Liberty & Power: Group Blog
Entries by Wendy McElroy
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Back to the Theme of Frugality
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
I have not sung the praises of frugality lately...but the current economy cries out for optimism and that's what I see in a frugal lifestyle and a personal philosophy of voluntary simplicity.
As always, I start by defining what I don't mean by frugality and voluntary simplicity. I don't mean denying yourself the goods, services and experiences that make your life exciting or satisfying. I love to travel; I am addicted to live theatre and that is expensive; I relax by doing ethnic cooking with costly ingredients (but less costl than eating at restaurants); Brad has every computer gismo he values and none he doesn't; we have dogs and cats which are expensive to maintain but just try taking our buddies away; our house is wired for ether net and we have satellite TV...I could go on and on about the many expenses on which we do not stint. You live once and it makes no sense to deprive yourself of what makes the go-around a joy.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
A .PDF to the New Bailout Bill
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
A reader comments on the bailout bill that passed the Senate last night:
Here is the first link to the new bill that I've found today. It grew from 3 pages to 451 pages. (I'm confident that all Senators carefully read, digested, and mulled the content change before voting, and that the Representatives will do the same.[Note from site: this is sarcasm]) Tax breaks that increase the cost from 700BN to 805BN are being employed to sell a bill that was already going to do most of its damage by catastrophically increasing taxes - interesting "logic". Breaks (from the LA Times, which also published the pdf of the new bill): increased insurance coverage for mental illness; and bicycle commuting (among many others). Most interesting in the LA Times article is this quote from Rep. Brad Sherman, California, about what is being said by some House members to urge passage: "I've seen members turn to each other and say, 'If we don't pass this bill, we're going to have martial law in the United States.'" Rep. Sherman regards that to be mere "fear mongering." Interesting, that this comment comes on the very day that the 1st Combat Brigade Team of the 3rd Infantry that has been rotated back from Iraq goes on domestic assignment (euphemistically referred to as "dwell time") (For more on the military's "dwell-time mission" please see an earlier post entitled Time for a Second American Revolution.)
I'm uncertain about whether the "martial law" claim is repetition of something that key committee members have been briefed about by the Bush administration. I believe that if they think there are sufficient controls in place, the claim could be a deliberate propaganda release to start "softening the ground" for an actual imposition of such a regime. I think it's time for every US resident who values Liberty to make a strategic decision about which direction to choose in such an eventuality: emigrate to a better place; or stay and resist.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Quote of the Day
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
Quote of the day from Oscar Levant. It makes me think of Sarah Palin.
"A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he comes to it."
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
L.. Neil on Islam and Muslims
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
SF and libertarian guru L. Neil Smith is circulating to friends the following response to a news item.
The news item: Paul McCartney has refused to cancel his concert in Israel, despite threats from Islamic militants, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. The response follows comments made by Omar Bakri Muhammad, a militant Lebanese Islamic activist, in an interview. Mr. Bakri said, “If he values his life, Mr. McCartney must not come to Israel… He will not be safe there. The sacrifice operatives will be waiting for him.”
L.Neil's reponse: As you know, I'm a staunch, life-long atheist, and my opinion, after many decades of study, is that all religions are equally wacky.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Machinations in Microcosm
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
On Wednesday, the TruthOut site had a fascinating article entitled "Lose Your House, Lose Your Vote." The gist: Republicans in Macomb County, Michigan (Detroit area) are using foreclosure lists in an attempt to disqualify voters who are listed on it. The justification is that 'foreclosed' people have no proof of residence within the voting district and, so, they no longer have a provable right to vote there; no one is suggesting that the people did not legally register to vote at some point. The real reason (not stated by the article): people who have been foreclosed are more likely to be black than white, poor than wealthy, outraged by Bush's handling of the economy rather than pleased with it. In short, foreclosed people in the Detroit area are likely to vote en masse for the Democrats. If successful, the number skewing by the Republicans could be significant; in July, one household in every 285 in Macombe (or 1,834 families) went into foreclosure. If you assume a modest 2 voters per household, that's close to 4,000 voters who could be neutralized from July alone.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Your Erasures are Not Secure
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
A reader who recently attended a high-level security seminar along with a number of US government infosec employees has given me permission to post his description of the event...
Bona fides: The instructor spent 9 years sitting in the back seat of a USN spy plane. Most of the students (all but one or two of 22) were either current or recent past US government high level IT employees. One was a current DHS systems guy. Another was recent ex-NSA infosec. Several more were chief network security admins for Pentagon and the like.
Here is the scoop. We were discussing secure erasure of magnetic media, and a comment was made about recovering data using electron microscopy (to read remnant magnetic patterns in layers beneath current data) after a 7-pass overwrite (DOD standard for secure erasure - the presumed state of the art for wiping data.). I stated my belief that such a procedure had to be prohibitively expensive and that, absent becoming a "person of interest" to the NSA, should probably not be of concern. My statement went unchallenged by the instructor, but the ex-NSA guy was looking directly at me, with a friendly smirk, and shaking his head "no". On the next bathroom break, I asked him if he was implying that the procedure had become economical. He replied in the affirmative, and added that he was aware of a single DHS laboratory with five electron microscopes in 24x7 use for this purpose, and that other labs undoubtedly exist.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Free Online Graphic Novels from Big Head Press
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
A reminder: Big Head Press offers free online graphic novels by the inimitable libertarian-likes of L.Neil Smith and Scott Bieser. Click here to access.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Smart Politicians Worry Me
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
And the smart just keeps coming...
The San Francisco Chronicle reports, The boyfriend of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's unwed, pregnant daughter will join the family of the Republican vice presidential candidate at the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn. Levi Johnston's mother said her 18-year-old son left Alaska on Tuesday morning to join the Palin family at the convention where Sen. John McCain will officially receive the Republican nomination for president. The boy's mother, Sherry Johnston, said there had been no pressure put on her son to marry 17-year-old Bristol Palin and the two teens had made plans to wed before it was known she was pregnant. "This is just a bonus," Johnston said.
This is exactly what Palin needs to do -- embrace the young man as family and publicly glow about the expected grandchild as wonderful news. Make the liberals (and not the conservatives) be the ones to cry out "OMG, a teenager had sex! The horror! The horror!" Make them look petty and ridiculous, anti-family and anti-forgiveness. Let them take the rap for politically exploiting the sex life of a 17-year-old; let them be the ones to smirk with glee or foam with faux outrage over a child that is wanted and welcomed. Meanwhile, as long as Palin's daughter carries the fetus to term and marries the father, will show compassion and applaud the manner in which a commonplace -- albeit unfortunate --
I wouldn't be surprised if Palin literally embraces Johnston on the GOP convention stage. What a photo op that would be! Not that Palin needs to draw media attention by dangling enticements. The woman has accomplished a near-impossible feat. She's made Obama 2nd-page news.
