Liberty & Power: Group Blog
Entries by David T. Beito
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Has 'Decoupling' Finally Begun?
Over the last two months, China's government has been gradually reducing its exposure to U.S. debt.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Ron Paul on the Lindsey Graham/Chuck Schumer Proposal for National I.D. Card
I wasn't too happy with Ron Paul's immigration stand during the presidential campaign, but he almost makes up for it here in this wonderfully effective warning about the dangers of a national I.D card.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Launching a Left/Right Coalition Against Empire
Over one hundred years later, are we finally witnessing the formation of a new Anti-Imperialist League? The first signs are proming.
A diverse group of progressives, conservatives, and libertarians, including David Henderson of the Independent Institute, lawyer-activist Kevin Zeese, Jesse Walker of Reason, and historian Paul Buhle, have met with the goal of "bringing together conservatives, progressives, liberals and libertarians who oppose American militarism and Empire."
The website of the group, tentatively named Come Home, America Citizens Opposed to U.S. Militarism and Empire, is here and suggestions, and volunteers, are welcome.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Quotation of the Week (On Treason)
The legendary comedian, Mort Sahl, had this to say: "If you maintain a consistent political position long enough, you will eventually be accused of treason."
Sunday, February 28, 2010
The Myth of Census "Confidentiality"
I had intended to blog on this important topic by Mary Theroux at the Beacon beat me to it. Theroux writes:
I saw a huge new billboard in San Francisco the other day—part of the $350 million ad campaign supporting this year’s $14 billion Census—picturing an American Indian in full regalia against a black background, apparently in the process of worshiping the sky, with the stylized text “Tell your story.”If he’s wise, he might want to think twice about thereby providing information that can be used against him.
As examples, 1940 Census data was released and used to locate and intern Americans of Japanese, Italian and German descent, as outlined in these stories from Scientific American, “Confirmed: The U.S. Census Bureau Gave Up Names of Japanese-Americans in WW II: Government documents show that the agency handed over names and addresses to the Secret Service,” and USA Today, “Papers show Census role in WWII camps.”
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Not So "Bizarre" After All: More on Bernanke, Paul, the Fed, and Watergate
Robert Wenzel has more details:
Clearly, there were some very, very odd transactions that went down which may, or may not, have been abnormally facilitated by the Fed. Was this a normal Fed wire, or something more convoluted? My sense has always been that there was something a bit extraordinary about the way the funds went through the Fed system. It does smell, for sure, and to ask about it is not bizarre.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Ben Bernanke Gives Ron Paul the "Idiot Treatment" (Watergate Payoffs)
After Ron Paul raised questions about possible past Federal Reserve misdeeds including allegations of involvement in Watergate payoffs, Ben Bernanke answered smugly: "These specific allegations you've made, I think are absolutely bizarre."
The crowd reflexively laughed at Dr. No's perceived looniness and pundits have already depicted his concerns as "wild" and "odd."
Well, it seems that Paul may have been onto something...or at the very least raised legitimate questions that deserve investigation. A few minutes on google news produced this 1982 story from the Milwaukee Sentinel by Richard Bradee of the paper's Washington Bureau:
"Police who searched the room the Watergate burglars used found $4,200 in $100 dollar bills, all numbered in sequence. Proxmire asked the Federal Reserve Board where the money came from. As he explained in a letter to the late Rep. Wright Patman (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Banking Committee: "I got the biggest run-around in years. They ducked, misled, lied, and gave me the idiot treatment."
Monday, February 22, 2010
Sarah Strangelove's Advice for Obama
Another reason to cheer Palin's humiliation at the CPAC straw poll. Here's what she told the folks at Fox, who were probably nodding their heads as they listened: "Say he decided to declare war on Iran, I think people would perhaps shift their thinking a little bit and decide, well, maybe he's tougher than we think he is today."
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Ron Paul Wins CPAC Presidential Staw Poll
Amazing. It is headline news on both Fox and CNN this morning. I had pretty much given up on conservativism. Maybe there is hope yet for a broad left-right antiwar coalition when a candidate who is to the left of Kucinich on foreign policy wins a straw poll of the leading conservative organization in the United State. This is highly significant given the fact that Mitt Romney and other leading GOP lights had spoken at the conference.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Bob and Ray's Comedy Send-up of American History
Before Monty Python, South Park, and Sam Kinison, there was Bob and Ray. The comedy team became a legend in the 1950s through their radio skits. Particularly hilarious in this sampling of their routines is an interview of an American history who admits that his book is a "sloppy piece of work." It begins at about 6:54 into the audio.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Michael Bérubé and My Post on Gun Free Zones
Over at Crooked Timber, Michael Bérubé says the following about my post on the UAH shootings:
The point that must not go unacknowledged is that there is no way University of Alabama- Huntsville students can feel safe on campus until professors are permitted to bring guns to faculty meetings. Apparently, David Beito agrees.Well, thank goodness somebody’s finally thinking about the children.
In reality, the question of whether professors should bring their .45s and glock nines to faculty meetings has very little bearing on student safety. But it would definitely raise the stakes for the discussion of whether to revise the Literature Before 1800 requirement of the English major.
In his amusing post, Bérubé has a single sentence (emphasis mine) opining that this question has "very little bearing on student [or faculty/staff?] safety." Perhaps he could elaborate.
How does he suggest we improve campus safety? If, for example, he believes in "gun free zones," what measures would he propose to better enforce them? Should universities install more metal detectors? Should they redouble the size of their campus security forces? We'd all like to know.
To move along the discussion, I'll elaborate on my views. I believe that Alabama's concealed carry law should trump the current "gun free zones" at government universities and colleges. As a believer in liberty and property rights, however, I oppose imposition of a "one best system" on private institutions. They should be free to set their own standards, mistaken or otherwise.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The University of Alabama at Huntsville (Another "Gun Free Zone")
See here.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Rand Paul is No Libertarian
My title is misleading. In contrast to Glenn Beck, Rand Paul does not claim to be a libertarian. Even so, many libertarians had hoped that he had genuine libertarian tendencies. This first advertisement for his U.S. Senate campaign, however, is quite simply terrible. It not only panders to the darkest side of American conservatism but to the basest emotions of voters.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Obama's Unbelievable Populist Act
Jesse Walker's work always gives historians much food for thought. In this article for the Wall Street Journal, he traces how Obama follows in a long tradition of politicians who tried to reinvent themselves as populists. Obama will have a more uphill battle than most in pulling off this feat:
To cast this man as a populist, you needn't merely imagine an alternate America where a William Jennings Bryan, the explosive orator who ran unsuccessfully three times for the White House in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, has actually captured the presidency. You need to imagine a Bryan who went to Harvard and taught at an elite law school, who received more money than his opponent from Wall Street and the corporate media, who personally intervened during the presidential campaign to help a bank bailout become law, who surrounded himself with advisers drawn from Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and whose solution to an economic crisis has been to propose a program of corporate subsidies. A populist? Even at his most liberal, pushing a plan to move the country toward universal health coverage, Mr. Obama's idea of advancing reform is to cut deals with all the industries involved so they'll back his legislation.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Howard Fineman's Advice to Obama "Play a Little More Basketball."
Fineman unwittingly confesses the absurdity not only of the American political process but also of media elites, like Fineman, who devote their careers to legitimizing that process:
Don’t try to drive a pickup truck. Leave that for the Scott Browns of the world. But you might want to play a little more basketball in, say, Indiana. That’s the “real America,” too, especially during March Madness. There is a serious point to be made: nobody has an exclusive claim to “the real America.”
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Private Toll Road Competition in the Wild West
Nevada had over one hundred toll roads during the nineteenth century, some of them hundreds of miles in length. Find out the full story in this article I wrote (co-authored by Linda Beito) several years ago.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Hear John Flynn Speak
This audio of an entire America First Committee rally from June 1941 is a real treat. The sound quality is crisp and clear:
The all-star line-up includes John T. Flynn (about 4:30 into the audio), probably the most important activist in the “Old Right” during the 1940s and the 1950s.
Speaking after Flynn is John Cudahy, a former ambassador to Ireland, Belgium, and Poland and a Democrat. To enthusiastic applause, Cudahy not only condemns Roosevelt's foreign policy but calls for reestablishment of the gold standard!
My old friend and associate at the Institute for Humane Studies, John E. Moser, has written the first full-length biography of Flynn: Right Turn: John T. Flynn And The Transformation Of American Liberalism
Saturday, January 9, 2010
James Coleman (Founder of Weather Channel) on Global Warming "Scam"
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Historians Against the War (For Progressives Only, Libertarians Not Welcome)
In 2003, Historians Against the War (HAW) seemed a promising opportunity to bring together antiwar historians of all political persuasions. And, in fact, many libertarian historians joined with liberals, socialists and others on the left to oppose the war. Such an ecumenical political organization had rarely appeared in American history since the demise of the American Anti-Imperialist League in the early twentieth century. Because of its openness, HAW received praise from such free market blogs as the Beacon of the Independent Institute, Antiwar.com, Scott Horton's The Stress Blog, LewRockwell.com Blog, and Liberty and Power at the History News Network.
Seven years later, however, HAW has become essentially a left-wing social club with virtually no political effectiveness. The shift to the new HAW began in March when the leadership purged from the Hawblog yours truly and Thaddeus Russell, a historian of the left who has libertarian sympathies and is critical of the moral universalism and imperialism of the progressive tradition. The major complaints against us were that we were devoting too much space to pushing a "libertarian agenda" (others did not hesitate to blog on progressive proposals that had nothing to do with foreign policy), "bashing Obama" and his foreign policy, and criticizing the HAW leadership for its silence on the new administration.
The blog purge was only a prelude. Soon after it took place, HAW scuttled its generally welcoming and ecumenical original statement of purpose in favor of a leftist critique of "global capitalism" that seemed almost calculated to spurn potential libertarian or conservative recruits.
The latest example is this advertisement for an upcoming HAW panel. It takes for granted that HAW members and "progressive historians" are one and the same. It shows no effort to include libertarian and conservative anti-war historians, left historians critical of "progressivism," or even to acknowledge the existence of non-progressives.
Worse yet, as Thad Russell pointed out, HAW's use of this label in this way also identifies the organization with the most aggressive imperialists in American history including the two main founders of American progressivism, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. The advertisement asks "what can progressive historians & historically minded activists do to positively influence political events?" The implication, of course, is that libertarian and conservative anti-war historians are not qualified to "do” anything about Obama’s Wars. They are to be ignored.
Thad Russell comments:
How about a panel discussion on that?
I would also like to note that, via the HAW blog, David Beito and I raised the issue of Obama's warmaking and the HAW's silence on it from the first days of the administration but were banned from the blog for doing so. Please see our posts on the blog archive, beginning here.
And do let us know whether you agree with the steering committee's decision to ban us from the blog.
In solidarity against the wars,
Thad Russell
www.thaddeusrussell.com As a member since the earliest days of the organization (I signed on shortly after the Iraq invasion), I ask -- and am on the verge of very publicly demanding -- that the HAW steering committee clarify whether the organization is limited to "progressive" historians (as the AHA flyer as well as many other statements made by the steering committee strongly suggest) or just historians who are AGAINST THE WARS. If the former, I will resign immediately since I refuse to identify myself with Wilson, the Roosevelts, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and the "progressive" tradition that is responsible for the largest imperialist wars in U.S. history.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
I'm a Winner! (Black Maverick and From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State)
I'm going to party tonight! This morning comes two pieces of great news. First a committee of distinguished scholars at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation has selected my book, From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967 (2000), as one of the ten top pro-liberty books of the decade.
Also, Damon Root, at Reason, has has this to say about my most recent book (co-authored by Linda Royster Beito):
But my vote for the year’s best book goes to David and Linda Beito’s landmark biography Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power. Howard was a wealthy doctor, entrepreneur, and mutual aid leader who championed civil rights, capitalism, and armed self-defense amidst the lawlessness and state-sanctioned violence of Jim Crow Mississippi. As Black Maverick convincingly shows, no history of the civil rights movement is complete until it acknowledges Howard’s indispensable contributions.
Friday, December 25, 2009
More Light on Possible U.S. War Crimes During World War II
This story is not likely to make its way to the History Channel. Warren Kozak has a fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal, "The Real Rules of War," on massacres of German prisoners by U.S soldiers. At the Battle of the Bulge, for example, the Americans killed over 100 Germans they had captured. According to Kozak, his father, who served in a nearby town, recalled that "We didn't take prisoners for two weeks."
Kozak concludes that “In the weeks following the Malmedy massacre, U.S. troops clearly broke the rules of the Geneva Conventions. Justified or not, they were technically guilty of war crimes.”
Hat Tip, William Stepp.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
James Hansen Answers His Own Question
Leading global warming advocate/scientist James Hansen recently complained:
Fast forward to December 2009, when I gave a talk at the Progressive Forum in Houston Texas. ... The next day another popular blog concluded that I deserved capital punishment. Web chatter on this topic, including indignation that I was coming to Texas, led to a police escort.How did we devolve to this state? Any useful lessons?
Hansen has legitimate reason to be upset. Nobody deserves capital punishment for expressing an opinion. Let's turn to Hansen's more general question, however. What "useful lessons" can we draw from this incident? We need look no further than Hansen's own past comments. According to an article in the Guardian from 2008:
James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.
Or, as Brad at WendyMcElroy.com puts it "as ye sow, so shall ye reap." Brad also notes:
Mind you, the "high crime" isn't producing CO2, it is "spreading doubt." Hell of an attitude for a so-called scientist.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Hope and Change: Prime Mortgage Defaults Up in Third Quarter
I am not sure what kind of attention this story is getting in the media. This fact is particularly worth noting: more than half of all homeowners whose payments had been lowered through modification plans defaulted again”
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
New Dealers for the Second Amendment
In 1941, the Roosevelt administration commissioned a radio special, “We Hold these Truths,” to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. Listen to it here.
The producer and writer was Norman Corwin (an ardent New Dealer who is still going strong at age 99). It featured an all-star cast including Orson Welles, James Stewart, Walter Brennan, and Edward G. Robinson, and closed with a speech by Roosevelt.
Broadcast only a week after Pearl Harbor, it still holds the ratings record for any dramatic show. About half the American population tuned in. The actors, especially Stewart and Welles, give a hyper exuberant commentatory on each amendment.
Despite Corwin’s leftist political beliefs, the content (with a few exceptions) does not reveal a pro-New Deal slant. The section on the second amendment (32.35 minutes into the program) seems downright libertarian. It interprets the amendment as not only protecting gun ownership by individuals but also their right to use these weapons to overthrow an oppressive government.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Opportunity Knocks from the Institute for Humane Studies
An important deadline for students who value liberty is fast approaching. The Institute for Humane Studies, a classical liberal organization which is dear to my heart, is offering Humane Studies Fellowships to graduate students and undergraduates. According to IHS, applicants should show an "interest exploring the principles, practices and institutions necessary for a free society."
A little birdie told me that qualified applicants will have an especially good chance this year.
For more information, see here.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
It is Always About Him
Obama's favorite word in the English language is clearly I. Here is the latest sample:
“Perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars.....One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by forty three other countries — including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.”
“Still, we are at war and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Roosevelt as Defender of Japanese Imperialism
Not Franklin, but his cousin Teddy according to this op-ed by James Bradley in the New York Times. Teddy secretly applauded the rise of what later came to be called the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperty Sphere. In fact, through his Nobel prize-winning mediation, he gave it an official stamp of approval. In the years after the Japanese-Russo War of 1905, he confided:
“All the Asiatic nations are now faced with the urgent necessity of adjusting themselves to the present age. Japan should be their natural leader in that process, and their protector during the transition stage, much as the United States assumed the leadership of the American continent many years ago, and by means of the Monroe Doctrine, preserved the Latin American nations from European interference. The future policy of Japan towards Asiatic countries should be similar to that of the United States towards their neighbors on the American continent.”
Hat tip, William Stepp.
Replay of Live Radio Coverage of Pearl Harbor Attack from 1941
Catch it while you can here.
Palin Supports Stealing Arab Land
The conservative golden girl didn't directly call for this but it is the logical corollary of her endorsement of more Israeli settlements (indirectly funded by the U.S. taxpayer):
"I disagree with the Obama administration on that,” the former Alaska governor told interviewer Barbara Walters. “I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon because the population of Israel is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.”
Friday, December 4, 2009
Liberty and Power's Robert Higgs Interviewed by Andrew Napolitano
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
If Obama's Speech Writers Wanted to Quote Eisenhower.....
Obama's speech writers were apparently unable to find a more meaningful quotation from Eisenhower than the unremarkable: “Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs." Of course, had they googled for a few minutes they would have found the above. Then again, given the nature of Obama's speech, they probably made the right choice.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Another Conservative Republican Against Obama's War
It looks like Ron Paul has a reinforcement....from Utah no less:
Freshmen Rep. Jason Chaffetz has come out against the Afghan War in no uncertain terms:
I can take pot shots at [Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now] all day long, and I’m good at it,” Chaffetz said. “But even though I am probably going against where the party is on this traditionally, I just think we need to stand up and support the notion that it is time to bring our soldiers home.”
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Victims of the Tax State: The Singing Nun
Shortly after the Kennedy assassination, a most unlikely celebrity bested the Beatles on the charts. She was Sister Luc Gabriel (Jeanine Deckers), better known as "The Singing Nun." Deckers had joined a Belgian convent in 1959. The songs she wrote and performed (particularly “Dominique,” a salute to the founder of her religious order) proved so popular that her superiors persuaded her to sell recordings to visitors to raise money for convent. She reluctantly agreed. Soon after that followed a recording contract, an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, and finally a biopic, “The Singing Nun,” (later described by Deckers as “fiction”) starring Debbie Reynolds. Deckers signed over any profits to the convent.
Disillusioned with the authoritarianism of the church, she left in 1967 to pursue a solo singing career. She recorded an album, which included “Glory Be to God for the Golden Pill” praising benefits of the birth control pill for women. The comeback was a flop. Also, in 1967, she moved in with Annie Pécher, a childhood friend (who may have also been her lover). The two founded a school for autistic children.
At this point, the Belgian government tragically entered the scene. Using a dubious loophole in a contract she signed with the church (which had reaped all the profits from “Dominique”), it said she owned it between $50,000 and $80,000 of back taxes. The government was unrelenting in pressing its claim. Depressed and weighed down by debt, Deckers resumed her singing career in a last ditch attempt to pay the taxes and raise enough to keep the school open. As part of the comeback, she recorded this promotional video (see above) featuring a disco version of “Dominique.”
Her timing was terrible. Disco was on life-support in 1982 and it was another flop. The school closed. With no way left to pay the government, Deckers and Pécher committed suicide together. Pécher left this note: “We do suffer really too much... We have no more place in life, no ideal except God, but we can't eat that. We go to eternity in peace. We trust God will forgive us. He saw us both suffer and he won't let us down.”
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
"Smoking Gun" on the Climate Research Scandal
Orson "TJ" Olson, who has long followed the emerging climate research scandal, just sent me the following:
The first demonstration in detail - a true ”smoking gun” - of CRU scientists’ intent to defeat FOIA requests has appeared. It is long and compelling. As one might expect, it is written by one of the participants.The author is Willis Eschenbach, a name climateaudit.org regulars will recognize and whose contributions there are much admired.
The heart of the scandal involves denial of transparency in an effort to make replication of the CRU global temperature records, raw and adjusted, impossible. This is the real scientific crime here. It means making fulfillment of legitimate FOIA requests impossible.
Accordingly the insider leaking the CRU data dump announced it by posting under the nom deguerre "FOIA."
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Two Most Corrupt Countries in the World
Jim Bovard has their names here.
Monday, November 16, 2009
The Neocons Favorite "Maverick"
Sarah Palin once said a kind word or two about Ron Paul but that was then. The self-described maverick can now claim enthusiastic support from the reiging heads of the two main ancestral branches of neoconservativism. Now joining William Kristol (son of Irving) in the Palin brigade is his ideological first cousin, John Podhoritz (son of Norman).
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Two Cheers for Obama (Hiroshima and Nagasaki)
Many conservatives have lambasted Obama's evasive refusal to defend the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan when asked whether Truman was right to do it. Of course, it would have been better if had taken a firm stand against Truman's tragic decision but this is still pretty good for a politician.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Mike Church Interviews L and P'S Robert Higgs
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
In Praise of Virginia Foxx: "Health Care Bill A Greater Threat Than Any Terrorist in the World"
Yes, that's right. Our own government, by expanding its power to unprecedented heights, presents a greater theat to our liberty than some guy hiding in a cave in Waziristan. Why is that controversial? The irony, of course, is that this common-sense statement comes from a member of the same party that has worked overtime in the last eight years to undermine our freedom by fostering wartime hysteria.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Gary Johnson May Run for President
Second only to Ron Paul, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson is the most pro-liberty politician of any prominence. It looks like he might be considering a presidential run. Johnson seems like a dream come true (at least for a politician). For example, he supports the second amendment, marijuana legalization, and fought tax increases while governor. He also supported Ron Paul for president in the primaries. Sounds too good to be true? Perhaps. The big question is where he stands on foreign policy though the support for Paul is a good sign.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
"The Government Might Actually Make Money" on the Bailout (Apparently Not)
A popular rationalization for the bailout was that any losses to the taxpayers were probaby temporary and that the "government might actually make money."
A new report from Treasury Department's independent watchdog, however, has poured a bucket of cold water on this dubious claim. The report finds it "extremely unlikely" that the taxpayers will recoup their losses, much less make a "profit."
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Lou Dobbs (yes, Lou Dobbs): Petition to Bring Home All Troops
I rarely agree with Lou Dobbs but am gladdened to find out that he has adopted a radical Ron Paulian stand on foreign policy. He is promoting a petition to bring home all U.S. troops from overseas. This is a hopeful sign that some elements on the right are beginning to question Obama's wars. You can sign the petition on his website here.
Sadly, Obama is No George McGovern
Ever since the 1972 election, Republicans have tried to smear Democratic candidates as "card carrying ACLU liberals." While the charge was not true for most, it did apply to a few members of that party. Unfortunately, Obama is not one of them.
In the Democratic tradition of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, he is too often willing to sacrifice civil liberties on the altar of some broader goal such as "social justice.
Here is the latest example:
The Obama Administration has now actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council last Friday, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence."
More Kids Singing: This Time for Obamacare
I can't wait to hear their ode to Obama's Afghan policy.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Hear Jeffrey Hummel on the Civil War
This is an incredible treat. Scott Horton, a highly intelligent and well-read libertarain, does a lengthy interview of the brilliant libertarian historian, and a member of this blog, Jeffrey Hummel. Listen and enjoy.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Robert Reich: The Stimulus is "Keeping People Employed"
As unemployment reaches its highest level since 1983, another guest could not resist laughing at this absurd claim from one of Obama's economic gurus.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Is Scott Ritter Right Again?
Back in 2003, Ritter got the last laugh (or should have) after events proved that he was right to dismiss pre-war claims that Iraq had WMD. Speaking to Scott Horton, Ritter persuasively argues that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
"Genius Grant" Recipient Extolls T.R.M Howard
The Jackon Clarion-Ledger which, in 1955, described T.R.M. Howard as a "dangerous agitator" who was "hell-bent on stirring up strife between the races" has come a long way. Today's issue of the paper featured an article praising Howard by award-winning civil rights reporter Jerry Mitchell. Last week, Mitchell won received a "genius" grant from the MacArthur Foundation. Here is an excerpt:
He served as president of the National Medical Association, the association of black physicians, and sometimes traveled to Africa for safaris.....The Mound Bayou surgeon provided an important link from the Booker T. Washington philosophy to a new era, Beito said.
"Without Dr. Howard, would you have had a Medgar Evers?" he asked. "Would you have even had a Fannie Lou Hamer, who got her first introduction to civil rights at Dr. Howard's meetings?"
Evers' brother, Charles, said Howard, who died in May 1976 at the age of 66, remains one of his heroes. "He was the actual founder of the movement years ago when it wasn't popular."
Friday, September 25, 2009
Third Graders Sing Praises of Obama
Only for stomachs of cast iron. For background, see here.
Did Davy Crockett Say It? "Not Yours to Give."
I didn't know that some had questioned the historical veracity of the wonderfully pro-limited government speech attributed to Davy Crockett, "Not Yours to Give." Here is a recent email from the executive director of the Tennessee Historical Society as posted on the H-List in Southern History. Does anyone have any comments? Did Crockett, in fact, make the speech? I made a slight edit to make this post more blogger friendly.
We have had an inquiry for scholarly assistance in clarifying the source of a speech popularly attributed to David Crockett, "Not Yours to Give." The speech is widely circulated on conservative websites. For example, see here.There is mention of Crockett offering comments on such a topic in the register of debates for April 2 1828, but verbatim transcripts are not available for this time period. Edward S. Ellis is cited at some websites as giving the text of the speech in his 1884 book, The Life of Colonel David Crockett. See, for example, here. However, a search of the Ellis book itself on Google Books yielded nothing like the "citation" at conservative websites. Does anyone know of any copies of Crockett's speech or otherwise give direct evidence of attribution of this speech to him?
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Today: Interview on Cliff Kelley Show/Thursday: Book Signing in Jackson
We're going to be on the Cliff Kelley Show (out of Chicago) at 6:10 central time (live streaming here) to discuss our book, Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power.
On Thursday evening at 5:00 p.m, we'll be doing a book signing and reading at the Lemuria Book Store in Jackson, Mississippi.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Joe Wilson to David Frum, "You lie!"
No, Joe Wilson would only say such a thing in Bizzaro World but perhaps he should have. Consider this latest whopper from David Frum:
George W. Bush took a lot of criticism for cutting taxes at the beginning of the prior administration's wars. What are we to say about President Obama cutting military spending at the beginning of his?
This is simply untrue and Frum has to know it. The conservative claim that Obama "cut" the military was put to rest months ago, or should have been. Obama's current military budget is actually higher than Bush's last one and he has increased the size of total active duty forces. See here and here.
If Frum is intentionally keeping these facts secret from his fellow conservatives, however, it appears that few of them care.
Monday, September 14, 2009
John Stossel: Why is Health Insurance so Expensive?
In just a few minutes, this video covers a lot of ground. The section on why laser surgery is becoming cheaper is especially good.
Hit Tip: David Theroux.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Obama's Coalition of the Withering: Japan Defects
Ironically, although the new leaders of Japan relied on Barack Obama's "hope and change" to get elected, they are bailing out from his Afghan War. Hopefully, other countries will soon join the parade.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Obama Or Palin: The Neocons Win Either Way
If you think that Obama and Palin are polar opposites, think again. As Mark Brady points out, Obama has pretty much endorsed their world policing agenda through his Afghan surge. So too has Sarah Palin.
In an open letter, the heroine of the town-hall rabble-rousers embraces Obama's Afghan policy, albeit adding some gentle criticism. Co-signed by such neocon stalwarts as William Kristol (her debate coach), David Frum, and Max Boot, the letter asserts that Obama needs to do even more to escalate the war in Afghanistan:
"we urge you to continue on the path you have taken thus far and give our commanders on the ground the forces they need to implement a successful counterinsurgency strategy. There is no middle course. Incrementally committing fewer troops than required would be a grave mistake and may well lead to American defeat. We will not support half-measures that repeat the errors of the past.”
Last year, it seemed that spectacular failures in foreign policy had finally discredited the neocons. The reality this year could not be more different. The neocons not only landed on their feet after Obama's victory but are stronger than ever before.
If the Republicans nominate Palin in 2012 (even if they don't), we can look forward to a non-debate on foreign policy comparable to the Cold War harmonies of Kennedy v. Nixon in 1960. Apparently, the advocates of muscular Wilsonianism have safely co-opted the town halls for the cause.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
"Right to Carry" and the "Tragedy of the Commons"
The controversy about carrying guns in public is not new. In 1967, however, the political alignments on this issue were completely different. Many conservatives (and others) objected when the Black Panthers insisted on exercising this right. In response, Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act banning the carrying of guns in public.
Many defenders of liberty have felt the need to reflexively defend gun-toting citizens at these rallies. This is a mistake, or at least an incomplete response. A far more productive contribution to an otherwise impoverished debate is to emphasize privatization as a solution. We can only find a just and efficient resolution by treating this as a tragedy of the commons issue.
Both sides have a point but neither can ever be satisfied as long as thoroughfares, parks, and other venues for town halls or rallies continue to be government owned. Under private property, the issue becomes a relatively simple one: the owner decides who can carry guns. The problem (to the extent it is a problem) arises only when we take private property out of the equation. In the absence of privatization, the controversy will never end until one side or the other forces its will over the commons through the brute force of legislation.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Pledge to be of Service to Obama
While watching this creepy video, you too can pledge to be "a servant to our president."
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Howard Website is Up and Running
See here.
Friday, August 28, 2009
My Op-Ed Los Angeles Times on T.R.M. Howard as Unlikely Civil Rights Hero
The Chicago Tribune (T.R.M. Howard's and Emmett Till's hometown newspaper) and the Washington Post were not interested in running this piece linking Howard to the anniversary of Emmett Till's slaying nor was the Washington Post. Fortunately for us, the Los Angeles Times picked it up:
Howard's place in history has been woefully slighted. Without him, we might never have heard of Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers or Operation PUSH. Howard was the crucial link connecting the Till slaying and the rise of the modern civil rights movement.
The picture above shows Howard with Emmett's mother, Rep. Charles Diggs, and trial witnesses.
Friday, August 21, 2009
"Consider Her Ways": A Bizarre Collectivist-Feminist Dystopia
Although "Consider Her Ways" can best be described as science fiction, it first appeared as an episode in the "Alfred Hitchcock Hour" in the 1960s. It it easily the strangest, and one of the best, shows in the entire run of that mystery-murder series. Produced in the era now widely associated with the television show, "Mad Men," it has some surprising, and thoughtful, things to say about both feminism and collectivism.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Interview on Black Maverick (Murray, Kentucky)
Sunday, August 16, 2009
The Netroots Are Bored by Obama's Wars
Now that Obama is in charge, the netroots (who led the fight against the Iraq war), no longer seem to care about foreign policy. If the antiwar movement ever makes a comeback, it won't be because of them.
At a recent gathering at the Netroots Nation, the participants were asked "do you, personally, spend the most time advancing currently?" The winner was health care reform, with 23 percent, and second place was "working to elect progressive candidates in the 2010 elections," with 16 percent. In 11th place -- at the very bottom of the list -- was "working to end our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan." Just one percent of Netroots Nations attendees listed that as their most important personal priority.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Obama Versus Obama on Single-Payer Health Care
This video shows some of the more obvious contradictions between his past and present statements on this issue.
Friday, August 7, 2009
The Wall Street Journal Reviews Black Maverick
Mark Bauerlein just reviewed my book, co-authored by Linda Royster Beito, Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power. Fortunately, he seems to like it! Here is an excerpt:
Howard drove Cadillacs and Buicks, wore fancy clothes, and loved guns and big-game hunting. He praised free enterprise with a Booker T. Washington fervor, believing entrepreneurs to be better agents of change than activists. He once sighed for “one bomb that could be fashioned that would blow every Communist in America right back to Russia where they belong.” A flamboyant Second Amendment, anti-communist capitalist doesn’t please journalists and historians searching for civil-rights martyrs.“Black Maverick,” though, makes room for exactly such a figure, and rightly so. That Howard made an important contribution is unquestionable.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Raging Historical Debate on the Free State of Jones
The question of the Free State of Jones in Mississippi, which, according to some, represented a secessionist (or quasi-secessionist) movement against the CSA, has lately generated a debate among historians. Ralph Luker over at Cliopatria discusses the ongoing dispute between Victoria Bynum, the author of The Free State of Jones (UNC Press, 2001) and Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer, the authors of The State of Jones.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Harvey Silverglate on the Right to Argue with Cops
As I have said here over the past week, the crux of the matter in the Gates case is that every citizen has a right to argue with a cop. In this superb article, civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate (who has worked closely with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) puts forward this view in far more eloquent terms:
It is not yet entirely clear whether there was a racial element to the initial decision by a woman on the street—working for Harvard Magazine, no less!—to call the police, although that is looking unlikely. It remains disputed whether Sergeant Crowley treated Professor Gates any differently than he would treat a white citizen in the same position. (In fact, if one accepts Crowley’s claim that he dished out to Gates equal treatment under the law, this case stands as a dire warning to all citizens as to the dangers inherent in exercising one’s constitutional right to free speech when in an exchange with a police officer—but more on that below.)Hat tip, Anthony Gregory.
Interview About Our Book, Black Maverick
Of course, I am a biased observer but I think that my co-author, Linda Royster Beito, did a superb job in this interview on Chicago Public Radio about our book, Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Finally a Nugget of Truth from Sgt. Crowley
This perceptive comment from the blog, Whatever It Is, I’m Against It, comes courtesy of Chris Bray at Cliopatria:
In their conversation, Sgt. Crowley complained to Obama that the press have been coming onto his lawn. Yes, isn’t it annoying when people come uninvited onto your property?
Friday, July 24, 2009
What Obama Should Have Said About the Gates Arrest
Instead of racializing the Gates arrest (without any specific evidence that race played a role) at his earlier press conference, Obama should have simply condemned it as wrong to arrest anyone for the act of arguing with a policeman even if it is part of official "protocol." Any search on youtube will reveal countless videos showing both blacks and whites arrested or tased for nothing more than questioning an officer. Now, with Obama's non-apology apology, a great opportunity has been lost to challenge the growing trend of police abuse against people of all races.
Of course, had Obama done this, it might also interfere with the discretion of federal law enforcement officers under his authority to do the same thing.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The Gates Arrest: More than Just About Race
To view the arrest of Henry Louis Gates solely in terms of race is to miss a larger point. As with the Denver policemen who pulled a gun for faster service at McDonald's, the Gates incident may also reflect a general trend by law enforcement officals (and others in government) to abuse their power. More ominously, and little publicized, has been the sharp rise in the number of citizen deaths by taser at the hands of cops.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Barr Versus the Barr Amendment
I voted for Bob Barr but with great reluctance. I could barely get enough energy to check the box by his name. This news makes feel better about my decision. Barr has praised a recent vote by Congress to repeal his amendment from 1998 which prohibited the District of Columbia from legalizating medical marijuana.
“While I in fact sponsored the initial appropriations limitation in 1998, the years since then have witnessed such a dramatic increase in federal government power and an unprecedented decrease in individual liberty, especially since 2001, that I have come to realize that such limitations as the so-called “Barr Amendment” are not and cannot be justified. It has become necessary to reevaluate the power of the federal government that I and others once were able or willing to justify, and do what we can to roll back the tide of government control."
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Grilling of the Inspector of the Federal Reserve (Spectacular Illustration of "Governmental Failure")
If you have any friends who have faith in the comparative competence of the federal government over the free market, show them this:
Anti-Confederate Secessionists in Mississippi?
What did the Confederate States of America do when faced with a possible secession movement? Lake all states, of course, it brutally suppressed it. The rebels in the legendary "Free State of Jones" in Mississippi (the subject of a new book by Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer) may, or may not, have been secessionists in a formal sense but they were against the CSA.
Had Lincoln let a weak Gulf Coast CSA secede in 1861, sans Virginia, North Carolina, Tennesse, and Arkansas, it would have been extremely vulnerable to internal rebellions of this type both by dissident whites and slaves.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Has Obama Endorsed a 19 Percent Maximum Income Tax Rate?
No such luck but this quotation from Obama's Africa tour has to win this week's prize for unintended irony:
"No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top."
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
William Marina R.I.P.
Bruce Bartlett just informed me of the sad news that my friend, and stalwart L and P blogger, Professor William Marina, died this morning of a heart attack. It was all very sudden. As you can see, Bill blogged here only a few hours ago. Bill was a fearless friend of the truth and his passing will be a great loss for us all.
I was first introduced to Bill about twenty years ago by his friend Leonard Liggio. We had a wonderful lunch discussion about American history including his dissertation on the American Anti-Imperialist League. Of all the anti-imperialists, he had the kindest words for U.S. Senator William Borah, an insurgent progressive who opposed empire.
As I grew to know Bill a bit better, I could see that his admiration for Borah made perfect sense. Like many of the insurgents, Bill was suspicious of all forms of militarism, imperialism, and bigness in any form, whether private or public. Bill had strong libertarian inclinations but was best described as a decentralist. He was very much an independent thinker and full of surprises.
In our conversations, I consistently found Bill to be a source of infectious enthusiasm. He described himself as a Taoist and that too made sense when you got to know him. He had an upbeat, but somewhat fatalistic, attitude toward passing events. He was a wealth of insights on such varied issues as the history of bureaucracy, Chinese traditions of localism, the need to promote alternative forms of higher education outside of the universities, and sustainable housing.
Because of his experiences as a Fulbright Scholar and economist for the U.S. Joint Economic Committee, he had many illustrative stories about the corrupting influence of foreign aid and the military-industrial complex.
Remarkably, Bill had been on Dealey Plaza on the day of the Kennedy assassination. Although very much a radical in his opposition to centralized power, he rejected all the JFK conspiracy theories as nonsense and planned to write a book about it. Bill believed that Oswald did it, and did it alone and that the Warren Commission was essentially right. He often compared Oswald to Herostratus who had burned down the Temple of Artemis just so he would be immortalized in history.
