in such an earnest and intellectual manner, that it’s hard to disagree with him.
Does Hamas Owe Israel An Apology?
In one of the small benefits to be derived from the recent Israeli assault upon the Gaza relief flotilla, Israeli politicians have declared they will relax certain import restrictions enforced by their long running siege of the Gaza Strip. Life is hard and you take whatever good you can, and not only has this move alleviated the suffering of the Palestinians to a degree but also it’s given the world a shining example of what hell is wrought in any society which allows the mixing of the political with the economic.
Now you’d think any relaxation of the hands about Gaza’s throat would be a welcome change for the (…ahem) gentlemen who run Hamas, but that would be asking a bit too much. Amazing but true, it seems they are a bit taken aback by the Israeli decision to open the Gaza juice market to imports, the best minds in Israel finally declaring fruit juice to be an item not fitted for military operations. And now from the sordid coupling of politics with business is birthed an abomination - in this case Hamas re-instituting the blockade in fruit juices. Yes. The one Israel just lifted. That one.
For the Palestine Food Industries Co. (PFI) ( the only functioning juice maker in the Gaza Strip ) sales have increased ten fold since the seige began as they have been handed a (literally) captive audience thanks to the Israeli military. Since the PFI is under the umbrella of the Palestine Investment Fund (PIF), which is a political entity controlled by Hamas (in 2006 Omar Abdel-Razeq, at the time Hamas finance minister, referred to the PIF as “our Palestinian Investment Fund”), here you have the root of the continuing blockade of Gaza in the area of fruit juices, the ultimate aim of every political creed: Other Peoples’ Money.
Israel has removed the blockade, lightening the load off the working masses of Gaza, and Hamas quickly slaps it right back on, all so they may continue to take more from the pockets of the Palestinian workers than would be possible under a free market in fruit juices. As always when it comes to political maneuverings, the politicians insist it is being done for the benefit of a beloved, mythical unicorn called The People and not to line the pockets of them and their politically connected cronies. Per Bloomberg:
** The policy of the government is to protect and maintain local products and industry and employ a large number of workers
who have no job due to the siege," Ziad Zaza, the Hamas economy minister, said in an e-mailed response to questions about the
restrictions on Israeli goods. **
Excellent logic! Irrefutable! In fact, so much so that I ask why lift the Israeli blockade at all? If the policy of restricting imports - in effect, blockading yourself – is such a wise, beneficial economic policy, why isn’t Gaza blessed with a booming economy already? So if I follow his train of thought correctly, according to Hamas official Ziad Zaza the Israelis (bless their altruist hearts!) by blockading imports have been protecting and maintaining Gaza products and industry and making sure that they’re employing a large number of workers. I suppose Amnesty International, the G8 leaders, and myself all owe the Israelis an apology. And so does Hamas, for that matter, if they too believe economic blockades, whether internally or externally imposed, are of benefit to the working masses.
Forget all the blathering of the Hamas talking heads and focus on what they’re doing – maintaining a blockade on the people they supposedly speak for in order to keep alive their sordid, politically protected monopoly in the fruit juice market. And forget all the blathering of the Ivy League “economists” who agree with Ziad Zaza’s protectionism for a moment and think about their logic. If restricting your own imports – blockading your own country – was of such economic benefit, why do we strive to do exactly that to our enemy during times of war?
So either Adam Smith was a fool or Hamas owes Israel an apology and should, by their logic, stop biting the hand that feeds them and embrace the Israeli blockade.
Recent Entries
- Legitimate State Secrets Extremely Rare
- U.S. Out of Pakistan!
- Workplace Drugtesting
- A Splendid Essay on the Two Great Classes in Contemporary America
- Prometheus Awards Announced
- Two Very Different Incidents Same Lesson
- Why This Gigantic “Intelligence” Apparatus? Follow the Money
- Celebrating A Pioneer of Islamic Feminism
- The ACLU Defends Gun Rights....Yes, Really
- An Obituary for Neoconservatism?
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