For more commentary, please visit www.WendyMcelroy.com Like everyone else, I was stunned by John McCain's choice of VP: Sarah Palin. I fall on the "stroke of brilliance" side of the debate on whether his choice was wisdom or folly. Why? With one announcement, McCain changed the election dialogue -- something he needed to do because the conversation wasn't going at all well for Republicans. He established a wow factor for his campaign; the spotlight shifted from Barack; the evangelical GOP base consolidated and opened its wallet; women voters are likely to be more receptive; the Dems are scrabbling on exactly how to lambast Palin. Even the mud being flung at Palin is not likely to stick. Her 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy is not alienating the conservatives who are applauding the daughter's decision to carry the child to term and to marry the father. Meanwhile, the liberal criticism re: the pregnancy revealing Palin's hypocrisy about teens abstaining from sex is strange; as one blogger commented, "[it is] as misguided as asking a non-violent person why her spouse is violent toward her." And, even if the scandal about her arranging to have her brother-in-law fired from his government post is true, the apparent circumstances are such that Palin may become a heroine in the eyes of other women. Those circumstances apparently include the man's tendency to brutally beat Palin's sister. As for her inexperience...frankly, I think that is a selling point. She is not an insider, she is a fresh voice and a new force. What's Barack been running on and for: CHANGE.
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com. An interesting letter from a reader opens by quoting an article she mistakenly attributes to me. The article/blog post in question is Support Your Local Rape Gang by William N. Grigg on the Pro Libertate blog. The confusion arose because the post ends with the note, Thanks to Wendy McElroy and "CLS" at Classically Liberal for their work on this story -- in short, my name was the first one the reader saw at the end of the piece. (BTW, I thank Grigg in return for his impassioned and in-depth analysis of the story upon which I commented on August 11th in the post Teach Children to Fear the Police.)
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
Emily Feder's piece entitled "At JFK Airport, Denying Basic Rights Is Just Another Day at the Office" on Alternet is excellent in a bone-chilling way. Feder writes, I was recently stopped by Homeland Security as I was returning from a trip to Syria. What I saw in the hours that followed shocked and disturbed me. She concludes, In the past five years I have worked for human rights and refugee advocacy organizations in Serbia, Russia and Croatia, including the International Rescue Committee and USAID. I have traveled to many different places, some supposedly repressive, and have never seen people treated with the kind of animosity that Homeland Security showed that night. In Syria, border control officers were stern but polite. At other borders there have been bureaucracies to contend with -- excruciating for both Americans and other foreign nationals. I've met Russian officials with dead, suspicious looks in their eyes and arms tired from stamping so many visas, but in America, the Homeland Security officials I encountered were very much alive -- like vultures waiting to eat.
For more commentary visit Wendy McElroy.com
Murray Rothbard's theoretical approach to history included the idea and importance of what he called "the lone crazy." The lone crazy is a wild card -- the individual (or small group) who seems to appear out of nowhere and acts in an unpredicted manner that dramatically and forever alters the world as we know it. An example would be the nationalist zealot Gavrilo Princip who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife in Sarajevo in 1914 and, so, sparked World War I.
Murray's point was that the best-laid plans of policy-makers can be shattered by a single bullet fired from one man's hand; future history is neither predictable nor amenable to social engineering. This Rothbardian theory came to mind while I was thinking about the current conflict between Georgia and Russia which, admittedly, involves a whole lot of non-lone crazies. But the sudden conflict stands as another example of how the balance of global power can suddenly and surprisingly shift. While neocons were making other plans, Russia abruptly asserted its status as a super-power that would not brook interference with its zones of influence. (In stating this, I do not mean to show admiration or sympathy for Russia...or Georgia, for that matter.)
While the West (largely the U.S.) was busy planning to include Georgia in its zones of influence -- e.g. through inclusion in NATO -- Russia acted in a lone crazy manner that changed the conditions of history/politics in this region. Arguably, given how important Russia is to the Middle East, the conflict with Georgia has changed that history as well. Certainly, it has exposed the weakness of America/Bush who can do little more than shake a forefinger at Putin and Medvedev. For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
A buzz term is appearing with increased frequency in the literature and programs surrounding education at both the public school and university levels: Cultural competence. Parents would do well to ask, "What is it, and how could it affect my children?"
The term “cultural competence” first arose in connection with health care services, where a standard definition is, "services that are respectful of and responsive to the cultural and linguistic needs of the patient." This means, for example, health care providers should be able to communicate with a non-English-speaking patient. They should take other cultural differences into account as well; for example, a clinic might arrange for a female doctor to perform a pelvic exam on a Muslim woman.
Cross Posted at
WendyMcElroy.com.
Kudos to RightBias (Nancy Morgan) for hosting Muslim cartoon week; the site currently offers 23 cartoons that highlight the cowardice and consequence of allowing radical Islam to stifle freedom of speech. The mission of Muslim cartoon week: To protest the growing wave of appeasement and censorship on all things Muslim. Personally, I would have tempered the mission statement to make it clear that it is radical Muslims and not "all things" Muslim that is the threat.
A hat tip to Nathan Larson for creating the elaborate parody site Acme Private Defense Company. Its mission: An anarcho-capitalist entrepreneur has launched a new business venture that will use deterrence to secure libertarian tax havens against government aggression. The company claims an effective defense system has been the missing link in previous attempts by libertarian secessionists to become independent, and that its services can fulfill that hitherto unmet need.
Crossposted at WendyMcElroy.com
Although the following article was first published on May 11, 2000 by Lew Rockwell, it directly addresses and debunks the currently-relevant concept of using the military in Iraq (Afghanistan, Iran et al) to 'promote' values like democracy or women's rights.
Cross Posted at Wendy McElroy.com
An earlier blog post Leave the United States if you can" in which I urge people to move their persons and wealth out of America has stirred controversy and prompted email inquiries. I want to answer one inquiry in a public manner: namely, “why have you become so pessimistic.”
By nature, I am not a pessimist. Nor am I currently pessimistic about my own life or the prospect of freedom in other areas of the world. But I see little reason for any optimism about freedom or prosperity within the US over the next several years; instead, I see the rise of a totalitarianism that is unparalleled in my experience. I know many people think nothing has fundamentally changed State-side; they believe the economy or society is just going through a bad patch. Perhaps people feel this way because they wake up every morning at the same time beside the same person, they eat a customary breakfast with coffee the way they like it and, then, drive well-known roads to work. Thus, life may be more stressful but it is basically unchanged, and anyone who warns them that a slow car accident is heading their way is an alarmist.