Bill was not just a talker. Even while he taught classes at Florida Atlantic University, he made a success in real estate by making efficient use of small, odd-shaped parcels that might otherwise have gone to waste.
Although retired from his university position, he was still a bundle of energy and future projects. Most recently, he set up the Marina-Huerta Educational Foundation to build "self-help" affordable, and environmentally-sound housing. The Foundation built a community center in Guatemala and Bill hoped to introduce these techniques to the United States.
It is a great shame that he could not have lived longer to finish some of his projects.
Monday, July 6, 2009
The Black Maverick in His Office
This is the second in a series of photos relating to my book (co-authored by Linda Royster Beito), Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009).
The book is about the civil rights leader, self-help champion, entrepreneur, and surgeon, T.R.M. Howard.
In addition to being one of the wealthiest blacks in Mississippi, and a mentor to the likes of Medgar Evers and Fannie Lou Hamer, Howard had a reputation of as America's "greatest black big gamehunter" and led safaris to Africa, India, and Alaska. In this picture, taken in his Chicago office about a year before his death, some of his trophies are prominently displayed.
For the other photos (some of which do not appear in the book), see here.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
2081: When Everyone Will Finally Be Equal.
In the age of Obama, the timing of this movie, based on a Kurt Vonnegut story, couldn't be better. I hope it delivers.
A Black (Republican) Maverick Meets Ike
This is the first in a series of photos relating to my book (co-authored by Linda Royster Beito), Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009).
The book is about the civil rights leader, self-help champion, entrepreneur, and surgeon, T.R.M. Howard.
Pictured above is Howard, then a Republican candidate for Congress in Chicago, as he meets with Eisenhower on the eve of the 1958 election.
For the other photos (some of which do not appear in the book, see here.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Jo Van Fleet Shrugs (Anti-Government Speech in Wild River)
Rand or Rothbard couldn't have done a better job. This speech has it all for libertarians. It comes from a character in Elia Kazan's film Wild River (1960), who is fighting a land grab by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Delivered beautifully by actress Jo Van Fleet, the speech blasts FDR's New Deal, governmental relief, and power-hungry politicians. Most of all, it eloquently defends property rights.
Van Fleet is so effective in the role that she largely undermines the pro-New Deal message in the rest of the film.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
More on Militia Scares and Red Scares
Over at our HNN sister blog, Cliopatria, Chris Bray calls attention to what looks to be a fascinating new book (which I promptly added to my reading list) by Robert H. Churchill: To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant's Face: Libertarian Political Violence and the Origins of the Militia Movement. According to Bray,
Churchill writes that New Deal progressives, offended and frightened by vitriolic far-right opposition to the New Deal, launched "a systematic campaign of public condemnation and state repression." Private liberal organizations "initiated the collection of dossiers on leading figures of the Far Right," while the FDR administration and J. Edgar Hoover's FBI undertook an effort that led to the conviction of dozens of right-wing figures on sedition charges. (Hoover even maintained a "custodial detention index" of right-wing figures.)
Hat tip Jonathan Dresner.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
William Shatner's Philosophy of Gun Control
Red Scares, Brown Scares, and Now Militia Scares
Jesse Walker has a thoughtful article over at Reason on the new Militia Scare. He explores the striking parallels to past "scares" (most notably FDR's Brown Scare of the 1930s and 1940s) which used broad-brush attacks, guilt-by-association, and other methods to smear critics:
In the wake of the Tiller and Johns murders, such sloppiness and worse is seeping into the mainstream media. For some pundits, the very basics of critical thought seem to have gone out the window, as they treat a handful of distinct crimes as sign of a rising menace without so much as bothering to check if there's been more small-scale rightist terror this year than in previous years.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
And Now a Word from Biden the Stimulus Czar
Biden tries to explain why unemployment spikedn even after the "job creating" stimulus. I hardly know where to begin....so I won't try. See for yourself:
Friday, June 12, 2009
The Bay of Pigs (Howard Jones and Scott Horton)
My friend and collegue, Howard Jones, discusses his first-rate book, The Bay of Pigs in a first-rate interview with Scott Horton.
He was in good company that day. Other guests on the show were the "other" Scott Horton from Harper's Magazine and Juan Cole. Those of you have not listened to Horton's radio show at antiwar.com are missing out.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Harper's Magazine on Black Maverick
Scott Horton (not the "other Scott Horton" at antiwar.com) just did a story for Harper's Magazine on my book (co-authored by Linda Royster Beito) Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power:
T.R.M. Howard was not everyone’s idea of a civil rights hero, and his accomplishments have been widely neglected. But as historians David Beito and Linda Royster Beito demonstrate in their book Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power, he was in fact one of the most effective black civil rights leaders of his generation and a key figure in bringing civil rights to Mississippi and empowering black voters in Chicago. I put six questions to David Beito about his new book.1. Howard’s life puts him at the center of a number of historic events, usually playing a vital role, particularly in the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties, yet his name rarely figures in the short list of leadership figures cited in the media. Has his role been underappreciated?
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
National Review on Our Book, Black Maverick
The word is slowly getting out about my book (co-authored by Linda Beito), Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power. John J. Miller has interviewed us for the National Review:
‘While historians have properly acknowledged the contributions of clergymen and grassroots activists” to the civil-rights movement, write David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, “they have too often neglected those made by entrepreneurs and black professionals.” The Beitos’ new book — Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power — begins to set the record straight.For the rest, see here .
Friday, June 5, 2009
I'll Be on Book TV (Black Maverick)
I will be on Book TV (C-SPAN2) tomorrow at 3:00 eastern time to discuss Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power. For more on the book, see here
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Stealing Property in Montgomery, Alabama (Testimony)
Shown below are excerpts from the recent public meeting of the State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The highlights are Jimmy McCall, who describes who the city summarily demolished his "dream house," and Jim Peera who faced similar harassment when he tried to build a low-income housing project.
Eminent Domain's Back Door - Alabama Civil Rights Hearing - April 2009 from Don Casey on Vimeo.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Mancow Learns that Waterboarding is Torture
Sheldon: Mancow, another talk-show host, now concedes after undergoing the experience that waterboarding is indeed torture. He had been trying to prove otherwise:
It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke,"Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. "It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back...It was instantaneous...and I don't want to say this: absolutely torture.""I wanted to prove it wasn't torture," Mancow said. "They cut off our heads, we put water on their face...I got voted to do this but I really thought 'I'm going to laugh this off.' "
So far, only two defenders of Bush's foreign policy, Christopher Hitchens and Mancow, have been waterboarded. The experience led both to reluctantly admit that it is torture. Apparently, this is the only way to convince pro-war conservatives, or their fellow travelers, that waterboarding is torture. Another strategy is to recommend that advocates of torture devote an hour this week to reading what Lord Acton said about power instead of watching the next episode of "24."
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Welcome to the Future: Obama's Youth Corps Commercial
Obama's Militaristic Youth Corp Commercial
Monday, May 18, 2009
Lindsey Graham Rants Against Ron Paul, Libertarians (and for the Iraq War)
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Judge Napolitano: Bush is a Felon
Friday, May 8, 2009
Little Orphan Annie as Anti-New Deal Hero
In a fascinating column, Brian Doherty, author of the definitive history of libertarianism, Radicals for Capitalism, explores the pro-free market views of Harold Gray, the creator of the "Little Orphan Annie" comic strips:
The strip sneered at organized and impersonal charity. But to survive, Annie counts not only on her own grit but on the direct kindness of strangers, at the same time having to avoid the depredations of the professional do-gooder. The comic’s early days hold a winningly libertarian disdain for the uplifters and professional licensing and child labor laws that stymie Annie’s attempts to support herself and others who fall under her care.
Unfortuantely for Gray, he did not live long enough to prevent his work from being mangled into an aggressively pro-New Deal play and movie, "Annie."
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Ron Paul on the Rachel Maddow Show
Finally, Maddow interviews Ron Paul. It can safely be said, however, that Keith Olbermann will never interview him.
One of the reasons I like Ron Paul is that he keeps bringing the debate back to foreign policy.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Was Harry Truman a War Criminal? Jon Stewart Says Yes, Then No
Jon Stewart has apologized (see below) for calling Harry Truman a war criminal during an interview with Clifford May. For Bill Whittle's criticism of Stewart's original statement, which helped lead to Stewart's capitulation, see the link at Jane Shaw's post here.
Well....was Harry Truman a war criminal? In my view, it is not even a close call. He was. If just war theory means anything it is that the intentional mass slaughter of civilians can not be justified. Had Hitler dropped an atomic bomb on London in 1941, judges at a subsequent war crimes trial would have dismissed out of hand any defense (even if it was partially true) that one goal was to "shorten the war and save lives from an invasion." They would have called it mass murder, pure and simple.
As Mark Brady points out, the entire basis of Whittle's argument falls apart once we abandon the premise of unconditional surrender (as first proclaimed by FDR). Truman rebuffed all proposals to let the Japanese keep the emperor in exchange for a surrender. A side benefit, of course, of such a conditional surrender would have been to avoid a bloody American invasion. Ironically, once Truman had dropped the bomb, he shifted course and agreed to this condition anyway. One of the best discussions of this issue is Thomas Fleming's magisterial, The New Dealers War.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Stealing Land in Montgomery, Alabama
Will the current outrage in Montgomery provoke a modern civil rights movement against eminent domain through the back door? It certainly should.
On Wednesday in Montgomery, developer Jim Peera displayed this map as part of his testimony at a public forum of the State Advisory Committee (which I chair) of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The pins show buildings demolished by the city of Montgomery in 2008. As you can see, the vast majority are concentrated in one area which just so happens to be heavily black and low-income. Ironically, the area included the apartment of Rosa Parks.
Typically, the city will designate a building as "blighted" or a "nuisance," sometimes using a subjective and arbitrary standard, as in the Jimmy McCalll case. It then bills the owner for the demolition costs. Because many of these owners are poor, they will either have to abandon their land or sell it at a high discount to either a private developer or the city. Even when they can afford demolition, taxes, and other costs, the city has repeatedly destroyed the current or best use of the land by changing the zoning designation to single-family housing. The result is the same: abandonment of the land or sale at bargain-basement prices.
Unlike conventional eminent domain, the owner under eminent domain through the back door has no right to compensation from the city, even in theory.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Shovel-Ready Jobs
Sheldon: Be careful, someone might run with the idea and propose bringing back trench warfare as a "job creation program."
Friday, May 1, 2009
Aren't All Good Historians Revisionists?
Anthony: I look forward to reading the Riggenbach book but aren't all good historians "revisionists?" What is the point of writing history unless you can offer something new?
Protectionism and the Great Depression
The following video was produced by my friend, Tom G. Palmer, a well-known champion of liberty.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Ayn Rand Quotation
Roderick: I guess I'm giving away the answer but thanks for the Ayn Rand quotation from 1936 (see below). The more I read by the young Ayn Rand, the more I like her. It is hard to imagine the later thin-skinned Rand admitting that talent does not have a thick skin and depends partly on luck.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
NRO on Tomorrow's Eminent Domain Meeting in Montgomery: From Rosa Parks to Kelo
NRO's The Corner has run my post on tomorrow's meeting. If you value property rights, please come! Here is an excerpt:
What is happening to property owners in Montgomery? Jimmy McCall would like to know. Last year, the city government went back on an agreement and used a “blight” law and demolished his house, then under construction. “It was my dream house,” he laments, “and the city tore it down. . . . It reminds me of how they used to mistreat black people in the Old South.”McCall, like thousands of other Americans, is on the receiving end of eminent domain through the back door. In contrast to the standard eminent-domain process, property owners do not have any right to compensation. Minorities are typically the first victims. Ironically, the hometown of Rosa Parks appears to be one of the areas targeted for this form of blatant property-rights abuse. For more on the Montgomery situation, see here.
Alabama has gained national notoriety for eminent-domain abuses in the past, most notably in the Alabaster case heavily publicized by nationally syndicated radio talk-show host Neal Boortz.
On April 29, Alabamans who have similar stories of property-rights abuse are urged to come to a community forum of the State Advisory Committee (which I chair) of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, “Civil Rights Implications of Eminent Domain Policies and Practices in Alabama.” The forum (see agenda here) will be from 9AM to 5PM on April 29 at the Montgomery Campus of Troy University in the Gold Room of the Whitley Conference Hall. The street address is 231 Montgomery Street, Montgomery, AL 36104.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
A New Civil Rights Problem in Montgomery (Property Rights Abuse)
On Wednesday, Alabamans who have charged violations of their property rights by local governments can bring their complaints to a public forum in Montgomery sponsored by the State Advisory Committee U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In this story from the Tuscaloosa News, I provide some specifics on the people who will appear:
What is happening in the cradle of the modern civil rights movement? Jimmy McCall would like to know. 'It was more my dream house,' he laments, 'and the city tore it down ... It reminds me of how they used to mistreat black people in the Old South.' In 1955, Rosa Parks took on the whole system of Jim Crow by refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus. Today, McCall is waging a lonely battle against the same city government for another civil right: the freedom to build a home on his own land.Though McCall's ambitions are modest, he is exceptionally determined. For years, he has scraped together a living by salvaging rare materials from historic homes and then selling them to private builders. Sometimes months went by before he had a client. Finally, he had put aside enough to purchase two acres in Montgomery and started to build. He did the work himself using materials accumulated in his business including a supply of sturdy and extremely rare longleaf pine.
McCall only earns enough money to build in incremental stages, but eventually his dream home took shape. According to a news story by Benjamin Solomon, the structure had 'the high slanted ceilings, the exposed beams of dark, antique wood. It looks like a charming, spacious home in the making.'
But from the outset, the city showed unremitting hostility. He has almost lost count of the roadblocks it threw up including a citation for keeping the necessary building materials on his own land during the construction process.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Thieves and Emperors: "We Belong to the Same Herd"
This scene from the film classic, Barabbas, shows some close parallels to the quotation posted by Ralph Raico on pirates and emperors.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Video of Dr. T.R.M. Howard (Civil Rights/Self-Help Champion)
This is a film clip of Howard from December 1955 in which he decribes his strategy to fight the credit squeeze by the racist Mississippi white Citizens Councils against civil rights activists.
Howard is the subject of my book, Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power. He was a mentor to Medgar Evers, chief surgeon of a fraternal hospital, one of the wealthiest blacks in Mississippi, Republican candidate for Congress, and champion of self-help and mutual aid. Howard also played a key role in finding witnesses and evidence in the Emmett Till murder case.
For audios of Howard's speeches, including his eulogy at Medgar Evers' funeral, see here.
Only 53 Percent of Americans Support Capitalism
We seem to be lurching backward at an ever faster rate. Despite the downfall of Communism, despite the horrors of statism in the twentieth century (most caused by self-described socialists), just over half of the population prefer capitalism over socialism. The level of support among young people is even lower.
Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better. Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided. Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the free-enterprise approach with 49% for capitalism and 26% for socialism. Adults over 40 strongly favor capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism is better. Investors by a 5-to-1 margin choose capitalism. As for those who do not.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Robert Higgs on C-Span (12 Noon)
Last minute reminder. The great economic historian, Robert Higgs, will appear today at 12:00 noon (eastern) for three hours on C-SPAN. For details, see here.
Obama's Laptop Police?
Friday, March 27, 2009
William Kristol: "All Hail Obama!"
What will be next? Will the neocons return to the Democratic Party? This just in from Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard blog:
I asked the boss for a reaction to the Afghan speech. He said he would have framed a few things differently, but his basic response was: "All hail Obama!"
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Obama Jokes About Legalizing Pot and the Stimulus
Jokes should be in quotation marks. Remind me again: How did this guy get elected president?
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
What is Capitalism? (1948)
This isn't too bad (despite the hokiness). In fact, the ideas expressed in this video might now be considered downright subversive in some quarters.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Damon W. Root Reviews Black Maverick in Reason
The first review has already appeared of my new book, Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power. I hope that this is the beginning of a trend. In the latest issue of Reason, Damon Root writes the following:
No single individual brought down the South’s Jim Crow regime, but there were a few dozen who played essential parts. Black Maverick convincingly elevates Howard to that rank. It also provocatively links Howard’s success to the controversial ideas of the 19th-century African-American leader Booker T. Washington, who had famously prioritized black economic independence over political liberty. In his celebrated “Atlanta Compromise” speech of 1895, Washington declared, “No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-house.” Howard’s life at least partially vindicates Washington’s much-criticized approach, showing, as the authors write, “that the growth of voluntary associations, self-help, business investment, and property ownership was the best precondition for civil rights.”Indeed, one of the book’s most significant achievements is to highlight the indispensable role that black entrepreneurs and professionals played in the crucial early phase of the modern civil rights struggle. Several years before the appearance of Martin Luther King’s clergy dominated Montgomery Improvement Association, Howard’s RCNL relied primarily on the support of “undertakers, entrepreneurs, professionals, doctors, druggists, and owners of small farms.” These men used both their financial resources and their professional networks to support some of the earliest economic and legal challenges to Jim Crow. For Howard, this focus on economic independence remained constant throughout his career. As the authors note, “although Howard’s speeches resembled those of a Baptist preacher both in style and content, he had always emphasized business and the professions, not the church, as the vanguards of future success.”
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Ron Paul Debates Stephen Baldwin on Pot Legalization
Great job Ron!
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
A Bipartisan Antiwar United Front in the U.S. House
Four Republicans including, of course, Ron Paul and four Democrats have signed a a joint letter against deeper involvement in Afghanistan. Could this be the beginning of a trend?
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Reject the Proposed Statement of Historians Against the War
I also posted this at the HAWblog of Historians Against the War. Please post any comments there:
It would be a disastrous strategic mistake for HAW to adopt the proposed new statement. The statement’s assertions on domestic policies will only weaken the anti-war movement by driving away anti-imperialist libertarians and conservatives who have been among the most committed opponents of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Whereas the original statement wisely avoided making domestic policy prescriptions, the proposed new statement calls for “a drastic reduction of national resources away from military spending and towards urgently needed domestic programs.” This is an attack on the politics of libertarians and conservatives who have campaigned tirelessly against the wars but who object to spending on both the warfare and the welfare state.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Paul Harvey at Breakfast: A Stilled Voice of the Old Right
When I was seven years old or so growing up in the small town of Albert Lea, Minnesota, Paul Harvey was one of the first voices I heard in the morning. His memorable over-the-top delivery kept me entertained as I gulped down my mother’s signature “mush” (which, contrary to the name, was a tasty Norwegian dish of cream, cinnamon, and butter). None of the reserved Minnesota adults I knew sounded like that! Harvey’s bracing “Good Day!” helped get me in the right frame of mind for the coming day in school--one my least favorite activities.
After we moved to Minneapolis, I rarely heard him on the air. Even the old fogie stations didn’t seem to carry him. His fan base was always in small towns, where he often preceded or followed the daily crop report. Like many, I eventually came to dismiss Harvey as an antiquated vestige from a 1950s time warp, a sort of precursor to such bumbling and pretentious fictional new announcers as Les Nessman (“WKRP in Cincinnati”) or Ted Baxter (“The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”)
Later, however, in my research for my book on tax revolts I gained a new appreciation for Harvey. He stood out as one of the last prominent survivors of the once powerful Old Right of the 1940s and 1950s. Old Right conservatives had fought a dogged rear-guard action against the New Deal welfare and warfare states. The man who published Harvey’s first books in the 1950s was none other than John M. Pratt. An ardent FDR hater, Pratt, while in Chicago during the 1930s, had led one of the largest tax strikes in American history. He obviously saw something in young Harvey.
While Harvey moved away from his earlier Old Right isolationism, events sometimes pulled him back to it. It was Harvey, along with Walter Cronkite, who was instrumental in turning the heartland against the Vietnam War. In 1970, when Richard Nixon was still popular in countless small towns Harvey announced dramatically in his daily commentary: “Mr. President, I love you ... but you're wrong." He was deluged with angry mail and phone calls.
For this expression of old fashioned Midwestern horse sense alone, Paul Harvey deserves the recognition and thanks of all Americans who value peace.
Monday, February 23, 2009
On the Road to Fascism
At least one Obama voter has moved into the critical camp. Hat tip and link, Thaddeus Russell.
Robert Scheer: I don't think the idea of nationalizing, as it's now being called--which means bailing out these banks, setting them straight, then letting them go private again, which is the model that everybody is using, and the people who get screwed are the people whose retirement funds had common or preferred shares and they get wiped out, and these bankers come out richer than ever at the other end--that's not a leftist idea and it's not socialism. This is what we used to, in Comparative Economic Systems, call fascism. It's putting government at the service of the big financial interests. That's what happened in Italy, that's what happened in Germany, that's what happened in Japan. . . .
Tony Blankley: What I don't understand is how my colleagues on this show, who I believe were for Obama, are now saying he's leading a fascist regime. Did he mislead them a few weeks ago when he was still running? . . .
Robert Scheer: To answer your question, I am disappointed in Barack Obama and I'm not quite sure what he's doing.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
The Waterloo of Keynesianism (Military and Domestic)
Note: In part, this post is an answer to a query by Mark Hatlie.
This following is an excerpt of a post at the blog of Historians Against the War. Comments are welcome:
While it is perilous for any historian to predict the future, we may well be headed for the Waterloo of Keynesianism (both military and domestic) and that is a good thing.
Crudely put, Keynesianism (so named for the British economist John Maynard Keynes) is the theory that government’s can speed long-term recovery by running high deficits so as to stimulate aggregate demand or investment. It is the entire basis of Obama’s stimulus plan. To some extent, Keynesian ideas were the basis of Bush’s massive bailout and big spending policies, most especially his now forgotten “stimulus checks.”
The popularity of the Keynesian theory is something a puzzle (at least to me). Few ideas more defy ordinary common sense. Taken in today’s context, it seems akin to telling an individual who has recklessly run up a hundred thousand dollar credit card debt to spend even more on fixing a driveway or garage (infrastructure). For some reason, such advice (which would be considered utter lunacy when applied to individuals) is widely accepted as the best method of economic recovery when taken by governments.
Read the rest here.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
"Don't Subsidize the Losers!" A Rant After My Own Heart
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Putin Warns Against Socialism (Obama Style)
Right now, defenders of the free market need all the friends we can get. Speaking frome experience, the former of the KGB offers some common sense:
Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”.“In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”...
Sounding more like Barry Goldwater than the former head of the KGB, Putin said, “Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.”
Putin also echoed the words of conservative maverick Ron Paul when he said, “we must assess the real situation and write off all hopeless debts and ‘bad’ assets. True, this will be an extremely painful and unpleasant process. Far from everyone can accept such measures, fearing for their capitalization, bonuses, or reputation. However, we would ‘conserve’ and prolong the crisis, unless we clean up our balance sheets.”
Monday, February 16, 2009
In Defense of the (Relatively) Great Warren G. Harding
The latest ratings of presidential greatness tells us more about the priorities of historians than it does about the presidents. The following were rated as the greatest presidents: Lincoln, Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Harry Truman.
There is merit to the high rating for Washington. As to the others, they include a president who did nothing to stop lynching, needlessly prolonged the Great Depression, sent a ship of Jewish refugees back to their doom in Germany; another president, who fried thousands of Japanese babies (thus violating all the dominant theories of just war); yet another president who shredded the ancient constitutional right of habeas corpus; and finally a president who openly defended war and imperialism.
Between them, they brought the United States into three major wars which resulted in over a million American deaths.
Rated by the historians in the "worst" category, by contrast, is, you guessed it, Warren G. Harding: a president who successfully promoted economic prosperity, cut taxes, balanced the budget, reduced the national debt, released all of his predecessor's political prisoners, supported anti-lynching legislation, and instituted the most substantial naval arms reduction agreement in world history. Go figure.
For a sample of Harding's comparative good sense, listen to this audio of his best known speech.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Has Historians Against the War Become a Front for the Democratic Party?
I don't think so but this is certainly the message communicated by the recent cartoons on the main page of the HAW website.
Are You Are An Economy With Performance Issues?
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Chalmers Johnson, Military Keynesianism, and Obama
In this audio of an interview with Scott Horton, Chalmers Johnson discussion the intersection between military Keynesianism and empire. It was Johnson who first popularized the term "blowback." He also deplores Obama's "insane" policy in Afghanistan.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
My Post on the Hawblog: "Are We Still Historians Against the War?"
Here is my post at the blog of Historians Against the War:
Or are we now just Historians Against the Republicans?Since it took power, the new administration has ordered bombings that killed twenty-four Afghan civilians (including several children), promised that an attack on Iran remains “on the table," vowed to double U.S. forces on the ground in Afghanistan, and proposed an increase of forty-billion dollars in the already bloated Pentagon budget.
Meanwhile, Richard Holbrooke, the new special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan has predicted that the Afghan war will last longer than the fourteen years of the Vietnam War, Vice President Biden has matter-of-factly promised an "uptick" in American casualties, and the American commander of NATO forces announced that all Afghan drug dealers, regardless of any connection to the insurgency, will be killed on sight.
Even the good news is less hopeful than it seemed on first appearance. Though President Obama has begun plans to close Gitmo and end torture, he also issued executive orders to continue the policy of "rendition."
All of these developments should be of grave concern to all advocates of peace. Despite this, the official face of HAW on the front page of the website highlights a cartoon of Michael Steele, a person who has nothing to do with setting U.S. foreign policy. It is not the first cartoon of this type to appear. If this continues, readers will naturally start to wonder if HAW still takes a firm stand against the pro-war policies of the United States.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Booker and Barack
As Jane Shaw notes, the rise of Obama is leading to reassessment of Booker T. Washington. Here is my own effort (co-authored by Jonathan Bean) which just appeared at the History News Network:
More than a century ago, the preeminent black leader of his time made a prophecy that has come to pass. When blacks had little hope, Booker T. Washington stood alone in predicting that one day a black man would be president of the United States. Almost all Americans at the time would have considered this an absurd impossibility. Yet history has proved Washington right.In many ways, Barack Obama would find a kindred soul in the president of Tuskegee, the largest black college of its time. Like Obama, Washington came from mixed parentage and grew up in modest circumstances. Washington had a white father (who he never knew) while Obama’s black father more or less abandoned him. Both were raised almost entirely by women who had a tremendous influence on their work ethic and life goals.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
In Defense of Rush Limbaugh: "I Hope He Fails"
The media and others have shamelessly taken Limbaugh's statement that he wants Obama to fail (see above) out of context. Rush may be a defender of perpetual war and an enemy of civil liberties but on this issue he is right.
His essential point was that he hopes Obama will fail in his policy goal to expand governmental control over the economy. To interpret this, as some have done, as claiming that Limbaugh wants the "country" to fail is simply wrong.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
George W. Obama Speaks (The Daily Show)
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Longer than Vietnam?
"Change" and "hope" were the mantras that got Obama's elected but he appears to offering us the same old gruel: perpetual war and futile Wilsonianism in foreign policy. Richard Holbrooke, Obama's envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, predicts that the Afghan War (now in its eighth year) will outlast the longest war in American history (Vietnam, fourteen years) .
There are some problems that can't be solved by shouting "yes we can," even if backed up with more U.S. blood and treasure, and this is one of them.
Friday, January 23, 2009
"Let the Deflation Occur"
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
A Great 1960s Spy Show Theme(McGoohan, "Danger Man")
I'm glad that Amy acknowledged the passing of Patrick McGoohan. It deserves to be highlighted on all libertarian blogs.
On a related matter, just about everybody knows the theme to The Prisoner or "Secret Agent Man" but relatively few have heard the catchy original theme to his show, "Danger Man." Here it is:
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Thank God, He's Leaving
He has destroyed nearly everything he has touched over the last eight years....but at least he no longer doing it in the name of the free market:
And I readily concede I chunked aside some of my free market principles when I was told by chief economic advisers that the situation we were facing could be worse than the Great Depression.
So I've told some of my friends who've said -- you know, who have taken an ideological position on this issue, you know, "Why'd you do what you did?"
Hat Tip: James Ostrowski.
Monday, January 12, 2009
More New Deal Apolgetics
Over at Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok thoroughly demolishes one of the latest examples of New Deal apologetics:
As late as 1938, after almost a decade of governmental "pump priming," almost one out of five workers remained unemployed. Historian Eric Rauchway says this is a lie, a lie spread by conservatives to besmirch the sainted FDR. Nonsense. In 1938 the unemployment rate was 19.1%, i.e. almost one out of five workers was unemployed, this is from the official Bureau of Census/Bureau of Labor Statistics data series for the 1930s. You can find the series in Historical Statistics of the United States here (big PDF) or a graph from Rauchway here. Rauchway knows this but wants to measure unemployment using an alternative series which shows a lower unemployment rate in 1938 (12.5%). Nothing wrong with that but there's no reason to call people who use the official series liars.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
End the Empire and Balance the Budget
Krugmanomics and the War Economy
Many members of L and P have recently criticized various aspects of Paul Krugman's economic theories. To pile on some more, here is an excerpt from my recent post for the blog of Historians Against the War. In it, I discuss the
widely believed theory (at least among my students) that “wars have been good for the economy” in American history.Variants of this thesis can be found among across the political spectrum. On the right, neocon Conrad Black argues that World War II “had restored prosperity after the free market had failed.” On the left, Paul Krugman similarly writes: “There's nothing magic about spending on tanks and bombs rather than roads and bridges. The reason World War II worked more effectively than the WPA [in terms of promoting economic growth] as that it was *bigger.*” While Krugman might prefer that this “bigger” spending be on roads and bridges, rather than bombs, this does not change the fact he still accepts the overall premise that spending on wars can be good for the economy. If anyone should have greater reason to call this theory into question, it is antiwar historians.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
And the Real Winner of the Iraq War Is......
The guy on the left standing next to Iraqi Prime Minister Al Maliki. Al Maliki just returned from a good will trip to Iran..
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Branford Marsalis on the Death of Merit
Wow.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
My Open Letter to Daniel Gross of Newsweek (Historians and the Great Depression)
This is an email than I just sent off to Daniel Gross a reporter at Newsweek:
Dear Mr. Gross:
I am a professor of history at the University of Alabama. Much of my research and teaching focuses on the Great Depression era in American history.
In an article in Salon on January 2, 2009, David Sirota quoted you as stating, "One would be very hard-pressed to find a serious professional historian who believes that the New Deal prolonged the Depression" (See here).
If the quotation accurately represents your views, it is very mistaken.
Off the top of my head, I can name “several serious professional historians” who would probably argue (and argue strongly) “that the New Deal prolonged the Depression.” In addition to myself, they include Jonathan Bean of Southern Illinois University, Brad Birzer of Hillsdale College, Brad Thompson of Clemson University, Jeffrey Hummel at San Jose State University, Larry Schweikart of the University of Dayton , Michael Allen of the University of Washington at Tacoma, Ralph Raico of Buffalo State College, Burton Folsom of Hillsdale College, David Mayer of Capital University in Columbus, John Moser of Ashland University in Ohio, and Paul Moreno of Hillsdale. All have doctorates in history from top-ranked universities.
This is just off the top of my head. If you want additional names, please feel free to call me at 205-348-1870.
Of course, I would happy to discuss my own views on this topic.
Sincerely,
David T. Beito
Professor
Department of History
University of Alabama
Friday, January 2, 2009
A Profile in Privilege
In his book The Cigar, Barnaby Conrad III writes that before John F. Kennedy signed the trade embargo in 1962 banning Cuban cigars he had his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, get him 1,000 cigars. Once Salinger had secured 1,100, the president said: “Now, that I have enough cigars to last awhile, I can sign this.”
Martha Stewart went to jail for far less than this but it seems that presidents, including those known to preach about “public service” and “sacrifice,” are exempt from the same moral code that applies to the rest of us.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Another Victim of "Single-Payer Health Care"
The British National Health Service has claimed another victim. Despite a phone call and note from a doctor stipulating that a critically ill patient, Stewart Fleming, be given immediate care, the staff of Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham, Kent kept him waiting for six hours. By the time they finally got around to treating him, it was too late.
According to Stewart's wife Sarah, when they arrived at the hospital “it was full to bursting. I walked to the front with the letter and told them what the GP had said but I was just told to go to the back of the queue." Representatives of the the National Health Service stated that they were "saddened" by the news but explained that they had particularly long lines this time of year.
Perhaps Mark Brady has an answer. Under the British system does Mr. Fleming's family have any right to sue for malpractice?
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Do the Uninsured Drive Up Premiums?
Is rationing in our future under Obama? Sally Pipes thinks that it will be and that Americans will not tolerate it. I'm not sure that she is right about her second point. Americans appear willing to tolerate anything as long as scapegoats can be found. Pipes disagrees with the view that the uninsured are responsible for high premiums:
One of the great myths in health care is that the uninsured are responsible for driving up private premiums by shifting costs. Uncompensated care certainly shifts some costs to private payers. Yet these costs are actually quite manageable in the aggregate, akin to what retailers lose due to shoplifting. The major cost shift is from government programs -- Medicare and Medicaid -- to private plans. The government pays doctors to treat Medicare and Medicaid patients. But the rates it pays, on average, are less than the cost for providing care to these patients. This is why Medicaid patients, and increasingly Medicare patients, struggle to find doctors. Putting more people on these programs will destabilize the remaining private system and create a coalition for price and wage controls.
Monday, December 29, 2008
The President's Analyst: This Little Card Can Justify Murder?
This is my favorite scene from one of my favorite movies:
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Eartha Kitt RIP
Eartha Kitt not only had talent (see, for example, her scene-stealing performance in St. Louis Blues) but fearlessly spoke truth to power.
In 1968, while at a public White House lunch, she properly embarassed Lady Bird Johnson by declaring "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed....They rebel in the street. They don't want to go to school because they're going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam."
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Neocons in Liberal Drag
According to Justin Raimondo, as Obama prepares to take power, the epicenter of the war party has already shifted leftward from the American Enterprise Institute to the Progressive Policy Institute.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Just How Gullible Does Bush Think We Are?
Why did Bush bother to add this provision to his bailout proclamation? Does anyone (even Bush) really believe that it will be enforced?
Under the terms of the plan, if the companies can't demonstrate financial viability by March 31 the loans will be called and the money must be returned, the statement said.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Obama's "Mountain Dew Economics"
Thomas G. Del Beccaro has used the apt expression "Mountain Dew Economics,"to describe the theory behind Obama's "stimulus plan” of massive government spending, continuing bailouts, and easy credit.
Monday, December 15, 2008
What Tradition of Public Service Does Obama Want to "Reclaim?"
For some reason, I couldn't get the expression "cue laugh track" out of my head after reading the following comment from Obama:
"We have to reclaim a tradition of public service that is about people and their lives and their hopes and their dreams, and it isn't about what's in it for me."
This comes, of course, from the same guy who hired Rahm Emanuel as his chief gate keeper. Even my liberal friends would never try to claim that Emanuel, already notorious for mailing a dead fish to an opponent, represents such a "tradition." Leaving that aside, what are the details of this historical tradition that Obama is trying to reclaim?
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Ron Paul on Nationalization, Bailouts, and Empire
Spending Money Like a Drunken Terminator
Even when governments claim to be broke, it seems that they can always find enough money for a new boondogle. Although Arnold Schwarzenegger is begging the federal government for a bailout, he is launching something called "Bank on California."
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
My Questions and Challenges for Antiwar Progressives
I posed the following questions and challenges at the blog of Historians Against the War after an article appeared in the New York Times stating that "To date, there has been no significant criticism from the antiwar left of the Democratic Party of the prospect that Mr. Obama will keep tens of thousands of troops in Iraq for at least several years to come." I have not yet received a response:
If so, what does Obama have to say or do before antiwar progressives finally start rousing themselves? In answer to those who say we "should wait" and give Obama "a chance," I'd answer that if we don't raise a ruckus now, we will lose any claim to have a place at the table or influence policy.
When are antiwar progressives going to stop worrying so much about a lame-duck president and start trying to influence the future? Okay, fellow peace activists. What do you have to say? Is the New York Times right? Are antiwar progressives giving Obama a free pass?
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Black Maverick Now Being Advertised
Warning: shameless self-promotion. While my book (co-authored by Linda Beito) won't be out until March or April, it is now being advertised by the University of Illinois Press. So far the press is doing a great promotional job. Here is the advertising copy (including blurbs by Juan Williams and Julian Bond):
The long-awaited biography of a colorful and enterprising civil rights leader In whatever role he chose--civil rights leader, wealthy entrepreneur, or unconventional surgeon--Theodore Roosevelt Mason Howard (1908-76) was always close to controversy. One of the leading renaissance men of twentieth century black history, Howard successfully organized a grassroots boycott against Jim Crow in the 1950s. Well known for his benevolence, fun-loving lifestyle, and fabulous parties attended by such celebrities as Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson, he could also be difficult to work with when he let his boundless ego get the best of him. A trained medical doctor, he kept the secrets of the white elite, and although married to one woman for forty years, he had many personal peccadilloes. But T. R. M. Howard's impressive accomplishments and abilities vastly outshone his personal flaws and foibles. He was a dynamic civil rights pioneer and promoter of self-help and business enterprise among blacks.
Monday, December 1, 2008
NPR Bad for Blood Pressure
In the past, the half-hour news round-up of NPR was generally free of blatant propaganda. That appears to changing. This morning "newscaster" Jean Cochran ended her 8:30 news report with the following statement (I'm quoting from memory): "Ironically the Bush administration's reliance on market forces has led to the largest government bailout since the Great Depression."
