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Liberty and Power

  • Mar 23, 2007

    Ayn Rand Goes Swedish

    by Liberty and Power

    Just a note to let readers know that there's a new issue out of the Swedish magazine Voltaire, which focuses on Ayn Rand. Guest editor Mattias Svensson translated a revised version of my own essay,"Atlas Shrugged: Manifesto for a New Radicalism." Read more about this issue and its contents here.

  • Mar 23, 2007

    Arthur Ekirch's The Decline of American Liberalism

    by Liberty and Power

    I like revisiting classic, and unfortunately forgotten, works in the (classical) liberal, or libertarian, canon. This pays several dividends. For one, it brings great books to the attention of people who never knew they existed. Moreover, old books often contain insights and information you can find nowhere else. Murray Rothbard was fond of pointing out that, contrary to what people assume, knowledge does not advance inexorably"onward and upward."

  • Mar 22, 2007

    Which Presidential Candidate Said This? (Part 1)

    by Liberty and Power

    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.

    Answer: Fred Thompson. This quotation was repo

  • Mar 22, 2007

    Which Presidential Candidate Said This? (Part 2)

    by Liberty and Power

    Here is the second in my series of quotations from 2008 presidential candidates:

    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
  • Mar 21, 2007

    Good distinction

    by Liberty and Power

    Fascinating discussion over at Cato's website about Brian Doherty's new book. The whole exchange is well worthwhile, but I was especially prompted to blog Tom Palmer's post
  • Mar 21, 2007

    Lester Hunt Joins Liberty and Power

    by 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.
  • Mar 21, 2007

    Belated Recommendation

    by Liberty and Power

    In addition to my own article, the latest ECON JOURNAL WATCH—4 (Jan 2007): 3-45—has an excellent article by Christopher J. Coyne and Steve Davies, “Empire: Public Goods and Bads,” that I've only recently gotten around to reading. Sadly but unsurprisingly, some academic economists have now jumped on the pro-imperialism bandwagon being trumpeted most conspicuously by historians Niall Ferguson and Victor Davis Hanson. Coyne, an economist, and Davies, a historian, offer a withering and extended crit
  • Mar 21, 2007

    Judge Only Qualified To Decide About Other People's Lives

    by Liberty and Power

    Up until yesterday the state of Florida considered Judge Lawrence Korda qualified to make important decisions about people’s personal lives such as where the paternity and custody of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby should be decided. This will probably change because he was caught smoking marijuana in a public park. You see, the state does not consider him to be competent when making perso
  • Mar 19, 2007

    Democratiya

    by Liberty and Power

    Here's an interesting new web journal, Democratiya. Ok, it's not actually new, but I just heard of it this week. Its editorial board inlcudes many big names from many different perspectives and disciplines. Looks to have a lot of food for thought for L&P readers. Bonus: former HNN blogger Irfan Khawaja has a review essay on Richard Posner's new book here, which is sure to be an interest
  • Mar 18, 2007

    Last Throes

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    Writing of the defeat of the Byzantine forces at Brindisi in 1156, John Julius Norwich observes:

    It was the same old lesson – a lesson that should by now have been self-evident, but one that the princes of medieval Europe seemed to find almost impossible to learn: that in distant lands, wherever there existed an organized native opposition, a temporar

  • Mar 17, 2007

    Possibly the Most Famous Literary Feud of Modern Times

    by Liberty and Power

    Go here to read an explanation for why Gabriel García Márquez, the Nobel prize-winning author, and Mario Vargas Llosa, his fellow giant of Latin American literature, have refused to talk to each other for three decades.
  • Mar 16, 2007

    Drug Testing Debate

    by Liberty and Power

    Recently, Jennifer Kern, a research associate with the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) debated and decisively defeated Dr. Bertha Madras, the deputy director of Demand Reduction in the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) on the pages of Newsweek. The topic concerned the government’s efforts to
  • Mar 15, 2007

    Who is John Horse?

    by Liberty and Power

    John Horse's story feels like an answer to every Hollywood studio's wish list: a mix of Spartacus, Braveheart, Amistad, and Glory, with just a pinch of Dances With Wolves. A sweeping tale of a decades-long struggle against oppression, the movie would show how Horse and the Black Seminoles created the largest haven for runaway slaves in the American South, led the biggest slave revolt in U.S. history, won the only emancipation of rebellious North American slaves
  • Mar 15, 2007

    Climate Change Mud Archives

    by Liberty and Power

    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
  • Mar 13, 2007

    JLS 20.4: What Lies Within?

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    The latest issue (20.4) of the Journal of Libertarian Studies features Marcus Verhaegh on Rothbard vs. Rousseau, Philipp Bagus on the history of private dikes and levees, my colleague Michael Watkins on Thomson’s defense of abortion, John Hamilton on pro-capitalist themes in left-wing Italian cinema, J. H. Huebert on Posne