It is time -- arguably, it is past time -- for you to get your family and your wealth safely outside the borders of the United States. America has become a police state that is moving quickly toward total surveillance and, in typical American fashion, the resulting society will almost certainly be the "the best and the biggest" tyranny in the world.
Make plans right now while opportunities still exist to secure your wealth outside of the authorities' rapacious reach because that door of opportunity may be slammed in your face in the near future. It is not merely that government at all levels is starving for the cash that's dried up from property taxes and, so, will steal and confiscate like a drunken highwayman. Many factors point to rise of the Total State, which will grind up your freedom, your future and the lives of those who resist. The royal screwing of American taxpayers will only get worse in the near future...for a interlocking mixture of reasons that are, in many cases, nothing more than flimsy justifications.
1) Increasingly, I hear the phrase "privatizing profits, socializing costs" (or losses) because, increasingly, the situation described is being imposed by politicians. The most notorious instance is the recent bail-out of the "Macs" -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- by which those quasi-private agencies are rewarded for almost criminal fiscal incompetence/irresponsibility by forcing taxpayers to absorb the cost. And, lest you believe the bailout is no more than some American taxpayers 'helping' some others who are Mac bond holders, heed these words from Freedom works, As politicians call for taxpayer bailouts and a government takeover of troubled mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, FreedomWorks would like to point out that a bailout is a transfer of possibly hundreds of billions of U.S. tax dollars to sophisticated investors and governments overseas. The top five foreign holders of Freddie and Fannie long-term debt are China, Japan, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. Interestingly, on the same day the American taxpayer bailout of China was announced, another piece of news 'broke.' The Chinese government significantly reduced its subsidy of oil/gas...a subsidy that inflated gas prices and which the US government had exerted longstanding pressure to reduce.
Once.
And again.
And again.
And again.
This year's election postmortem (like those in the past) will be haunted by a shrill complaint: "Not enough women were elected!" The accusation should be ignored because there is no proper ratio of female versus male office holders. Whoever receives the largest vote total in a free election is the proper winner regardless of gender, race or religion.
But the gender card will be played. The argument will run: women constitute 50 percent of the population; if women were truly equal, 50 percent of elected officials would be women; the percentage is far lower; therefore, women are not equal. This argument is false and reflects the changing definition of "equality" within feminism.
First appeared in Spintech, November 12, 1999
by Wendy McElroy
[Although the article is 10 years old, the situation discussed remains the same.]
In March 1997, I spoke at the International Conference on Prostitution (ICOP), which was presented jointly by The Center for Sex Research at Cal State University Northridge and the sex workers' organization COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) L.A. To the casual observer, the conference appeared to run smoothly. Those who attended the luncheon address by the featured speaker -- former U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders -- were treated to a good natured sight. As Elders warmed to her theme of sex education for the young, she slipped into an evangelical tent-shaking delivery that prompted shouts of "Preach it sister!" from a table of prostitutes by the dais. The laughter and spontaneous applause veiled a sad fact: the journalists, researchers and academics sat together in tight clusters, apart from sex workers. Overwhelmingly, the segregation of 'non-pros' had been instituted by the prostitute-activists.
When I was sixteen, I ran away from home and lived on the streets for as short a period of time as I could manage. I did not turn to prostitution or to drugs; I was lucky. Not in avoiding paid sex and substances -- these were deliberate choices. I was lucky to be sixteen and, so, able to legally support myself. If I had been two months younger, child labor laws would have forced me to beg or do far worse in order to survive.
I was reading an online article entitled Document forensics expert: Obama "birth certificate" a "horrible forgery" in the news magazine the Israel Insider when I stumbled. The article discussed the ongoing controversy over whether Obama was born on non-US soil and, so, ineligible to run for President. It opened, Barack Obama may be on a world tour surrounded by a fawning media, but Sunday an expert in electronic document forensics released a detailed report on the purported birth certificate -- actually a "Certification of Live Birth" or COLB -- claimed as genuine by his campaign. The expert concludes with 100% certainty that it is a crudely forged fake: "a horribly forgery," according to the analysis published on the popular right-wing Atlas Shrugs blog.
In case you've missed it, George Carlin on voting. The "fully informed jury" strategy attempts to wedge the jury process as an obstacle between oppressive law and individual freedom. The strategy is based on the doctrine of jury nullification by which a juror can reject the law. That is, a juror can refuse to convict a defendant despite instructions from a judge if he believes either that the law is unjust or that its application is unjust. In essence, the jury renders a verdict on the law itself and not merely on the facts of a case. Talk back to a cop and go to jail! -- at least in Lafayette, Colorado where it is now a crime to verbally disrespect authority. An article in the local Daily Camera provides background as of Sunday the 13th. According to a local commentator on the news item, the ordinance pass in council on Tuesday the 15th.
The ordinance states, "It is unlawful for any person to make forceful contact, strike, or do bodily harm to, attempt to make forceful contact, strike, or do bodily harm to, threaten to make forceful contact, strike, or do bodily harm to, either verbally or by action or gesture, to any peace officer in the performance of such officers official duties, or attempt to perform such duties. Profane, abusive, insulting, taunting, or provoking language directed to a peace officer which may reasonably promote a violent response or reaction shall be deemed a violation of this section, whether accompanying the aforesaid actions or not." [Emphasis added]
Of all the material I've written on individualist feminism, this may be my favorite piece because it is thorough and clear: the Introductory essay to my book Individualist Feminism of the Nineteenth Century: Collected Writing and Biographical Profiles. (Click
here to access more excerpts from this work.)
The entire essay can be accessed by clicking here
From http://www.wendymcelroy.com/smf/index.php?topic=3425.15 a discussion thread on a discussion group I moderate... On June 5th, the New York Times published a transcript of the 2008 Republican presidential candidates debate moderated by Wolf Blitzer in which Ron Paul participated. Page 20 of the transcript contains the following exchange on separation of Church and State.... KVOA TV reports, A young man infected with an especially virulent strain of tuberculosis has been held for the past eight months in a hospital jail ward under a court order, and may be held until he dies. Robert Daniels has not been charged with a crime, but the 27-year-old violated the rules of a voluntary quarantine, exposing others to a potentially deadly illness. Maricopa County public health officials then got a court order to keep him locked up. (Some voluntary quarantine; obey it or be imprisoned. This is a definition of the word "voluntary" with which I am unfamiliar.) The ifeminists.net weekly e-newsletter is back. This is the URL to the first issue of the InsiderUpdate, now posted on the ifeminists.net site. The best of the week's news and commentary, handpicked for our newsfeed, will be beamed directly into your inbox, along with introductory remarks and announcements. You are most cordially invited to sign on for a free subscription. Instructions on how to do so follow:
1. Register as a user at the ifeminists.net website. At the bottom of the left column, you will see a box entitled "Welcome". Click the "Signup" link. You will be taken to a page asking you to verify that you are over 18. Once you have done that, you'll be taken to a second page, where you can provide a user name of your choice, a password, and a VALID email address. (This information will not be shared with anyone else.) Only the fields with a red asterisk are required. Enter the numeric code displayed at the bottom of the screen, and click "Register". You will receive an email which includes a link to a web page. You must visit that web page within five days to activate your membership.