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Don't Hold Out Any Hope for Obama's "Centrist" Economic Advisors
On NPR yesterday, there was a long interview of a reporter who is an expert on Obama's economic team. He said that although "centrists" like Larry Summers and Robert Rubin, are now in the driver's seat, these centrists have all moved significantly to the left.
According to this reporter, all of these advisors, centrist or otherwise, believe that Hoover's effort to balance the budget prolonged the depression. Thus, in order to avoid repeating this mistake, they agree on the need to "stimulate" the economy through massive government spending.
The centrists don't have a very good understanding of history. Hoover's concern about a balanced budget was largely rhetorical. From the beginning, he was ramping up government spending in agriculture and other areas as well as deficits.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Another Reason to Dislike Obama: Max Boot is now a Fan.
Over at the neocon house organ, Commentary, Max Boot, best known for penning the infamous article, "The Case for American Empire," praises the Obama foreign policy team.
Obama's "Chump Change" and the Retention of Robert Gates
In this interview, Ray McGovern covers a wide range of subjects including Robert Gates, who worked for him at the CIA. Gates, the chief architect of the surge, will now apparently be Obama's Secretary of Defense. McGovern does not have a high opinion of Gates' governing philosophy.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Take that Krugman: Jim Rogers Says Let the Banks Fail
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Some Rare Good News About Obama
Because of the weak state of the economy, he may delay his proposed rollback of the Bush tax cut on "the wealthy."
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Obama's Hawkish Clinton (and Bush) Retreads
Obama's campaign for "change" included a promise not to hire "retreads." As Philip Giraldi points out in this interview with Scott Horton, he is already betraying this promise with a vengeance. Many of his announced, and likely, appointments are not only retreads but pro-war ones at that. As of now, the peace wing of the Democratic Party, which was crucial to electing Obama, is being left out in the cold.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Nat "King" Cole and Rahm Emanuel on the Draft
Watch out. If Rahm Emanuel is able to persuade Obama to impose compulsory national service, this song could suddenly enjoy a revival. Although written prior to Pearl Harbor, the lyrics are surprisingly subversive.
Here is an audio of Nat "King" Cole's rendition:
When skinny me went out with my honey, the boys all started to laugh; But now it's not so funny - they're all gone with the draft.
As a shiek, I can't be beat - the boys all hand me a laugh. But since I have got flat feet, I'm not gone in the draft.
I used to envy the fellows who had such fine physiques; But all they can say is "Hello" on seven-fifty a week.
When the boys get back and see how I'm doin', they'll be sorry they laughed; 'Cause one can't keep on wooing and still be gone with the draft.
When Franklyn D did sign the draft, the cats all had a chill; The boys turned pale and ceased to laugh, 'cause this is a serious bill.
They now realize that skinny me was the luckiest one of all, Who can stay at home with Minnie, while they face the cannon balls.
So boys, take it on the chin, and always wear a smile; You'll find it hard to win carryin' fifty pounds for miles.
When your year of drill is up, you get your calves discharged, You can come back home and freshen up, and run around at large. (Coda:) Gone, gone, gone, gone with the Draft, draft, draft, draft.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Roosevelt Vows to Stay Out of Foreign Wars (1940)
Friday, November 14, 2008
Danny Kaye's Musical Tribute to the Income Tax
One of the best illustrations of Randolph Bourne’s dictum that “War is the Health of the State” was the rise of the modern income tax during World War II. Before 1942, the tax covered only a small well-off minority. As the federal government lowered the brackets and raised the rates during the war, however, the old “class tax” became a “mass tax.”
The introduction of withholding was the primary means to accomplish this goal. The Office of War Information promoted payment of the tax as not only a patriotic duty but as a positive joy.
It also commissioned Irving Berlin to write “I Paid My Income Tax Today.” Here is an audio of the song as joyfully belted out by comedian and actor Danny Kaye. Tbe lyrics are here if you want to sing along.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Liberty and Power: A Top Libertarian Blog
We make the list of top 100 libertarian blogs. Congratulations to my fellow L and P bloggers for making this possible.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
An Answer to Critics: "Krugman's Prescription for Disaster."
Feel free to join the dialogue over at the blog of Historians Against the War.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Yes to Robert Higgs and No to Paul Krugman
I criticize Paul Krugman's proposed hyper New Deal over at the blog of Historians Against the War. Please visit and comment.
Obama's New Deal
Amity Shlaes fears that Obama is repeating the errors of the New Deal.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Rahm Emanuel: Another of Obama's Hawks
We should all continue to hope that Obama will be a peace president, but that does not mean that we should ignore the considerable evidence that indicates otherwise.
For example, his new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is very much from the hawkish wing of the Democratic party. It was Emanuel who was instrumental in getting a clause dropped from the defense appropriations bill requiring Congressional approval for an attack on Iran. Scott Horton has compiled several revealing quotations about Emanuel from the last few years. For the links, see here.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
The Awful Truth About Voting
Here is a rare example of an article from the MSM that actually reports the awful truth:
Voting for president and having your ballot be the deciding one cast — statistically, that is like trying to hit the lottery. The odds for the average person are 60 million to 1 against it, a study shows.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Cleansing Iraqi Christians...Silence from American Religious Conservatives
The destruction of some of the world's oldest Christian communities continues despite a pro-U.S. regime and 150,000 American troops. Meanwhile, in the U.S., thousands of religious conservatives continue to invest their emotional capital in debates over Obama's birth certificate.
Perhaps they will start to caring about their religious compatriots in Iraq when Obama becomes president, that is if any Christians are still left in Iraq.
According to this story in Der Spiegel, murders and a mass exodus contradict Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's promise of security for everyone. Churches are trying to help the refugees, and some may come to Germany -- if the government settles on a plan.....
Since the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Christians in Mosul have had to fear for their lives. Churches have been set on fire, and priests, doctors, engineers and businesspeople have been murdered. In March, aides found the body of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho on the outskirts of the city. A new series of killings that began in late September has already claimed 18 lives.
About half of Mosul's 20,000 Christians have left the city since September, according to official figures released by the Ministry of Displacement and Migration in Baghdad. Since the US invasion in 2003, more than one third of a Christian population that once numbered about 800,000 has fled the country.
Friday, October 31, 2008
FDR's Court Packing Plan (newsreel)
This has some fascinating footage covering Roosevelt's scheme in 1937 to pack the Supreme Court including statements by such opponents as Senator Burton K. Wheeler.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Roosevelt Threatens to Impose Dictatorship
Franklin D. Roosevelt's inaguration speech in 1933 is now most remembered for the line, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." At the time, however, this newsreel did not even include that line. Instead, it highlights Roosevelt's not so subtle threat to seize emergency powers if Congress does not submit to his plans.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Jimmy Durante's Musical Ode to Roosevelt and the National Recovery Administration
This song combines unquestioning hero worship of a politician and unexcelled ignorance about economic basics. Lest you think that this is a relic of a simpler time, compare and contrast with the youtube of the notorious pro-Obama children's choir.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Gallup Finds No Increase in Proportion of First-Time Voters
Here is another reason to doubt the media mantra that young voters are more "energized" than ever.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Feeling a Draft from Obama
Is Obama planning to impose a military draft? He says he won't but statements like this don't inspire too much confidence:
But it’s also important that a president speaks to military service as an obligation not just of some, but of many. You know, I traveled, obviously, a lot over the last 19 months. And if you go to small towns, throughout the Midwest or the Southwest or the South, every town has tons of young people who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s not always the case in other parts of the country, in more urban centers. And I think it’s important for the president to say, this is an important obligation. If we are going into war, then all of us go, not just some.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Henry Paulson's War Against Shame
Conservatives have rightly blamed the welfare state for weakening the formerly strong stigma which had kept the poor independent of government.
In the Tragedy of American Compassion, for example, Marvin Olasky faults Frances Fox Piven, Michael Harrington and other leftists for waging a "War Against Shame" during the 1960s that created more welfare dependents.
Now, Henry Paulson has done Piven one better. He has urged bankers to take government money as a patriotic duty:
Some of the nation's largest banks had to be pressured to participate in the $250 billion plan to inject their institutions with cash, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said today. Paulson said he wanted healthy institutions that did not necessarily need capital from the government to go first as a way of removing any stigma that might be associated with banks getting bailouts.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
The Case for Drug Approval Denationalization
My friend, Daniel B. Klein, economics professor at George Mason University, has this to say on the subject:
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Historians Against the War, the Afghan War, and the Coming Great Leftist Crack-up
A few years ago, people used to write about the Great Libertarian Crack-up over issues of war and peace. Could we now be witnessing the first signs of a Great Leftist Crack-up for the same reason?
In a welcome shift away from its Iraq-centric focus, the steering committee of Historians Against the War has stated that "the US and NATO should immediately begin withdrawing their military and political assets from Afghanistan so that the Afghan people can have room to decide their own future. Continued US/NATO action in the country is a large part of the problem and cannot be the solution."
Because both Obama and McCain endorse a surge of U.S. troops into that country, HAW is now on a collision course with the next president. Does this also mean that conditions created by an Obama administration will bring a new spirit of cooperation between antiwar libertarians, leftists, and conservatives?
As many of you know, I write occasionally for the HAW Blog.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Two Tentative Cheers for Rightwing Talk Radio
Since 2001, I have found it almost impossible to listen for more than five minutes to the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, and Levin. Their zealous cheerleading for war, overflowing xenophobia, and constant shilling for the GOP does not take long to grate on the nerves. During the bailout crisis, however, rightwing talk radio has performed admirably. Without the pressure it exerted, the House would have never rejected the bailout on the first vote.
The contrast between rightwing talk radio and MSM outlets on the bailout issue is striking. Yesterday, I made the the mistake of listening to "All Things Considered" (formerly sponsored by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and heard a litany of pro-bailout voices. For all its vices, talk radio has provided a needed counterweight to the MSM's attempt to manufacture a consensus on this issue.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Stop the Billionaire Bailout
This could be the defining vote of a generation. The battle has now shifted to the U.S. Senate. I just called both my senators urging them to oppose this measure. You should call too, if nothing else in order to let off some steam. U.S. Senate phone numbers can be found here.
Monday, September 29, 2008
"This is a Herbert Hoover Moment"
As I prepare an exam, I am watching Paul Ryan, a self-professed free market Republican from Wisconsin, speak in favor of the bailout. Proclaiming this is a "Herbert Hoover Moment," he urges Congress not to emulate Hoover's failure to bail out the private sector. Apparently, Ryan has never heard of Hoover's massive bailout scheme, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Did McCain Just Lose the Election?
If he had a chance, this probably blew it. McCain should have let Obama, Pelosi, and Frank own the Billionaire Bailout. By signing on, he has given them all the cover they need. Everything at his point probably rides on Palin.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Richard Milhous McCain Debates John Fitzgerald Obama
Last night, I kept expecting Obama to echo Kennedy's warning from 1960 in his debate with Nixon about the need to close the non-existent "missile gap." While he was more restrained than McCain on Iraq and Iran, his differences on other foreign policy issues were generally paper thin.
Like McCain, Obama endorsed the General Jack Ripperesque move of admitting Ukraine and Georgia to NATO (thus potentially obligating the U.S. to escalate to World War III in case of a border dispute with Russia) and a "surge" of more U.S. troops into Afghanistan. Obama's statements on U.S. military incursions into Pakistan made McCain look almost cool-headed by comparison (no small accomplishment).
Thursday, September 25, 2008
A Tale of Two Presidents
In contrast to the pro-bailout speech we heard last night, Calvin Coolidge offers much good sense about the economy in this speech from 1924:
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Short Selling in One Easy Lesson
Anti-New Deal Newsreel
Here is a rare respite for the standard pro-New Deal newsreels that usually can be found on youtube. It is a sympathetic depiction of Fred Perkins, a battery manufacturer from York, Pennsylvania who chose to go to jail rather than obey the mandates of the National Recovery Administration.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Pro-Stalin Hollywood Film: "Mission to Moscow"
In this short clip from the notorious, pro-Stalin film from 1943, "Mission to Moscow," Walter Huston, playing the American ambassador, Joseph E. Davies, smears pre-war non-interventionists, defends the Soviet invasion of Finland, and depicts the Soviets as peace-loving.
Apparently, Davies was not a typical fellow traveler. According to Soviet archives, he purchased art at discount prices that had been confiscated from purge victims.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Who Said This About Fannie Fae/Freddie Mac?
’These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis....The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.’’
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Question for Brady, Higgs, Hummel, et al. on AIG Bailout
Can any of you comment on the political/economic implications of the AIG bailout? Non-economists are invited to weigh in as well.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Adventures in Iraqi Democracy
The Iraqis just won't get with the program. I think it is safe to say that the McCain-Palin campaign, the Weekly Standard, and the National Review will pretend this never happened:
Iraqi legislators said Sunday that parliament had voted to lift the immunity of a Sunni Arab lawmaker who visited Israel.
Alusi at the funeral of his two sons who were killed in an assassination attempt in Baghdad in 2005.
The parliament has also banned Mithal al-Alusi from traveling outside Iraq or attending parliamentary sessions, they said.
Sunday's punishment was confirmed by Osama al-Nujeif, a Sunni Arab lawmaker, and Haider al-Ibadi, a Shi'ite lawmaker.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Palin as McCain's Warrior Princess
Call me a wishful thinker, but I had some small hopes for Palin. There was a lot to like including her down-to-earth manner, wit, small-government rhetoric, alleged links to Alaskan independence, defense of guns, and previous praise of Ron Paul.
Palin's comments yesterday on foreign policy, however, show her complete agreement with John McCain. The only difference is that she was relatively more candid than McCain in her hawkishness.
Horton/Kushner Debate on Terrorism at Texas A&M
As I predicted, this is well worth watching. Harvey Kushner makes all the standard pro-war Republican arguments and Scott Horton overwhelms him with evidence to the contrary. I doubt Kushner has ever experienced anything like this.
For the youtube, see here
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Horton Debates Terrorism Tonight, Live Streaming
Tonight at 6:30 p.m at Texas A and M, Scott Horton, the host of antiwar.com radio, will debate Dr. Harvey Kushner on the following question: “Is the United States pursuing the correct strategy against international terrorism?” It will be streamed live and can be viewed here. Horton has an encyclopedic knowledge of this topic and is an effective debator. Don't miss it.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Priceless! Gravel Appalls Pacifica Hosts by Defending Palin
My respect for Mike Gravel has skyrocketed. Whatever you think of Palin, this interview is absolutely priceless. The smug pro-Obama Pacifica hosts are simply left speechless. Gravel gets in a few good licks at the end attacking the Democrats as the party of imperialism.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Community Organizers and GOP Politicians: Enemies of the Taxpayer
In an editorial, the Chicago Sun-Times takes offense at Paln and Giuliani’s belittlement of Obama’s record as a community organizer:
Republicans insist that people should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Communities should take care of their own and not depend on big government to do the job. And the folks who do make it should give back.
We agree wholeheartedly.
But on what is the job of community organizer premised, if not those very principles?.
After endorsing small government for the first time in its history, the Sun-Times, then lavishes praise on Obama for his altruistic record of "working with the poorest and most powerless people on the South Side of Chicago, doing his damndest to help them help themselves.”
Friday, September 5, 2008
Secret Service Harassment of Ron Paul Delegates
If this is even a small indication of how President McCain will handle dissent, we heading for some bleak times.
"Hurricane Paul" on The Colbert Report
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Sarah Palin as McCain's Richard Schweiker
Apparently, some libertarians and former Ron Paul supporters are switching to McCain because of his choice of Palin. If McCain wins, they will regret their foolish decision.
While McCain made a clever move in picking Palin, he is still....well...John McCain. He shows no sign of abandoning his disdain for the Bill of Rights and, most importantly, his recklessness in foreign policy. By every indication, this decision has nothing to do with a change of heart on a single issue.
The best comparision would be to 1976 when Ronald Reagan picked Richard Schweiker, probably the most pro-big-government Republican in the Senate, as his veep. It was purely a political decision in his case; just like this one.
Friday, August 29, 2008
The Palin Pick
Truth in advertising. I despise nearly everything McCain stands for and hope he loses. Having said that, unless the media finds skeletons in her closet, the Palin pick is a very smart move. It reinforces his conservative base and helps him with women and independent voters. He might just win this?! A depressing thought.
Obama's choice of Biden, by contrast, was completely uninspired. Biden's record as the ultimate insider only serves to undermine Obama's "change" message. His best hope was to have reinforced this message by picking an independent Democrat or Republican, such as Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska or Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Why did Cops Stop Covering Their Guns?
The first photo is of the El Paso police from 1917 in front of their paddy wagon and the second is a modern SWAT Team.
As the first photo shows, it was once standard practice for police officers to wear long jackets to cover up their guns, apparently lest they offend civilians. The cop of the beat in just about any Hollywood movie in the 1930s dressed similarly. Apparently, this was a vestige of an anti-militarist tradition. Now, of course, the police seem to proudly brandish their guns in public at every opportunity.
Does anyone know any of research on when and why the shift from the old tradition of covering up guns? Who pushed the change and who, if anyone, opposed it?
Saturday, August 16, 2008
How the War in Georgia Started
For a break from the non-stop "Georgia as innocent victim" marathon at CNN and Fox, check out this story from the BBC:
The Bush administration appears to be trying to turn a failed military operation by Georgia into a successful diplomatic operation against Russia. It is doing so by presenting the Russian actions as aggression and playing down the Georgian attack into South Ossetia on 7 August, which triggered the Russian operation.
Yet the evidence from South Ossetia about that attack indicates that it was extensive and damaging.
The BBC's Sarah Rainsford has reported: "Many Ossetians I met both in Tskhinvali and in the main refugee camp in Russia are furious about what has happened to their city.
"They are very clear who they blame: Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili, who sent troops to re-take control of this breakaway region."
... Human Rights Watch concluded after an on-the-ground inspection: "Witness accounts and the timing of the damage would point to Georgian fire accounting for much of the damage described [in Tskhinvali]."
Friday, August 15, 2008
Barr Threatens to Sue Church for Not Inviting Him to Forum
I hope that this story was misreported. No Libertarian candidate deserving of the name would even consider forcing a church to do this. Unfortunately the evidence reported indicates that the story is accurate:
Barack Obama and John McCain are scheduled to make a joint appearance Saturday at Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif...
Russ Verney, campaign manager for the former Georgia congressman, has just sent out a mass e-mail saying Barr will seek a court order to require the church to invite him, too.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Steve Davies on African History
Steve Davies, a Liberty and Power member, holds forth on African History:
Hat Tip Tom G. Palmer.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Michael Phelps Said No to Ritalin
If Michael Phelps had stayed on Ritalin, would he be where he is today? Here’s a story Thomas Szasz would appreciate:
At age 9, Michael was put on Ritalin, a stimulant used to treat hyperactivity.
His mother thinks it helped a little. “He seemed to be able to focus longer,” she said. “He could get through homework without moving around so much.” She said he was still a middling student. “It might have raised some C’s to B’s,” she said. But if a homework assignment had to be at least four sentences, she said, “he’d just do four sentences.”
After two years, Michael asked to get off the meds. He had to go to the school nurse’s office to take a pill at lunch, she said, and felt stigmatized. “Out of the blue, he said to me: ‘I don’t want to do this anymore, Mom. My buddies don’t do it. I can do this on my own.’ ”
“I was always stern as a parent,” she said, “but from Day 1, I included my children as part of the decision process. So I listened.” After consulting with Dr. Wax, Michael stopped medication.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Police in Georgia's "Growing Democracy" Attacking Demonstrators in 2007 to Enforce Martial Law
In a weak moment, I made the mistake of turning on Fox News today. A jingoistic Fox reporter asked Ralph Peters, an equally jingoistic guest, about the Georgia crisis.
Peters called for massive sanctions against Russia. The obliging reporter egged him on by volunteering that Georgia had a "growing democracy." Perhaps she missed this revealing footage from 2007 showing police in that country beating up demonstrators to enforce martial law.
A Query on Two Secessions: Kosovo and South Ossetia
Can anybody explain why the U.S. opposed violent anti-secessionism by Serbia in Kosovo but (apparently) now apparently supports violent anti-secessionism by Georgia in South Ossetia?
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Hurston and Paterson: Two Libertarians Against the Atomic Bomb
Novelists Zora Neale Hurston and Isabel Paterson had much in common including opposition to the New Deal and a shared belief individualism. Both also opposed the dropping of the atomic bomb.
In 1946, Hurston, who later supported the presidential campaign of Robert A. Taft, wrote that she was "amazed at the complacency of Negro press and public" towards Truman's foreign policy actions.
According to Hurston, Truman "is a monster. I can think of him as nothing else but the BUTCHER of ASIA. Of his grin of triumph on giving the order to drop the Atom bombs on Japan. Of his maintaining troops in China who are shooting the starving Chinese for stealing a handful of food....Is it that we are so devoted to a 'good Massa' that we feel that we ought not to even protest such crimes? Have we no men among us? If we cannot stop it, we can at least let it be known that we are not deceived. We can make any party who condones it, let alone orders it, tremble for election time."
Carla Kaplan, ed., Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters (New York: Doubleday, 2002), 546.
At about the same time, Paterson cited the atomic bomb as an example of Truman's use of science “to fry Japanese babies in atomic radiation.” Their deaths did not even have practical value to Paterson, who had predicted an almost immediate surrender of the Japanese upon the landing of a U.S. invasion force. The only bright spot for her was that Truman compromised his demand of unconditional surrender by letting the Japanese to keep the emperor.
Stephen Cox, The Woman and the Dynamo: Isabel Paterson and the Idea of America (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2004).
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Paris Hilton Responds to McCain (Yes, Really)
McCain's Role in the Anti-Iraq Anthrax Hysteria in 2001
The federal government now admits that it has no evidence that Iraq took part in the anthrax attacks shortly after 9-11. For this reason, it is worth remembering that only days after the attacks, John McCain, was already singling out Iraq as a likely suspect and using this to justify war. Apparently, he was relying on inside information (who provided it?) when he made this claim.
In making these statements, of course, McCain played a key role in creating the climate of fear that led many Americans to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Solzhenitsyn and the "absurd project to impose democracy all over the world."
In the last twenty years of his life, Alexander Solzhenitsyn increasingly challenged both American foreign policy and American conceptions of democracy. Sometimes he missed the mark but just as often he was right. No wonder his former conservative allies had largely abandoned him by the 1990s.
In 2005, for example, he declared that:
It [democracy] must not be forced [upon people] like a cap. Democracy can only grow upwards, like a plant. Democracy must begin at the local level, within the local self-government. Only then can it develop further."
.....Solzhenitsyn slammed the US policy, saying that over ten years ago, the US "launched an absurd project to impose democracy all over the world." "The US has a strange idea of democracy - they first interfered with the Bosnian situation, bombed Yugoslavia, then Afghanistan, and then Iraq." "Who is next, perhaps, Iran?" the writer wonders. "The US must understand that democracy cannot be introduced by force, by the army," he said.
What Not to Do When You Get Arrested
Marc Wiggins shared this story of police incompetence and abuse. This one has a depressing twist. Why hasn't this story gotten more publicity?
BUSTED! NOW WHAT DO I DO? A deadly lesson in what NOT to do.
TALLAHASSEE,FL 8/02/08
In 2007 Rachel Morningstar Hoffman was stopped by the Tallahassee Police Department for speeding. She couldn't have known that being in a hurry would result in her death.
During the stop an ounce of Marijuana was discovered in her car. This led to her participation in Leon County's Drug Court. This program is administrated by the State Attorney's Office led by Willie Meggs. The terms of this program are,basically,Pay the fine, stay clean for the duration,fulfill all requirements of the court(community service,etc.). Well, things were going well with the diversion program(thanks to The Wizzinator) right up to April 15,2008. TPD Investigator Ryan Pender(B#780) recieved information that she was selling large amounts of Cannabis. This, and other info, resulted in Ofc. Pender seeking a search warrant. While Ofc. Pender was enroute to write the application for the warrant, Rachel was observed exiting her building and attempting to enter her vehicle. she was detained by Ofc.Pate, miranda'd and confessed to having 1/4lb of cannabis,2 "Ecstasy" pills and 4 valium pills in her residence.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Ron Paul Speaks Out Against "Jingoistic" Resolution On China
This guy keeps marching to the beat of his own drummer. Here is some more sensible foreign policy advice from Dr. No.
Hat tip Scott Horton.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
History and Movies: A Useful Site
Finally, someone has created a good source for historically-minded movie buffs. Reel Faces evaluates the accuracy of movie depictions of historical events and personalities.
The list is still rather thin but it now includes entries on such movies as "Charlie Wilson's War," "Titanic," "Hollywoodland," and "Seabiscuit." The entry on "Titanic" was rather good and debunks some of the same myths exposed in Stephen Cox's book, The Titanic Story.
Hat tip Randy Barnett.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Obama's National Service Plan
Investors Daily has an editorial asserting that Obama’s “voluntary” national service plan a compulsory plan in disguise. ...Obama says that as president he will “set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year.” What he doesn’t say is that he’ll make such voluntarism compulsory by attaching strings to federal education dollars. The schools will make the kids volunteer. It’s called plausible deniability.
Before we single out Obama, however, it might be worth finding out if McCain is any better on this issue.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
McCain: "Wall Street is the Villain" in the Financial Crisis
Thus far, McCain has blamed "obscene profits." "greed" and now Wall Street for the sagging economy. He has yet to blame the federal government (including Fed credit expansion, implied subsides to Fannie Fae/Freddie Mac, the Community Re-Investment Act, etc.) for anything.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Barr on Olbermann
Barr performed ably in this interview and kept on message, emphasizing Bush's threat to civil liberties. This is more evidence, however, that Olbermann, will only let a libertarian appear on his show if it will help Obama and weaken McCain. The contrast between Olbermann's respectful treatment of Barr and his near total embargo of Ron Paul over more than a year is all too obvious.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Maliki Supports Obama's Iraq Withdrawal Plan
Is Maliki serious about this or has he decided that McCain is a goner in November? In either case, this will cause immense discomfort for McCain and his allies.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Barr Supports a Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae Bail-out
I was just starting to warm up to the guy....now this:
I think right now, doing nothing would not be advisable. As much as a Libertarian, we don't like to see — and I don't like to see — the government get further involved with yet another sector of the economy.
I think, because the government has caused this problem, similar to the savings and loan problem that the government caused a generation ago, it has to do something.
The question is, can it do enough by providing some temporary security, some temporary backup?
Farewell to Offshore Tax Havens
Are we to be spared nothing? The leaders of our two party monopoly have decided to wage war on some of the last remaining refuges of financial freedom and privacy.
According to this morning's story in USA Today, Republican Norm Coleman, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Investigations, applauded "proposed legislation to strengthen reporting of foreign accounts held by Americans and penalize tax haven banks that impede U.S. tax enforcement."I would hope that this report [of the Committee] would be a call to action," said Coleman.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The McCain/Obama Echo Chamber (Part 2)
Both Obama and McCain almost simultaneously endorsed an expanded military. Now, both candidates have echoed each other again (see here and here) in calling for a surge of U.S. troops into the worsening Afghan quagmire.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Obama's Janus-Faced Plans for Iraq and Afghanistan
Obama lays out his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan in an op-ed for The New York Times. It reveals on full display a proposed foreign policy of confusion and contradiction.
With the notable exception of calling for a "residual force" to fight Al Qaeda and train troops, Obama sensibly argues that the best policy is to wean the Iraqis from dependence on the United States and create "a successful transition to Iraqis’ taking responsibility for the security and stability of their country."
Not recognizing the contradiction, however, Obama proposes the exact opposite solution for Afghanistan. Instead of letting the Afghans take "responsiblity for the security of their country," he wants to make them even more dependent on American welfare:
As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Scott Ritter to be Interviewed on Antiwar.com
On Friday, former U.N. arms inspector Scott Ritter will be a guest on Scott Horton's radio show. He will discuss U.S. relations with Iran, Israel, and much more. As I have mentioned, Horton is one of the best interviewers in the business. Listen once and you will probably be hooked.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Gordon Prather on Iran's Nuclear Program
Here is a youtube of Scott Horton's interview of Gordon Prather on Iran's nuclear program (or lack thereof):
Friday, July 4, 2008
Liberty and Power Ranked as a Top Liberal Arts Professor Blog
Get out the champagne. We now officially belong to the academic elite of blogs. Online University Reviews has selected Liberty and Power as one of top 100 Liberal Arts Professors blogs.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Welcome Ralph Raico!
Liberty and Power is honored to welcome Ralph Raico as a member. Raico is professor emeritus at Buffalo State College and a legendary figure in the history of libertarianism.
Ralph is a fine scholar, dynamic speaker, and long-time friend. Among his many accomplishments, Raico (a former student of Ludwig Von Mises) translated Mises’ book Liberalism into English and served as editor of the New Individualist Review.
During the 1960s, the Review, which had both Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek on its board of advisors, published the likes of Murray Rothbard, Mises, and Russell Kirk.
The McCain/Obama Echo Chamber
In the last two days, both Obama (here) and McCain (here) have called for a bigger military. Here is what Obama said:
But we need to ease the burden on our troops, while meeting the challenges of the 21st century. That’s why I will call on a new generation of Americans to join our military, and complete the effort to increase our ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
The FBI Chief Laments Heller
Robert Mueller, the director of the FBI, is upset about the Heller decision. No doubt flanked by armed FBI agents, he declared that “weapons harm people, and more often than not they harm the people carrying them.”
It is understandable that Mueller would think this. It was his agency, after all, that gave us the legendary Lon Horiuchi, a graduate of the Barney Fife School of Marksmanship.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Book Recommendations Needed for U.S. History Course (1917-1945)
I will be teaching an upper division undergraduate history course. Does anyone have book suggestions (including novels)?
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Americans Oppose Government Redistribution of Wealth
Perhaps the masses aren't such fools after all. When asked for the solution to economic problems, 84 percent of Americans oppose the redistribution of wealth. Hopefully, Obama, who seems very sensitive to shifting political winds on gun control and other issues, will take note.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
The Masses are Asses: 49 Percent Want to Regulate the Internet
Back when I was politically active in antiwar groups in Minnesota, one of the people I came into contact with was a Steve Radow, a self-described "independent." Though very much on the political left, Steve always reminded us that "The masses are asses." I thought of Steve when I read this:
Nearly half of Americans (49%) believe that the federal government should regulate the Internet the same way it does radio and television, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national survey.
Thirty-five percent (35%) disagree, and 16% are undecided.
Americans also believe overwhelmingly -- 73% yes to 13% no -- that it should be a crime to harass someone on the Internet.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Obama Versus the Fourth Amendment
Obama disappoints again, this time by expending his newly won political capital in favor of a Republican "compromise" bill to expand federal wiretap power. The self-described advocate of “change” and a new break from the "old politics" uses the following weasel language to explain his position:
Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. . . .
After months of negotiation, the House today passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year's Protect America Act. . . It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses.
It is not all that I So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives -– and the liberty –- of the American people.
Friday, June 13, 2008
McCain Bursting a Blood Vessel Over "Obscene Profits"
I had expected McCain to adopt more free market friendly rhetoric in the months before the election to reassure the skitish conservative base. This isn't happening and that's a good thing. The real McCain keeps coming to the surface:
"I believe there needs to be a thorough and complete investigation of speculators to find out whether speculation has been going on and, if so, how much it has affected the price of a barrel of oil."....
Mr. McCain said in response to an audience member's complaint about investors driving up the price of fuel and other commodities. "There's a lot of things out there that need a lot more transparency and, consequently, oversight."
"I am very angry, frankly, at the oil companies not only because of the obscene profits they've made but at their failure to invest in alternate energy to help us eliminate our dependence on foreign oil," the senator said. "They're making huge profits and that happens, but not to say, 'We're in this so we can over time eliminate America's dependence on foreign oil,' I think is an abrogation of their responsibilities as citizens."
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
The Mark Steyn Kangaroo Court
It looks like British Columbia may well convict Mark Steyn under its Orwellian hate speech laws for an excerpt of his book, America Alone, that appeared in Maclean's. Steyn ranks high as one of my least favorite political writers but this trial is a travesty. The people of Canada should be ashamed for allowing the charges to have been brought in the first place.
Next time, my Canadian friends boast of that country's "advanced policies," I'll remind them of this.
I am not too impressed by Steyn's list of character witnesses, however. He exults that "President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Governor Mitt Romney, Senator Joe Lieberman, Senator Jon Kyl, and (at last count) six European prime ministers have either recommended the book or called me in to discuss its themes."
Monday, June 9, 2008
Conformity Continues in Frostbite Falls
Despite extremely rare, and totally unexplainable, spurts of rebellion, such as the election Jesse Ventura, the ideological default in my home state of Minnesota is the grinding conformity of nanny statism. Most folks there still believe that government actually works, that is if the right people are running things, and is "our collective voice."
A recent illustration is this story about a new Minneapolis law prohibiting vehicles from idling more than three minutes except in traffic. No doubt while wagging her finger, City Council member Sandy Colvin Roy lectured that cars no longer need a more than a minute to warm up. Does this include the people in them too?
When it comes down to it, my bet is that Roy reflects the dominant view in the state. Most Minnesotans would readily risk pneumonia for themselves rather than be branded as selfish troublemakers. Those who stoically endure frostbite, after all, are more likely to become good citizens, as any Minnesotan will tell you.
We Told You So (The Minimum Wage Increase)
Many of us warned that Bush's decision to sign the minimum wage increase would destroy job opportunities for youth. According to a story from the Examiner:
This year, it's harder than ever for teens to find a summer job. Researchers at Northeastern University described summer 2007 as "the worst in post-World War II history" for teen summer employment, and those same researchers say that 2008 is poised to be "even worse."
According to their data, only about one-third of Americans 16 to 19 years old will have a job this summer, and vulnerable low-income and minority teens are going to fare even worse.
The percentage of teens classified as "unemployed"—those who are actively seeking a job but can't get one—is more than three times higher than the national unemployment rate, according to the most recent Department of Labor statistics.
One of the prime reasons for this drastic employment drought is the mandated wage hikes that policymakers have forced down the throats of local businesses. Economic research has shown time and again that increasing the minimum wage destroys jobs for low-skilled workers while doing little to address poverty.
Hat tip Nick Gillespie
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Refuting "Truther" Nonsense
Libertarians rightfully question the trustworthiness of the Bush administration.
Unfortunately, a few have carried this skepticism to the ridiculous extreme of accepting harebrained theories that 9/11 was an "inside job" and, even more unbelievably, that our bungling federal bureaucrats would be capable of pulling off this imagined vast conspiracy.
Few are better at refuting Truther hogwash than Scott Horton. Here, he systematically demolishes their claims.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Barr Calls for Pulling U.S. Troops Out of South Korea
If Bob Barr keeps this up, maybe I'll put a "Barr for President" bumper sticker on my car after all.
He is no Ron Paul (nor do I expect him to be) but his latest news release on South Korea shows considerable progress and deserves praise. Hopefully, Barr's scheduled news conference on Iran for June 10 will continue this trend:
After more than 50 years of American support, “South Korea is well able to defend itself,” notes Barr. The South has an economy that is estimated to be 40 times as large as that of North Korea; South Korea has twice the North’s population and a vast technological edge....
We must completely revamp U.S. foreign policy, returning to the noninterventionist strategy of the nation’s Founders. The interests of the American people, rather than of wealthy allies, should become the new lodestar of U.S. policy.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Daniel Klein on Tyler Cowen's "Heresies"
Daniel Klein critiques (scroll down) some of Tyler Cowen's libertarian "heresies" as expressed by Cowen's talk before the Institute for Humane Studies.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Subway Apologizes
It looks like I can start buying my ham subway sandwich on whole wheat again. After Subway took a lot of flack for its decision (as reported by Liberty and Power) to exclude homeschoolers from an essay contest, it has promised to make amends:
Our intention was to provide an opportunity for traditional schools, many of which we know have trouble affording athletic equipment, to win equipment. Our intent was certainly not to exclude homeschooled children from the opportunity to win prizes and benefit from better access to fitness equipment.
To address the inadvertent limitation of our current contest and provide an opportunity for even more kids to improve their fitness, we will soon create an additional contest in which homeschooled students will be encouraged to participate. When the kids win, everyone wins!
Kudos to Subway.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Obama's Main Weakness is Not the War
This election is Obama's to lose. If he does, it will not be primarily because of his race, his stand on the war, or even the Wright fiasco but because of his cultural elitism. Leftist historian Sean Wilentz explores Obama's possibly fatal flaw as a candidate.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
No Homeschoolers Need Apply (Subway)
Subway is sponsoring a writing contest for children. The first prize is five thoousand dollars of athletic equipment for the child's school and the winning essay will appear in Scholastic Parent and Child Magazine.
Here are the rules:"Contest is open only to legal US residents, over the age of 18 with children in either elementary, private or parochial schools that serve grades PreK-6. No home schools will be accepted."
The folks at Subway, of course, have every right to set their own contest rules but why did they make this particular exclusion? Was it suggested by someone at Scholastic Parent and Chld Magazine?
