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Liberty and Power

  • Apr 12, 2007

    R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007)

    by Liberty and Power

    THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General...

    U.S. author
  • Apr 12, 2007

    Appetite for Excess

    by Liberty and Power

    Giles Coren, restaurant critic of The Times (of London), reports on how he ate and drank like an Edwardian gentleman for a week.
  • Apr 11, 2007

    Did You Really Expect Anything Else?

    by Liberty and Power

    For GWB, the answer to government failure is more government. Did you really expect anything else?

    The Washington Post begins thus:

    “President Bush, summoning the American spirit and"a faith in God no storm can take away," vowed from the heart of the Hurricane Katrina disaster zone Thursday night to rebuild this devastated city and the rest of the Gulf Coast with"one of t
  • Apr 11, 2007

    Better a Kirkpatrick Than a Bolton

    by Liberty and Power

    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:

    Unfortunately, what w
  • Apr 11, 2007

    Stephen S. Foster: Anti-Slavery/Antiwar Revolutionary

    by Liberty and Power

    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 Ne

  • Apr 8, 2007

    How the Feds Help Devastate West Africa without Even Invading It

    by Liberty and Power

    Read how U.S. federal government subsidies to 25,000 American cotton farmers worth four billion dollars have devastating repercussions for millions of West African farmers.

    And, dear readers, as you submit your federal tax returns for 2006, remember it's your tax dollars that make it all happen.
  • Apr 7, 2007

    A Rothbardian Take on the French and Indian War:

    by Liberty and Power

    For those interested in early American history or military history, I strongly recommend Fred Anderson's THE WAR THAT MADE AMERICA: A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR (New York: Viking Penguin, 2005). Not merely is it a captivating read, but its overall interpretation of the French and Indian War is amazingly similar to Murray Rothbard's in volume 2 of his CONCEIVED IN LIBERTY: "SALUTARY NEGLECT"; THE AMERICAN COLONIES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 18TH CENTURY (New Rochelle, NY:
  • Apr 4, 2007

    Sanity Prevails

    by Liberty and Power

    Abbas Edalat explains how the outcome of the crisis between Iran and Britain provides a lesson on how to deal with the wider international standoff.