2. Subscribe to the newsletter. Go to http://www.ifeminists.net. At the bottom of the left column, in the box titled "Welcome", is the login form. Enter your user name and password, and click "Login". Once you have logged in, this box will change to "Welcome
We're back baby! We're back! A battle of political extremists ended in the throwing of meat and condoms Friday as about a dozen protesters from the LaRouche Youth Movement interrupted a lecture by an Ayn Rand Institute speaker. Story here. Leonard Peikoff, bearer of the official Objectivist torch, advises re: the upcoming election, Vote Democrat across the board. I am a bit surprised by his ringing rejection of the Republican Party because I remember all too well Peikoff's appearance on the Bill O'Reilly show a few years ago where the man outhawked Bill and most neo-cons by calling for the pre-emptive bombing of Iran. Given that the Democrats are 'softer' on war than the Repubs, I assumed he would be saluting all things GOP. But the GOP's eager embrace of religion seems to have been too much for "bomb 'em all and let Rand sort 'em out" Leonard. Another female teacher is accused of having sex with a male student and has been "charged with having an improper relationship with a student, a second-degree felony." She faces a possible 25-year prison sentence. (See article in Dallas Morning News for full account.) The twist in this case is that the student in question is and was of legal age in Texas when the alleged encounters occurred; the age of consent is 17-years-old and the student was 18. Nevertheless, the teacher "was charged under a law that outlaws sexual relationships between educators and students even if the sex is consensual and the student is of legal age." In other words, one occupation is being singled out to be punished as an exception under the law -- and punished severely -- while those employed in other occupations suffer no legal consequences for committing the same act -- that is, having a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old. I am not arguing that the harsh law should be expanded to 'embrace' all workplaces. I'm pointing out what I think is an unconstitutional application of the law which will probably be tolerated because the hysteria over pedophilia is so great that society will nod its approval at defining an 18-year-old as a child and punishing teachers uniquely under the law.
And, yes, I would make the same argument if the sexes were reversed. You are cordially invited to visit my blog and join a libertarian BB that I moderate. By now everyone knows that some phone giants, like AT&T, have given the NSA access to their voice and data networks and to their customer databases without notifying customers. Those who defend the practice often use the following argument: "We are not listening in on content. We are merely recording the phone numbers in order to establish patterns that could indicate terrorist activity." Of course, it is trivial for the NSA to use the phone numbers to also get the names and addresses of whomever you call but, nevertheless, the idea that they are not listening in makes their activities seem less intrusive, less harmful. That is, until you consider how analysis of those patterns can be used and abused... I am sorry to report that one of the most intriguing and unique libertarian organizations is declaring 'victory' and closing its doors. The Extropy Institute,"was formed in 1990 by Max More and Tom Bell with a mission to bring great minds together to incubate ideas about emerging technologies, life extension and the future." Fellow travellers and fans are assured that ExI is now "opening a window for a proactive future." It offers a strategic plan that is available for public perusal.
Good luck to everyone involved -- past, present and future. For more commentary, visit my blog or libertarian discussion BB. An essay I wrote on Lysander Spooner for the Future of Freedom Foundation has been posted on the Lew Rockwell site. Enjoy! Come browse McBlog and my libertarian discussion BB For years now, I've been musing about a strange political demand that I frequently encounter. It is the demand that I feel hatred toward some person or group -- a demand that is almost immediately followed by a backlash of denunciation when the requisite hatred is not manifested. (The most common denunciation is that you are a hypocrite for not feeling hatred or that you are showing 'your true colors.' Presumably, the accusation means you actually agree with the person you've just meticulously debunked -- thus debunking yourself?) The latest cause for this line of musing is Tuesday's FOX News/ifeminist column "A Different Look at Betty Friedan's Legacy " in which I questioned various assumptions about Betty Friedan; for example, I presented Daniel Horowitz's excellent expose of her ideological (Marxist) background; he explodes the popular idea of Friedan being an apolitical housewife who just stumbled across a 'great truth' that became The Feminine Mystique. I ended my column by rejecting the possibility of providing a eulogy for Friedan....I don't believe she deserves one. Instead, I stated that all I could honestly say is "rest in peace." Because I did not say "burn in hell," or the equivalent, I've been receiving the predictable blasts of rage from those on the extreme edge of the men's rights movement. The response is nothing new and hardly worth mentioning except for the fact that I am prompted once more to wonder: why is it not enough to disagree with someone and vigorously rebut their arguments? Why do some of those who similarly disagree deem it necessary to feel and express personal hatred? Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller ("Bullshit") has been on my mind lately. It is not merely that his TV show is one of the rare programs I make a point of marking onto my schedule to watch every week. (Highly recommended!) Or that I just discovered he is a fellow-traveller, a fellow anarchocapitalist. It is also due to the hostile response I've received over an article I ran on the ifeminists.net front page this week entitled "How to Fight Back Against Pat-Downs by Airport Security Screeners" by Matthew Reed who specifically wished to have his position in the military known: Lance Corporal, Unites States Marine Corps 0351/ Training NCO 1st Marine Regiment. Gutsy fellow to stand by his beliefs in such a prominent manner. The gist of his article: Reed suggests much the same behavior that Penn Jillette enacted a few years ago while going through an airport pat down. That is, when airport security touches your genitals in an unwanted manner and despite your protest, call the police and register a sexual assault complaint. I applauded Penn's actions then and I equally applaud women now who file a police report of sexual assault in a similar situation. I have received howls of outrage from some extreme voices within the men's movement who seem to believe that I wrote the article, not Reed, despite his meticulous attribution and attached email. If I had written the article, I admit that I would have changed a few sentences as they do not accurately reflect my opinion. As a matter of site policy, however, I do not edit the content of contributors who, after all, I don't pay; I either run a piece or I don't. As a general assessment, I believe Reed wrote a solid article and that the pre-emptive sexual molestation of both men and women in the name of 'security' should not be legally tolerated. Some howling critics also maintain that such complaints are false accusations and that I am calling for women to falsely accuse men despite the many articles in which I called for the punishment and non-toleration of same.