Trailer of "War, Inc."
Here is a trailer for the film satire, War, Inc. which was discussed by Keith Halderman:
Friday, May 23, 2008
Justin Logan Answers Randy Barnett on Foreign Policy
In Cato Policy Report, Justin Logan responds to Randy Barnett and other critics of foreign policy non-interventionism. This is well worth reading. Logan has some revealing older quotations from Barnett on the issues of war and self-defense.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Free Speech Shredded by Brits: Teenager Prosecuted for Calling Scientology a Cult
Mark Brady has noted the anti-liberty trend in Britain. He could have added this to the list.
A teenager in London received a summons under the Public Order Act. His alleged crime was to call the Church of Scientology a "cult."
Hat tip Jacob Sullum.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
McCain Versus McCain
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Eminent Domain Abuse in Birmingham? (Evergreen Baptist Church)
In this recent testimony before the Alabama State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Rev. John E. Smith gives his version of what happened after eminent domain was used to take the one hundred year old Evergreen Baptist Church. In exchange, the state gave the congregation land to build a new church.
When construction was underway, however, the city sent a bill of $80,000 charging the church for a new water main. As a result, Smith says that the church is being pushed into bankruptcy and the members are falling away.
The testimony of Smith's wife Gail (about half way into the youtube) is particularly passionate.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
War as the Health of the Civilian State
Ninety years ago, Randolph Bourne aptly characterized war as “the health of the state.” Robert Higgs not only agrees but also challenges those on the right as well as the left who assume an automatic trade-off between guns and butter.
In a online roundtable for Reason Magazine on the coming recession, Higgs writes:: Hardly anyone was surprised that real military spending (measured in accordance with the government’s own narrow definition) increased by almost 60 percent between 2000 and 2007, compared to real GDP growth of 18 percent during that time. Note, however, that the government’s real nondefense outlays increased concurrently by more than 24 percent—an increase one-third greater than that of GDP. When people let down their guard in “supporting the troops,” they permit the government to make greater headway in its ceaseless quest to enlarge spending in a wide range of areas, many of them strictly civilian in nature.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
London's New Tory Antiwar Mayor
Eric Garris has the full story.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Herbert Spencer on Patriotism
Few individuals in history have received more negative treatment than Herbert Spencer. Some U.S. survey texts give the impression that this alleged “Social Darwinist” (a term Spencer never used) was an apologist for imperialism and violence by the strong against the weak.
Spencer’s own writings tell a different story of a flawed but sincere classical liberal advocate of peace, free exchange, and social cooperation. Spencer was second to none in his critique of imperialism and militarism. In his essay on patriotism, Spencer had this to say about the Afghan War of his time:
Some years ago I gave my expression to my own feeling – anti-patriotic feeling, it will doubtless be called – in a somewhat startling way. It was at the time of the second Afghan war, when, in pursuance of what were thought to be “our interests,” we were invading Afghanistan. News had come that some of our troops were in danger. At the Athenæum Club a well-known military man – then a captain but now a general – drew my attention to a telegram containing this news, and read it to me in a manner implying the belief that I should share his anxiety. I astounded him by replying – “When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves.”
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Congratulations to Yon Goicochechea
The Cato institute has awarded the 2008 Milton Friedman prize for Advancing Liberty to Yon Goicoechea.
Goicoechea was the key organizer of Venzuela's pro-democracy student movement. This movement has several victories to its credit including a successful campaign against President Hugo Chávez efforts to establish dictatorial power. The movement had first mobilized in response to a government order to shut down the country's oldest private television station.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
My Eminent Domain and Civil Rights Op-Ed in Kansas City Star
My op-ed piece, co-authored with Ilya Somin, has appeared in the Kansas City Star. We wrote the article in part to promote Tuesday's public forum at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on the civil rights implications of eminent domain:
Few policies have done more to destroy community and opportunity for minorities than eminent domain. Some 3 to 4 million Americans, most of them ethnic minorities, have been forcibly displaced from their homes as a result of urban renewal takings since World War II
The fact is that eminent-domain abuse is a crucial constitutional rights issue. On Tuesday, the Alabama Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will hold a public forum at Birmingham’s historic Sixteenth Street Baptist church to address ongoing property seizures in the state. The church was not only a center of early civil rights action, but also, tragically, where four schoolgirls lost their lives in a bombing in 1963.
Read the rest here
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Eminent Domain Public Meeting in Alabama
The State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will hold a public forum on the civil rights implications of eminent domain. It will be at the famous 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Among those who will appear are minority property owners who will allege eminent domain abuse, government officials, and legal experts.
The meeting will be begin at 9:00 a.m. on April 29 and there will be an opportunity for members of the audience to speak after 4:15. I'll be chairing the meeting.
For more information, contact me at davidbeito@hotmail.com
Friday, April 18, 2008
Antiwar Leftists and Libertarians at the Hawblog
I have joined the new blog of Historians Against the War. This blog is a rare opportunity to increase dialogue and debate between leftist and libertarian opponents of the war. Here is my first post.
Please consider making your views heard in the comments section.
Also, consider joining HAW. Membership is free. All you have to do is to sign the statement at the HAW site.Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Conservatives for Printing More Money
Simply remarkable. Courtesy of Karen DeCoster, comes this bold and unabashed endorsement of inflation as the cure for the mortgage crisis. It is penned by John Makin of the American Enterprise Institute.
In case there is any doubt, here is who Makin supports in the election:
The policy alternatives in the post-housing-bubble world are painfully unpleasant. In my view, the least bad option is for the Federal Reserve to print money to help stabilize housing prices and financial markets. Yes, use reflation to soften the pain for Main Street and Wall Street. If instead we let housing prices fall another 25%-30% – as predicted by the Case-Shiller Home Price Index – it's almost certain that Washington will end up nationalizing the mortgage business.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Robert P. Murphy v. Hummel and Henderson on the Fed and the Housing Bubble
See here.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Long and Beito at Historians Against the War Conference
I will be appearing, along with Roderick Long, on a panel at the conference of Historians Against the War in Atlanta. Our panel will begin on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. and focus on the Libertarian Antiwar Tradition. Come and see the fireworks!
For more details about the conference, see here.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
More Reasons to Doubt Bob Barr
Barr's comments shown below raise serious questions about the sincerity of his conversion to foreign policy non-interventionism. He did not make them five years ago but only last month. They seems to confirm and elaborate on even more troubling comments from last year. That was after he joined the LP:
While Washington's current national security worldview remains focused like a laser beam on Iraq and Afghanistan, fires smolder and burn elsewhere. Shifting at least a portion of that concern and those resources to South America, and especially to the Andean region that currently is near the boiling point, is critical to our security. There may not be weapons of mass destruction lurking in the jungles of Venezuela, Colombia or Ecuador (there weren't in Iraq either, of course), but arms are flowing into the area. Venezuela, for example, is buying billions of dollars worth of Russian military equipment. Leftist guerrillas and narco-terrorists remain firmly entrenched in the region, and evidence that other terrorist groups are using the area for problematic purposes is mounting.
Even if the possible loss of a significant portion of our imported oil requirement does not wake the United States from the somnambulant manner in which it views Latin America, perhaps the growing security threat in that area will —- hopefully before a major crisis jars us awake.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
In Praise of Mark Steyn
Yes, you read that correctly. Although Mark Steyn has done incalculable harm as a pro-war Pangloss, he deserves kudos for standing up to the kangaroo courts of Canada's Human Rights Commission.
With some success, enemies of free speech are using the Commission to censor blogs and magazines for alleged "hate speech."
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
The Comics Code Warriors
As someone who owns the first Silver Age issue that did not have a stamp from the Comics Code Authority, I am more than a little envious that I did think of this topic first. David Hajdu’s The Ten-Cent Plague chronicles Fredric Wertham’s crusade against comic books during the 1950s. For those who haven’t read it, Wertham’s alarmist screed, The Seduction of the Innocent, is good for more than a few laughs.
Wertham fearfully speculates at length, for example, about a possible gay relationship between Bruce Wayne and his young “ward” Dick Grayson. Much less amusing were the resultant calls for censorship. These ultimately led to the “voluntary” establishment of the Comics Code Authority by the industry.
Hat tip Norman Singleton
Scott Horton's show begins in a few minutes. Sometime during that show, which lasts from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. central time, he will interview the famous antiwar/leftist historian Howard Zinn. Mike Gravel and Glenn Greenwald will also be guests. See Over at Counterpunch. I haven't had time to read the whole thing but this paragraph certainly struck my fancy:
Indeed, the New Deal did not even work in rescuing capitalism, which was Roosevelt's stated goal; it took the total militarization of the U.S. economy to accomplish that. However, even before entering the war, nearly every New Deal economic recovery and development program enriched already existing corporations, such as Bechtel and Brown and Root, as well as creating new ones. The ground was set for rapid militarization through contracts with these new corporate giants and massive employment through the military draft and wartime production. The military-industrial complex is the essential result of New Deal policies.
Hat tip Jesse Walker. Who does he blame? For the answer, see his recent editorial (co-authored with David R. Henderson) in the Obama: are you listening? More than four out of ten British maternity units are turning away women in labor . With no Tories to blame, the NHS is, of course, opting to stress the bright side.
One coldblooded bureaucrat pontificated that "It is difficult to predict precisely when a mother will go into labour and sometimes, at times of peak demand, maternity units do temporarily divert women to nearby facilities.
"When this does happen it is often only for a few hours and to ensure mother and baby can receive the best care possible."
Scott Horton will be interviewing to possible Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Bar at 12:15 central time. To listen to the show, see here. This might be a good opportunity to tune in early at 11:00 a.m. to hear Scott's insightful observations on the daily news in foreign policy. Few know more about this subject. John Morgan Pratt led probably the largest tax strike in the United States since the Era of the American Revolution.
Pratt was born on this day in 1886 in Sharpsville, Indiana. His family owned a tomato cannery and extensive farmland in the area. He attended Marion College, where he studied to be a teacher. Sometime during this period, the family lost most of its money because the cannery business failed. As a result, he permanently shelved a teaching career and moved to homestead farmland in northern Saskatchewan. Eventually, it became one of the largest farms in the immediate area. In 1913, Pratt began a long political career when the counselors of Lost River, a rural municipality, elected him as their secretary treasurer. One of his duties was tax collection. The irony was not lost on Pratt who often joked about it during his stint as a tax rebel in Chicago.
The life of a tax collector did not suit Pratt who moved to Winnipeg in 1917 to accept a position as municipal editor of The Grain Growers Guide, which spoke for the nascent cooperative movement in Canada. Pratt’s views on taxation as reflected in his columns reflected an affinity for theories of Henry George. Like George, he supported the replacement of the predominant local tax on acreage with a “system of taxing the unimproved values of land.” Ron Paul bloodies his opponent in this debate. Is it just me or is Paul getting more coverage since he (sort of) dropped out of the presidential race?
Hat tip to Scott Horton at The Stress Blog.
A post by Jesse Walker this morning brought me the sad news that L and P blogger, Kenneth R. Gregg, passed away of congestive heart failure on Friday. He was dogged by more than his share of health problems and personal tragedies.
In the first year after L and P was launched, Ken made frequent comments on our posts. His observations were always thoughtful and showed considerable knowledge of history. I was so impressed that I asked him to be a permanent member.
Ken was initially reluctant. With characteristic modesty, he wondered whether he would be out of his element on an academically-oriented blog. Fortunately, he relented. It was very much our gain.
Until his recent health problems, Ken was one of the most active members of L and P. His posts centered on the forgotten contributions of past libertarians, but he also weighed in on other issues when he felt a need to speak out on injustices.
Although Ken was not a professor himself, nobody was his equal as a champion for academic freedom. If vulnerable professors and students, regardless of their views, needed help, Ken always took the time to make phone calls or send emails defending their free speech.
While I did not have the pleasure of meeting Ken, he was obviously a kind-hearted soul. I never heard anyone utter a negative word about him.
For a good sampling of Ken's posts, visit his own blog, CLASSical Liberalism.
His presence will be sorely missed here. "Be it enacted,...That no freedman, free negro or mulatto, not in the military service of the United States government, and not licensed by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or carry firm-arms of any kind, or any ammunition, dirk or bowie knife....and it shall be the duty of every civil and military officer to arrest any freedman, free negro, or mulatto found with any such arms and ammunition, and cause him or her to be committed to trial in default of bail."
Mississippi Black Code, 1865. Quoted in Stephen P. Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984), 108.
The season finale of Breaking Bad is tonight. It is well worth watching both for entertainment value and subversive implications. The hero is a kind-hearted high school teacher who opens up a crystal meth lab and a chief villain is his boastful, stupid, and abusive narc brother-in-law. All the previous shows can be downloaded here.
Actually, he hedges on his previous promise to bring the troops home in 2009. Paul is leading more than 2 to 1 in early returns for reelection to Congress against pro-war conservative Chris Peden. There is no Democratic candidate in November. While only a fraction of the results are in, Paul is ahead in every county which has reported returns. See here for regular updates.
PAUL WINS IN A LANDSLIDE! The snarky Wonkette, which gleefully predicted otherwise, is deeply saddened. If this video of LSD experiments on British soldiers (YouTube #1) didn’t inspire Monty Python’s “joke warfare” sketch (YouTube #2), it should have.
Hat tip to Oscar Goldman at The Stress Blog.
Ron Paul has a picture of Grover Cleveland on his wall. Paul, of course, admires Cleveland for his dedication to small government, hatred of imperialism, and defense of the gold standard.
For these same reasons, of course, Cleveland was universally hated by the populists who sought massive inflation and other big government initiatives such as a confiscatory income tax, central banking, nationalization of railroads, and massive economic regulation. Before 1896, though not necessarily later, most populists also promoted a war-like foreign policy.
In what has to be the worst misuse of American history by a major journalist in quite some time, Paul Greenberg mangles the facts to claim that Ron Paul is a modern version of the very populists who so despised Paul's hero, Grover Cleveland!
There is no longer a Populist Party that I know of, but populism itself is alive and deliriously well. One can hear its old delusions whenever Ron Paul speaks....
Dr. Paul is as American as a tintype, a reincarnation of a once familiar type — the money crank — who had a simple, single-cause explanation for any and all problems with the American economy. Namely, that a small, insidious group is manipulating the money supply.
To any taxonomist of American radicalism, Ron Paul is a familiar type — genus Conspiracist, species Populist. He fits right in with a mentality that hasn’t changed all that much since Arkansas’ own great money crank, William “Coin” Harvey, was all the vogue in the 1890s. His “Coin’s Financial School,” at a mere 155 pages, may have been the most popular and influential American manifesto since Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.” It overran the American South and West like a contagious fever.
For the neo-cons at the Weekly Standard, this is the highest praise:
“McCain certainly has not reached Churchill’s heights, …he can legitimately claim to be the most Churchillian among the Republicans of his day.
Hat tip Jim Lobe at Antiwar.com.
Despite the fact that he was a jazz enthusiast of the first rank, Jack Webb turned his character Joe Friday into a laughably simplistic crusader against the drug that was a mainstay of the musicians Webb so admired.
By contrast, Bring Crosby, who, like Jack Webb, is regarded as a cultural icon of Middle America during the same period, not only used pot but casually promoted its virtues to others. According to Bing Crosby’s Wikipedia entry, "Louis Armstrong's influence on Bing "extended to his love of marijuana." Bing smoked it during his early career when it was legal and "surprised interviewers" in the 1960s and 70s by advocating its decriminalization, as did Armstrong. According to Giddins, Bing told his son Gary to stay away from alcohol ("It killed your mother") and suggested he smoke pot instead. Gary said, "There were other times when marijuana was mentioned and he'd get a smile on his face." Gary thought his father's pot smoking had influenced his easy-going style in his films.
At a time when libertarians and libertarian-conservatives, such as George W. Schuyler, a pioneer in the Harlem Renaissance, and newspaper publisher,
R.C. Hoiles, were criticizing the internment of Japanese Americans as a violation of fundamental individual rights, Eleanor Roosevelt was penning this article making the case on the other side. Here are some selections:
In an effort to live up to the American idea of justice as far as possible, the Army laid down the rules for what they considered the safety of our West Coast. They demanded and they supervised the evacuation. A civil authority was set up, the War Relocation Authority, to establish permanent camps and take over the custody and maintenance of these people, both for their own safety and for the safety of the country.
To many young people this must have seemed strange treatment of American citizens, and one cannot be surprised at the reaction which manifests itself not only in young Japanese American, but in others who had known them well and been educated with them, and who bitterly ask: "What price American citizenship?"….
Let me chime in, along with Aeon, about last night's disappointing showing in Super Tuesday. There will many postmortems citing it as proof that Americans are “not ready for libertarianism.” Others already are blaming the media black-out of Paul coverage since New Hampshire.
Both explanations are unpersuasive or, at least, incomplete. While the claim that “Americans are not ready for libertarianism" is true as far as it goes, few of us ever believed (except in our less rational moments) that Paul was going to win. At the same time, we thought with good reason that he had a fighting chance to win a respectable block of Republican votes (10-20 percent or higher).
Unfortunately, several major blunders and miscalculations by the campaign itself always seemed to get in the way. A case in point was the Iowa database fiasco. The campaign had produced a get-out-the-vote database showing the names of thousands of people to be called on caucus day and/or transported to the caucus sites. Either becaue of petulance or simple human error however, a volunteer completely messed up the list.
Watching this scary video underlines the essential contrast between McCain and Hillary. McCain's vision is comparable to that of the stern schoolmater who preaches blood, sacrifice, and discipline while Hillary's is that of the smoothering Nanny who wants to shower us with endless and all-knowing love.
Put another way, McCain leans in the direction of 1984 while Hillary prefers to give us a Brave New World.
Paul peforms ably in those rare moments when allowed to speak and/or not not interrupted by the insufferable and pompous Anderson Cooper. Cooper wins the prize for most unfair debate moderator thus far this election season, and that's saying a hell of a lot! Paul's best moments are when he chides McCain and Romney for the silliness of their food fight over when, and if, Romney ever doubted the surge and when he points out that the president does not "manage" the economy, people do. As the Florida results come in, the once sturdy limb on which I had climbed to predict a Romney-Obama match-up is starting to crack under my feet.
If it is McCain v. Obama, the door will be wide up for a third party. If it is McCain v. Hillary, look for that door to be blown off the hinges. Too many conservatives loathe McCain to ever vote for him. The temptation for Paul (or Gary Johnson?) to run third party may be too hard to resist. Rasmussen reports on some of the possible third party scenarios here. Gus, here's something else for the Daily Kos to ask libertarians about. Under its usual boilerplate heading of "Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and Peace," the Cato Institute features Roger Pilon's article for the Wall Street Journal defending the anti-liberty Protect America Act.
I'll go out on a sturdy limb and, with mixed feelings, predict the following. It will be Romney v. Obama in November. Because both will prove adept in mouthing the necessary platitudes, they will keep their bases in line. As a result, there will not be enough alienated voters to nurture a strong third party challenge from either the right or the left.
Obama will win in a walk both because he is better at platitudes than Romney and because the war will drag down his opponent. If I am wrong and it is McCain v. Hillary, however, look for a very potent third party challenge.
The second best known libertarian-oriented politician in the United States has endorsed Ron Paul.
Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico, advocate of pot legalization, and a defender of the second amendment, is a long-time favorite of people at Cato and Reason.
Could he unite all the factions as a third party candidate in 2008? If the other choices are McCain and Hillary, he could poll many votes by default. Hilarious.....and more than a little believable.
James W. Harris offers a vigorous, but at the same time nuanced and qualified, defense of Ron Paul. This is the best response that I have read to the TNR article and, regardless of your views, well worth reading. The Ron Paul campaign still has a lot of money to spend but it is being thrown away on uninspiring radio and television commercials which make Ron Paul look like a typical Republican. These ads largely ape the other candidates by either stressing Paul's biography (thus telling nothing to voters about where he stands) or pushing a "close the borders" approach. They have little in common with the Ron Paul of the debates.
The recent newsletters controversy has hurt badly but the campaign still can have a postive impact if it radically shifts course through a hard-hitting, pro-liberty ad campaign. Television and radio commercials should stress the following: the destructive impact of the war on drugs, the racist impact of this war for a whole generation of black men, the threat to civil liberties by the Bush administration and the Democratic Congress, and, most of all, the war in Iraq and the threat of war in Iran. These need to be supplemented by regular news releases.
It is a travesty that most antiwar Republican voters in New Hampshire and Michigan appeared to have believed that John McCain was the antiwar candidate. This might have been different had an ad campaign repeatedly informed them that Paul is the only Republican candidate to oppose the war.
Lets face it. Ron Paul will not win the nomination. If he goes out in a flourish, however, he can do a lot of good for the future of libertarianism. If the campaign continues to run the current ads, it will soon fade into nothingness and few supporters will be willing to contribute more money.
Jesse Benton, the man who designed this campaign, should be fired immediately. A new ad director should then implement this strategy. Scott Horton has suggested a youtube contest for ads but it may be too late. At the very least, the campaign (hopefully sans Jesse Benton) can produce commercials that highlight the many clips of Paul giving pro-liberty and antiwar comments on these and other issues.
Most commentators agree that the new agreement allowing members of the Baath party to return to government is an important step toward reconciliation. Juan Cole notes a possible flaw in this theory:
The passage of the new law will be hailed by the War party as a major achievement. But as usual they will misread what really happened.
If the new law was good for ex-Baathists, then the ex-Baathists in parliament will have voted for it and praised it, right? And likely the Sadrists (hard line anti-Baath Shiites) and Kurds would be a little upset.
Instead, parliament's version of this law was spearheaded by Sadrists, and the ex-Baathists in parliament criticized it.
The bidding war between Obama and Hillary is entering the frenzy stage:
Democrat Barack Obama on Sunday unveiled an economic stimulus package costing up to $120 billion that his campaign said would put money in the hands of workers and seniors, stem the foreclosure crisis and cover state budget shortfalls. This piece by David Weigel on the anti-Paul pile on pretty much sums my view of this very troubling situation. Unless we hear something new, I am giving Paul the benefit of the doubt. At the same time, he clearly needs to explain himself better. It counts for something that Paul is now running the most anti-racist/antiwar campaign of any GOP candidate:
Paul disassociates himself from the newsletters (although not from all the people who wrote them) and the people running his campaign have no connection to that older, nastier iteration of his career. The campaign was growing so much larger and more interesting than the conspiratorial Paul circle of the late 80s and mid-90s.
In any case, the Paul pile-on is starting to get ridiculous. You can blame Paul and the ghostwriters for some of this, for keeping what was in the newsletters so quiet, but simply because so many of them are now out I'm seeing "damning" quotes that pad the lists without making Paul look out of line. The excitable Dan Koffler compiles some that wouldn't sound out of place, frankly, in a conservative blog or in National Review
Thanks to Aeon Skoble for the link.
Excellent. Leno was clearly sympathetic. This is far better publicity than Paul could have ever gotten in a debate.
I almost feel like thanking Fox News for excluding him, almost.
Wow. Paul finally gets a break. A spot on Leno just before New Hampshire. Ron Paul garnered 10 percent yesterday. I was disappointed by the result. I had hoped that he would do better. I had also feared that he would do much worse.
But let's have some perspective here. In the broader context of modern libertarianism, this is significant progress. The Libertarian Party during its high water mark in 1980 received a mere 1 percent of the vote. As a veteran of the campaign, I remember well the day after that election. We were disappointed then too but in our wildest dreams had never expected to get 5 percent, much less 10 percent.
Huckabee couldn't have said it better. Here is Romney's answer to a survey on video games. Note Obama's comparatively evasive response. Ron Paul apparently was not asked.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Howard Zinn Interview Coming Up
Go here for the stream.Friday, April 4, 2008
A Leftist Against the New Deal
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Jeff Hummel Doesn't Blame the Fed for the Subprime Mortgage Mess
Investors Business Daily.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Labour Turns Away Women in Labor
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Bob Barr on Antiwar Radio Today
Sunday, March 23, 2008
John M. Pratt: Depression Era Tax Striker
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Should the Fed be Abolished?
Monday, March 17, 2008
Kenneth R. Gregg, RIP
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Mississippi's Pioneering Gun and Ammunition Control Law
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Breaking Bad: A Subversive Not-Too-Guilty Pleasure
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Obama Shrugs
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Will Paul Gets the Last Laugh? (Election Results Tonight)
Monday, March 3, 2008
Brits on Acid and Joke Warfare
Monday, February 18, 2008
Paul Greenberg's Historical Malpractice
Sunday, February 17, 2008
McCain Compared to Churchill
Monday, February 11, 2008
Brother, Can You Spare A Bong?
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Eleanor Roosevelt's Defense of Japanese Internment
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Messed-up Databases and Terrible Commercials
Friday, February 1, 2008
The Orwellian Schoolmaster v. the Huxleyian Nanny
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Ron Paul Does Well....In Spite of Anderson Cooper
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
McCain Wins Florida....My Limb is Cracking
Say What!?
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Election Prediction: Obama v. Romney, No Strong Third Party Challenge
Friday, January 25, 2008
Last Night's Debate
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
The Gary Johnson/Ron Paul Revolution
Monday, January 21, 2008
Is the Government Doing Enough to Help Paranoid Schizophrenics?
In The Know: Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?Thursday, January 17, 2008
Important Article on ......You Know What
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Fire Jesse Benton, Get Some New Ads
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
A Questionable Benchmark
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Obama Makes Some Expensive Promises
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Those Newsletters
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Ron Paul on the Tonight Show (Part II)
Ron Paul on the Tonight Show (Part I)
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Ron Paul Will on be on Jay Leno's Show on Monday
Friday, January 4, 2008
The Day After Iowa and A Sense of Perspective
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Ron Paul on Bhutto's Assassination
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Mitt Vows to Drain the "Cesspool of Filth."
I want to restore values so children are protected from a societal cesspool of filth, pornography, violence, sex, and perversion. I've proposed that we enforce our obscenity laws again and that we get serious against those retailers that sell adult video games that are filled with violence and that we go after those retailers.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Ron Paul Calls 9-11 Truth Theory "Preposterous" in Glenn Beck Interview
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Ron Paul Blimp Buzzes Columbia, South Carolina
I was, and am, skeptical of the blimp idea but this is awesome.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Ron Paul's Answer to Bernanke's Money Helicopter
Ron Paul doesn't have a helicopter dropping Federal Reserve Notes but his blimp is now flying over North Carolina.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Explosive Growth of Academics for Ron Paul
Academics for Ron Paul is growing by leaps and bounds. The recently updated list now has over seventy names and more are on the way.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Mike Huckabee as a Modern Buzz Windrip.
If Huckabee ever follows Fred Thompson into an acting career, he would be ideal for role of Buzz Windrip in a film version of Sinclair Lewis' novel It Can't Happen Here.
Like Huckabee, Windrip is a folksy and affable populist presidential candidate from a poor and socially conservative state:
Usually he was known as “Buzz.” He had worked his way through a Southern Baptist college, of approximately the same academic standing as a Jersey City business college, and through a Chicago law school, and settled down to practice in his native state and to enliven local politics. He was a tireless traveler, a boisterous and humorous speaker, an inspired guesser at what political doctrines the people would like, a warm handshaker, and willing to lend money. …..
He had a luminous, ungrudging smile which (declared the Washington correspondents) he turned on and off deliberately, like an electric light, but which could make his ugliness more attractive than the simpers of any pretty man.
…But he was the Common Man twenty-times-magnified by his oratory, so that while the other Commoners could understand his every purpose, which was exactly the same as their own, they saw him towering among them, and they raised hands to him in worship.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Academics for Ron Paul Has Been Launched
For those inclined to join, the open letter and list of signers can be found here.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Hear Zora Speak
As far as I know, this is the only online sound clip of libertarian-oriented novelist and folklorist, Zora Neale Hurston.
In this brief excerpt from 1943, Hurston does not discuss her disdain for the New Deal or her affinity for Taft Republicanism but rather her research on zombies.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Kudos to David Bernstein
In the past, I have faulted David Bernstein for singling out Ron Paul for criticism. In this post, David shows an admirable evenhandedness by noting the unsavory supporters of other candidates:
I've criticized Ron Paul for not renouncing support from assorted loonies. However, at least Paul has not directly solicited their support. By contrast, "Obama paid his respects to one of Harlem's top powerbrokers - Reverend Al Sharpton, who says he hasn't decided who he is supporting, but the meeting sent a warning to Hillary Clinton that Harlem could be up for grabs." So long as it's considered acceptable for "mainstream" candidates to actually solicit support from the likes of Sharpton, and for that matter Giuliani supporter Pat Robertson, it gives Paul supporters good reason to question why their candidate is receiving such scrutiny for merely refusing to screen supporters. Apparently, if dangerous fringe demagogues have a sufficiently large political constituency, anything goes. (In my own case, I merely pointed out that the Paul campaign's refusal to disassociate itself from fringe supporters discourages me from supporting him as a protest candidate.)
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Glenn Reynolds and Ron Paul as an Empty Libertarian "Vessel"
Glenn Reynolds gives some very backhanded praise to the Paul campaign, though not to Paul himself:
Paul's doing better than anyone expected. It's abundantly clear that he's not doing it on charisma and rhetorical skill. Which means that libertarian ideas are actually appealing, since Ron Paul isn't. Paul's flaws as a vessel for those ideas prove the ideas' appeal. If they sell with him as the pitchman, they must be really resonating. I suspect Paul himself would agree with this analysis.
Reynolds is off base if he assumes that Paul's campaign illustrates a new flowering of libertarianism in a generic sense. In my experience, the libertarians who agree with Reynolds on the war are few and far between in Paul's ranks.
Instead, the Paul campaign is better described as the flowering of antiwar libertarianism. I see no reason to believe that the same enthusiasm would have been possible if the "vessel" for libertarian ideas was a pro-war candidate.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Will the Critics of Ron Paul at Liberty and Power Please Feel Free to Stand Up?
In announcing his support for a new group called Historians for Obama, my friend Ralph E. Luker at Cliopatria has stated that "David Beito, and others have virtually turned their libertarian blog over to the Ron Paul campaign." He also characterizes our blog as somewhat "single-minded" on this issue.
I wrote a comment on Luker's post arguing a contrary view. I noted that while it is true that a vocal minority of our members have written posts enthusiastically backing Paul, others here, such as Wendy McElroy, have opposed him, expressed skepticism, or been silent.
Having said this, Luker might have a point. It is undeniable that Paul's boosters have posted often lately while his critics have not weighed in nearly as much. For this reason, I encourage the Ron Paul critics and skeptics to feel free to express themselves more often. At the very least, I'd like to make it clear that Liberty and Power does not take a party line on the next election.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
A Giuliani-Huckabee Ticket?
Ultra nanny-statist Huckabee wants to team up with uber authoritarian statist Giuliani.
If I had a gun to my head and had only two choices, I suppose I'd even be willing to suffer four more years of Bush-Cheney rather than endure that possibility.
Liberty and Power Member Interviews Liberty and Power Member
Here is an audio of Karen Kwiatkowski's interview yesterday of Robert Higgs. Listening to Higgs is almost as delightful as reading his work. Higgs speaks on diverse topics including a comparison of the two party system to political cartels.
Note: The interview of Higgs is the second of the two interviews on the audio.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Hillary v. Paul on Medical Marijuana
Sunday, November 25, 2007
California Embraces Glenn Singleton's Cultural Revolution
At Colossus of Rhodey, Hube reports the disturbing, but all too unsurprising, news that the California Superintendent of Education has hired professional “diversity trainer” Glenn Singleton. Mandatory programs of this type are often abusive and manipulative but Singleton’s is one of the worst.
As pointed out here earlier, many of his techniques recall those favored during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Replay of JFK Assassination News Coverage (on now)
NBC radio live coverage from November 1963 is being replayed here now.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
David Bernstein on Ron Paul
David Bernstein, a scholar I greatly respect as I have noted here in the past, has criticized Ron Paul's statement against racism. While he makes some good points, he is completely off base on the crux of the matter:
Paul has condemned racism in general, but the only specific categories of racialist thinking he has criticized are racial set-asides, and advocates of "so-called 'diversity.'"
This is not correct. No other Republican candidate has spoken out so forcefully about those issues of direct concern today for blacks that relate to racism.
For example, Paul has condemned the differential treatment of blacks in the criminal justice system, police brutality. the racist aspects of the war on drugs and in capital punishment. The other candidates have been silent on these issues or, as in the case of Giuliani, are a key part of the problem.
Paul is certainly not the perfect candidate but he is light years ahead of his competitors. For this reason, I hope that Bernstein will explore at similar length the stands of the top tier candidates (many of whom have been openly endorsed by his colleagues at the Volokh Conspiracy) and how they compare with those of Paul on these issues.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Ron Paul Finally Gets (Some) Respect From ABC Pundits
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Mark Steyn's Arthur Godfrey Moment
In 1953, reporters asked television host Arthur Godfrey why he fired popular singer Julius LaRosa on the air. Godfrey answered that he had to do it because LaRosa had showed “a lack of humility.” Many decided that the notoriously egotistical Godfrey, not LaRosa, was the one who needed a lesson in that virtue. I wonder what he, and they, would have thought of Mark Steyn.
In a recent column, Steyn gives a Godfrey-like lecture to critics of the Pakistan regime for failing to show a “certain humility.” Rather than self-righteously hector Musharraf and Bush, he explains, the naysayers need to realize that an unstable Islamic U.S. ally long dominated by “corrupt political classes” might not be ready for democracy.
I'd be curious to hear the reaction of the economists to this:
Paul's ideas on competitive money were quite a hit with Kudlow and the rest of the panel. Time to pop the corks on the champagne bottles. Many bloggers have criticized Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute for writing a positive piece about Fred Thompson but ignoring the Paul campaign:
Here is Tanner's defense:
While I greatly respect Tanner's work as a scholar, I think he misses the true significance of the Paul campaign. Its importance goes far beyond winning a primary election. Elections, and garden-variety politicians like Thompson, come and go. It makes more sense to adopt a long view of the Paul Revolution and its relationship to the future of liberty.
As I have already said, no individual or organization has done more than Ron Paul in recent years to introduce young people to libertarian or, for that matter, free market ideas. As someone who has taken part in Cato, IHS, and other free market groups for nearly three decades, I can attest to this on my own campus.
The Ron Paul meet-up/face book group at the University of Alabama is now more than 100. I came away from a recent UA Students for Paul meeting extremely impressed by the numbers, enthusiasm, intelligence, and dedication of those who attended. I have never seen anything like it before. The contrast with the past is striking. The only libertarian group on campus (which was pretty much on life suport anyway) had died a couple of years ago for lack of interest.
All of this represents a potential harvest for Cato, IHS, and other free market organizations. Folks in these groups, at least as individuals, would do well to recognize this phenomenon and then build on it...that is if they want to advance libertarian ideas. How many of these Students for Paul, for example, could one day be policy analysts for Cato or, at the very least, attend Cato University?
If Tanner wants to make the best effort right now to advance the cause of liberty, he should consider making the most of this unique moment in history rather than worrying too much about the rhetoric of the co-sponsor of McCain/Feingold. This opportunity may never happen again...at least for those who look long beyond the next election.
Ron Paul was on his game last night. This was one of his best interviews and he had some good one-liners. Has Ron Paul finally made his big breakthrough? The Sex Pistols/Ron Paul segment at the end is priceless.
Some of our readers may think that I am too obsessed with the Ron Paul phenomenon, but I beg to differ. Can the doubters name a single person, institute, or think thank which has done more in recent decades to introduce Americans to libertarianism?
Before Ron Paul came along, I had worried that ideas of liberty were going into eclipse, especially among the young. I no longer have this fear.
As a leftist friend of mine used to say, "the masses are asses."
Read the rest here .
Pretty good.
Yes, it is really true. See here. Take that Frank Luntz!
A few libertarians I know, especially of the pro-war variety, have strangely argued that Giuliani is more libertarian friendly on the social issues and/or "wants to get government out of the bedroom."
Perhaps this is true to a limited extent on abortion and gay marriage but this is pretty thin gruel compared to his overall record on victimless crimes and civil liberties. At the Family Research Council presentation yesterday, Rudy's social anti-liberalism came out in the open as he pandered
to the Nanny staters of the right:
This fight wasn’t just limited to the battlefields like Times Square was at that time. It extended throughout the city. We significantly reduced pornography throughout the city of New York.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Paul's Hayekian Call for Competitive Money on "The Kudlow Report"
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Indoctrination Kaput at the University of Delaware
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Michael Tanner of Cato Misses the Point
I’m personally delighted that Rep. Paul is in the race and making the case for individual liberty. But sometimes I’m called on to write as a dispassionate observer of the campaign. In that role, I am required to report on what is—not what I would like things to be.... Despite his recent fundraising success (and the article in question was written nearly 2 months ago before Rep. Paul had raised much money), he still lacks the funds necessary to be truly competitive. Nor does he have the organization (according to the last story I saw, he has 4 paid staffers on the ground in Iowa; Romney for example has more than 100). He barely breaks 2 percent in most national polls.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Ron Paul on Leno
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Most Support a Strike on Iran
A majority of likely voters – 52% – would support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon...a new Zogby America telephone poll shows.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Ron Paul's New Hampshire TV Ad
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Ron Paul is Leading Fred Thompson in New Hampshire
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Fox News, Text Polls, Mother Teresa, and Hitler
Sunday, October 21, 2007
The Myth of Rudy Giuliani's "Social Liberalism"
We drove pornography out of Times Square and other public spaces. In 1987, there were 35 pornographic theaters and shops on just one stretch of 42nd Street. When I left office, there were zero—none.
n by accident. It didn’t happen by wishing they went away. It happened based on a very well organized campaign, a study demonstrating the impact of pornography on neighborhoods, an intense battle in court that nobody thought we would win, and we won. And most importantly, the pornographers lost and they were chased out of Times Square.
