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Liberty and Power

  • Mar 2, 2004

    Richard Cohen Can't be Serious...

    by Liberty and Power

    Oh but he is:

    I saw Mel Gibson's"The Passion of the Christ" the morning it opened and hurried to my office to write what I thought of it. I thought the movie was tawdry, cartoonish, badly acted and anti-Semitic, maybe not purposely so but in the way portions of the New Testament are -- an assignment of blame that culminated in the Holocaust. But I wrote none of that, actually nothing at all, because th

  • Mar 2, 2004

    To Go or Not to Go?

    by Liberty and Power

    I'm closely following the controversy over Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Although I haven't seen it, I've had a few things to say about it, and that has prompted friends to ask if I intend to see it. As of now, no. I don't go to slasher movies, especially with subtitles. But I am looking for a sign that I should go. Plummeting ticket and popcorn prices would do.
  • Mar 2, 2004

    Herb Brooks, Individualist

    by Liberty and Power

    The new Disney movie, Miracle, has not received the acclaim that I think it deserves, and being it is a sports movie, and more specifically, a hockey movie, that is quite understandable. However, it is surprising to note that libertarians are not talking about the unusual and laudable theme of this movie - individualism, perseverance, and ultimately, the triumph of genius.

    Herb Brooks, a 3-time NCAA title winner at the Uni

  • Mar 1, 2004

    Introduction

    by Liberty and Power

    David Beito has cordially invited me to take a guest spot on this blog for about a week, and I'm glad to welcome the opportunity. I'm Karen De Coster, and I'm writing from Detroit, Michigan. I'm the proprietor of a libertarian website/blog at karendecoster.com, and I write for various publications, but most frequently for LewRockwell.com and the Mises Institute. I'm also on the
  • Mar 1, 2004

    Welcome Karen

    by Liberty and Power

    Welcome aboard Karen, from the resident native Detroiter here. Go Red Wings!
  • Mar 1, 2004

    Red Light Scams

    by Liberty and Power

    My Cato colleague Jonathan Block has a letter to the editor in today's Washington Post:
    The Feb. 14 editorial"Focus on Red-Runners" mentioned a Fairfax City study that apparently showed a 44 percent drop in one year in red-light running at five intersections with cameras. But it did not mention the results of a 2001 analysis by the National Motorists Association of a Fairfax County intersection. T
  • Feb 29, 2004

    More on libertarianism, left or right?

    by Liberty and Power

    Robert Campbell's post raises all kinds of good questions for discussion. Being somewhat sympathetic to the argument Gus DiZerega made in the comments, I'd like to add a thought or two.

    My sympathy for Gus's argument is really about how I see myself: I've always thought of myself as "on the left" but believing that economic freedom was a better means to many of the left's ends than was interventionism or socialism. P

  • Feb 29, 2004

    I Thought Libertarians Were Neither Left Nor Right

    by Liberty and Power

    Gus diZerega’s comments on one of Roderick Long’s entries raise issues that could come up any time, but might as well be thrown open to debate now. Gus seems to be saying that libertarians must ally themselves with the Left; otherwise we apparently have no choice but to be complicit in the worst deeds of W. and his henchmen.

    Maybe I read too much between the lines, but I am disappointed by the tendency of many libertarian
  • Feb 29, 2004

    Plundering PIRGies

    by Liberty and Power

    I appreciated the recent posts by Radley Balko and David Beito about the unethical manner in which campus chapters of Ralph Nader’s Public Interest Research Groups are funded.

    Back in 1972, right after Nader launched the PIRGs (and gave a speech at Harvard on that very subject), a full-court press began to impose a campus chapter, to be funded by the now-notorious"negative checkoff"

  • Feb 28, 2004

    They Are the Damned, Part II -- A Vicious Lie from Beginning to End

    by Liberty and Power

    I have been through the lengthy and deeply immoral history of government deception in wartime before. As far as I am concerned, a recent and detailed article is the final nail in the coffin of the entirely false case for war with Iraq. The lying went on through two administrations, those of both Clinton and Bush II, and numerous government officials peddled what they knew to be utterly false statements repeatedly and endl

  • Feb 28, 2004

    The Same-Sex Marriage Dance, Part II

    by Liberty and Power

    A few weeks ago I said that the Democratic presidential candidates would be forced to do some fancy dancing with respect to the same-sex marriage issue so as to navigate between the more radical wing of the party and its appeal to moderates. They have to support gay rights but not gay marriage, however one does that. One reading of Bush's proposed constitutional amendment is that it was a brilliant political tactic t

  • Feb 27, 2004

    Self-Inflicted Terrorism

    by Liberty and Power

    The NYT reports that a Japanese court has sentenced Shoko Asahara, leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, to death.

    He won't be missed. But his sentence is as good an occasion as any to ponder whether we haven't worked ourselves up into an unnecessary frenzy over the chem/bio threat.

    I'm as guilty as anybody of that. Go far back enough in the archives of my blog an

  • Feb 27, 2004

    Latin Lover

    by Liberty and Power

    Re Dave's Greek/Latin question:

    I'm not sure what was the case during Jesus' time, but a couple of centuries later Greek was the common language of the eastern part of the Empire (including the Middle East and thus Judea) while Latin remained the common language of the western part (including western Europe).

    What bugs me is that the Roman soldiers appear to be speaking ecclesiastical Latin rather than classi
  • Feb 27, 2004

    US Kettle Calls Chinese Pot a Little Dirtier than Last Year

    by Liberty and Power

    The US State Dept. just issued its annual human rights report including criticizing China for"backsliding.” The report, of course, did not mention the 10,000 Iraqi civilians estimated by private human rights groups to have been killed as the US brings the Blessing of Liberty to the Middle East.

    If we really wanted to bring pressure on the Chinese, why did our government approve GE cutting a deal which offers China advanced technology as reported in the WSJ yesterday. Our moralistic, fi

  • Feb 27, 2004

    All Greek to Me (or is it Latin?)

    by Liberty and Power

    One of the criticisms of"The Passion" (haven't seen it yet) is that the Roman soldiers and Pilate should be speaking Greek to each other, not Latin. Some of these critics have said that Greek was the language of the" common people" in the Empire.

    I have a question that perhaps an expert can answer. If Greek was the language of the common people (including presumably the Roman army) why do so many European peoples have Latin-based languages including Romanian, Italian, Spanish, etc.? W