Is legally objecting to the forced groping of your genitals a false accusation? I don't see how...unless, of course, you believe that putting on a uniform excuses the wearer from all personal responsibility of respecting the human rights of others. That is a popular view these days, I admit. Put on a police, military, or some otherwise governmental uniform and you are somehow given a "right" -- no, make that word "privilege" -- to break the laws of common decency and non-agression. So, in response to critics, I say...GO PENN! GO REED! Thanks for making my person a bit safer from the thugs and their attack-dog apologists who wish to grope the genitals of reluctant others in order to make the world a better place. How bright the future they envision must shine!! Check out my libertarian discussion BB! A blogspot has been created for tributes to and memories of Joan Kennedy Taylor. You are cordially invited to browse McBlog and a new libertarian discussion BB. I received the following message today: Dear Friends: Joan [Kennedy Taylor] passed away this morning at 12:30 A.M. The end was peaceful, and I am grateful that it came quickly....Current plans - which may change - are to have calling hours at Frank Campbell Funeral Home on 82nd and Madison on Wednesday, to have calling hours in Lee, Massachusetts on Thursday, and to have her funeral on Friday in Stockbridge, followed by a burial in the Stockbridge Cemetery, next to David [Joan's husband]."
"The one-hour program, released by PBS this past Thursday, purports to be an exposé of how the court system ignores children subjected to parental abuse. But the program makes a number of claims about child abuse and custody that are refuted by government reports....Breaking the Silence asserts that parental alienation syndrome "has been thoroughly debunked" by the American Psychological Association. But Rhea Farberman, spokeswoman for the APA, recently labeled the PBS claim as 'incorrect' and 'inaccurate.' Over 25 counselors and psychologists are now calling on PBS to invite qualified mental health experts to give "a more accurate and complete view of parental alienation syndrome."
Within the men's rights movement, there has been a concerted letter-writing and protest effort aimed at exacting an apology or retraction from PBS for their recent TV program "Breaking the Silence." And, from all I hear, the program seems to have been a bad piece of reporting that was quite biased against fathers and inaccurate to boot. But the campaign against PBS is one of those backlashes that combine several issues together as tho' they were one and make it more difficult for there to be a broad base of consensus.
I'll take myself as an example. I have seen so much wildly inaccurate and biased material against divorced fathers and their parental rights that the call for accuracy on the stats is like music to me. But the press release referenced above is as much a call to validate Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS} as it is a cry for accuracy. I am certain that parental alienation -- by which one parent poisons a child against the other -- is a real and painful problem. But I am skeptical and cynical about turning every human problem into a psychological Syndrome registered with the APA so that is accorded legal weight and used in court decisions. (And legal weight seems to be the goal of PAS advocates.) The Battered Wife Syndrome, the Helsinki Syndrome, the Recovered Memory Syndrome...I think these have been damaging steps away from common sense and hard standards of evidence within the courts. In short, I couldn't in good conscience sign on to the above protest against PBS because I don't want to endorse yet another court room Syndrome.
I had a similar problem with the drive against the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) which I thought was a horrible measure on several grounds, one of which was the fact that it embeds gender more prominently, more deeply into the law. Most of my objections, however, revolved around the further expansion of the "domestic violence industry" through which massive government funds end up in the hands of ideologues: researchers, advocates, writers, lecturers, teachers, lawyers, etc. The solution favored by the men's rights movment -- which most of whom seemed to agree that the bill was bad in its essence -- the solution favored was to make the bill gender neutral by including men within its bad policies. I couldn't sign on to that either even though I opposed VAWA in several FOX News Columns. The intermixing of these two issues -- opposing VAWA and including men within its embrace -- is one of the reasons (I believe) that the drive against VAWA was so unsuccessful.
This makes you long for a single-issue issue. They are getting hard to find.
For more commentary, please see McBlog As well, you are invited to check out a libertarian Bulletin Board that I've just set up. Come join the discussion!
Hello: Reuters reports, "CNN took veteran political columnist Robert Novak off the air late Thursday after he uttered an expletive and walked off the set of 'Inside Politics' while it was still on the air. Novak's outburst happened 10 minutes before the end of the show in the midst of an exchange among Novak, fellow analyst James Carville and 'Inside Politics' anchor Ed Henry."
But was Novak's temper tantrum and walk out staged to allow him to avoid being asked about the Plame scandal? For those who have lived in a cave for the last year or so, Valerie Plame was a CIA operative whose identity was disclosed in one of Novak's columns in July 2003. It is widely assumed that the disclosure was intended to punish or discredit her husband -- Bush-critic and former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Arizona Central states, "Two other reporters connected to the case openly fought the revelation of their sources, and Judith Miller of The New York Times has been jailed for refusing to cooperate with prosecutors. Novak has repeatedly refused to comment about his role in the federal investigation. After Novak walked off on Thursday, Henry said that Novak had been told before the segment that he was going to be asked on air about the CIA case." Indeed, Henry stated that he had been just about to ask when the explosion occurred and cut off that possibility.
Or, rather, according to the Los Angeles Times, after uttering the expletive, Novak "appeared ready to continue the discussion. But after another moment he rose from his chair, removed his microphone and walked off the set." If it was Carville's needling he was trying to avoid or protest -- rather than Henry's impending question -- then wouldn't he have left immediately after uttering "Bullshit". (That was the expletive BTW.) Moreover, a lot of bloggers, who seem to have poured over clips of the incident which are already posted across the Internet, have remark on how mild Carville's needling of Novak actually was...at least, compared to exchanges on other shows during which Novak's posterior managed to stay solidly in his seat.
My opinion: Novak staged the walk out BUT his co-host James Carville is so damned annoying that the "blow up" theory cannot be fully discarded. And I echo a question asked by another blogger: will the Federal Communications Commission fine Novak for indecency? And, as usual, I like the Wonkette's take on the incident: "Novak Takes His Lack of Balls and Goes Home." For more commentary, please see McBlog. An interesting article that discusses the reasons why the ifeminists.net newsletter has been suspended. I am quoted along with Steve Simpson from the Institute for Justice. For more commentary, please see McBlog. Jim Peron has announced a liquidation sale that offers the entire stock of his book store in Auckland, New Zealand (Aristotle's Books) to the public at reduced rates. The news item on the liquidation to which I have linked emphasizes the gay/lesbian material he carries but Jim's shop also focused on libertarianism/classical liberalism. Indeed, Jim is the founder of the Institute for Liberal Values for which the bookstore functioned as an adjunct. The bookstore's edress is orders@aristotlesbooks.co.nz. Or you may be able to contact the bookstore through the Institute. Please do not query me about prices, etc. I've passed along all I know. For more commentary, please see McBlog I have lamented -- and often! -- the lack of protest that has greeted so many measures restricting civil liberties and stripping away the dignity of ordinary human beings going about their daily lives. Airport "security" has become the living symbol of those measures for me. As long as I am treated as a criminal rather than as a customer, I refuse to fly. I was both heartened and depressed by reading a news article that described Phyllis Dintenfass, a 62-year-old retired technical college teacher who did a 'tit for tat' -- that is, when a female TSA officer groped her breasts, she groped back and claimed self-defense. The heartening part: thank GOD someone is protesting the ludicrous and debasing procedures that pass for "security." You go girl!! The depressing part: she has been found guilty of assault by a federal court and will be sentenced on November 1st. She "could face up to one year in federal prison and a fine of $100,000." When the government swats a fly with a laser blast, then you know it is trying to enforce an entirely unreasonable law or policy. For more commentary, please see McBlog I just sent the following notice to the thousands of subscribers to ifeminists.net's e-newsletter to announce its suspension (at least, in emailed form) and to explain the political reasons why that suspension is legally prudent. The notice follows...