Friday, October 19, 2007
A New Spring to Our Step: "Libertarians Rising" and A Question for the Paul Skeptics
No so long ago, I had thought that libertarianism was doomed to a long period of retrenchment and low expectations. But now many of us have a new spring in our step and renewed hopes about changing the world.
At no time in my memory have so many young people been drawn to our message. Michael Kinsley comments on this trend in a lengthy article in Time, "Libertarians Rising." Would Time or Newsweek have bothered to run such an upbeat and serious article about libertarianism even two months ago? Perhaps the libertarian Paul skeptics at Liberty and Power and elsewhere can address this question
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Eyewitness Report: Jefferson County Republican Party Straw Poll
I just came back from the Jefferson County Republican Straw Poll and Paul won a stunning 57 percent of the vote. Jefferson County is where Birmingham (the largest city in Alabama is located) and several leading local GOP politicians were on the list of speakers. This was clearly intended to be a gathering of the Republican establishment.
Given this, the lack of enthusiasm for the other candidates, especially Alabama native son Fred Thompson, was striking. They just seemed to be going to through the motions. By contrast, the Paul supporters most of whom seemed to be under age twenty-five were very pumped up and exuberant. If Thompson's backers can't win in this venue, how can they possibly hope to take on Hillary?
Friday, October 12, 2007
Orwell and (Ron Paul) on "Fascism"
Tom Bevan accuses Ron Paul of "malpractice" for challenging the validity of the term "islamic fascism," a buzzword rarely applied to such repressive (but U.S. supported) regimes as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan.
The overuse of the word fascist is not new as George Orwell pointed out in 1944:
“...the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else... almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’.”
Thursday, October 11, 2007
This Morning: Halderman Radio Interview on the War on Drugs and Foreign Policy
Barring any last-minute schedule changes, Liberty and Power's own Keith Halderman will be on Scott Horton's radio show at 11:15 a.m. central time. This promises to be a great show. Keith will discuss the historical, and curent, nexus between the war on drugs and American foreign policy. Few, if any, scholars know more about this topic.
Make sure to not only tune in but to also to call the show and ask Keith some questions. Click here to hear it online.
Monday, October 8, 2007
A Flawed Critique of Ron Paul's Foreign Policy From Doug Mataconis
Over at Liberty Papers, Doug Mataconis challenges Ron Paul's call to implement a non-interventionist foreign policy as unrealistic in the "modern world."
While Mataconis deserves a more detailed answer, one of his starting premises does not bear scrutiny. He states that non-interventionism made more sense during the early republic because "the nearest threatening nation was weeks away by sailing ship."
Precisely the opposite was true. As Isabel Paterson once pointed out, the early United States was anything but "isolated" from powerful enemies or potential enemies. These powers encircled the new republic on all sides.
In 1803, for example, French Louisiana was directly on the southwestern border, Spanish Florida was to the south, and British Canada was to the north. While the French and Spanish threats soon disappeared, the British superpower continued to dominate the northern border for another century. As late as the 1890s, the two countries almost went to war.
By contrast in 2007, the nations on the southern and northern U.S. borders pose no credible military threat. Viewed from this angle, a policy of non-interventionism makes even more sense in the modern world than it did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Ron Paul Interviewed by Wolf Blitzer
Friday, September 28, 2007
John Dean Finds Ron Paul "not quite as frightening."
Former Watergate conspirator John Dean is generally a down-the-line Democratic Party apologist but occasionally he surprises, most notably by penning a favorable biography of Warren G. Harding. Now, he gives some faint, but still welcome, praise for Ron Paul.
Dean states that while he is "very concerned about the current attitude in the Republican party...there are candidates on the Republican side who are not quite as frightening as Giuliani." When asked who these were, he specified "Ron Paul."
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Is Congress Hopeless on the War? Maybe Not
Critics of the war are properly critical of the failure of the Democratic Congress to cut off funds. Does this mean that it is time to conclude that influencing roll call votes is a hopeless enterprise?
Carolyn Eisenberg of Historians Against the War argues that it is not. While I am not yet convinced, she makes a good case that the trends are moving in the right direction and these trends will continue if the public keeps up the pressure:
....in the absence of a strong Congressional mandate, it is difficult to imagine a Chief Executive reversing the policy. Who besides Ron Paul, among that dismal group of Republican contenders, is prepared to orchestrate what will inevitably appear as an American defeat? And, as for the Democrats, which of the leading candidates is prepared to take on their own shoulders such a burden? Certainly not Hillary Clinton, who has already demonstrated that “military toughness” is central to her political persona.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
McCain calls for Removing MoveOn.org Protestors from the U.S.
Although McCain later backed off with a "clarification," his comments should be more than enough to disqualify him from further serious consideration as a candidate.
Brutal, Unprofessional Fox Attack Interview of Ron Paul by John Gibson
When Fox News first came out, I remember urging my cable company to pick it up. I thought that it would provide more accurate reporting than CNN. Boy....was I wrong.
A recent case in point is the interview of Ron Paul by John Gibson of Fox News. Here is the audio.
I can't remember another time in American history when a mainstream media journalist has questioned a major party candidate so unprofessionally.
But the interview is still worth a few minutes of your time. Although Gibson is consistently rude, constantly on the attack, and otherwise immature, Paul more than holds his own. He even draws first blood with an effective counterattack against Gibson's employer.
Despite Gibson's repeated interuptions, Paul is on the show long enough to make his points. Paul must have several layers of extra skin to be able to take this kind of shabby treatment so gracefully.
After listening to this interview, my respect for Ron Paul is higher than ever.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Ron Paul Up to 5 percent in New Hampshire Poll
The debate performance appears to be helping, at least in this crucial state.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Bill O'Reilly: We Don't Need No Stinkin' History Lesson
During his interview with Ron Paul, O'Reilly said "We don’t need a history lesson.”
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Mike Milhouse Huckabee's "Peace With Honor" Snake-Oil
Samuel Johnson once described patriotism as the last refuge of scoundrels. If he had seen the recent GOP candidate’s debate, he might have put “honor” in the same category. "We've got a responsibility to the honor of this country,” Mike Huckabee lectured to Ron Paul, “and the honor of every man and woman who has served in Iraq and our military to not leave them with anything less than the honor they deserve."
Huckabee was following in a long and dubious tradition of American politics. Those who praised him so uncritically would do well to remember the story of another Republican politician who tried the same thing in 1968.
Using Huckabee's current modus operandi, Richard Nixon successfully smacked down the Ron Pauls of his generation by touting “peace with honor, rather than retreat and defeat.” After winning the election, he turned down the chance to have a peace treaty for rapid American withdrawal. It would not bring an “honorable peace” he said.
But in 1973 Nixon signed a treaty that had essentially the same terms as the one he had shunned in 1969. In the meantime, of course, more than twenty thousand Americans had died needlessly, all of the sake of “honor.” It would be a tragedy if the American people in 2008 were gullible enough to be buy this this snake-oil a second time.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
More on the Paul vs. Huckabee Slug-Fest
Ron Paul was a track star in college. Perhaps he should have considered boxing (see youtube here). Here is the blow-by-blow from Frank James at the Baltimore Sun:
The debate's highlight was didn't even feature McCain prominently. Instead, it was when Rep. Ron Paul and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee commenced to wailing on each over the Iraq War.The shots the men threw at each other were so hard and riveting that at one point they seemed the only two candidates on the stage, an illusion that was furthered by a camera angle that captured the both of them in the heated moment.
Pro-War GOP Top Tier Continues to Split, A Good Night for Ron Paul
For those who didn't see it, be sure to watch the debate on youtube. Paul's peformance last night was his best yet. Since the first debate, Paul has become confident and relaxed and it shows. He had much more face time than ever before and used it well.
He also showed off his sense of humor, especially in the post-debate interview when he even charmed (sort of) Sean Hannity. Hannity began to reel off a list of agencies that Paul would abolish. His list started with the IRS. Before Hannity had a chance to move onto the CIA, Paul jumped in. He smiled and winked and said "Sean, aren't you against that too?" The slightly flustered Hannity had to smile and mumble yes.
In addition to Paul, the big winner of the night (at least for the MSM) was Mike "Nanny State" Huckabee. A sustained effort is now underway to promote him into the top tier.
This is good news for Paul. Here's why. With the entry of Thompson, the ranks of the top tier will have increased to four. If Huckabee moves up, that would leave the top tier fighting for an average of under 20 percent each.
The end result is to make it even easier for Paul to stand out as the only antiwar candidate in the field and, just importantly, more difficult for the MSM and GOP leadership to exclude him and other so-called bottom tier candidates from future debates.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Straw Poll Dirty Tricks in Texas?
I am not one to believe in conspiracies but this looks fishy to say the least.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Winston Churchill Warned of Iraq Quagmire
Did NeoCon icon Winston Church advocate that the Brits "cut-and-run" from Iraq? Decide for yourself:
"Winston S. Churchill to David Lloyd George (Churchill papers: 17/27) 1 September 1922
I am deeply concerned about Iraq. The task you have given me is becoming really impossible. Our forces are reduced now to very slender proportions. The Turkish menace has got worse; Feisal is playing the fool, if not the knave; his incompetent Arab officials are disturbing some of the provinces and failing to collect the revenue; we overpaid £200,000 on last year's account which it is almost certain Iraq will not be able to pay this year, thus entailing a Supplementary Estimate in regard to a matter never sanctioned by Parliament; a further deficit, in spite of large economies, is nearly certain this year on the civil expenses owing to the drop in the revenue. I have had to maintain British troops at Mosul all through the year in consequence of the Angora quarrel: this has upset the programme of reliefs and will certainly lead to further expenditure beyond the provision I cannot at this moment withdraw these troops without practically inviting the Turks to come in. The small column which is operating in the Rania district inside our border against the Turkish raiders and Kurdish sympathisers is a source of constant anxiety to me.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Kucinich Supporter Criticizes Ron Paul for Rejecting Looney 9-11 Conspiracy Theories
A Kucinich supporter doesn't like Ron Paul in part because Paul sensibly rejects 9-11 conspiracy theories. Paul is also faulted for wanting to cut taxes.
Iraq's New Surge of Death
Recent claims that the "surge is working" appear to be just so much hyperbole. According to this article from the Associated Press:
Iraq is suffering about double the number of war-related deaths nationwide compared with last year — an average daily toll of 33 in 2006, and 62 so far this year.
•Nearly 1,000 more people have been killed in violence across Iraq in the first eight months of this year than in all of 2006. So far this year, about 14,800 people have died in war-related attacks and sectarian murders. The AP accounted for 13,811 deaths in 2006.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Free Markets v. Bus Segregation in Montgomery
During my research, I happened on this article from Jet (February 9, 1956, 6) on the free market road not taken:
"Faced with wholesale arrests of Negroes on minor traffic charges as a result of Mayor W.A. Gayle's 'get tough policy,' five Negroes filed an application with the Montgomery City Commission asking for a franchise to operate jitneys to serve Negro areas. Officials of the newly-organized Montgomery Transit Lines said they will use 1956 station wagons. Mayor Gayle's reaction to the proposal was prompt: 'If Negroes want to ride a public vehicle, they can ride city busses.'"
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Results Being Read of Paul's Win in Alabama Straw Poll
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Ron Paul's Landslide Victory in Today's Alabama Straw Poll
I just got back from the Alabama Republican Straw poll. Paul won a crushing 81 percent of the total.
Paul supporters came from all over the state and the party establishment here was overwhelmed and caught completely off guard. This is a wonderful victory, at least it was for me.
This is evidence that Ron's campaign not only has maintained its enthusiasm but has staying power. Here are the results:
Ron Paul - 216 (81%)
Tom Tancredo - 0 (0%)
Sam Brownback - 2 (.75%)
John McCain - 2 (.75%)
Mike Huckabee - 6 (2%)
Rudy Giuliani - 7 (3%)
Fred Dalton Thompson - 9 (3%)
Duncan Hunter - 10 (4%)
Mitt Romney - 14 (5%)
Monday, August 13, 2007
Dick Cheney (1994) Praises Bush Sr. for Not Invading Iraq
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Drawing the Wrong Lessons from the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse
As they did with Katrina, the politicians and public have taken it for granted that the Minneapolis bridge collapse illustrates the need for bigger government. In record speed, Governor Tim Pawlenty recanted his previous opposition to a gas tax increase for bridge and road repears. Few have even considered that the collapse might illustrate the dangers of relying too much, not too little, on governments for infrastructure.
One hundred and fifty years ago, the citizens of Nevada, who faced an even more daunting infrastructure crisis, came to a different conclusion. An example was the Placerville State Road, a government-maintained mountain artery on the section of the Overland Trail. It "was literally lined with brown-down stages, wagons, and carts, presenting every variety of aspect, from the general smash-up to the ordinary capsize. Wheels had taken rectangular cuts to the bottom, broken tongues projected from the mud; loads of dry goods and whiskey barrels lay wallowing in the general wreck of matter; stout beams cut from the roadside were scattered here and there, having served in vain efforts to extricate the wagons from the oozing mire."
Instead of assuming that these problems proved the need for more government, Nevada's politicians and voters turned to the private sector. They granted dozens of charters to companies and individuals to construct and maintain roads. Between the 1850s and 1880s, local entrepreneurs financed, built, and operated more than one hundred toll roads and bridges. This represented an enormous amount of activity in an area with so few people.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Mario Rizzo on the Republican Debate
Kudos to my friend and longtime colleague at seminars for the Institute for Humane Studies, Mario Rizzo, for for this perceptive analysis of the debate:
The Republican Presidential Debate on Sunday as moderated by George Stephanopoulos was yet another attempt by the media to manipulate further the already-manipulated American public. It started off with outrageous introductions that revealed the implied framework of the debate. Each candidate was introduced with his Iowa poll numbers and in order of those numbers. What was the point of this? A debate should be an exchange of ideas weighted by the quality of those ideas.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Richman on the Radio
Liberty and Power's Sheldon Richman gives good interview. Appearing on the Scott Horton Show he comments on a wide range of issues, including William Graham Sumner and Giuliani's persecution of Michael Milken. To hear the show, click here.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Ron Paul Making Waves at National Review
Randy Barnett take note. Over at National Review Online, Todd Seavey underscores the practical electoral advantages of nominating Ron Paul as a conservative/libertarian "fusion" candidate:
Continuing conservative support for the Iraq war is certainly an issue (note that Paul voted for the Afghan war, so he’s not a complete pacifist), but surely it’s not the be-all and end-all of conservatism. As popular support for the war fades, and if we do not meet with the successes forecast by the architects of the “surge,” might not even the most pro-war conservatives be willing to budge a bit on that possibly doomed and politically damning issue? Hawks may be reluctant to shift, but for many conservatives it may well be worth it to have a president with true conservative values.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
FDR's Witch-hunt Against Foreign Policy Critics
As we debate the impact of foreign policy on domestic liberty, it might be a good time to remember FDR's efforts to silence his non-interventionist critics. Probably the most blatant example was a letter he wrote to the editor of the Yale Review in 1939 targeting one of the leading opponents of his foreign policy, journalist John T. Flynn:
"I have watched John T. Flynn during these many years and the net anwer in my mind is that he has always, with practically no exception, been a destructive rather than a constructive force. Therefore, Q.E.D., John T. Flynn should be barred hereafter from the columns of any presentable daily paper, monthly magazine or national quarterly, such as the Yale Review.
Source: John E. Moser, Right Turn: John T. Flynn and the Transformation of American Liberalism New York: New York University Press, 2005), l04.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
A Response to Randy Barnett on the Iraq War.
My good friend Randy Barnett has a piece in the Wall Street Journal on libertarians and the Iraq War. He asks: “Does being a libertarian commit one to a particular stance toward the Iraq war? The simple answer is 'no.'....all libertarians accept the principle of self-defense, and most accept the role of the U.S. government in defending U.S. territory, libertarian first principles of individual rights and the rule of law tell us little about what constitutes appropriate and effective self-defense after an attack. Devising a military defense strategy is a matter of judgment or prudence about which reasonable libertarians may differ greatly.”
I am leaving for a long delayed vacation so my initial response will have to be short. Here is one vital point. Not even the Bush administration has ever claimed that Iraq ever attacked us or had an plans to attack us. Saddam led a secular/socialist regime which was hostile to both the Shi'ite fundamentalists (now in power in Iraq courtesy of Bush) and Sunni fundamentalists, such as Al Qaeda. Thus by definition the Iraq War can not be considered one of self-defense even for the “mainstream libertarian.”
For the sake of argument, however, let’s concede that Randy is right. Let’s assume that libertarianism does not “commit one to a particular stance toward the Iraq War.” If this is true, then libertarianism belongs in the trash can of history. If libertarianism can not answer such a vital question of the day, it is a dead philosophy that is more suited to parlor games than to discourse about problems in the real world.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Hear Robert A. Taft's Ron Paul Moment
As media and political elites continue to demonize Ron Paul for his comments in the debates, it is remembering that another candidate, who said much the same thing, once came within a hair of winning the Republican presidential nomination.
In 1950, Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio firmly explained to dumbfounded interviewers on “Meet the Press” why he opposed sending more U.S. troops to Europe. He condemned the deployment as encirclement and warned that it needlessly provoked the Soviet Union. To hear the entire audio of the interview, go here.
Taken as a whole, Taft was generally less thoroughgoing than Ron Paul in his defense of non-interventionism overseas and smaller government at home. Even on this show, he backtracks a bit toward the end from his earlier statements and has some unfortunate things to say about Joe McCarthy. But for the first fifteen minutes or so, he sounds as radical and confident as Ron Paul ever did.
Be patient, the audio might be slow in loading and you'll have to listen a couple of vintage 1950 commercials but it is well worth the wait.
Kudos to Scott Horton at Stress for putting up the audio link.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
The Prophetic Baghdad Bob
In the puffed up optimism produced by shock and awe, the figure of “Baghdad Bob” (Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi Information Minister) was the center of much mirth. His predictions of U.S. defeat, even as American tanks rolled in the background, repeatedly made the rounds on the internet, especially on pro-war blogs. But four years later as Bush’s Iraq policy is in tatters, “Baghdad Bob’s" pronouncements no longer seem so delusional.
Here are a few examples:
“Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!""I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Baghdad. We will encourage them to commit more suicides quickly."
"I can assure you that those villains will recognize, will discover in appropriate time in the future how stupid they are and how they are pretending things which have never taken place."
"We have them surrounded in their tanks"
"Now even the American command is under siege. We are hitting it from the north, east, south and west. We chase them here and they chase us there. But at the end we are the people who are laying siege to them. And it is not them who are besieging us."
Any apparent American gains, he said, were a cunning ploy by the Iraqis to lure the enemy into a trap. "Our armed forces, according to their tactics, are leaving the way open"
Friday, July 6, 2007
Paul Has More Cash On Hand than McCain (ABC News)
See here. This a good lead-in to Paul's appearance on Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Scott Horton: King of Internet Radio
As some of you know, I listen as often as I can to Scott Horton's daily radio show. It is an essential source to keep track of ongoing developments in American foreign policy. But Scott's fans are not limited to libertarians. Tom Sumner, a well-respected critic of Bush's run-up to the war, writes the following:
Times they are a changing, my friends), but I would like to point to Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio as the king of Internet Radio. His list of guests is stellar, and it's a testiment to his broadcasting skills that I disagree with the premise of several of his Libertarian positions, but I cannot possibly turn off his show.
For links to Scott's past and present shows, see here.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Free Health Care for Roaches in Cuba
Prompted by Michael Moore's valentine to Cuban health care, "Sicko," I am reposting these and other photos.
According to this website, the following photos were taken just a few years ago at a Havana hospital that Castro has praised as one of the "most modern in Cuba."
The first shows roaches on the hospital floor that were smashed by the shoes of patients and family members and the second is of a curtain next to the bed of a patient getting an IV (the black specks are flies!). The third photo is a sink used by doctors who treat samples taken from orthopedic patients. The final scene is of a toilet used by emergency-room patients.
Monday, June 18, 2007
The Decline of the Right to Roam
As someone who grew up in the 1960s (very much a high-crime era) in the Minneapolis suburbs, I routinely exercised the right to roam on weekends and during holidays. Long before we were ten, my friends and I took long unsupervised hikes onto railway tracks, factory sites, and cemeteries. Along the way, we rolled down steep hills in cardboard boxes, climbed into storm drains, and floated on make-shift rafts in a creek.
Roaming of this type was the norm for my middle class friends. Our parents didn't give it a second thought, that is as long as we wandered back home by dinner.
Is the right to roam dead for good? Probably. But it was great while it lasted.
Courtesy of Jesse Walker at Hit and Run, an article in The Daily Mail shows how British children "lost the right to roam in four generations."
Friday, June 15, 2007
DePaul Boycott Organized to Support Finkelstein
Manan Ahmed of Cliopatria weighs on on the campaign to boycott DePaul to protest the denial of tenure to Professor Norman Finkelstein.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Ron Paul on the Colbert Report (A Home-run for Paul)
Friday, June 8, 2007
"Everything's Changed Now"
This post-911 catch phrase has a long history. More than sixty years ago, Rose Wilder Lane translated it into plain English:
"'Everything's changed now' is a popular way of saying, 'There are no principles.'" (Pittsburgh Courier, September 7, 1944.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Ron Paul's Comments at the Debate
And Now for Something Completely Different.....the BBC and Ron Paul
This BBC story takes Paul more seriously (though that's not hard to do) than the story from the Guardian as linked by Mark Brady.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Ron Paul on "The Daily Show"
Monday, June 4, 2007
Ron Paul on "The Daily Show" Tonight
He will be on at 11:00 ET. If all goes well, it could be an excellent lead-in to tomorrow's debate.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Oswald Did It, All By Himself
That is the conclusion drawn by Vincent Bugliosi who proclaims that his new tome "settles all questions about the assassination once and for all."
According to the author, "No reasonable, rational person - and let's italicize those words - can possibly read this book and not be satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that Oswald killed Kennedy and acted alone."
Bugliosi will not win any prize for modesty but his general conclusion is probably correct. The evidence is overwhelming that it was Oswald, and Oswald alone, who did it.
The case that conspirators in the Military-Industrial Complex had anything to do with the crime is especially weak. What motive could they possibly have had? The Military-Industrial Complex never had a more dynamic and vigorous champion than JFK. He was their Lancelot.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
The Value of Electoral Politics as Education: Juan Cole Defends Ron Paul
Generally, I have pooh poohed the view that electoral politics can successfully "educate" the public in libertarian principles. The Paul campaign is changing my mind. Even if he fails to surge in the polls, he has done more to expose Americans to the libertarian antiwar perspective than any person in decades.
Most significant of all is the positive response coming from people on the political left. Today's example is from a blog by Juan Cole who, in the past, had pretty much ignored antiwar libertarians:
That continental rift is the reason for the great interest in Republican Presidential Candidate Ron Paul's argument with his rival Rudi Guiliani. Paul said in the recent debate that the US was attacked on 9/11 in part because of its prior involvement in Iraq.Rudi Guiliani interrupted him, claimed he had never heard of that, and misrepresented Paul as justifying the attack.
But Paul was factually correct. In his 1996 fatwa declaring war on the United States, Bin Laden had said " . . .the civil and the military infrastructures of Iraq were savagely destroyed showing the depth of the Zionist-Crusaders' hatred to the Muslims and their children . . ."
Monday, May 28, 2007
CNN Sunday Spotlight: Paul Debates Bush (Sort of)
Friday, May 25, 2007
Who Said This About Listening to Bin Laden?
"Yesterday, in my speech, I quoted quotes from Osama bin Laden. And the reason I did was, is that I want the American people to hear what he has to say -- not what I say, what he says. And in my judgment, we ought to be taking the words of the enemy seriously."
No, it wasn't Ron Paul this time.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Former Head of CIA Osama Bin Laden Unit Teams Up With Ron Paul
Ron Paul has had a good week and it promises to get better. Z. Byron Wolf of ABC News reports that he will team up with Mr. Anonymous --Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Osama Bin Laden Unit, to appear at a join news conference on Thursday at the National Press Club. They will "argue that America's Mayor needs to bone up on his recent history."
Hat tip Lew Rockwell.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Bill Maher: "Ron Paul is My New Hero."
Yes, he apparently means it. If you like Ron Paul, prepare to be encouraged and inspired.
Update: Paul will be a Sunday morning guest on CNN.
Second Update: The logjam seems to breaking. Ron Paul is defended at length on The View. Will Oprah be next?
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Conservatives and Blaming America (Ron Paul on Glenn Beck)
Glenn Beck just announced that he will be talking tonight "one on one" with Ron Paul on CNN. Rudy Giuliani did Ron Paul's campaign a big favor by singling him out. Courtesy of Rudy, Paul is finally getting coverage and many more opportunities to explain his views at length.
In his comments, Beck also claimed that Paul "blamed America for 9-11." Of course, Paul did nothing of the sort. He simply stated that past American policies had created conditions which made an attack more likely.
Why is that such a big deal? For the past seven years, conservatives, including Beck, have also said that past American policies made the 9-11 attack more likely. Only in their case, they single out for blame the American policies of Bill Clinton. For example, they charge that Clinton's "weakness" after the attack on American soldiers in Somalia emboldened Bin Laden and encouraged him to undertake 9-11. By making these claims, these conservatives are "blaming America for 9-11" just as much, if not more so, than Ron Paul.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Free Speech Under Assault at Tufts University
At the last conference of the American Historical Association, those who successfully opposed our resolution to condemn the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom, asked for "more examples." Here's another one for them, not that it will change their minds:
Showing profound disregard for free speech and freedom of the press, Tufts University has found a conservative student publication guilty of harassment and creating a hostile environment for publishing political satire. Despite explicitly promising to protect controversial and offensive expression in its policies, the Tufts Committee on Student Life decided yesterday to punish the student publication The Primary Source (TPS) for printing two articles that offended African-American and Muslim students on campus. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which has spearheaded the defense of TPS, is now launching a public campaign to oppose Tufts’ outrageous actions.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
More on the Ron Paul Blackout
Thomas E. Woods, Jr. asks: "So how does the Establishment deal with a Ron Paul candidacy? What else did you expect? By ignoring him as much as possible."
Ron Paul versus Paris Hilton
A surprisingly favorable piece from U.S. News and World Report on Ron Paul's online rise. He is starting to get noticed.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Governmental Gas Scrooge
Here is another example of the adage that if the government does not subsidize an activity, it will probably prohibit it:
A service station that offered discounted gas to senior citizens and people supporting youth sports has been ordered by the state to raise its prices.
Center City BP owner Raj Bhandari has been offering senior citizens a 2 cent per gallon price break and discount cards that let sports boosters pay 3 cents less per gallon.
But the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection says those deals violate Wisconsin's Unfair Sales Act, which requires stations to sell gas for about 9.2 percent more than the wholesale price.
Friday, May 4, 2007
The Liberal Media Ignores and (or Misrepresents) Ron Paul's Views on Iraq and Civil Liberties
Media bias was on ample display in last night's post debate shows. Only this time, the victim of bias was actually a candidate who took positions that most liberals claim to share.
Ron Paul firmly and repeatedly attacked the war on Iraq and called for withdrawal. He closed by blasting Bush's record on civil liberties and pledging to defend habeas corpus if elected. The post-debate spin shows, however, either completely ignored what he said or, worse, lumped him in with all the rest.
Although Paul came out like Gang Busters against a pardon of Scooter Libby, and even criticized Libby's role in deceiving us into war, Chris Matthews had the gall to lament that nobody had taken this position. The last few seconds of the segment brought a slight improvement when Keith Olbermann awkwardly announced that Paul had won MSNBC's online poll as the best debater....but, of course, time was up and nothing more could be said.
Later that night, CNN's post-debate spin segment sunk to an even greater low. The panel included Arianna Huffington and some neo-con guy from The Weekly Standard. Nobody mentioned Paul's views. The ever insufferable Huffington, who either did not watch the debate or lied about what she saw, self-righteously proclaimed that all of the ten candidates supported the war. Nobody challenged her. Are we to be spared nothing?
The prime movers in the media obviously dislike pro-war conservatives. Unfortunately, they have an even greater dislike of antiwar libertarians.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Ron Paul Does a Great Job
Ron Paul isn't as flashy as some but he did what he needed to do: attacked the war, defended limited government, and ended with a flourish by promising the roll-back Bush's assault on civil liberties. Kudos all around. He has clearly staked out a position as the only anti-Iraq war candidate in the GOP field but will the media notice? The debate should be repeated later tonight on MSNBC.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
My Musings on Scott Horton's Radio Show
On his radio show for Antiwar.com, Scott Horton graciously allows me to rant at some length about Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, the Anti-Imperialist League, and other issues.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Carl Sagan as Pot-Smoking "Genius"
Kirsten Dunst, who plays Mary Jane in "Spider Man," argues that more pot-smoking is good for America. She adds: "I'm not talking about being stoned all day, though. I think if it's not used properly, it can hamper your creativity and close you up inside. My best friend Sasha's dad was Carl Sagan, the astronomer. He was the biggest pot smoker in the world and he was a genius."
Hat tip Micha Ghertner
This is a surprise. Click below for answer. In the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, the calls for "sensible gun control" have already began. Unfortunately, it is pretty much certain that the media will ignore the following as reported in 2006: "A Virginia Tech official in 2006 praised the defeat of a proposal to allow students with state-issued concealed handgun permits to carry their handguns on college campuses in Virginia."
Hat tip Mike Tennant. Alex Taborrok has written a piece for one of my favorite publications, The Independent Review, on the history of privateering.
Hat tip Jesse Walker. Jeane Kirkpatrick always impressed me as among the most hard-headed and realistic of the neo-cons. While this neo "godmother" was usually wrong, she showed a much better grasp on reality than, for example, her fire-breathing successor as UN Ambassador, John Bolton. For this reason, I am not terribly surprised to see that Kirkpatrick wrote the following on Iraq before her death:Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Which Presidential Candidate is Defending Don Imus?
Monday, April 16, 2007
Virginia Tech As a Gun Free Zone
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Privateers in History
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Better a Kirkpatrick Than a Bolton
Unfortunately, what we face in Iraq today is a vacuum of power, a lack of stable institutions needed to govern, and the problem that the promise of democracy for which our nation stands may be lost in the essential scramble for safety and stability in the streets. This is one of the reasons I am uneasy about the war we have made here--for we have helped to create the chaos that has overtaken the country, and we may have reduced rather than promoted the pace of democratic reform.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Stephen S. Foster: Anti-Slavery/Antiwar Revolutionary
While I have read comparatively little about Stephen S. Foster (1809-81), I'd like to know more. Everything I have seen thus far makes me want to stand up and cheer.
Foster appears to have been solidly in the radical libertarian wing of abolitionism both on slavery and war. A strong proponent of natural rights, Foster advocated resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law, individual rights for women, rights in land to the ex-slaves who he regarded as the true owners, and, like his fellow New Englander, Lysander Spooner, opposed the Civil War.
In Revolution the Only Remedy for Slavery (1855) he endorsed both slave rebellions and a general anti-slavery revolution against the federal government. The entire tract is online (see link above) but here is a sampling:
In the Federal Union lies the grand secret of the strength of the slave power. Of itself that power is contemptibly weak. If in the countenances of their masters only the slaves discovered the visage of a foe, not another sun would go down upon an unbroken fetter. Backed by the entire body of non-slave-claimants of the south, it could have no strength to stand against the combined forces of the slaves, and their many sympathizers in the north, and in Europe. But in its alliance with the free States, through the Federal government, its strength is immense. It rules with a rod of iron, and none can say to it, “Why do ye so?” It kills, and it makes alive....It is able not only to command the services of the entire body of our militia when an insurrection is to be suppressed, an invasion to be repelled, or a slave to be recaptured, but it has seduced into its willing service, or awed into submission, nearly every prominent man throughout the entire north....
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Kuznicki's World Historical Emporium Reprint Series
L and P member Jason Kuznicki has opened Kuznicki's World Historical Reprint Emporium. The first entry he has put up is vol. 1 of Charles Dunoyer's 1845 De la Liberté du travail. He welcomes suggestions for additional entries.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Obama's Opposition to the War is Just a Show
Events in the last week have made it increasingly obvious that neither the Democrats in Congress nor in punditry have the stomach to do what it takes to end the war. The recent voter referendum on the war has proved meaningless. Even before Bush exercises his threatened veto, the allegedly antiwar Obama has thrown in the towel:
"My expectation is that we will continue to try to ratchet up the pressure on the president to change course," the Democratic presidential candidate said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I don't think that we will see a majority of the Senate vote to cut off funding at this stage." If President Bush vetoes an Iraq war spending bill as promised, Congress quickly will provide the money without the withdrawal timeline the White House objects to because no lawmaker "wants to play chicken with our troops," Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) said Sunday.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Bob Barr: Drug Warrior No More
Bob Barr had a pretty good civil liberties record (for a Republican) while he was in Congress but there was always one notable exception, his support for the drug war. Now, this former drug warrior is changing his tune.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Gender Gap Favors Ron Paul in Zogby Poll
Although libertarianism is overwhelmingly a male enterprise, Ron Paul is a hit (relatively speaking) among women. Despite the near complete black-out of his campaign by the MSM, he is up to 3 percent nationally and has 6 percent among women (tied with Fred Thompson):
In the Republican race, Giuliani holds big leads among both men and women, but women are much more on the fence. Among men, he leads with 33%, followed by McCain with 17%, Thompson with 12%, Romney with 9%, and 19% unsure. Among women, Giuliani wins 22%, while McCain wins 9%, Romney wins 8%, and Thompson and Ron Paul win 6% each. Fully 38% of Republican women are undecided on who they would support for their party’s nomination.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Which Presidential Candidate Said This? (Part 2)
Here is the second in my series of quotations from 2008 presidential candidates:
. . . . We're going to find the answer when schools once again train citizens. Schools exist in America and have always existed to train responsible citizens of the United States of America. We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do. . . .
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Which Presidential Candidate Said This? (Part 1)
The so-called peace movement certainly has the right to make Gandhi's way their way, but their efforts to make collective suicide American foreign policy just won't cut it in this country. When American's think of heroism, we think of the young American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, risking their lives to prevent another Adolph Hitler or Saddam Hussein. Gandhi probably wouldn't approve, but I can live with that.
Lester Hunt Joins Liberty and Power
Liberty and Power is delighted to welcome Lester Hunt, a distinquished scholar at the University of Wisconsin, and a long-time personal friend. As one of the leaders in the successful campaign to abolish speech codes at the University of Wisconsin (my alma mater), he will fit right in here. Lester's blog is well worth a visit.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Climate Change Mud Archives
Will the media report the final results?
The bottom of Turkey’s Lake Van is covered by a layer of mud several hundreds of metres deep. For climatologists this unprepossessing slime is worth its weight in gold: summer by summer pollen has been deposited from times long past. From it they can detect right down to a specific year what climatic conditions prevailed at the time of the Neanderthals, for example. These archives may go back as much as half a million years. An international team of researchers headed by the University of Bonn now wants to tap this treasure. Preliminary investigations have been a complete success: the researchers were able to prove that the climate has occasionally changed quite suddenly – sometimes within ten or twenty years.
Friday, March 9, 2007
Ron Paul on the Walter Reed Scandal
Paul pulls no punches in linking the scandal to our policy of interventionism overseas.
Nobody in Congress, much less in the presidential campaign, would ever make a speech like this. Click here and see the video on the right side of the screen.
Monday, March 5, 2007
David Horowitz calls Ron Paul a "Disgrace"
On reading this, I am reminded by that General Edward S. Bragg once said of Grover Cleveland that "We love him for the enemies he has made." The folks at the Frontpage appear to be getting worried about Ron Paul. Here is what Horowitz has to say about him:
Some of my best friends are libertarians and the greatest intellectual influence on me was Hayek. However, in practical political matters, libertarians tend to live in alternate universe, without regard for the real world consequences of their actions. Ron Paul – the only Libertarian in Congress – is a disgrace. He has waged a war against America’s war on terror, in lockstep with the left, and against the state of Israel, the frontline democracy in this war.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
James Bovard on the Blog Roll
We are pleased to announce that Liberty Fund has exchanged links with the legendary James Bovard and his new blog.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Kristol More Delusional Than Usual
Perhaps next time when William Kristol stops by at the White House he can take the opportunity to speak to the portraits on the wall and get some additional encouragement from Teddy, Woodrow, and Harry:
I have lots of conservative friends and often speak to Republican-leaning groups. I have something surprising to report: they're pretty cheerful. They're well aware that President Bush's numbers are terrible--and that Al Gore got an Academy Award. Yet my fellow conservatives and Republicans are pretty upbeat. After a rough 2006, conservative magazines are seeing an uptick in subscription renewals, right-wing websites are getting more hits, and Republican and conservative groups here at Harvard (yes, Harvard!) seem invigorated. What's going on? Here are five reasons conservatives and Republicans might have some cause for their cheer..1. The surge. Nothing was more demoralizing last year to supporters of the war than the sense that Bush was refusing to alter course out of misguided loyalty to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and General George Casey. The ouster of Rumsfeld and Casey and the announcement of a new strategy backed up by additional troops and a new commander, General David Petraeus, gave hope to those who still think success is possible in Iraq--which, polls show, is still a healthy majority of Republicans.