Hello to all:
I am sorry to announce that I will no longer be sending out the weekly ifeminists.net newsletter. Instead, the exact same content will be featured on a page of the website. Of course, news can also be accessed on a daily basis by browsing the newsfeed or by an RSS feed.
The reason?
On July 1st, new laws regarding e-mailed newsletters went into effect in Utah and Michigan; other states are close behind. Anne P. Mitchell, President/CEO of the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy and a law professor, calls those laws "a legal quandry in which every sender of commercial email is about to find themselves." (See Groklaw for more information. And please note: non-commercial emailers seem to be included if their newsletters contain URLs that link to commercial sites or products.)
Both Utah and Michigan have created a "child protection registry" for email addresses that belong to children or to which children have access. It functions like a "no call list." Spamfo.co explains, "Once an email address is on the registry, commercial emailers are prohibited from sending it anything containing advertising, or even just linking to advertising, for a product or service that a minor is otherwise legally prohibited from accessing, such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling, prescription drugs, or adult-rated material." In short, e-newsletters (such as ifeminists.net) are not permitted to send to registered email addresses if those newsletters include URLs to news sites that, in turn, link to child-inappropriate commerical information or products such as casino or viagra ads, tobacco or alcohol for sale.
Many credible news sources -- especially British ones, it seems -- offer links to adult-themed sites or products. These links can change constantly, which means that it is impossible to check a URL and "clear" it of so-called objectionable links or ads.
Moreover, e-mailing to registered addresses is illegal even if the newsletter was requested, and the legal penalties for doing so are imposed without notifying the offender so that he/she can rectify the situation. What are those penalties? To quote Prof. Mitchell again, "Under these laws...that email sender faces strict liability which can include up to 3 years in prison, and fines of $30,000 or more. In addition, ISPs and the individuals whose email addresses are on the registry have a right of action against the sender, as does the state attorney general."
The only protection is for the emailer to make sure that a particular address is not "illegal" by matching his/her mailing list against the registries. That process requires at least two things that I am unwilling to do: 1) turn my mailing list over to the government; and 2) pay a per-address fee for the matching process. Moreover, since I cannot easily ascertain whether a hotmail or aol address has a final destination within Utah or Michigan, I'd have to turn over and pay for virtually every address on a monthly basis to two state governments. (There now are two; there will soon be several more and I would have to keep up with the variations in law in each state.)
Being charged under the new laws may seem to be a remote possibility. And I would not suspend publication were it not for two factors.
First, the enewsletter includes links to news and commentary on sexual issues such as pornography and prostitution, abortion and gay rights. It includes URLs to such discussion and, in turn, those URLs are more likely than many to point to sites the child registries would consider inappropriate. And, according to the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy, you could be in trouble if your email contains "unpermitted materials, links to unpermitted materials, or even links to sites which have information about the unpermitted materials". The law is *that* broad and *that* vague.
Second, it is difficult to over-state the viciousness and dishonesty of some of the people who attack father's/men's rights advocates. Some have crusaded to destroy the careers, lives, and even harm the families of those who advocate positions like the presumption of shared custody. Given that no notification of an inappropriate address is necessary before penalties can be imposed, I believe it is likely that one of these malicious feminists will subscribe to the ifeminists.net newsletter under an inappropriate address and, then, file a complaint when the e-newsletter arrives.
I won't take that risk. Nor will I turn over addresses to the government, let alone pay for the privilege.
I have enjoyed publishing the newsletter. I hope you have enjoyed receiving it and that will continue to follow the ifeminists.net news and commentary by clicking on our website at your convenience. To repeat: The newsletter content that you have received each week by email will now be available on a web page. This web page will give you the week's headlines. As other options, you can visit our main index page for daily updates, or subscribe to our RSS news feed. All three options give you the same news items. Choose the form that's most convenient for you.
Best wishes, as always,
Wendy McElroy
P.S. These laws won't stop foreign spam (our ISP is American) or spam from "zombie" PCs. They will mean cash from the large email marketers; and will simply stop small companies and non-profit organizations from distributing email newsletters. Read Declan McCullagh's article for just some of the ramifications. For more comentary, please read McBlog.
An interesting scandal/controversy has been bubbling and still is brewing within academia concerning the forthcoming book "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History" by Norman G. Finkelstein -- a professor of political science at DePaul University. It is basically an attack upon the honesty, ethics, and scholarship of Alan Dershowitz...an attack that Dershowitz tried to kill through political pull and legal bullying. (Did he used to be a civil rights lawyer? What...he still is? Oh well, I lost respect for the man when he came out in favor of torture in a post-9/11 world.)
Some background on the Finkelstein/Dershowitz fracas... Wikipedia provides an overview of the origin, "Shortly after the publication of the book The Case for Israel, Norman Finkelstein accused its author, Alan Dershowitz, of 'fraud, falsification, plagiarism and nonsense.' Specifically, Finkelstein noted that in twenty instances that all occur within about as many pages, Dershowitz's book excerpts the same words from the same sources that Joan Peters used in her book From Time Immemorial, a book about the history of Israel that several critics have accused of distortion, and which Finkelstein had labeled a 'monumental hoax.' Several paragraph-long quotes that the two books share have ellipses in the same position, Finkelstein pointed out; and in one instance Dershowitz referenced the same page number as Peters, although he was citing a different edition of the source, in which the words appear on a different page... Finkelstein demonstrated in an October 3, 2003 letter to the Harvard Crimson that Dershowitz reproduced exactly two of Peters' mistakes, and made one relevant mistake of his own. Quoting Mark Twain, 'Dershowitz cites two paragraphs from Twain as continuous text, just as Peters cites them as continuous text, but in Twain's book the two paragraphs are separated by 87 pages'." (The Wikipedia entry also offers extensive back-and-forth between Finkelstein and Dershowitz, as well as analysis of the possibility of plagiarism. For more on Finkelstein's critique of Dershowitz, see the former's homepage, which seems to be devoted to that subject. See also the subpage The Dershowitz Hoax.)
Dershowitz has gone to great lengths to try and kill the upcoming Finkelstein book. The Los Angeles Times explains, "Governors are asked by members of the public to do lots of things, but the request Arnold Schwarzenegger got from Alan Dershowitz in December was unique: to intervene with the University of California Press' plans to publish a book. Why does Dershowitz care? Because the book in question -- Norman Finkelstein's 'Beyond Chutzpah,' due out next month -- is harshly critical of Dershowitz... But Dershowitz's campaign against the book went beyond his letter to Schwarzenegger. He had his lawyers send belligerent letters to dozens of people who might have power over the process."
Good news: the University of California Press is going ahead with the book and hopes to meet the original publication date of August 28th. Over the last few months, however, "Beyond Chutzpah" may have become the most vetted book in history. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports, "Beyond Chutzpah" [has] been through several rounds of legal vetting. The University of California retained several outside lawyers, including American and British legal experts, to examine the manuscript along with its in-house counsel. Mr. Finkelstein said that the book had been through some 15 drafts in the past eight months." The University of California Press apparently took Dershowitz seriously when he said he would own them if they called him a plagiarist or claimed he did not write his own books. (Indeed, Finkelstein has claimed elsewhere that Dershowitz does not even read his own books.) In response, Dershowitz has launched his own vilification campaign against Finkelstein. For example, on July 5th the right-wing FrontPageMagazine published "Why is the University of California Press Publishing Bigotry?" by left-wing Dershowitz.
Meanwhile, the left-wing may well be deserting its former super-star lawyer. An article in the July 11 issue of The Nation asked, ''Why would a prominent First Amendment advocate take such an action?" -- referring to the attempt to bar "Beyond Chutzpah" from publication. For more commentary, please see McBlog.` Tuesday, September 2, 2008
My Take on Sarah Palin
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
A Mother Speaks Out
Thursday, August 21, 2008
If Possible, Don't Visit the United States
Saturday, August 16, 2008
The Lone Crazy Theory
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Cultural Competence and Your Child
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Muslim Cartoon Week on RightBias
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
ACME Private Defense Company
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Military Humanitarianism: A Moral Impossibility
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Leave the United States (Redux)
Monday, August 4, 2008
Leave the United States if You Can
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Bend Over! The Government Wants to Say "Hello"
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
The Police Worry About Your Health
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Equal Access Does Not Guarantee Equal Outcome
Monday, July 28, 2008
Prostitution: Reconsidering Research
Friday, July 25, 2008
U.S. Child Labor Laws are Child Abuse
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Say What?
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
George Carlin on Voting
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Fully Informed Jury Strategy
Talking Back to a Cop is a Crime
Individualist Feminism of the Nineteenth Century
Monday, August 27, 2007
Paul on HR 1094....Wow
VOLUNTARYTRADE: Paul is the primary sponsore of HR 1094, the "Sanctity of Human Life Act," which states, in relevant part: "The Congress finds that present day scientific evidence indicates a significant likelihood that actual human life exists from conception....The Congress declares that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception, without regard to race, sex, age, health, defect, or condition of dependency." So where in the Constitution does Congress have the authority to make either of these findings/declarations?
ANOTHER MEMBER'S RESPONSE: No where --- and most certainly not in any part of Art.I Sec.8! But then, how long has it been since the `minor detail' of "un-Constitutionality" has stopped the majority of members of Congress from voting to pass a Law? however, arguably what the authors of this Bill are trying to do is to extend 14th Amendment Protection to the "pre-born." Such a Bill would provide a legal "fig leaf" for anti-Abortion legislation --- notwithstanding the fact that Congress was never delegated the power to make such legislation, unless perhaps one wants to try to argue that the "Necessary and Proper" clause granted them that Power after the 14th Amendment was passed (which would make the entire argument circular).
VOLUNTARYTRADE: Funny you should bring up the 14th Amendment. Paul wants it applied to zygotes, but not certain (*cough* Mexican) children actually born in the United States. He's proposed the following constitutional amendment: "Any person born after the date of the ratification of this article to a mother and father, neither of whom is a citizen of the United States nor a person who owes permanent allegiance to the United States, shall not be a citizen of the United States or of any State solely by reason of birth in the United States." So the great libertarian saviour opposes individual rights to brown-skinned infants and those who don't "owe permanent allegiance" to a government. Wow.Sunday, August 19, 2007
Ron Paul on Separation of Church and State
BLITZER: Congressman Paul...What do you say about this whole issue of church and state and these issues that are coming forward right now?
PAUL: Well, I think we should read the First Amendment, where it says, "Congress shall write no law.” [NOTE: the actual wording is "Congress shall make no law."] And we should write a lot less laws regarding this matter. It shouldn’t be a matter of the president or the Congress. It should be local people, local officials. The state should determine so many of these things that we just don’t need more laws determining religious things or prayer in school. We should allow people at the local level.
That’s what the Constitution tells us. We don’t need somebody in Washington telling us what we can do, because we don’t have perfect knowledge. And that’s the magnificence of our Constitution and our republic. We sort out the difficult problems at local levels and we don’t have one case fit all, because you have a
Supreme Court ruling like on Roe versus Wade; it (ruined ?) it for the whole country.
There are at least four disturbing aspects to Paul's statement that the separation of Church and State should be decided on the local level -- from state legislatures to town meeting to local school boards.
1) to get a technical and lesser point out of the way...the self-described Constitutionalist is advocating an unconstitutional position. The Fourteenth Amendment provides, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Those privileges and immunities are delineated in the first ten Amendments (the Bill of Rights) -- the First of which was clearly intended to provide for freedom of conscience/religion by removing state involvement in promoting or quashing specific beliefs.
2) He apparently does not believe in the tripartite division of power -- the Executive, the Legislative, the Judicial -- because he wants to hobble the Supreme Court so that it cannot act as a check and balance. If he attempts to change the power and the role of the Supreme Court, then he will be acting unconstitutionally in this regard as well. Elsewhere he has stated,
"[I]f federal judges wrongly interfere and attempt to compel a state to recognize the marriage licenses of another state, that would be the proper time for me to consider new legislative or constitutional approaches."
3) Since he believes "the difficult issues" like the relationship between Church and State should be sorted out at the local level, I must assume he believes that all the other "difficult issues" -- e.g. the right to bear arms, the availability of due process -- should be decided on a state-by-state or even city-by-city level. The Bill of Rights is a profoundly pro-natural rights document; Paul's diminishment of the Bill of Rights is profoundly pro-statist, leaving natural rights to the discretion of tens of thousands of local governments who are free to act as petty tyrants.
4) The establishment of theocracy is not and cannot be a libertarian position and, yet, this is the door Paul is deliberately opening. It is not merely abortion that will be targeted. Consider two quotes from Paul: "If I were in Congress in 1996, I would have voted for the Defense of Marriage Act[.]" AND "I was an original cosponsor of the Marriage Protection Act, HR 3313, that removes challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act from federal courts' jurisdiction."