Monday, February 26, 2007
The Growth of Welfare As We Don't Know it
More than a decade ago, Bill Clinton pledged to end "welfare as we know it." Perhaps he did. But like Iraqi insurgency the welfare state has proven resilient, adaptable, and has continued to grow.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports the following:
The number of families receiving cash benefits from welfare has plummeted since the government imposed time limits on the payments a decade ago. But other programs for the poor, including Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits, are bursting with new enrollees.. Hat Tip Nick Gillespie at Hit and Run.The result, according to an Associated Press analysis: Nearly one in six people rely on some form of public assistance, a larger share than at any time since the government started measuring two decades ago....
[Bush administration official Wade] Horn noted that employment among poor single mothers is up and child poverty rates are down since the welfare changes in 1996, though the numbers have worsened since the start of the decade....
"The true goal of welfare to work programs should be self-sufficiency
Friday, February 23, 2007
The FCC Turns Eighty and the Road Not Taken
Eighty-years ago, Calvin Coolidge, in the one of the most unfortunate acts of his presidency, signed into the law creating the Federal Radio Commission (the original name of the current Federal Communications Commission). Though Coolidge signed it, the FRC was the brainchild of Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover.
It was a typical Hoover reform. During the 1920s, he was a dynamo of activism. In a few years, he had cajoled scores of local governments to assume ownership of airports as well as implement zoning.
Perhaps Hoover’s proudest accomplishment during this period, however, was to single-handedly expand federal authority over the radio spectrum. Historians have praised him for bringing “order” to electromagnetic chaos. In actuality, as Jesse Walker explains, he had short-circuited promising efforts to introduce property rights and true free speech to the airwaves.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Emmett Till Conspiracy Theory Debunked
For more than four years, the news media has publicized a sensational conspiracy theory that fourteen or more people took part in the murder of Emmett Till, and that five are still alive. I have criticized these claims on more than one occasion. The claim that fourteen or more people were involved was first popularized by filmmaker Keith Beauchamp. The late Ed Bradley gave it an uncritical stamp of approval in a hagiographic report for "60 Minutes." The general response of the news media was to accept the theory without question.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Coolidge on "Superman" Hoover
"Well, they're going to elect that superman Hoover, and he's going to have some trouble. He's going to have to spend money. But he won't spend enough.Then the Democrats will come in and they'll spend money like water. But they don't know anything about money. Then they will want me to come back and save some money for them. But I won't do it." Calvin Coolidge, 1927.
Quoted in Goerge N. Nash, "The 'Great Enigma' and the 'Great Engineer,: The Political Relationship of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover" in John Earl Haynes ed., Calvin Coolidge and the Coolidge Era: Essays on the History of the 1920s (Washington, D.C.: The Library of Congress, 1998), 168.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Gabriel Kolko Interview: He Prefers "McDonald's" to American Empire
In an excellent inteview, Scott Horton speaks at length with the author of The Triumph of Conservatism on the Iraq War and American foreign policy.
Perhaps Kolko in his old age is shedding his old Marxist/New Left views. He calls Lenin "a crank" and repeatedly opines that the U.S. will find "Donald Duck and McDonald's" to be far more effective in spreading American ideals than the current reliance on political empire. Listen to it here.
Has Hagel Shrugged?
What gives with Chuck Hagel? Few Senators had done more to push a non-binding resolution opposing the troop surge yet, when the zero hour came, he voted with the Bush administration to block such a resolution.
Can Hagel's behavior be explained or justified or is he a man who folds when the pressure is on?
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Lessons from Lodge Doctors
"Funny hats. Secret handshakes. What could these possibly have to do with today's discussion about the future of health care?"
For more, see today's piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer (in which yours truly is quoted).
Monday, January 29, 2007
U.S. Imperialism, No....But Yes to McDonalds
Foreigners apparently understand the distinction between the two:
Last week brought fresh evidence of America's fallen standing in the world: The BBC polled 26,000 people in 25 countries and found that less than a third regard U.S. influence as positive. But one symbol of America -- a more enduring one than President Bush, by far -- provided some more cheerful news. McDonald's reported its strongest business results in three decades, and brisk sales in supposedly anti-American countries were a large part of the reason.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
John Edwards Out-Hawks Bush on Iran
In 2003, John Edwards supported the Iraq war and now (that the polls have changed) has turned against it. Does this mean that Edwards has realized the folly of using the Middle East as an American chessboard for power politics? Not at all. Edwards is now out-hawking Bush on Iran. If Edwards gets his war, and it doesn't work out as planned, it is a safe bet, however, that he will reverse course yet again:
In his speech, Edwards criticised the United States' previous indifference to the Iranian issue, saying they have not done enough to deal with the threat.Hinting to possible military action, Edwards stressed that "in order to ensure Iran never gets nuclear weapons, all options must remain on table."
On the recent UN Security Council's resolution against Iran, Edwards said more serious political and economic steps should be taken. "Iran must know that the world won’t back down," he said.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Christians in Iraq Are Losing All Hope
Christians, who comprise forty percent of refugees from Iraq, though they are only five percent of that country's population, are voting with their feet.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Nevil Shute (1899-1960)
Perhaps no book gave greater inspiration to the anti-nuclear bomb movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s than On the Beach. The story, which appeared in 1957, had many elements which were prophetic, or near prophetic. Set in 1962 (the same year as the Cuban Missile Crisis), it depicted the aftermath of a nuclear exchange that was sparked by the Israeli-Arab conflict. The only survivors were the people of Australia and a few refugees including an American submarine crew. These survivors face doom in the rest of the novel, however, as the levels of radioactivity slowly, but inexorably, rise.
Although most of the political activists who drew inspiration from On the Beach were leftists, the author, Nevil Shute, counted himself as a friend of low taxes, entrepreneurship, and an enemy of socialism. Born on January 17, 1899 in London, Shute had a successful career as an aircraft engineer. He played an important role in the early development of airships and later founded his own aircraft construction company.
As a businessman and successful novelist, Shute understood the destructive impact of statism and high taxes on creativity. Several years after World War II, he fled to Australia because of his disgust with the policies of the Labour party. As the author of the introduction to one of his works wrote, Shute, “saw all the original acts of the Labour Government as stultifying to the initiative, designed to stifle the kind of technological creativeness he represented, designed to level down to mediocrity by legislation, rather than to elevate to freedom and better living by adventure and competition.”
Tucker Carlson Mea Culpa: With Apologies to Gus
The mea culpa applies to me, not Carlson. I must have been smoking something when I once wrote some kind words about Carlson. I was taken in by his repeated mantra to have "opposed the Iraq war from the beginning."
Carlson's defense of the troop surge, however, easily cancels out any good sense he ever showed on Iraq. Carlson's justification for escalation is that we need to counteract Iran. He never explains why this reasoning did not equally apply to the occupation in 2003.
I apologize to Gus Dizerega who warned me (see comments) that Carlson was not to be taken seriously.
Monday, January 15, 2007
The Younger MLK on Marx, the Individual, and Statism
This is an old blog but still worth repeating. The following is from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s book in 1957, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story Unfortunately, King later shed much of his earlier skepticism of Marx and statism, especially during his "Poor People's Campaign" phase:
During the Christmas holidays of 1949 I decided to spend my spare time reading Karl Marx to try to understand the appeal of communism for many people. For the first time I carefully scrutinized Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto. I also read some interpretative works on the thinking of Marx and Lenin. In reading such Communist writings I drew certain conclusions that have remained with me as convictions to this day. First, I rejected their materialistic interpretation of history. Communism, avowedly secularistic and materialistic, has no place for God. This I could never accept, for as a Christian, I believe that there is a creative personal power in the universe who is the ground and essence of all reality-a power that cannot be explained in materialistic terms. History is ultimately guided by spirit, not matter. Second, I strongly disagreed with communism's ethical relativism. Since for the Communist there is no divine government, no absolute moral order, there are no fixed, immutable principles; consequently almost anything-force, violence murder, lying-is a justifiable means to the 'millennial' end. This type of relativism was abhorrent to me. Constructive ends can never give absolute moral justification to destructive means, because in the final analysis the end is preexistent in the means.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
YouTube of the AHA Speech Code Debate
Rick Shenkman has a story for HNN on the debate and kindly provided a link here to a video showing yours truly. The clip is brief but has added entertainment value because of the obvious squirming of some our pro-speech code opponents in the background.
Monday, January 8, 2007
The AHA Wimps Out on Speech Codes
The business meeting of the American Historical Association easily voted down our proposed resolution opposing the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom. Our critics from last year who earnestly volunteered that they would support a resolution on this issue if proposed separately remained silent and probably voted against us. The results of the meeting further illustrate that those who set the agenda for the AHA subscribe to the theory of "academic freedom for me but not for thee."
I am told that the AHA emailed a YouTube link to members on the debate but I did not receive it. The Chronicle of Higher Education has a summary
Campus-speech-code opponents vowed to bring their own resolution to the 2007 meeting. Led by David T. Beito, an associate professor of history at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, and Ralph E. Luker, an independent scholar who blogs at the History News Network's Cliopatria blog, the resolution's proponents called on the association to "oppose the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom."As evidence, Mr. Beito circulated three recent news articles that he said demonstrated how universities have used "free-speech zones" to restrict student speech. The examples included an Associated Press article from December 17, 2006, reporting that two students at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro faced "disciplinary action for staging a protest about the campus 'free-speech zones' outside the free-speech zones."
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Count Down to Saturday's vote on AHA Speech Code Resolution
I'm off to the American Historical Association conference to interview candidates and fight for a resolution at the business meeeting on Saturday at 4:45 p.m. The resolution condemns the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom. Details here.
If you are an AHA member and can attend, the sponsors of the resolution need your help. It will be an uphill battle to get this passed but the potential pay-off for academic freedom of winning will be enormous.
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Will Smith Gets Subversive
I hereby give Pursuit of Happyness a glowing endorsement. It is a compelling, energetic, and unabashed celebration of free markets, individual responsibility, and old-fashioned pluck. Based on a true story, Will Smith plays Chris Gardner, a man who never lets up in his dream of becoming a stockbroker despite the responsibilities of a young son and the lack of a college education. Smith’s performance deserves an Oscar nomination, at least if merit still counts for anything in Hollywood.
While the critics have generally praised the film, it has rubbed some of them the wrong way. More than a few have found it hard to stomach the novelty of a sympathetic black character in a major Hollywood film who aspires to be a stockbroker and quotes Thomas Jefferson without irony or apology.
For example, Jeffrey M. Anderson sees a “disturbing...depression era attitude toward the class system. Here, the wealthy are mainly kind, generous folk and the poor are angry and vindictive. Gardner's ambition is admirable, but the movie dimly believes that great wealth is the final answer to all his problems.”
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Ethiopia's Other War: Gungrabbing and Genocide Against the Anuaks
Even as the Ethiopian government celebrates its victory in Mogadishu, it is stepping up a war of genocide against its own Anuak minority. While the Bush administration has praised the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia, it has shown a blind eye to these atrocities. As Dave Kopel, et al. points out, the war against the Anuaks also shows the horrific consequences of the UN's campaign against civilian gun ownership:
The central government, in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, has disarmed most of the Anuak, and even disarmed Anuak police officers. Ethiopia is among the East African nations which have promised to conduct campaigns against civilian gun ownership, as part of the United Nations-sponsored Nairobi Protocol. Like several other signers of the Nairobi Protocol (Rwanda, Uganda, Congo, Sudan), Ethiopia already had a well-established record of genocide against disarmed victims.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Vote on AHA Free Speech Resolution is Nine Days Away
The members of the American Historical Association will soon have a chance to send a powerful message that they oppose the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom.
In an article for HNN, Ralph E. Luker, one of the sponsors, sends a reminder to those historians who opposed a previous resolution linking speech codes and the Academic Bill of Rights as twin threats to academic freedom but volunteered to support a targeted resolution on speech codes.
All AHA members can vote at the business meeting which Saturday, January 6, 2007 in the Hilton Atlanta's Fulton/Cobb Rooms beginning at 4:45 p.m. Here is the resolution:
RESOLUTION OPPOSING THE USE OF SPEECH CODES TO RESTRICT ACADEMIC FREEDOMWhereas, The American Historical Association has already gone on record against the threat to academic freedom posed by the Academic Bill of Rights;
Whereas, Free and open discourse is essential to the success of research and learning on campus;
Whereas, Administrators and others have used campus speech codes and associated non-academic criteria to improperly restrict faculty choices on curriculum, course content, and personnel decisions; and
Whereas, Administrators and others have also used speech codes to restrict free and open discourse for students and faculty alike through such methods as "free speech zones" and censorship of campus publications; therefore be it
Resolved, That the American Historical Association opposes the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Give Me Tenure or Death
Maybe if I had tried this trick about 13 years ago, I'd be a full professor by now:
A black professor at MIT has threatened to go on a hunger strike and "die defiantly" outside the provost's office if the university does not grant him tenure, which he said was denied because of racism.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Get Out of Iraq Now! (Petition)
Howard Zinn and other prominent leftists are circulating this petition calling for an immediate U.S. pull-out from Iraq. The wording is pretty straightforward and mercifully free of statist jargon.
If you sign, make sure to say something about yourself in the blank on the right. Of course, feel free to use it to say that you are a Liberty and Power reader.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Chris Hayward R.I.P.
I had to say something about the passing of Chris Hayward, who was partly responsible for two of my childhood heroes, Rocky and Bullwinkle. I never missed a show and was proud that the main characters lived in my home state as residents of Frostbite Falls, Minnesota.
As I grew older, my affection for the duo grew even stronger when I came to understand the subversive nature of the show. I vaguely remember one episode that featured a visit to Earth by Martians. As the Martians made their rounds, the camera repeatedly cut away to a U.S. Senator who declared to the press that their visit was "a Communist plot." After hearing this several times, Bullwinkle finally asked, "Why do you think that this is a Communist plot?" Without missing a beat, the Senator responded, "I think that everything is a Communist plot."
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Obey: "A Lot of People Will Be Left Short"
This news is mildly encouraging:
Republican leaders left behind just enough spending authority to keep the government operating through mid-February, less than halfway through the 2007 fiscal year that began Oct. 1. Democrats have signaled that when they take control of Congress in January they will extend that funding authority for the remainder of the year based largely on the previous year's spending levels, which will result in many cuts in programs."A lot of people will be left short," Rep. David R. Obey said.
The Democrats also will do something that is certain to anger many lawmakers but cheer critics of excessive government spending: They will wipe out thousands of lawmakers' pet projects, or earmarks, that have been a source of great controversy on Capitol Hill. In the past, lawmakers have peppered individual spending bills with earmarks benefiting special interests. But the funding resolution the Democrats intend to pass in lieu of spending bills will be devoid of earmarks.
Via David E. Bernstein.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Will Bush Give More Power to Sadr's Evil Twin?
If you think that forcing Sadr out of the Iraqi government will be a win-win situation, think again. The likely result will be to give this scary dude even more power.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Free Speech Resolution on the Ballot at the AHA Meeting in Atlanta
Over thirty members of the American Historical Association endorsed a free speech resolution, more than enough to put it to a vote at the AHA business meeting in Atlanta on Saturday, January 6. Here it is:
RESOLUTION OPPOSING THE USE OF SPEECH CODES TO RESTRICT ACADEMIC FREEDOM
Whereas, The American Historical Association has already gone on record against the threat to academic freedom posed by the Academic Bill of Rights;
Whereas, Free and open discourse is essential to the success of research and learning on campus;
Whereas, Administrators and others have used campus speech codes and associated non-academic criteria to improperly restrict faculty choices on curriculum, course content, and personnel decisions; and
Whereas, Administrators and others have also used speech codes to restrict free and open discourse for students and faculty alike through such methods as "free speech zones" and censorship of campus publications; therefore be it
Resolved, That the American Historical Association opposes the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom.
Thursday, December 7, 2006
Academic Odd Couple Spar Over Lunch: Michael Bérubé and David Horowitz
Read the whole thing here. Did The Chronicle of Higher Education really need three tape recorders to capture it all? Oy vey.....
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
On Greatness and Tall Economists
The photo shows George Stigler on the left, Milton Friedman in the middle, and John Kenneth Galbraith on the right.
"All great economists are tall. There are two exceptions: John Kenneth Galbraith and Milton Friedman." --George J. Stigler
Via Catallarchy.
Saturday, December 2, 2006
Hagel and Bringing Back the Draft
Chuck Hagel is shaping up to be the favorite of antiwar libertarians for 2008. It is not hard to understand why. On a range of issues, from gun control to the Iraq War, he outshines the other candidates in both parties.
Before antiwar libertarians get too carried away, however, they should ponder what Hagel had to say in 2004 on bringing back the draft .
Thursday, November 30, 2006
More on Hagel from Washington Post
I don't know if I'd ever vote for Chuck Hagel but, thus far, he is clearly the best candidate in a depressing presidential field. Here
is what David Ignatius has to say in the Washington Post:
What would make a Hagel candidacy interesting is that he can claim to have been right about Iraq and other key issues earlier than almost any national politician, Republican or Democratic. Though a Vietnam veteran and a hawk on many national security issues, he had prescient misgivings about the Iraq war -- and, more important, the political courage to express these doubts clearly, at a time when many politicians were running for cover.POSTSCRIPT:
Because of Hagel's misgivings about the military industrial complex, Igantius depicts him is an Eisenhower Republican. I hope he is wrong. A more hopeful comparison would be between Hagel and his fellow Nebraskan, Howard Buffett. Time will tell.
Monday, November 27, 2006
The Nation on Chuck Hagel, Republicans, and Iraq
In the last few weeks, the bloggers at Liberty and Power (see here and here ) have taken note of the Iraq war skepticism of Nebraska conservative Republican Senator Chuck Hagel. Now, the Nation blog has gotten into the act. In an informative piece on Hagel, John Nichols sends a wake-up call to leftists:
The honest answer is an unsettling one.
Right now, Hagel is sounding more realistic and responsible than most if not all of the Democrats who are positioning themselves for 2OO8 presidential runs. Indeed, with Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, the first senator to call for an withdrawal timeline, out of the running, Democrats could use a candidate who speaks as directly as does Hagel about the need to get out of Iraq. While it is true that Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who may or may not be running, is a Democrat who has started to make some of the right noises, Obama has not begun to equal the directness of Hagel's declaration that: "The time for more U.S. troops in Iraq has passed. We do not have more troops to send and, even if we did, they would not bring a resolution to Iraq. Militaries are built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations. We are once again learning a very hard lesson in foreign affairs: America cannot impose a democracy on any nation -- regardless of our noble purpose." Democrats should be asking themselves: Why is a Republican taking the lead on the issue that played such a pivotal role in putting Democrats in charge of the House and Senate?
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Smug, Self-Satisfied Liberals and "Borat"
Keith Halderman has praised the movie "Borat" as an example of perceptive social commentary. Lester Hunt, by contrast, regards it as soothing tonic for the smug liberal:
In the Borat movie there is nothing, from one end to the other, that is the least bit threatening to the Western liberal point of view. It's all about what what racist, homophobic, antisemitic jerks all the people in the world who are not Western liberals -- from Middle-Eastern Muslims to red state Americans -- are. If you are a Western liberal, this movie is very favorable to your Self and very unfavorable to the Other. How stupid it is, how nasty, how unlike you and me!
Some of the liberal reviewers of Borat said the movie made them think. What it made them think, of course, was that their old opinions are even more true than they always thought they were. What it made me think is how similar Western liberalism can be to the narrow ideologies that it piously denounces.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Non-Voters Score Higher in 2006
Unusually long lines? Increased voter anger? Apparently not so much. Despite much fanfare on election day, one of the neglected stories of the last two weeks is that a lower percentage of eligible voters turned out in 2006 than in the 2002 midterm election.
Scott Horton: KAOS Report
If you want the latest on Iraq and WOT from an antiwar/libertarian perspective, check out Scott Horton's weekly KAOS report at 5:00 p.m. central time. Horton is intelligent, well-informed, combative, and appears to have a photographic memory. His show can be streamed here.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Et Tu Krauthammer?
Few have more consistent records as cheerleaders for Bush's democracy project than Charles Krauthammer. Now, the good doctor tells us the following:
We have given the Iraqis a republic and they do not appear able to keep it.
This is a grim assessment but if anyone is expecting Krauthammer to shoulder part of the blame for his role in this disaster they will be disappointed.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Milton Friedman has Died
A sad day for liberty. See here.
Hype and Reality in the Emmett Till Case
The re-opened Emmett Till case is coming to a head. When it finally happens, it be after more than two years of wild speculation and wishful thinking. In 2004, a poorly researched, but much touted, "60 Minutes" piece indicated that half a dozen or so, mostly unnamed, individuals could still be prosecuted.
As L and P readers know, I have long disputed these claims. Now, it increasingly appears that the final report by investigators will throw cold water on the hypesters. By all indications, the prosecutor's focus has narrowed almost entirely to Carolyn Bryant, the wife of one of the accused killers. Even prosecution of Bryant (in my view) is unlikely.
Ouch!
Here is what Ralph Luker over at Cliopatria has to say about the latest from David Horowitz:
Only a pretentious, overpaid, windbag quotes himself in the third person. Or, does someone else write this crap for you, David?
Monday, November 13, 2006
Thoreau on Majorities and Voting
"Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority."
Henry David Thoreau, "Essay on Civil Disobedience."
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Is Chuck Hagel The GOP's Best Hope To Hold the White House?
After their well-deserved electoral beating, the Republicans might finally begin some soul searching on their present course. They may event take a second look at the presidential campaign of Senator Chuck Hagel .
A Vietnam veteran and pioneer in the cellular phone industry, Hagel has long been a thoughtful Iraq War skeptic. His free market credentials are pretty solid (for a Republican), especially when compared to Giuliani, McCain, and Mitt "government mandated insurance" Romney. Here is a blog which is promoting Hagel's campaign for president.
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
An Election Day Thought From Henry David Thoreau
"What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and inhuman, that practically I have never fairly recognized that it concerns me at all.....I have not got to answer for having read a single President's Message. A strange age of the word this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-beggin to a private man's door and utter their complaints at his elbow! I cannot take up a newspaper but I find that some wretched goverment or other, hard pushed, and on its last legs, is interceding with me, the reader, to vote for it, - more inportunate than an Italian beggar."
Henry David Thoreau, "Life Without Principle," in Brooks Atkinson, ed., Walden and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau (New York: The Modern Library, 1992), 768.
Thursday, November 2, 2006
Hey Libertarian Party: It's the War Stupid!
The latest issue of Reason (link apparently not available) has appeals from assorted Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians on who deserves the votes of libertarians.
At a time when most Americans want to exit from Iraq, Terry Michael, the Democratic Party defender, hits the mark (at least rhetorically). He depicts the Democrats as the best hope "to keep the government out of the bedroom, and hopefully out of Iraq."
By contrast, William Redpath, in his brief for the Libertarian Party, says nothing at all about Iraq or even Bush's use of the WOT to launch an assault on civil liberties.
Instead, Redpath's top reason for voting LP is "electoral reform." Oy vey.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Mallard Fillmore on Columbia University Free Speech Fumbles
Mallard Fillmore has weighed in on the recent failures of Columbia University to adequately protect free speech.
Via FIRE's The Torch.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Demise of the Warblogs, Rise of the Antiwarblogs
In 2001 and 2002, blogging pioneers, many of them self-described libertarians, such as Glenn Reynolds and Matt Welch, also pioneered in creation of the "warblog."
They exuberantly urged on and applauded the invasion. After that, they dependably celebrated each "milestone" on the ever forward march to liberty and democracy and chronicled (repeatedly) the "last throes" of the insurgents.
Now, the warbloggers seem in disarray and dispirited. The word "Iraq" has not appeared in Matt Welch's officially designated "warblog" for several weeks. While links to to pro-war news stories still appear on Instapundit, the old cockiness rarely shows itself. Of late, Reynolds' main preoccupation is to justify his votes for politicians in Tennessee, down apparently to the level of sewer commissioner.
Little Green Footballs, once considered a leading warblog, has also moved on. Posts on Iraq, even of the "good news" sort, are few and far between these days. Instead, readers get a numbing update of every real or imagined "islamofascist" inroad in Paris or Minneapolis. LGF has said next to nothing, however, on the latest islamofascist inroads in the Iraqi or Afghan governments.
As the warblogs have lost their nerve, the antiwarblogs (to coin an ugly word) have gained credibility. They consistently opposed the Iraq War and have pushed ever since for rapid withdrawal. Several members of Liberty and Power have their own antiwarblogs including Radley Balko, Chris Sciabarra, Sheldon Richman, Wendy McElroy, Gus DiZerega, Roderick Long, and Gene Healy.
Other libertarian or libertarian-oriented antiwarbloggers worth mentioning include Jesse Walker, Arthur Silber, Jim Henley, Alina Stefanescu, Justin Logan, Karen DeCoster, and, of course, the members of Stress, LRC Blog, Antiwar.com, and Liberating Our Heritage. Have I missed anyone?
ADDENDUM: Matt Welch was not a good illustrative example. Jesse Walker and Matt Barganier point out in the comments that he (apparently) never endorsed the war, but took an "agnostic" position.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Occupiers Setting Up Democracies: Not So Rare
Over at Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen makes the following assumption:
Modeling the current Iraq is difficult for a few reasons. It is rare for an occupying power to set up a democracy, so historical data are scarce. In any case this is not the world of MacArthur and postwar Japan.
This does not bear clear scrutiny. It is not rare at all for occupying powers to set up democracies. The British, and to a lesser extent the French, did so on multiple occasions when granting independence to their colonies in the decades after World War II. The results were not generally encouraging, however. Most of these new democracies, especially in Africa, soon gave way to kleptocratic and/or ethnic/religious dominated dicatorships.
India is a rare exception but it has a history that differs significantly from Iraq and the African colonies. Like Japan, and unlike Iraq, an overwhelming majority of India's population comes from a single ethnic/religious group and the concept of nationhood dates back for centuries.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Marquette Free Speech Outrage and the Upcoming AHA Resolution on Speech Codes
The current controversy at Marquette University reveals once again how administrators, armed with speech codes, pose a continuing threat to academic freedom. It also underlines the need for the members of the American Historical Association to approve the proposed resolution (see below) against the use of speech codes to violate academic freedom.
As Anthony Gregory discussed here earlier, the philosophy department chair, James South, removed a note from the office door of Stuart Ditsler, a graduate student teaching assistant. The note, which South deemed "patently offensive," stated:
As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful, and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Jonah Goldberg: Invading Iraq was a "Mistake"
Yes, he really admits that it was a "mistake" though, lest anyone think he is joining the antiwar movement, he considers it a "worthy" one.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
The 101st Fighting Keyboarders
Using the ever reliable Ken Burns template, "The 101st Fighting Keyboarders" is an often hilarious documentary send-up of such warblogs and warbloggers as Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds, Powerpoint, Little Green Footballs, and Ann Coulter (not really a blogger).
Click here to view.
One factual flaw, as Justin Raimondo points out, it that Robert Novak is mistakenly depicted as a supporter of the Iraq War. Still, this is a lot of fun.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Dalton Got His Gun
History surveys of the 1940s and 1950s have often lionized the victims the anti-Communist witchhunts. They more rarely mention, however, those prominent victims of this Second Red Scare who were victimizers during the less publicized "Brown Scare of World War II. Dalton Trumbo, who went to jail for several months during the Cold War for refusing to "name names," especially excelled as a Brown Scare witchhunter.
Trumbo first achieved fame in 1939 as the author of the antiwar novel, Johnny Got His Gun.
Once Hitler invaded Russia, however, the pro-Communist Trumbo threw aside his antiwar views, as well as concern for the protection of civil liberties. According to his biography on the Internet Movie Data Base,
Trumbo voluntarily invited FBI agents to his house in 1944 and showed them letters he had received from what he perceived were pro-fascist peaceniks who had requested copies of "Johnny Got His Gun", which was now out-of-print due to Trumbo's own orders to his publisher. He turned those letters over to the FBI (thus, effectively "naming names") and later kept in contact with the Bureau (that would later haunt blacklisted leftists), urging that the F.B.I. deal with them. His actions conformed to the CPUSA policy of denouncing anyone who opposed the war. Trumbo instructed his publisher
to recall all copies of "Johnny Got His Gun" and to cease publication of the book....
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Wanted: More Signers for AHA Free Speech Resolution
We still need more signers for our resolution(shown below) opposing the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom. It will be voted on at the January business meeting of the American Historical Association in Atlanta. To get the resolution on the agenda, however, twenty-five paid-up members have to sign before October 13.
Write as soon as possible to David T. Beito at dbeito@bama.ua.edu if you are willing to sign and belong to the AHA.
RESOLUTION ON SPEECH CODES AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM
Whereas, The American Historical Association has already gone on record against the threat to academic freedom posed by the Academic Bill of Rights; and
Whereas, Free and open discourse is essential to the success of research and learning on campus; and
Whereas, Administrators and others have used campus speech codes and associated non-academic criteria to improperly restrict faculty choices on curriculum, course content, and personnel decisions; and
Whereas, Administrators and others have also used speech codes to restrict free and open discourse for students and faculty alike through such methods as "free speech zones" and censorship of campus publications; therefore be it
Resolved, The American Historical Association opposes the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom.
Friday, October 6, 2006
Ramsey and FIRE Defend Academic Freedom at Bellevue Community College
Bruce Ramsey, the leading expert on life and work of the great classical liberal, Garet Garrett, has written a hard-hitting column for the Seattle Times defending the academic freedom of Professor Peter Ratener of Bellevue Community College.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has also taken up the case. Here is an account by Robert E. Shibley at FIRE's The Torch:
For those who don’t remember, Professor Ratener had the misfortune to write a math exam question that involved both a watermelon and a person named Condoleezza, leading to punishment from his college. Ramsey’s column looks at the issue from the perspective of other Bellevue professors—and what he finds isn’t good news for those who care about free speech on campus. Key quote:
“What I learned last spring,” says a BCC prof, “is that if I offend somebody, intentionally or not, and that person goes to the media, I’m screwed."
As readers of L and P recall, Bellevue Community College responded to the Ratener case by hiring the notorious Glenn E. Singleton to provide mandatory Maoist-style diversity traing for faculty.
Thursday, October 5, 2006
URGENT: Twenty-Five AHA Members Needed to Sign Free Speech Resolution
At the upcoming Atlanta conference of the American Historical Association, a group of historians will propose a strongly worded resolution (shown below) opposing the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom. The vote will take place at the business meeting for the general membership on Saturday, January 6, 2007 in the Fulton/Cobb Room at the Atlanta Hilton.
To get the resolution on the agenda, however, twenty-five paid-up members have to sign it before October 13.
Those members who are willing to do so should write as soon as possible to David T. Beito at dbeito@bama.ua.edu. Please respond today. There is no margin for error.
RESOLUTION ON SPEECH CODES AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM
Whereas, The American Historical Association has already gone on record against the threat to academic freedom posed by the Academic Bill of Rights; and
Whereas, Free and open discourse is essential to the success of research and learning on campus; and
Whereas, Administrators and others have used campus speech codes and associated non-academic criteria to improperly restrict faculty choices on curriculum, course content, and personnel decisions; and
Whereas, Administrators and others have also used speech codes to restrict free and open discourse for students and faculty alike through such methods as "free speech zones" and censorship of campus publications; therefore be it
Resolved, The American Historical Association opposes the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom.
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Jim Henley on Coulson's Confusion with the Facts
See here for Jim Henley's take on Andrew Coulson's blog which I have already discussed.
Don't Confuse Me With the Facts
Andrew J. Coulson, the director of the Cato Institutes's Center for Educational Freedom, wrote a fine book, Market Education: The Untold Story. In it, he presents a careful fact-based case arguing for the superiority of private over governmental schools. In the tradition of Karl Popper, he offers a thesis that is "falsifiable" e.g. it is subject to testing and thus can, at least in theory, be proven wrong through a counterargument.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Is Lysander Spooner's Ghost Working for the AARP?
Is the ghost of Lysander Spooner working as an advertising executive at the AARP? Even if he isn't, the AARP's "don't vote campaign" is still delightfully subversive, even if unintentionally so.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Libertarians on HAW "Teach-in" list for October 17-19
Historians Against the War is encouraging faculty across the country to organize national "teach-ins" on the war for October 17-19. The list of recommended speakers includes two libertarians, myself and Bill Marina, formerly of L and P.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Bush, Ever the True Believer, Describes Iraq as "Just a Comma"
And they call antiwar libertarians starry-eyed ideologues? Even at their most delusional, they can't match statements like these.
Despite daily reports of slaughter, torture, Islamic oppression, and ethnic strife from Iraq, our true believer president proves that he will not deviate in the slightest from his 2003 talking points.
In an interview that ran on Sunday, he told the following to Wolf Blitzer:
“I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iran — Iraq — it will look like just a comma because there is — my point is, there’s a strong will for democracy, these people want a unity government, the unity government’s functioning.”
Sunday, September 24, 2006
The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism
My old friend, historian C. Bradley Thompson, recently appointed to a plum position at Clemson University, has a fascinating piece in the current issue of The Objective Standard on the Bush admininstration's unashamed embrace of big government conservatism.
This isn't just a recap of other articles on this topic. Thompson covers new ground.
Thompson gathers together the facts and figures of how government has grown under Bush. He then moves on to the central role played by neocons but, unlike most commentators, does not limit his focus to foreign policy. Thompson explores how neocons almost singlehandedly converted the GOP to a pro-welfare state party in theory as well as practice.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Insurgents in "Liberated Iraq" Become More Popular
"Liberated Iraq" continues to live up to its growing reputation as an incubator for fundamentalists, suicide bombers, fascists, and assorted Iranophiles. Even the most dogged publicizers of "good news" in Iraq will have difficulty spinning this, though, no doubt, they will give it their very best try:
Officials won't say how the assessment was made but found that support for the insurgency has never been higher, with approximately 75 percent of the country's Sunni Muslims in agreement.
When the Pentagon started surveying Iraqi public opinion in 2003, Sunni support for the insurgents stood at approximately 14 percent. A confidential Pentagon assessment finds that an overwhelming majority of Iraq's Sunni Muslims support the insurgency that has been fighting against U.S. troops and the Iraqi government, ABC News has learned.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Raimondo on Pope Benedict
I have often disagreed with Raimondo but his defense of Pope Benedict has much merit.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Happy Birthday, Theodore Schroeder
The greatest champion of free speech at the dawn of the twentieth century was born on this day in 1864.
Friday, September 15, 2006
FIRE Shines the Spotlight on Bellevue
The decision of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) to take on an academic freedom case at Bellevue Community College in Washington is welcome news. A byproduct is to publicize the many abuses inflicted by the college's program of mandatory diversity training.
As already discussed here, the college has signed a contract with Glenn Singleton's firm, Pacific Educational Group, which typically receives six figures for its "diversity training" services. Part of the deal is a requirement that faculty attend "Courageous Conservations" seminars on racism.
In addition to ensuring a captive audience to hear Singleton's peculiar interpretation of Huckleberry Finn, these seminars invite comparisons to the methods used during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. For example, participants in "Courageous Conversations" typically have to humiliate themselves by wearing signs showing numerical scores that reveal the extent of their alleged racism.
Hopefully, the new publicity will lead the faculty at Bellevue Community College to finally say enough is enough and tell Singleton and his associates to pack up and go home.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Conservatives Call for a GOP Defeat in November
The latest Washington Monthly features several articles from "conservatives," including Joe Scarborough, Bruce Fein, William Niskanen, and Bruce Bartlett, centered on the theme that it is "Time for Us to Go."
It may be well past "time" in a moral sense but will it actually happen? I am dubious. Much as the Bush administration richly deserves a black eye for its statist sins, I suspect that the GOP will hold its own in November.
The first signs of a Republican rebound are all around. Oil prices seem likely to fall even more and Bush could well contain the mess in Iraq for a few more months because of his deployment of additional troops (now about 145,000!).
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Historians Against the War Welcomes Libertarians
David Montgomery a founder and leading member of Historians Against the War, has given libertarian and conservative critics of the Iraq War an excellent reason to support the efforts of that organization. His response to a survey of the membership stated the following (my emphasis in bold):
I remain cautious, however, about taking organizational stands on some of the other issues mentioned as possible targets of HAW activity, especially the socio-economic impact of imperialism. From the outset HAW has encompassed historians with divergent political views, among them quite a number of conservative libertarians. We must try not only to keep our ranks diverse but united. We should welcome open discussion of such issues, but limit the extent to which we take organizational stands. There are, after all, other organizations that quite properly represent their particular analyses and viewpoints. HAW's aim should always be to involve as many historians as possible and to make them feel at home, without in any way prescribing or stifling particular analyses of US power or interpretations of what is now called "globalization."
Excellent! Montgomery's statement is not the only reason for libertarians and conservatives to consider joining HAW. I received a highly encouraging email response from Carolyn "Rusti" Eisenberg, a member of HAW's steering committee, to a suggestion that libertarians and conservatives be included in the group's recommended list of speakers.
Membership doesn't cost a cent and you don't have to be a professional historian to join. All you have to do is sign this statement.
Thursday, September 7, 2006
Destroying a Shill: Tucker Carlson Humiliates David Brock
In this video, Tucker Carlson, who has described himself as a libertarian and a critic of the Iraq war, shows his mettle as a journalist. He thoroughly humiliates former rightwing (and current leftwing) hit-man, David Brock.
No doubt, the pro-war bloggers now praising Carlson's doggedness in this interview will soon flip-flop when he gives one of their heroes the same treatment.
Beautifully executed.
Liberty and Power at Wikipedia
Check it out.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
More on the New Jim Crow "Survivor."
Over at Positive Liberty, Jason Kuznicki rightly slams the new Jim Crow "Survivor" which I discussed here a couple of days ago.
Insofar as race is a physical phenomenon, it means almost nothing. In almost all cases, a person’s blood type is a more medically salient fact than his race. And in every single case, a person’s particular family history, his social environment, his habits, his specific genetic makeup, and his medical history will yield facts that his race could only vaguely hint at.
As to its cultural significance, race means only what we make it mean. Race, in the cultural sense, is an agreed set of meanings, values, and attributes that we — lazy humans — apply to those around us, typically based on their skin color and other superficial physical features. We make these racial meanings both descriptively (by declaring that members of a racial group are X) and performatively (by acting according to X, since, for our own racial group, it is the path of least resistance).
The content of our racial thinking may be relatively innocuous — believing that black people like, or should like, jazz. Or it may be utterly depraved — believing that the Jewish race is fit only to be exterminated. Either way, though, these are things that we have created. They possess no other reality.
The idea that an experiment in segregation has anything interesting to tell us about the human condition is deeply offensive. As it applies to humans, race may have either physiological or cultural meanings. The first set of meanings is almost completely trivial; the second set is at best demeaning — and at worst totalitarian.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Will the New Jim Crow "Survivor" Revive the "One-Drop Rule?"
Jim Crow is alive and well at CBS. The network has announced that contestants in the next "Survivor" will be divided into ethnic "tribes" including a black team, a white team, a Hispanic team and an Asian team.
“I think we have gotten to a point where it is politically incorrect to talk about race,” reader Jim Carmignani noted on the message board. “Perhaps this will help rejuvenate conversation and understanding.”
If Carmignani wants a "conversation" on race, this scenario certainly will start it off with some intriguing questions. What will be done about people of mixed black/white ancestry? Will the producers of "Survivor" assign them to the black team on the basis of the "one-drop" rule as used in the Homer Plessy case? Will the segregation be extended to separate drinking fountains and restrooms? Will contestants who drop out be considered "traitors to their race?"
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Forgotten Republican Vietnam Doves
Eugene Siler was not alone. Kudos to Ralph E. Luker for calling attention to this article on the forgotten role played by Republican opponents of the Vietnam War.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
The Christian Conservative Who Opposed the Vietnam War
Here is my HNN article (co-authored by Linda Royster Beito) on Eugene Siler, the only member of the U.S. House to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution:
To the extent a religious right of any kind existed in 1964, Eugene Siler easily qualified as a platinum card member. In his nine years in the U.S. House, he was unrivaled in his zeal to implement “Christianism and Americanism.” Yet forty-two years ago this month, on August 7, 1964, he did something that would be extremely rare for a modern counterpart on the religious right. He dissented from a president’s urgent request to authorize military action in a foreign war. It was Siler who cast the lone vote in the U.S. House against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Because he “paired against” the bill (meaning he was absent during the vote), however, most historical accounts do not mention him.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Carnival of Bad History
Liberty and Power is hosting the Carnival of Bad History for August. We are honored to perform this task. Fortunately, we have a lot a good material to work with this month. Here are the submissions:
Prejudice is the ultimate "quagmire" faced by historians as they write their accounts. Abu Sahajj explores Jane Tompkins' approach to this issue.
What does Ayn Rand have to do with booksignings at Colonial Williamsburg? Edward Cline has the answer.
Joe Kissell calls attention to the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, a document written in code of over two hundred pages from the thirteenth century. It drawings of women, and doodles leading Kissell to wonder if it is a lost student notebook. Is it real or is it fake and, if so, why do we care?
Another internet urban legend bites the dust. This time it is a bogus ceremony for folding old glory. Millard Fillmore's bathtub has the lowdown here and here.
At Frog in the Well, Jonathan Dresner considers it absurd to weave together modern concepts of international law and distant historical events to justify (or challenge) the current legal status of Taiwan.
Sergey Romanov has several posts on Holocaust-related issues. He asks what the Soviets knew about Auschwitz and discusses recent attacks on Holocaust survivors and shows how the Babiy Yar and other controversies (here , here and here) illustrates how Holocaust revisionism is really another name for Holocaust denial.
Chuck Russell finds that making submissions to Carnival is a great way to get noticed by search engines. I'll have to remember this.
Morgen Jahanke notes that the success of the Da Vinci Code has spurred sales of books on similar themes.
In a tongue-in-check open letter to Capital One, Jeffrey Cohen rises to the defense of the Vikings and other "barbarians" in that company's commercials.
Finally, Mark H. Delfs tells us how K-Y Jelly got its name.
Friday, August 18, 2006
"Libertarian" Talk-Show Host Needs "Help" (Warrantless Wiretaps)
I made the mistake of listening this morning to Neal Boortz, a self-described libertarian radio call-in host who is also a consistent defender of Bush's foreign policy. He was talking to a pro-administration lawyer (I didn't catch his name) who waxed outraged about the ruling against the NSA's warrantless wiretaps.
As expected, Boortz provided a sympathetic ear. The conversation suddenly took an unpredictable turn, however, when Boortz asked the lawyer to "help me." Boortz said he needed to come up with an "answer" to a common criticism of the wiretaps. Why, he asked, did Bush need this authority since the law gave him unchecked power to wiretap for up to 72 hours?
The lawyer seemed dumbfounded by the question, mumbling something to the effect that he was not an expert on that issue and that others knew better than he. Finally, he struggled to regain his righteous indignation. He pronounced that it was "obvious" that any restriction on NSA power was illegitimate because "the president's" motivation in such cases was always the protection of national security and could never be criminal.
Boortz, who built his ratings base by portraying President Clinton as a power-mad, raping, enemy of liberty, meekly backed off and that was that.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
The Great Fundamentalist Crack-up on Foreign Policy?
Maybe not yet but some hairline cracks can be detected. This trend deserves more attention from antiwar critics. While still a small minority among their brethren, more mainstream fundamentalists than ever are questioning the basis of American foreign policy in the Middle East. An example is Stephen Sizer, the author of Christian Zionism: Road-Map to Armageddon?
Sizer rejects the bloodcurdling, and melodramatic "end times" scenarios of premillennialists like Hal Lindsey as based on a flawed interpretation of Biblical prophecies. He subscribes to a theology that most of these prophecies either do not apply to current events or were fullfilled thousands of years ago. Sizer urges fundamentalists to build bridges to Arab Christians who he sees as potential peacemakers in the conflict between Muslim and Jew.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
What Did the Soviets Know About Auschwitz and When?
For more, see here.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Poll of Members by Historians Against the War: My Response
I am a longtime member of Historians Against the War, a group formed in 2003 to oppose the Iraq War. Joining is extremely simple and does not cost a cent. All you have to do to do is sign this statement.
The steering committee of HAW is now polling members on whether HAW should take “positions on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, U.S. threats to Syria and Iran, the so-called 'global war on terror,' and the socio-economic impact of empire on the United States."(Go here to respond). Here is my answer.
Let's stick to a narrow gauge approach. Going beyond this on the Israel question will threaten to needlessly divide our membership and cut us off from potential allies. While individual members of HAW should be free to make such connections, the organization itself must remain focused on the unifying goal of opposition to the Iraq war. I write this as a long-time opponent of U.S. aid to Israel.For similar reasons, a narrow gauge approach makes even more sense on highly divisive domestic issues related to the "socio-economic impact of empire in the United States." No matter what "positions" HAW endorses, the effect will be to push away members and potential members.
For example, if HAW calls for more domestic spending on government programs or increased economic regulation, it will alienate antiwar conservatives and libertarians who support smaller government, freer markets, and lower taxes. Many of these conservatives and libertarians regard the Iraq war as an illustration of the dangers of an expanding "welfare/warfare state."
While we should never be afraid to express individual opinions on these questions, it would be a fatal strategic mistake for any of us to try to impose our views on the other members by forcing HAW to take a "one size fits all" organizational stand.
Please note that a change in HAW's policy will only detract from the stated goal of HAW leaders to build bridges to conservative and libertarians and show greater sensitivity to their concerns.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
A Research Motherload Now Available
This is great! Ralph E. Luker reports that the public, via Worldcat, now has wide open online access to countless items in over 10,000 libraries around the world. See here to partake.
Sunday, August 6, 2006
Racial Gap in IQ Scores Narrows
An article in Science News reports the following:
A statistical analysis of four national intelligence tests indicates that the difference in scores between blacks and whites decreased by about a third between 1972 and 2002. The findings challenge a century-old argument that the racial gap in performance on IQ tests is primarily genetic and therefore invulnerable to social change, say the researchers who performed the new study.They examined data that have only recently become available to researchers, says William Dickens of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Using test results from a random distribution of people in the United States, he and James R. Flynn of the University of Otago in New Zealand tallied the increases in IQ scores of blacks and whites over 3 decades. Each of the four tests analyzed included two or three groups of people that took the test at different times.
Saturday, August 5, 2006
American Indians or Native Americans?
"The one thing I've always maintained is that I'm an American Indian. I'm not politically correct. Everyone who's born in the Western Hemisphere is a Native American. We are all Native Americans." Russell Means.
Thursday, August 3, 2006
Where Are The Young Libertarian Historians?
Put another way, how many libertarians under age thirty-five are professionally trained as historians? My reasonably educated guess is that the number is not only miniscule but dwindling with each passing year.
It was not always so. Around 1989, I attended a conference organized by Leonard Liggio of the Institute for Humane Studies that brought together a group of promising young libertarian historians including Hans Eichholz, Lenore Thomas Ealy, Brad Birzer, Peter Mentzel, Steve Davies, John Majewski, David Fitzsimons, Brad Thompson, and Michael Allen.
Although most of our fellow academic libertarians were in economics, philosophy, and law, we all felt (or, at least I felt) like pioneers on an exciting and expanding intellectual frontier. Since then, most of us have made a pretty good account of ourselves in terms of publishing and teaching. But, if the truth be told, we have also failed. For whatever reason, few younger people want to follow in our footsteps, at least as libertarian-oriented historians.
Monday, July 31, 2006
The Antiwar Hayekians Proven Right Again
Taking their cues from the insights of F.A. Hayek, antiwar libertarians warned in 2003 that the Iraq war would produce unintended consequences for those who supported it. One of the chief hopes of pro-war conservatives and libertarians at the time was the prospect of new allies for the U.S. in the Middle East.
Three years later, this is not proving to be the case, even among the Kurds, much praised as "loyal friends" of the United States.
President Talabani, a Sunni Kurd, has now joined the parade of Iraqi leaders who have cast their lot with Hezbollah.
According to a news report, he has expressed "sympathy and support to our brothers in Lebanon against the Israeli aggression......We support them in getting rid of the effects of this aggression and imposing their sovereignty."
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Smugglers All
Americans should take pride that John Hancock, a signer of the Declaration and Independence and financier of the revolution, was a smuggler par excellence but now it appears that his British counterparts were playing both sides of the street.
In an article for the American Journal of Sociology, Emily Erikson and Peter Bearman assert that the East India Company, the nemesis of Hancock and other Americans, was a hornet’s nest of smuggling. Smuggling not only helped the company’s bottom line but gave an early boost to global trade.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Reply to Somin on Libertarians and the Iraq War
Here is my take on Ilya Somin’s thoughtful discussion over at Volokh about possible reasons for the split between pro and antiwar libertarians. Somin's comments are highlighted.
One possibly theory is that this disagreement tracks the longstanding division between those who endorse an absolutist interpretation of libertarian principle versus those who take a maximizing approach. Wars clearly lead to violations of rights to life, liberty, and property. If you are a deontological absolutist who believes it is always (or almost always) wrong to violate such rights regardless of consequences, then that gives you a logical reason to oppose virtually any war, possibly excepting a strictly defensive one, with "defense" defined very narrowly. … However, it is not clear to me that the longstanding absolutist vs. maximizing division among libertarians fully accounts for the split or even that being absolutist or a maximizer is a good predictor of individual libertarians' positions on the war.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Buckley Denounces Bush's Iraq Policy
Could Bill Buckley be coming back full circle to the attitudes of his "isolationist" teen years? Thanks to Ralph E. Luker for the tip.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Quote of the Day
"When a 'society' will sell an infant out of its mother's arms it has gone about as far as it can go (short perhaps of downright cannibalism) in the perversion of 'commercial transactions.'"
Isabel Paterson, New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review 7, October 5, 1947, 18.
Friday, July 14, 2006
That Elusive Atlas Shrugged Movie
Atlas Shrugged is said to be on track . It is planned as a trilogy and Angelina Jolie is the current favorite for Dagny.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Iraq's "Islamist" Parliament Speaker Denounces "Jews"
The speaker of Iraq's parliament has charged that "Jews" are causing Iraq's civil strife. He adds that "No one deserves to rule Iraq other than Islamists."
Any guesses on how the warbloggers, like Glenn Reynolds, will spin this latest example of blowback, assuming that they even mention it?
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Brushes with Greatness in Mississippi: Pictures
As I mentioned earlier, my wife, Linda Royster Beito, and I had some recent brushes with greatness. We had a chance to spent some time with actress Ruby Dee, wife of the late Ossie Davis and Myrna Colley-Lee ,who is Morgan Freeman’s wife.
Our host was Ifa Bayeza , who invited us to attend a panel discussion at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson her upcoming play Till, based on the life of Emmett Till. National outrage over Till’s murder in 1955 and the acquittal of his killers gave an important spur to the modern civil rights movement.
We are writing a biography of T.R.M. Howard, a black surgeon, entrepreneur, fraternal leader, and civil rights organizers who played a key role in finding witnesses and evidence in the hope of convicting Till‘s killers. We have also have written here about our views on the case.
Colley-Lee will be the costume designer for the play.
Sunday, July 9, 2006
Are the Portland Pragmatists Impractical Idealists in Disguise?
A gallup poll just found that two thirds of all Americans support withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Nearly one third want to leave immediately, a position more extreme than that of Howard Dean. The poll also revealed that a pitifully small 2 percent of Americans want to send in more troops.
Meanwhile, the Libertarian Party, in the name of pragmatic reform, has dumped the antiwar plank from the platform. The result, of course, is to cut the LP off from this growing American antiwar majority.
It is hard to imagine how such an isolating decision can be justified as a practical reform to reach more potential voters. Even so, that is what the Portland reformers claim they are doing.
It is natural to wonder to what extent the justification of "pragmatism" is a pretext by pro-war elements to advance a purely ideological position that fewer Americans than ever now hold. If this is the case, why are antiwar libertarians so quick to concede their opponents' claims to be non-ideological? Shouldn't they instead insist that it is they, not the Portland reformers, who are doing the most to hold aloft the flags not only of principle but also of pragmatism?
Tuesday, July 4, 2006
Mexican Voters in the U.S. Vote for More Free Market Candidate
It is common on the right to portray illegal Mexican immigrants as budding clients of the welfare state who are fated to loyally line up behind big government candidates.
The recent results of the Mexican presidential election show a more nuanced picture. In Mexico, voters were evenly split. By contrast, 57 percent of Mexican nationals in the U.S. voted for the more pro free-market candidate, Felipe Calderon and only 34 percent chose the leftist.
Midnight Soccer for Iraq
During the Clinton administration, nearly all conservatives and libertarians belittled a federal scheme to fund midnight basketball as just another paternalistic boondogle and waste of taxpayers money.
That was then. Over at the libertarian/conservative Volokh Conspiracy, a blog that generally skirts the Iraq issue, David Post puts forward a revised version of the same concept:
A hundred million dollars to build up Iraq's soccer team would do more for nation-building than any other damned thing we could possibly do -- why nobody sees this is totally beyond me.
Sunday, July 2, 2006
The Road to Serfdom (Cartoon Version)
See here.
Hat tip to Alina Stefanescu.
Saturday, July 1, 2006
The Quotable FDR
"We have got to be tough with Germany and I mean the German people not just the Nazis. We either have to castrate the German people or you have to treat them in such a manner so they can't go on reproducing." Roosevelt to Henry Morganthau Jr., August 19, 1944. Henry Morganthau III, Mostly Morganthau - A Family History (New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1991), 365.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
My Time with the Rich and Famous
Just had to brag. I just came from Mississippi after spending last night in Morgan Freeman's home and visiting a juke joint with Ruby Dee. No kidding. More later.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Glenn Singleton on Mark Twain: "He's a Racist."
Readers of Liberty and Power will recall the disturbing antics of Glenn Singleton, a self-described diversity expert. Singleton typically gets six figures for his services from school districts, such as Cherry Creek, Colorado and Chapel Hill, North Carolina and (courtesy of a blowback from a conservative campaign led by Michelle Malkin) from Bellevue Community College.
Singleton describes his thought reform sessions as “Courageous Conversations About Race.” The reality of what goes on has little, if anything, to do with either courage or genuine conversation. The main talent of Singleton and his associates is to find creative ways to humiliate and degrade others. As during the Cultural Revolution in China, standard operating procedure is to have hapless educators and staff line up with individual signs, each showing numerical scores of their alleged unconscious racism.
I shudder to think that they might also have to listen to Singleton's theories on American literature. Haven't they suffered enough?
He has the following to say, for example, about Mark Twain, Huck Finn, and Jim: "I remember sitting back in middle school and saying to myself, 'I don't think Twain is a satirist, I think he's a racist. I don't think Huck and Jim are having this great relationship. I can't really understand why Jim keeps talking to Huck. I would think if I just got out of this period of slavery-with no freedom-I wouldn't want to spend all my time on a raft with a white boy answering questions.'"
I’ll lay odds that most of us, given a choice, would prefer Huck to Singleton as our raft mate. Luckily for Jim, he could choose his company. Unfortunately, this is not always the case for participants in Singleton’s “Courageous Conversations.”
Friday, June 23, 2006
Beauty and the Labor Market: A Special Invitation for L and P Readers
Professor Niclas Berggren poses the following invitation to our readers:
Several studies document that beauty plays a role in the labor market: beautiful people earn more than others. Three economists are conducting a study to see whether there is a beauty premium in politics as well, such that beautiful candidates have greater electoral success. You are hereby invited to participate in the study, run by Associate Professor Niclas Berggren (The Ratio Institute), Dr. Henrik Jordahl (Uppsala University) and Professor Panu Poutvaara (University of Helsinki).For information on how to participate, see here. Please write LIBERTY&POWER when asked about where you heard about the study.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Did George Schuyler write this?
For technical reasons, L and P blogger Jonathan Bean is unable to put this up on the blog right now, so he asked me to do it. Jon wants to know if anyone knows if George Schuyler wrote this editorial response for the Pittsburgh Courier to the Brown decision:
The conscience of America has spoken through its constitutional voice. This clarion announcement will also stun.
and silence America’s Communist traducers behind the Iron Curtain. It will effectively impress upon millions of colored people in Asia and Africa the fact that idealism and social morality can and do prevail in the United States,
regardless of race, creed or color.
Courier (Pittsburgh) “Will Stun Communists,” May 18, 1954
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Isabel Paterson on Ayn Rand's Fear of Traffic
I am working my way through Isabel Paterson's column, "Turns With a Bookworm," in The New York Herald Tribune Weekly Books Review, and came across this nugget. Perhaps it has appeared elsewhere but I have never seen it:
"Oh, we might as well answer a perennial question about Ayn Rand-yes, she looks exactly like her photographs; smooth black hair, round eyes that look black and aren't, neat figure and just that turn of the head and direct gaze and natural simplicity of manner.....She likes cats, architecture, New York, movies and above all, ideas....She is afraid of traffic because she was hit by a taxi once; and the way she shows it is to stand a minute at the crossing, viewing the stream of vehicles with alarm, seize the hand of her escort with a gesture of feminine terror, and then march across the street, hauling her protector after her."
Isabel M. Paterson, "Turns With a Bookworm," New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review 22, September 23, 1945, 26.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Veblen and the "Impending Collapse of Capitalism."
“Professor Veblen also made several financial ventures...He invested his money in a raisin farm, run by one of his disciples...Need we say more?...Obviously, such an experience would make almost any one write about the impending collapse of Capitalism.”
Isabel Paterson, New York Herald Tribune Books 11, December 9, 1934, 23.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Embarrassing Quotation of the Week
"Assuming that the increase in wealth production and population continue at the present compound rates, it seems likely that in the course of two or three decades, the U.S.S.R. will have become the wealthiest country in the world, and at the same time the community enjoying the greatest aggregate of individual freedom."
Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Soviet Communism: A New Civilization (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936), quoted in New York Herald Tribune Books 12, March 8, 1936, 2.
Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Vivien Kellems: Tax Resister, Feminist, and Industrialist
Vivien Kellems, like Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Zora Neale Hurston, was a champion of individual freedom during an era of New Deal and war. Overcoming tremendous odds, she took on the Internal Revenue Service and won, at least a temporary victory.
Tuesday, June 6, 2006
Open Letter on Immigration (Many Scholars Have Signed)
The Independent Institute (one of my favorite organizations) is circulating an "Open Letter on Immigration." The signers include such prominent scholars as Brad DeLong, Gregory Mankiw, Vernon Smith, Edward Glaeser, Alan Blinder, Robert Higgs, Franklin Fisher, and Alfred Kahn.
Go here if you want to add your name.
Monday, June 5, 2006
John Stossel: A Libertarian Against the Iraq War
Because so many free market pundits have gone over to the pro-war side, I am pleasantly surprised to see the following comments by John Stossel:
Speaking at a luncheon hosted by the conservative Fraser Institute think tank yesterday, Stossel made it clear his politics don't quite fall within the traditional left or right wing spectrum.
He takes no issue with gay marriage, for example, while he says sending troops to Iraq "wasn't a good idea." I'm a Libertarian," according to Stossel, the TV network consumer reporter turned staunch free-market defender. "I hold beliefs Conservatives abhor."
David Mayer on Gas Price Demagoguery
My friend, and Jefferson scholar, David N. Mayer is taking his blog on summer hiatus. His final entry on gas price demagoguery exposes some recent economic fallacies.
Saturday, June 3, 2006
Juan Cole Denied Yale Appointment
Ralph Luker has more on the story including the campaign against Cole by conservative bloggers.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Jesus Christ: A Victim of Democracy?
"Democratic Athenians believed that justice is the will of the majority, on the theory that ninety men are right and ten are wrong. Under this theory, they killed off their intelligent and honest men. Pontius Pilate also obeyed a majority, though more skeptically."
Rose Wilder Lane, Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority (New York: John Day Company, 1943, 1984 reprint by Laissez Faire Books), 142.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
The Bribe of the Righteous
"The bribe of the righteous is usually a supposed good to be secured by a little twisting of principle, of course only this once."
Isabel Paterson, "The Riddle of Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott Decision," Georgia Review 3 (Summer 1949), 201.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Glenn Singleton's Cultural Revolution in Chapel Hill
Forty years ago, state-supported bullies in China publicly humiliated dissenters by having them wear signs around their necks expressing shame for their "incorrect thoughts." Although China remained Communist, the government eventually apologized to the victims.
Unfortunately, methods of this type, now rejected as barbaric in China, have become standard practice in the
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools of North Carolina:
"When I am told about our national heritage or 'civilization,' I am
shown that people of my race made it what it is."
Or "I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having
co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of race."
Teachers who feel situations are "often true" put down fives. Threes are
for "sometimes true" and zeroes are for "seldom true."
After tallying their scores, teachers write the number down, wear them
around their necks and line up from highest to
lowest.
In an exercise called "The Color Line," they [teachers] answer 26 questions on a 0
to 5 scale, such as:
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
"Stop the Bullshit"
At the Versailles Conference, Woodrow Wilson, ever the imperious pedagogue, brought smirks from the likes of Georges Clemenceau when he preached to the assembled about the teachings of Jesus Christ. John McCain's negotiating strategy is not much of an improvement:
One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit.’”
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Katherine Dunham, Tax Revolts, and Me
Katherine Dunham is dead at age 96. She was a pioneering black dancer and innovative choreographer. She directed dance routines for such films as "Stormy Weather" and helped to introduce African and Caribbean forms to American dance.
I met Dunham in the early 1980s. I had come to her home in the middle of a run-down neighborhood of East Saint Louis to interview her long-time husband, John T. Pratt. Pratt, who was white, was the son of John M. Pratt, the head of the Chicago tax revolt discussed in my book, Taxpayers in Revolt: Tax Resistance during the Great Depression.
I mainly remember Dunham as a gracious woman who came in periodically during our interview to give us coffee and cookies. I felt like kicking myself when I found out later who she was. On the other hand, it was probably not too often that her husband was the center of attention.
John T. Pratt, who worked as a theater designer alongside his wife for nearly fifty years, was a fascinating individual in his own right. He had important insights to share about his father as well as some fascinating stories about his experiences as a soldier at the Nuremberg trials.
In a time when interracial marriage was rare, he said that his father did not hesitate to welcome Dunham into the family.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
World War I Vintage Antiwar Song
A singer from 1916 declares that "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier." Hear it here. Woodrow Wilson had other ideas, however.
Hat tip, Laurence Vance at Antiwar.com
Friday, May 19, 2006
Homeowners' Associations: Tyranny or Expression of Liberty
I am now attending a Liberty Fund seminar on this issue. As readers of L and P know, this issue has generated some commment here. Thus far, the discussion at the seminar has helped to shed much led on the history of associations, current development, and implications for liberty and markets. More later when I return.
Monday, May 15, 2006
The New Original Sin: "Unconscious Bias" and the Courts
Glenn Singeton, who has built a thriving financial empire as a race "expert" via lucrative contracts at Bellevue Community College (secured with the unwitting help of Michelle Malkin), the Cherry Creek, Colorado school district, and many others, is not the only successful diversity entrepreneur.
Many academics are creatively using the courts for similar goals by testifying as legal experts on "unconscious bias." They are showing that whole new careers can be built by trying to prove a negative. Here is the latest from Business Week on this disturbing trend:
Winning a big employment lawsuit these days often requires a bit of magic. After all, companies are awash in diversity training, equal opportunity policies, and 800 numbers aimed at rooting out bias. Managers have been well trained to keep their discriminatory thoughts to themselves, edit all hints of racism and sexism out of e-mail, and couch pay and promotion decisions in legally defensible language. So how do plaintiffs' lawyers prove their cases?
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Singleton Expands His "Diversity Training" Financial Empire to Cherry Creek, Colorado
Glenn Singleton, the professional “diversity expert” and leading beneficiary from the blowback generated by the conservative campaign of Michelle Malkin, Wayne Perryman, and many others against Bellevue Community College, is on a roll (For background, see Jesse Walker, Harry Brighouse at Crooked Timber, and King Banaian at SCSU Scholars).
It turns out that Bellevue College is probably one of the more modest profit centers in Singleton’s expanding “diversity training” empire. In a revealing article for the Rocky Mountain News, Vincent Carroll reports that the Cherry Creek school district in Colorado has just shelled out six figures (yes, that’s right, six figures) for his “advice” on how to improve black and Hispanic student achievement.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Gibson Compares Dubya to Mayan Overlords
Mel Gibson, a long-time skeptic of the Iraq war, has compared George Bush to ancient Mayan tyrants:
Gibson reveals he used present day American politics as an inspiration, claiming the government callously plays on the nation's insecurities to maintain power.
He tells British film magazine Hotdog, "The fear-mongering we depict in the film reminds me of President Bush and his guys"
The epic, due for release later this year, captures the decline of the Maya kingdom and the slaughter of thousands of inhabitants as human sacrifices in a bid to save the nation from collapsing.
Meanwhile, Gibson's conservative former fans at Free Republic are going ballistic with righteous anger.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Jesse Walker on Futile Conservative PC Crusades
At Reason Online, Jesse Walker describes the steep price paid by conservatives, such as Michelle Malkin, when they try to beat the campus left at its own game. He particularly focuses on the blowback created by the “watermelon” fiasco at Bellevue Community College:
Conservatives used to say they wanted to tear down that sprawl. These days, a lot of them just want to take it over. The neocon activist David Horowitz even toyed with the idea of "adding the categories of political and religious affiliation to Title IX and other existing legislation," thus making conservatives an officially protected class. He eventually gave up on that notion, but he's still pushing an "Academic Bill of Rights" that would let students lodge official complaints against professors for the topics they choose to explore in the classroom.
Sunday, May 7, 2006
Lusitania: The 9-11 That Didn't Lead to War
A German submarine sank the British passenger ship Lusitania nine-on years ago on this date. Over thousand people died including 128 Americans.
Outraged politicians and newspapers demanded revenge and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, the lone antiwar voice in the administration, resigned in protest. It looked like war was inevitable.
In a few weeks, however, the war fever died down. Americans started to wonder if this was incident really justified the plunge to war. Also, plausible accusations (later proven true) began to be voiced that the Lusitania had carried contraband in violation of international law.
In contrast to 9-11, the cycle of Crisis and Leviathan was avoided, at least temporarily. The U.S. did not go to war for another two years.
Saturday, May 6, 2006
Who Said This?
"Me, I have no political heroes. I can take them all or leave them. Even as pure and wonderful and I am (?), I’m afraid that too much power would make a monster out of me too."
Friday, May 5, 2006
Closing the Last Private Space in America
Long ago, it was commonly claimed that a "a man's home is his castle." Of course, it is no longer possible to say this with a straight face.
In recent decades, many of us came to regard the interior of our automobile as a new "castle" of freedom and sovereignty. Apparently, however, if a growing number of state legislators have their way, the days of this last private refuge are numbered.
By a vote of 66 to 31, the Louisiana House just approved a bill to "prohibit anyone from lighting up a cigarette, cigar or pipe in a vehicle while a child required to be in a booster seat or car seat is riding along _ a child up to 60 pounds, or up to about eight years old."
Thursday, May 4, 2006
Satchmo and Marijuana
In an article for HNN, L and P blogger Keith Halderman explores Louis Armstrong's pro-liberty views on Marijuana:
Armstrong maintained marijuana to be a thousand times better than whiskey and that it relaxed him while also keeping him clear headed. He pointed out that, though he smoked marijuana, during the entire forty-five years he had been blowing trumpet he had never let his public down, claiming that they had a reverence for each other.
Wednesday, May 3, 2006
Boobus Americanus Can't Find the Baghdad Cafe
Our public schools in action:
"Despite nearly constant news coverage since the war there [Iraq] began in 2003, 63 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 failed to correctly locate the country on a map of the Middle East. Seventy percent could not find Iran or Israel."
Monday, May 1, 2006
T.R.M. Howard: Thirty Years Later
T.R.M. Howard (pictured fourth from the left during the Emmett Till trial) died thirty years ago on this date. He made his mark whether it was in business, voluntary mutual aid, or politics. He rose from poverty to become one of the wealthiest blacks in Mississippi. His investments included an insurance company, home construction firm, cotton plantation, and small zoo. His hospital in the all-black town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi gave low-cost health care to thousands of poor blacks.
During the early 1950s, he led the largest civil rights/pro-self help civil rights organization in Mississippi. He was a mentor to Medgar Evers and played prominent role in the investigation of the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till. He was also president of the National Medical Association, the black counterpart of the AMA.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Malkin Watch: Cleaning up the New Mess at Bellevue
Harry Brighouse of Crooked Timber has highlighted the failure of conservatives, most notably Michelle Malkin, to speak out against the "unintended consequences" of their campaign against a professor at Bellevue Community College in Washington. King Banaian commented earlier this week. The professor had asked an idiotic math question involving Condoleezza and watermelons. While the conservative crusaders successfully got the professor exposed and disciplined, the "cure" inflicted by college president Jean Floten on the entire faculty was worth than the disease.
In response to the incident, the college not only expanded the size of the diversity police but imposed ideologically-one sided diversity training under the highly paid, politically correct trainer, Glenn Singleton. For background, follow the links here.
Unfortunately, to this date, the same conservatives sites which fought so zealously against a lone professor, including Malkin, Wayne Perryman, Rightwinged.com, the Smoking Gun, and the Independent Conservative , have done absolutely nothing to fight the imposition of indoctrination on all faculty at Bellevue.
When, if ever, will they break their silence? We are still waiting.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Bellevue Puts on the Straight Jacket
"Take an Inch, and They'll Take a Mile." That's the title of a blog by King Banaian and it says it all. Banaian, of course, is summing up the response of administrators at Bellevue Community College in Washington to an incident in which a professor asked an idiotic math question involving Condoleezza Rice and watermelons. For more, see here.
Launching a major email campaign, outraged conservatives, including Michelle Malkin and Wayne Perryman, were able to take their "inch" by getting the professor sanctioned and exposed. The original controversy had a depressing aftermath, however, for those who value academic freedom and oppose indoctrination.
Creative administrators at the college seized on the incident to increase their power and to impose politically correct one-sided ideological diversity training for all faculty under Glenn Singleton, a paid professional "trainer." As Banaian notes, both Malkin and Perryman continue to ignore the ongoing and disturbing developments at Bellevue Community College.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
"We're Alright, Jack," Says David Montgomery to the Left
In a rambling presentation at the conference of the Organization of American Historians, David Montgomery (a former president of the OAH) holds forth on "Defending Historians' Academic Freedom in Our Own Times." He identifies the following as the main villains: classicists, the Academic Bill of Rights, conservative-oriented private foundations, cuts in government spending, and even critics of Women's Studies.
He continues his track record, however, of ignoring threats to academic freedom posed by the left, including speech codes. Listen here.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Nat King Cole is Happy to Avoid "Franklin D.'s" Draft
In “Gone with the Draft” from 1940, Nat King Cole is positively subversive in his glee at avoiding Roosevelt’s Selective Service dragnet:
“When Franklin D. did sign the draft, the cats all had a chill. The boys turned pale and ceased to laugh, cause this is a serious bill. They now realize that skinny me was the luckiest one of all, who can stay at home with Minnie while they face the cannon ball!"
Hear the whole thing on real audio here.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Malkin and Singleton: Right/Left Tag Team for "Maoist" Style Thought Reform?
As I noted earlier, Michelle Malkin and other outraged conservatives successfully pressured Bellevue Community College in Seattle, Washington to upbraid an idiotic instructor who had asked the following math question: "Condoleezza holds a watermelon just over the edge of the roof of the 300-foot Federal Building, and tosses it up with a velocity of 20 feet per second."
Their victory proved hollow, however, because administrators cleverly seized on the incident to expand their turf through a PC agenda. One of the lessons I took from this badly misfired crusade is the need for conservatives to avoid the easy temptation of gotcha games.
Well, it may be worse than I thought. In response to Malkin’s campaign, Bellevue College not only has given the diversity police more monitoring authority over the curriculum and personnel evaluations, but will hire the notorious Glenn Singleton to conduct ideologically one-sided training for faculty and staff. Apparently, it will be mandatory. For more on Singleton, see here and here.
A self-described “diversity expert,” Singleton is an accomplished race baiter who is often able to persuade colleges and schools to pay him hefty fees for his services. Critics on both the left and right have condemned his “Maoist” style "training" methods.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Nationmaster: The Mother of All Databases
International comparisons that include everything from per capita cannabis use to military spending.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Who Said This?
Hint: this was said in 1999:
"[O]ur current situation – with so many foreign troop deployments that even military buffs can't keep track of them all and with wars initiated essentially on presidential whim – would have horrified the Framers.
Click read more for the answer.
Saturday, April 15, 2006
George Will Lauds "Remnant of Libertarian, Limited-Government Conservatism"
Not so long ago, George Will was a favorite villain among champions of smaller government. They bristled at his contentions that Americans were "undertaxed" and that "statecraft" equals "soulcraft." No more.
Will comes out slugging against big government Republicanism in his column today. He denounces the "betrayal" of free speech by the GOP majority in Congress because of its vote to limit the right of Americans to contribute to 527 organizations. At the same time, Will names and singles out for praise the sixteen GOP dissenters as the "remmant of libertarian, limited- government conservativism" [including, of course, Ron Paul].
Friday, April 14, 2006
Michelle Malkin's Campus Crusade Backfires
Here's a story that provides a cautionary tale for those conservatives, like David Horowitz, who believe they can outwit their opponents on campus by fighting fire with fire.