The man would impose a Religious Right Conservate agenda upon the nation and circumvent Constitutional protections offered to the individual by appealing to "state's rights" and "local authority." Since when do libertarians consider states to have rights? Only individuals have rights and those rights can be violated as easily by a state government as by a federal one.Friday, March 2, 2007
Typhoid Robert
The story raises the fascinating issue of whether the imprisonment of an innocent but potentially deadly young man can be justified.
Libertarian theory gives a clear answer. The imprisonment is not and cannot be justified. The young man has committed no crime; he is a self-owner with the same individual right to freedom as anyone/everyone else.
For the sake of argument, however, let's up the ante. Let's assume he is not just a potential threat to people who are vulnerable to this strain of tuberculosis but that everyone who comes into contact with him will die. I would advocate some form of isolation -- forced if necessary -- but I would not and could not justify it on libertarian principle. My advocacy of using force would rely on the fact that the Typhoid Mary/Robert scenario destroys the intellectual framework of libertarianism. In other words, libertarianism rests on the political worldview of rights being universal -- possessed in equal measure by all human beings. My exercise of a right does not interfere with your ability to exercise the comparable right. For example, my right of free conscience -- the freedom to reach my own conclusions about morality, religion etc. -- in no way prevents you from exercising your judgment on similar matters. This framework is sometimes called "Lockean." It contrasts with a "Hobbesian" worldview by which human beings are in a state of nature, a war of all against all; that is, my life requires your death. Within a Hobbesian world, individual or universal rights make no more sense for human beings than they do for wild animals whose lives are a natural cycle of being both predator and prey.
In short, libertarian principles make sense only within the context that is specifically stripped away by Typhoid Mary. The situation does not destroy the validity of libertarianism, which continues to address 99.99% of all situations in life and 100% of those most people will confront. Nor does the situation place libertarianism at a disadvantage relative to other political theories since none of them provides a good answer to Typhoid Mary or lifeboat situations. The dynamic of situation does mean, however, that in the absence of libertarian principles I will fall back on the default justification of protecting my own life and the lives of those for whom I care. I would interfere with the young man's freedom as little as I possibly could to achieve my goal...but interfere I would. I would not appeal to the State because giving such power to that pack of snarling dogs would end up with my being badly bitten. But I would assist another party in ensuring the isolation.
Another thing I wouldn't do? As stated earlier, I would not justify any of my actions through an appeal to libertarianism. No such justification is available.
You are invited to browse and join http://www.wendymcelroy.com/smf a libertarian BB that I moderate.Wednesday, January 17, 2007
We're Back Baby! We're Back!
Sunday, November 5, 2006
Objectivist heckled with condoms
You are cordially invited to browse and join a libertarian BB that I moderate.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Peikoff says, Vote Democrat!
From his home site (which gives blanket permission to reprint):
Q: In view of the constant parade of jackassery which is Washington, is there any point in voting for candidates of either entrenched party? Throwing out the incumbents "for a change" is to me an idea based on the philosophy that my head will stop hurting if I bang it on the opposite wall.
A: How you cast your vote in the coming election is important, even if the two parties are both rotten. In essence, the Democrats stand for socialism, or at least some ambling steps in its direction; the Republicans stand for religion, particularly evangelical Christianity, and are taking ambitious strides to give it political power.
Socialism—a fad of the last few centuries—has had its day; it has been almost universally rejected for decades. Leftists are no longer the passionate collectivists of the 30s, but usually avowed anti-ideologists, who bewail the futility of all systems. Religion, by contrast—the destroyer of man since time immemorial—is not fading; on the contrary, it is now the only philosophic movement rapidly and righteously rising to take over the government.
Given the choice between a rotten, enfeebled, despairing killer, and a rotten, ever stronger, and ambitious killer, it is immoral to vote for the latter, and equally immoral to refrain from voting at all because “both are bad.”
The survival of this country will not be determined by the degree to which the government, simply by inertia, imposes taxes, entitlements, controls, etc., although such impositions will be harmful (and all of them and worse will be embraced or pioneered by conservatives, as Bush has shown). What does determine the survival of this country is not political concretes, but fundamental philosophy. And in this area the only real threat to the country now, the only political evil comparable to or even greater than the threat once posed by Soviet Communism, is religion and the Party which is its home and sponsor.
The most urgent political task now is to topple the Republicans from power, if possible in the House and the Senate. This entails voting consistently Democratic, even if the opponent is a “good” Republican.
In my judgment, anyone who votes Republican or abstains from voting in this election has no understanding of the practical role of philosophy in man’s actual life—which means that he does not understand the philosophy of Objectivism, except perhaps as a rationalistic system detached from the world.
If you hate the Left so much that you feel more comfortable with the Right, you are unwittingly helping to push the U.S. toward disaster, i.e., theocracy, not in 50 years, but, frighteningly, much sooner.
You are cordially invited to browse and join a libertarian BB that I moderate. Tuesday, June 6, 2006
18-yr-old = legal/sexual child?
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
NSA to ABC News, "We know who you call"
One example of abuse is being currently discussed on the ABC News blog. It reads in part, A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources. "It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.
Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation. One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was not a confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen.
Our reports on the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland were known to have upset CIA officials. The CIA asked for an FBI investigation of leaks of classified information following those reports.
By analyzing the phone pattern of reporters who are investigating material that the government would like to bury, the NSA can identify/intimidate sources and plug 'leaks' thus making an end-run around freedom of the press. It is equivalent to having a phone tap on irksome media members without the unpleasantness of securing a warrant.
You are cordially invited to join my libertarian discussion BB. Tuesday, May 9, 2006
Extropy Institute closing doors
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Lysander Spooner
Thursday, February 9, 2006
The Demand to Hate
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
Airport security Pat Downs
Tuesday, November 1, 2005
Joan Kennedy Taylor Blogspot
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Joan Kennedy Taylor has Passed Away
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Parental Alienation Syndrome
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
New BB -- www.wendymcelroy.com/smf
I wanted to announce that the ifeminists.net BB (not the ifeminists site) is being closed down. At the same moment, I have just opened another BB forum that focuses more on libertarianism and broad cultural issues and far less on gender discussions. At least two L&P members have joined the fledgling forum already and I cordially invite posters and readers to click on the preceding link to check us out.
Best to all,
Wendy McElroy Friday, August 5, 2005
Novak's Explosion Exposed
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
AVN on Child Protective Registries
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Aristotle's Books, Liquidation Sale
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
A Salute to Phyllis Dintenfass
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Suspension of Emailed Ifeminist Newsletter
Finkelstein v. Dershowitz
Thursday, June 23, 2005