In a classic Horowitz-style campaign, Malkin and other conservatives took up the cause of students who complained about an idiotic instructor at Bellevue Community College in Washington. The instructor had asked the following math question: "Condoleezza holds a watermelon just over the edge of the roof of the 300-foot Federal Building, and tosses it up with a velocity of 20 feet per second." Outraged conservatives around the country bombarded the campus with phone calls and emails.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Oprah: Wealth is "A Good Thing"
Speaking in Baltimore on Monday at a fundraiser for Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School, Winfrey told the audience, "I have lots of things, like all these Manolo Blahniks. I have all that and I think it's great. I'm not one of those people like, 'Well, we must renounce ourselves.' No, I have a closet full of shoes and it's a good thing."
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
"The Way to Grow Poor" (according to Currier and Ives)
Hat tip, Karen DeCoster.
Saturday, April 8, 2006
Where's Lysander? Historians, the Constitution, and Slavery
Ralph Luker reports that a lively debate is underway at H-Shear and H-Slavery on whether the Constitution is pro-slavery. The participants, however, appear to have completely ignored the views of Lysander Spooner. By contrast, most readers of Liberty and Power are well aware of Spooner's sophisticated text-based argument that the Constitution was an antislavery document .
While the wording of the Constitution gives ample room for debate, this is less true of the much maligned Articles of Confederation. Even by Spooner's standards, that document gave far less federal protection to slavery. Unlike the Constitution, for example, the Articles did not have a fugitive slave clause.
Chicago Symposium on Booker T. Washington
The Heartland Institute will be co-sponsoring a symposium in Chicago on June 4-6 to mark the 150th anniversary of Booker T. Washington’s birth:
This event has four purposes:
• To attract national, regional, and local media attention to the pro-education, pro-entrepreneurship, and pro-self-reliance messages of Booker T. Washington.
• To encourage and promote new research and public speaking on the importance of closing the black-white achievement gap in K-12 education, black entrepreneurship, and elevating the values of personal integrity and self-reliance while lowering the tendencies toward blaming and depending on others.
• To influence directly the lives of young people in high schools and colleges who may be inspired by Booker T. Washington’s example to finish their schooling, start their own businesses, and live rewarding and ethical lives.
• To lay the groundwork for an ongoing program that effectively promotes the achievement of these goals through media campaigns, educational outreach, events, and other means.
Leading scholars and leaders from business, politics, and civic organizations will come to Chicago to speak before audiences of hundreds of people. National media attention and publications will carry the message to millions of people.
For more details, see here.
Wednesday, April 5, 2006
Otto Von Romney
First, Bush, assisted by the "hammer" of Tom Delay, pushed through the most radical increase in the welfare state (prescription drug subsidies)since LBJ. Now, his conservative counterpart in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, has promised to sign a mandatory health insurance bill that makes Hillarycare look mild by comparison:
If all goes as planned, poor people will be offered free or heavily subsidized coverage; those who can afford insurance but refuse to get it will face increasing tax penalties until they obtain coverage; and those already insured will see a modest drop in their premiums.
The measure does not call for new taxes but would require businesses that do not offer insurance to pay a $295 annual fee per employee.
The cost was put at $316 million in the first year, and more than a $1 billion by the third year, with much of that money coming from federal reimbursements and existing state spending, officials said....
Individuals deemed able but unwilling to purchase health care could face fines of more than $1,000 a year by the state if they don't get insurance.
The plan — approved just 24 hours after the final details were released — would use a combination of financial incentives and penalties to dramatically expand access to health care over the next three years and extend coverage to the state's estimated 500,000 uninsured.
UPDATE: Otto Von Bailey?
Ronald Bailey over at Reason's Hit and Run praises the compulsory feature of the bill.
Tuesday, April 4, 2006
"Randy Barnett is a Friend of Mine. You're No Randy Barnett"
The script writers of "Law and Order" apparently don't agree with Randy Barnett's views on the Ninth Amendment. In an episode, District Attorney Jack McCoy pontificated:
The fact that the Constitution explicitly protects some rights and not others necessarily suggests that the framers did not intend to protect those rights they chose to omit. They chose to omit privacy; therefore it must be a legal fiction.Via Trent McBride at Catallarchy.
Monday, April 3, 2006
Padilla Case Decided by Supremes (Bush 1, Bill of Rights 0)
Padilla, an American citizen, will not get his day in court. Roberts and Alito have tipped their hands. Clarence Thomas passed up another chance to stand up and call for limiting the powers of the federal government under the Bill of Rights.
Garet Garrett's Revenge: Buckley Calls Iraq War a Failure
Fifty years ago, Bill Buckley led the charge for conservativism to abandon foreign policy noninterventionism. He denounced skeptics who warned about the dangers of becoming a world policeman. Now, in the closing years of his career, Buckley has lost his Wilsonian swagger and is actually making good sense on foreign policy:
William F. Buckley Jr., the longtime conservative writer and leader, said George W. Bush's presidency will be judged entirely by the outcome of a war in Iraq that is now a failure.
``Mr. Bush is in the hands of a fortune that will be unremitting on the point of Iraq,'' Buckley said in an interview that will air on Bloomberg Television this weekend. ``If he'd invented the Bill of Rights it wouldn't get him out of his jam.''
.... `The neoconservative hubris, which sort of assigns to America some kind of geo-strategic responsibility for maximizing democracy, overstretches the resources of a free country,'' Buckley said.
Hat tip, Ralph Luker.
Sunday, April 2, 2006
Super Size Me (with Whiskey)
Check out the video here.
Saturday, April 1, 2006
Who is the World's Most Decorated Plagiarist?
For the answer, see here.
Hat tip, Ralph Luker.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Jacksonians, Wilsonians, and 9/11
Is the foreign policy coalition between Jacksonians and Wilsonians breaking up? We can only hope.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
No Federal Prosecution in Emmett Till Case (Another MSM Scandal?)
After an investigation of more than a year, the federal government has decided not to prosecute anyone for the murder or kidnapping of Emmett Till and has handed the case to the local Mississippi District Attorney Joyce Chiles.
According to the a story published in USA Today: "She's in a very tough spot, either way it goes," said David Beito, a historian at the University of Alabama who has studied the Till case extensively and doubts there is enough evidence to file any criminal charges. "Let's say she doesn't prosecute. There's been a lot of hype, and that has raised expectations. But if she does prosecute, there will be people saying this is a weak case. I would not want to be in her shoes."
While prosectors will probably not release the results of the FBI investigation until completion of a local inquiry, by all indications, it did not find evidence to justify the sensational claims over the past two years. This should be no surprise to anyone who has looked closely into the case. As Linda Royster Beito and I pointed out in a HNN article, the worst major offender was "60 Minutes." In a sloppy and poor researched report by Ed Bradley in 2004, it alleged that "more than a dozen people may have been involved in the murder of Emmett Till and that at least five of them are still alive."
Assuming no final surprises, the rest of the media will deserve to be roundly condemned when the final report appears for its spectacular failure to scrutinize, or even question, the wild allegations made by "60 Minutes" and others. These (apparently) false claims have unduly raised expectations and created much false hope.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Garet Garrett as Wilsonian Witch Hunter
Since I first read The People's Pottage in my teens, Garet Garrett has always been one of my heroes. For decades, he fought a lonely battle (often at great personal cost) against the emerging national security state. For this reason, it was quite a stunner to read the following the other day in David Nasaw's The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst:
In the fall of 1918, Garet Garrett, an assistant editor of the [New York] Tribune, prepared a brief charging Hearst with treason under the Espionage Act of 1917 and traveled to Washington, D.C., to outline his case to Attorney General Thomas Gregory. In October, a federal grand jury sitting in New York City interviewed Garrett and subpoenaed a copy of his brief. While Garrett insisted that he had 'evidence tending to shown treasonable activities' on Hearst's part, he was unable to produce any. The case against Hearst was dropped. Still the suspicions lingered.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The Volokh Conspiracy Quandary
Several days after Liberty and Power brought up the case of an Afghan man who faces capital charges for converting to Christianity, Eugene Volokh has weighed in with a detailed discussion. In the comments section (spelling now corrected), I state the following:
I am glad Eugene is finally on the case. Unfortunately, he is still dancing around a fundamental quandary, a quandary that needs to be eventually faced by those VC bloggers who are pro-war.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Two New Exciting Blogs for Liberty and Power's Roll
Look for two new blogs to appear on our roll in the next day or so. The first is the lively and thought-provoking new group blog by Wendy McElroy . It focuses primarily on individualist feminism and individualist anarchism.
The second is that of Michael Bérubé, a professor of Literature at Penn State. Bérubé's site is one of the most popular academic blogs around. Even more to our liking, Bérubé has recently written some kind words about fight by Ralph Luker, Robert K.C. Johnson and myself to promote academic freedom against the twin threats of speech codes and David Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Afghan Man Faces Execution After Converting to Christianity
Democratic Afghanistan? Check out this story from The Voice of America. I wonder if Glenn Reynolds and the folks at Little Green Footballs will muster any righteous indignation over this.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Happy Birthday, Grover Cleveland
Lawrence Reed wishes Grover Cleveland (perhaps the greatest president in American history) a happy birthday and for all the right reasons.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Horowitz Charges Me With "Hypocrisy and Intellectual Cowardice"
In his blog, David Horowitz finds me guilty, along with my co-authors Ralph E. Luker and Robert K.C. Johnson, of “hypocrisy and intellectual cowardice" because of our article, “The AHA’s Double Standard on Academic Freedom.“ Luker has already responded as has Hiram Hover who compares Horowitz‘s “in your face” style to that of professional wrestler Ric Flair!
Our article, which appears in the latest issue of AHA Perspectives, describes our failed efforts to get a resolution from the AHA linking speech codes and the Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) as leading threats to academic freedom.
Horowitz charges that in
this article, Beito, Luker and Johnson shift ground. Now it is their claim that by promoting intellectual diversity the ABOR risks encouraging students to make false claims of indoctrination, thus chilling professorial discourse. This is like opposing the First Amendment to the Constitution on the grounds that someone might make a false claim that their free speech right had been infringed. The solution to this problem is quite simple. Universities can set up grievance committees to ajudicate such claims. In fact they could simply extend the mandates of existing grievance committees that deal with racial and sexual discrimination to handle these matters. What's the problem, then?
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Our Article in AHA Perspectives Has Appeared
My article, "The AHA's Double Standard on Academic Freedom," co-authored by Ralph E. Luker and Robert K.C. Johnson, has appeared in the latest issue of AHA Perspectives:
Instead, they passed a weaker resolution that selectively condemned only threats coming from the right.
We weighed into this controversy as part of a three person
"left/right" coalition for academic freedom.
Has the AHA turned its back on academic freedom? In January, members present at its business meeting rejected a resolution to condemn
attacks on academic freedom, whether from the right or from the left.
Read the rest here.
Monday, March 13, 2006
That Meme Thang
Below is my meme of four:
Four jobs I have had: Busboy, Assistant Manager at Movie Theater, Sears (Men’s Workwear/Paints), College Professor
Thursday, March 9, 2006
Upton Sinclair's Fabrications
A letter from Lawrence W. Reed, the president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, appeared yesterday in the Wall Street Journal on Upton Sinclair's role in meat packing regulation. Many thanks to William Stepp for calling it to my attention:
John J. Miller's essay on Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" (Leisure & Arts, Feb. 23) reminds us that Sinclair's novel on Chicago meatpacking plants was motivated by the author's ill-informed passion for socialism, but there's more to the story. The dreadful conditions Sinclair depicted in his novel were largely hogwash.
Tuesday, March 7, 2006
Amy H. Sturgis Joins Liberty and Power
It gives me great pleasure to announce that Amy H. Sturgis has joined Liberty and Power. Amy is an energetic and creative scholar who is well-known to several of our members.
She received her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and has taught for several years at Belmont University. As befits our eclectic group, her publications cover such diverse topics as the history of American Indians and the ideas of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and H.P Lovecraft. Her book , THE TRAIL OF TEARS AND INDIAN REMOVAL (Greenwood Publishing Group), will appear later this year. Welcome to Liberty and Power, Amy!
Monday, March 6, 2006
Jesse Walker is on a Roll (Oscar Night)
I almost wish that I had forced myself to watch after reading this blow-by-blow from Jesse Walker:
Jon Stewart, for repeatedly poking a pin in the pretensions of the Hollywood crowd. As the night wore on, the audience seemed to warm to him -- and he, in return, seemed to exude more and more contempt. His two best moments came after two of Chuck Workman's haphazard collections of movie clips. After a ridiculously self-congratulatory batch of excerpts meant to illustrate Hollywood's history of taking brave stands for social justice -- I kept waiting to see the Klan riding to the rescue in Birth of a Nation, but for some reason they left that one out -- Stewart said sarcastically, "And none of those issues were ever a problem again." And after a montage of clips purportedly taken from "epics" (since when are E.T. and West Side Story epics?), he gave us a look of supreme boredom and said, "What's next: Oscar's tribute to montages?"
Kudos to Marina
Bill Marina of Liberty and Power had the most popular article at HNN this week.
Sunday, March 5, 2006
Sinatra Challenges Ron Paul
Cynthia Sinatra is challenging Ron Paul in the Republican primary. She has the support of her ex-husband, Frank Sinatra, Jr. Fortunately, it doesn't appear that she has much of a chance to beat the most libertarian member of Congress:
Paul said any claims that he was not responsive to the needs of the district are “off the mark.” He does admit to being firm in his stance on reduced government spending — including controversial votes against funding for Katrina relief and the war in Iraq.
He is often on the “Nay” side of votes when it comes to many federal spending bills, even those that include funding for projects back home.
“I am tired of not having representation in Washington,” Sinatra said. “He has been ignoring what the people need in the district. His libertarian personal agenda has gotten in the way of the people who live in this district.”
Friday, March 3, 2006
Anti-Bush Internet Sites Blocked for Soldiers in Iraq (According to Wonkette source)
I take this with a grain of salt since it is apparently based on a single source. Wonkette has published an email from a soldier who states the following:
Just to let you know, the US Marines have blocked access to “Wonkette” along with numerous other sites such as personal email (i.e. Yahoo, AT&T, Hotmail, etc), blogs that don't agree with the government point of view, personal websites, and some news organizatons. This has taken effect as of the beginning of February. I have no problem with them blocking porn sites (after all it is a government network), but cutting off access to our email and possibly-not-toeing-the-government-line websites is a bit much.
Thursday, March 2, 2006
Redlining: A Legacy of FDR's New Deal
Critics of Franklin D. Roosevelt have blamed his administration for many sins: a prolonged depression, the creation of a federal welfare state that fostered dependence, establishment of the imperial presidency in foreign policy, Japanese internment, the Brown Scare, retrograde civil rights policies, etc. Only a few have emphasized, however, that Roosevelt was also the father (at least indirectly) of redlining.
Amy E. Hillier has a carefully researched article on the subject in a recent issue of Social Science History. Redlining is a practice of denying credit to certain neighborhoods because of their racial or ethnic composition. The origin of the term can be traced to the color-coded “Residential Security Maps” of major American cities produced by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), a New Deal agency created in 1933. Each map had four different classifications ranging from most to least desirable: green, blue, yellow, and red.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Supreme Court Free Speech Ruling (Breaking)
This just in. By a vote of 8 to 0, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the use of federal anti-racketeering laws to restrict anti-abortion protestors. Score one for the Roberts' Court.
Monday, February 27, 2006
"Negroes With Guns" Documentary Film
Here is an addendum to my blog on Robert F. Williams. A documentary film on his life, "Negroes With Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power," is now available.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Robert F. Williams and "Negroes With Guns"
Few individuals in American history better exemplified organized armed self-defense for individual rights than Robert F. Williams. He had a remarkable life which took him from the American South, to Cuba, then China, and back to the United States.
Williams was born on this day in Monroe, North Carolina in 1925. He was very much a product of the twin traditions of Southern black gun culture and civil rights.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Free Speech, David Irving, and Historians Against the War
Historians Against the War (HAW) is a worthwhile organization. Membership is free and not limited to professional historians. L and P members and readers, if they are "historical-minded" scholars, teachers, or students of history, can join just by signing this online petition.
Even so, some of HAW’s stands on free speech and academic freedom have invited criticism. For example, while it has vigorously opposed David Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights, it has remained silent on the use of speech codes to undermine academic freedom.
For this reason, all friends of free speech can be encouraged by the recent HNN article by Jesse Lemisch. Lemisch is a professor of history emeritus at City University in New York and a leading member of the HAW. In this article, he strongly defends the free speech rights of David Irving and chastizes his fellow historians for failing to follow suit:
As a kind of a First Amendment absolutist, I have long been puzzled as to where I stand on restrictions on expression in Europe after the Holocaust, but I have thought, well, they have a special history, it's understandable. But now, seeing such restrictions take concrete form in imprisonment of a (bad) historian, I feel professionally obliged to oppose this, to see what other historians think about it, and whether they are willing to take a stand.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Irving Pleads Guilty (Faces Conviction)
An Austrian court is likely to convict David Irving for exercising offensive speech. Meanwhile, crickets chirp after David Horowitz, the bloggers at Little Green Footballs, and many others who properly crusaded for the right of Danish cartoonists to offend are asked to respond.
Hat tip Ralph Luker.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Sumner's Anarchist Moment
In 1941, economist Irving Fisher opined that William Graham Sumner "was one of the greatest professors we ever had at Yale, but I have drawn far away from his point of view, that of the old laissez faire doctrine. I remember he said in his classroom: 'Gentlemen, the time is coming when there will be two great classes, Socialists, and Anarchists. The Anarchists want the government to be nothing, and the Socialists want government to be everything. There can be no greater contrast. Well, the time will come when there will be only these two great parties, the Anarchists representing the laissez faire doctrine and the Socialists representing the extreme view on the other side, and when that time comes I am an Anarchist.' That amused his class very much, for he was as far from a revolutionary as you could expect."
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Saturday, February 18, 2006
Flabbergasted II: Our Public Schools in Action
Flabbergasted Mark? How about this? 57 percent Americans can't name a single member of the Supreme Court.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Bush's Welfare State
For more, see here.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
"Democratic" Afghanistan v. Free Speech.
Jesse Walker has commented on my previous blog which deals with the anti-free speech stance taken by "free Iraq" against the Muhammed cartoons.
However, Iraq does not provide the only example of a U.S. backed democratically-elected government that supports banning the Muhammed cartoons. If anything, the current Afghan rulers are even more anti-liberty. President Hamed Karzai has taken the most moderate position. He has condemned the cartoons but has spoken out against violence. Unfortunately, other officials in both parliament and the courts have adopted a much harder line.
Again, when will the pro-war bloggers condemn, or even acknowledge, the anti-free speech attitudes of the U.S. supported Afghan and Iraqi governments? Also, how can these facts be squared with the apparent claim made by Dale Carpenter and others that the protection of free expression is "Why We Fight."
"This act by the Danish press is in clear conflict with Islamic law and is an insult to our religion," said Abdul Wakil Omari, head the Supreme Court’s publications department. "We are not satisfied with an apology from the newspaper; the government of Denmark should officially apologise to Muslims, and it should not allow its media to insult other religions in the future."
According to Omari, the Supreme Court was issuing an official statement to this effect.
"Why We Fight" Says Volokh Blogger (Yeah Right)
While some antiwar libertarians deserve criticism for failing to aggressively defend free speech in the infamous cartoon affair, the attempt by pro-war bloggers to seize upon it to justify current American foreign policy has even less credibility.
Dale Carpenter's blog at Volokh, titled “Why We Fight,” highlights a photo of a demonstrator in Kenya carrying a sign, "Freedom of Expression is Western Terrorism."
The implication (Carpenter can correct me if I misunderstand) is that the Iraq War is part of this "fight" for free speech. The chief problem with this view is that Carpenter's chief ally on the ground (the Iraq government) does not share this goal.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Who Said This?
And the more men that have anything to do with trying to right a thing why the worse off it is. If every man was left absolutely to his own method of wrighting [sic] his own affairs why a big majority would get it done. But he can't do that. The Government has not only hundreds but literally thousands in Washington to see that no man can tend to his business. They go there to do it for him, and a mob always gets panicky quicker than an individual. They hear so much of how bad things are, and that something should be done, and they immediately feel that its up to them to do it.""Everything the Lord has a hand in is going great, but the minute you notice anything that is in any way under the supervision of man, why its 'cockeyed.'
Click Read More (below) to see the answer.
Monday, February 13, 2006
California and the "Myth" of American Indian Utopia
A painstaking search of bird bones in California's ancient garbage dumps by Jack Broughton, an archeologist at the University of Utah, has cast more doubt on the view that American Indians lived in harmony with the environment:
Broughton concluded that California wasn't always a lush Eden before settlers arrived. Instead, from 2,600 to at least 700 years ago, native people hunted some species to local extinction, and wildlife returned to "fabulous abundances" only after European diseases decimated Indian populations starting in the 1500s....
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Who Said This?
“On you of the younger generation falls the immediate responsibility. On the one hand, you have the right to allow the drifting to consolidation and centralization of government to continue. If you do this you do so with your eyes open to the fact that it is a new experiment, that it may work, but that no stages of the world’s history give examples where it has worked. Every previous great concentration of power has been followed by some form of great disaster.”
Click Read More (below) for the answer.
Thursday, February 9, 2006
Vagina Monologues (Yes) Mohammed Cartoon (No)
Yet another illustration of the selective enforcement of speech codes. Eugene Volokh reports that administrators at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scota have banned a professor from displaying cartoons of Mohammed on his office door because several Muslim students complained.
Meanwhile, the University is sponsoring a benefit production of the Vagina Monologues (which many find equally offensive) and is piously promoting this benefit on the main campus website.
Sojourner Truth's Plan for Reparations
Today, many defenders of reparations are socialists and race-baiters, who want a pretext to empower the welfare state, attack free markets, and create perpetual dependence and animosity.
This was not always true. In the post Civil War period, many advocates for liberty called for giving land to the ex-slaves through proposals such as “forty acres and a mule.” They drew on a Lockean tradition that stressed that the slaves had earned just title by “mixing their labor” with the land.
Wednesday, February 8, 2006
Antiwar Libertarians Need to Defend Free Speech
I had planned to hold off and blog on another issue but had to say something about the perplexing failure of so many antiwar libertarians (with some notable exceptions such as Matt Barganier) to speak out forcefully for free speech in the Mohammed cartoon case. A recent example is Justin Raimondo. As usual, he does nothing half way. At no point in Justin's column today, does he take the opportunity to defend the legal right of newspapers to publish the cartoons.
Monday, February 6, 2006
Why I Worry About Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights
Here is another reason that I don’t like what David Horowitz is up to:
We do not go to our doctors' offices and expect to see partisan propaganda posted on the doors, or go to hospital operating rooms and expect to hear political lectures from our surgeons. The same should be true of our classrooms and professors, yet it is not. When I visited the political-science department at the University of Colorado at Denver this year, the office doors and bulletin boards were plastered with cartoons and statements ridiculing Republicans, and only Republicans. When I asked President Hoffman about that, she assured me that she would request that such partisan materials be removed and an appropriate educational environment restored. To the best of my knowledge, that has yet to happen.
Best Blog Contest, And the Winners Are...
The winners of the run-off in Liberty and Power’s contest for best libertarian/classical liberal academic blog contest are:
Best Group Blog
Best Individual Blog
Best New Group Blog
Friday, February 3, 2006
U.S. State Department Deplores "Offensive" Mohammad Cartoon
The double standard of the Bush administration continues to amaze. Is this the same administration that conservatives and neocons want to entrust to bring "liberty" to the distant corners of the planet?
Washington on Friday condemned caricatures in European newspapers of Islam's Prophet Mohammad, siding with Muslims who are outraged that the publications put press freedom over respect for religion.
"These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims," State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said in answer to a question.
"We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable."
Autherine Lucy Attends Bama: Fifty Years Later
Fifty years ago today, Autherine Lucy began classes on the campus where I teach. She was the first black student at the University of Alabama, attending seven years before George Wallace's infamous stand in the schoolhouse door.
Soon after she started classes, hundreds of whites formed into a mob to drive her out. They carried Confederate Battle Flags and sang Dixie. They chanted slogans like “Lynch the nigger,” “Keep Bama White,” and “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Autherine’s gotta go.” As Lucy walked to classes, members of the mob splattered her with eggs and attacked blacks in Tuscaloosa.
Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Illustrating the Growth of Leviathan
The first picture is of George Washington and his cabinet and the second of George Bush and his cabinet. Any questions?
Monday, January 30, 2006
LAST CHANCE: VOTING CLOSES TUESDAY AT MIDNIGHT IN BEST BLOG CONTEST
Cast your votes while you still can in the runoff of our best Best Libertarian/Classical Academic Blog Contest.
We have close contests in all three categories:
Group Blog: Mises Blog v. Marginal Revolution
Individual Blog (three way race): Austro-Athenian Empire v. Knowledge Problem v. Totalitarianism Today
Best New Group (three way race): Cafe Hayek v. Positive Liberty v. Econlog
Go here to vote.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Are the Neocons Souring on Democracy?
Since the end of the Cold War, the neocons, through such entities as The Weekly Standard, the American Enterprise Institute, and Fox News, have hammered the view that the spread of democracy should be central to American foreign policy. After 9-11, this idea has won over most mainstream conservatives and all too many libertarians. It also formed the basis of the Bush Doctrine.
Few have pushed the pro-democracy solution harder than Charles Krauthammer of the Weekly Standard. His article for Time in March 2005, "Three Cheers for the Bush Doctrine," is something of a neocon classic in this regard. Please note his optimistic predications about "Free Palestinian elections:"
Jon Stewart, the sage of Comedy Central, is one of the few to be honest about it. "What if Bush ... has been right about this all along? I feel like my world view will not sustain itself and I may ... implode." Daniel Schorr, another critic of the Bush foreign policy, ventured, a bit more grudgingly, that Bush "may have had it right."
Friday, January 27, 2006
Victor Davis Hanson and Democracy
Readers have asked for more on Victor Davis Hanson's views on democracy. His most cited article on the subject was "Why Democracy?" which was published nearly a year ago in National Review.
Please note that Hanson generally uses "democracy" without qualifiers although he seems to assume it will lead to good results such as free markets. A brief mention of the danger of "one vote, one time" quickly gives way to typical Hansonian optimism. The article reveals little, or no, concern about the danger of a tyranny of the (Islamic or other) majority via elections.
Since Hanson wrote the article, the Muslim Brotherhood made substantial gains in Egyptian elections, Shi'ite fundamentalists won in Iraq, and Hamas triumphed in Palestine. For this reason, the following comments merit particular attention:
5. In the case of the Muslim world, there is nothing inherently incompatible between Islam and democracy. Witness millions in India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Turkey who vote. Such liberal venting may well explain why those who blow up Americans are rarely Indian or Turkish Muslims, but more likely Saudis or Egyptians. The trick is now to show that Arab Muslims can establish democracy, and thus the Palestine and Iraq experiments are critical to the entire region.
It is not a neocon pipedream, but historically plausible that a democratic Israel, Palestine, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq can create momentum that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and eventually even a Syria or Iran would find hard to resist. Saudi Arabia's ballyhooed liberalization, Mubarak's unease about his successor, Libya's strange antics, Pakistan's revelation about nuclear commerce, and the Gulf States' talk of parliaments did not happen in a vacuum, but are rumblings that follow from fears of voters in Afghanistan and Iraq — and a Mullah Omar dethroned and Saddam's clan either dead or in chains.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Democracy is a Bitch (Hamas victory)
Turn-out was high, the debates were free and open, and, when it was all over, Hamas won big. Apparently, the goddess of democracy, long worshipped by Victor Davis Hanson and other pro-warriors, is proving to be a bitch goddess.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Think Tank Calls for "Regime Change in Iran"
Sound familiar? The Committee on the Present Danger and other think tanks are gearing up again. What happened to the old claim that regime change in Iraq would take care of the Iran problem by producing a spontaneous chain reaction of democratic revolution in the Middle East?
Monday, January 23, 2006
Attacks in Iraq are Up
Those of you who rely on Victor Davis Hanson and David Horowitz for your Iraq news take note. According to USA Today,
The number of attacks against coalition troops, Iraqi security forces and civilians increased 29% last year, and insurgents are increasingly targeting Iraqis, the U.S. military says. Insurgents launched 34,131 attacks last year, up from 26,496 the year before, according to U.S. military figures released Sunday. Insurgents are widening their attacks to include the expanding Iraqi forces engaged in the fighting, said Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, a coalition spokesman. He added, "It tells me the coalition and the Iraqi forces have been very aggressive in taking the fight to the enemy."
Hat tip Chris Bray at Cliopatria.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Bruce Bartlett's Query (Second Go Around)
I gave the wrong email in the first version so I am reposting this:
Syndicated columnist Bruce Bartlett asks the help of our readers on the following:
With political scandal being such a prominent issue in the media, I would like to write something about academic scandals. I have Peter Hoffer's book, "Past Imperfect," which details the various frauds perpetrated by Michael Bellesiles, Doris Goodwin, Stephen Ambrose and Joseph Ellis. I would like more examples if there are any, especially from other disciplines. Contact me directly at bartlettb@cox.net if you have any suggestions.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Frederick Douglass and Adam Smith
In contrast to the anti-globalist modern left and the protectionist right, Frederick Douglass rejected the negative sum view of the world. Like many abolitionists, he understood and appreciated the insights of Adam Smith on this issue:
The old doctrine that the slavery of the black, is essential to the freedom of the white race, can maintain itself only in the presence of slavery, where interest and prejudice are the controlling powers, but it stands condemned equally by reason and experience. The statesmanship of to-day condemns and repudiates it as a shallow pretext for oppression. It belongs with the commercial fallacies long ago exposed by Adam Smith. It stands on a level with the contemptible notion, that every crumb of bread that goes into another man’s mouth, is just so much bread taken from mine. Whereas, the rule is in this country of abundant land, the more mouths you have, the more money you can put into your pocket, the more I can put into mine. As with political economy, so with civil and political rights (Frederick Douglass, November 17, 1864).
The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One: Debates and Interviews, Volume 4: 1864-80 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 48.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Bruce Bartlett's Query on Academic Scandals
Syndicated columnist Bruce Bartlett asks the help of our readers on the following:
With political scandal being such a prominent issue in the media, I would like to write something about academic scandals. I have Peter Hoffer's book, "Past Imperfect," which details the various frauds perpetrated by Michael Bellesiles, Doris Goodwin, Stephen Ambrose and Joseph Ellis. I would like more examples if there are any, especially from other disciplines. Contact me directly at bartlettb@cox.net if you have any suggestions.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Second Thoughts on Clarence Thomas
Over at Agoraphilia, Glen Whitman takes another look at Clarence Thomas's dissent in the assisted suicide case.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
What's the Deal with Clarence Thomas?
I expect this sort of thing from Scalia but Clarence Thomas? Despite his conservative social views, he voted last year to defend the rights of states to pass medical marijuana laws. Now, he votes to overrule them on assisted suicide.
Hat tip Oscar Chamberlain.
Gregory on King
Anthony Gregory has some interesting posts on Martin Luther King Jr.'s foreign policy and other views over at Lew Rockwell. See here and here.
Monday, January 16, 2006
King, Marx, and Statism
Last January, I put up these statements from Martin Luther King, Jr. in his book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story published in 1957, but they are well worth repeating:
During the Christmas holidays of 1949 I decided to spend my spare time reading Karl Marx to try to understand the appeal of communism for many people. For the first time I carefully scrutinized Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto. I also read some interpretative works on the thinking of Marx and Lenin. In reading such Communist writings I drew certain conclusions that have remained with me as convictions to this day. First, I rejected their materialistic interpretation of history. Communism, avowedly secularistic and materialistic, has no place for God. This I could never accept, for as a Christian, I believe that there is a creative personal power in the universe who is the ground and essence of all reality-a power that cannot be explained in materialistic terms. History is ultimately guided by spirit, not matter. Second, I strongly disagreed with communism's ethical relativism. Since for the Communist there is no divine government, no absolute moral order, there are no fixed, immutable principles; consequently almost anything-force, violence murder, lying-is a justifiable means to the 'millennial' end. This type of relativism was abhorrent to me. Constructive ends can never give absolute moral justification to destructive means, because in the final analysis the end is preexistent in the means.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Did Roosevelt "Save Capitalism?"
A popular theory in the history textbooks is that Franklin D. Roosevelt "saved" capitalism.
I don't buy it. I have yet to see any evidence that the U.S. was ever on the verge of revolution either before or after the rise of FDR. In 1932, for example, the Communists and the Socialists (primary indicators of radical or revolutionary sentiment on the left) scored between them a measly 2.5 percent of the vote. They did not elect a single member to Congress.
In 1932, FDR campaigned on a platform that differed little from that Al Smith in 1928 or, for that matter, his opponent Herbert Hoover. While he vaguely promised an undefined New Deal, he just as often attacked Hoover as a spendthrift. Politicians who promised retrenchment and low taxes, such as Governor Harry G. Leslie of Indiana, were often just as popular at the polls as those who promised more government.
To be sure, voters rallied to FDR's New Deal in 1933 but, in my view, this was primarily because they wanted action, not because of an ideological conversion. Given the poor state of the economy, it is probable that they would have climbed on board had FDR announced a program of spending and tax cuts instead. My sense is that the voters wanted change in 1933, not necessarily more government.
While quasi-fascists (actually populists) like Huey Long and Father Coughlin made waves, this was mostly in 1934 and 1935. If FDR "saved" the United States from the likes of them, why did they have their best years after his New Deal was implemented. Long's high point, for example, was 1935, when the NRA was already on its last legs.
I have a challenge for those who argue that FDR "saved capitalism." They need to start by answering two questions. When precisely did he "save capitalsm" and who did he save it from?
Friday, January 13, 2006
Was the "World Turned Upside Down" at Yorktown?
One of my favorite historical anecdotes is that a British band played "The World Turned Upside Down" during the surrender ceremony at Yorktown. I regret to report that this story is probably not true.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Horowitz, Diversity, and Merit
Conservatives used to oppose racial and gender preferences, arguing instead that individual merit should trump other considerations in personnel decisions. Apparently, this is no longer the case, at least at the Frontpage. Instead of making a principled case against racial and gender preferences in his testimony this week to the Pennsylvania legislature, David Horowitz called on the legislature to pile on new ones covering ideology:
you could recommend that universities amend their diversity mandates, which now cover race and gender, to include “diversity based on political and religious affiliation.”
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
FIRE on the American Hypocrites' Association
Guess who that is.
Monday, January 9, 2006
AHA Speech Code Post-Mortem
Ralph Luker at Cliopatria has an excellent summary of our unsuccessful fight to get the AHA to oppose speech codes that restrict academic freedom. I'll have more to add, either later today or tomorrow:
To put it bluntly, our asses were thoroughly kicked, not just once but twice. We sought an endorsement by Historians Against the War and lost by a vote of 15 to 4. There, I argued that, if we are strong enough to be free, we must be strong enough to endure offensive speech, but a largely unthinking soft Left majority prevailed because "I'm against speech codes, but they don't inhibit opposition to the war." HAW made sure that its majority was notified when the issue arose in the AHA business meeting. There I reminded those in attendance that, despite our specific request, David Montgomery's OAH Committee on Academic Freedom had refused to address the issue of speech codes. That irritates me personally because the issue was brought to their attention and two of that committee's four members have been friends of mine for 30 and 40 years.
Saturday, January 7, 2006
The AHA Fumbles on Speech Codes
The members of the AHA Business Meeting just passed up an opportunity to speak loud and clear for the cause of academic freedom. After a lively debate, an overwhelming majority rejected our substitute resolution (co-sponsored by Ralph Luker and Robert K.C. Johnson) that would have put the AHA on record as opposing speech codes and David Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) as twin threats to academic freedom. Ralph Luker of Cliopatria was particularly eloquent in his defense of the substitute but it was to no avail. After the members rejected the substitute, they voted for the original and, clearly weaker, resolution that condemed the ABOR but was silent on speech codes.
This vote is a great disappointment and critics will have a field day. They will charge--and with some justification--that it shows that the AHA subscribes to a double standard of "academic freedom for me but not thee"). At the same time, I am grateful to President James J. Sheehan and all the other AHA officials who presided over the meeting. At every stage of the process, they bent over backwards to be fair to the sponsors of the substitute.
I am still in Philadelphia and will blog on this at greater length when I return. Many thanks again to those who joined us in waging the good fight for academic freedom.
Thursday, January 5, 2006
Run-Off for Best Classical Liberal/Libertarian Academic Blog Contest
The results are in from the first round of the best classical liberal/libertarian academic blog contest. The only clear majority winner was Theory & Practice, for best new individual blog. Congratulations!
The other contests will need to be settled by the run-off (possibly run-offs).
The economists dominated the group category. The Mises Economics Blog came in first but fell short of the necessary absolute majority. It will compete in the run-off with the second place winner, Marginal Revolution . The story is more complicated in the Best Individual Blog and Best New Group Blog contests.
The Austro-Athenian Empire won a convincing plurality while two other blogs tied for second place: Totalitarianism Today and the Knowledge Problem. All will compete in the run-off. There will also be a three-way race in the Best New Group category. Café Hayek was first while Positive Liberty and EconLog were in a dead heat for second place.
Voting will be in the comments section and will close on January 31. The choices for the run-off are listed below and you can vote once in each category. Of course, i