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Liberty and Power

  • May 25, 2006

    Write Fiction, Expect the Police

    by Liberty and Power

    "Philip Sandifer is the U Fla grad student in Gainesville from whom the campus police demanded DNA and fingerprints. Sandifer had published a short story about a murderer who cites his crimes in a letter to the Special Forces as qualifications for a job with them. The cops' rationale was that even if it was fiction, you can't be too safe, and besides, they didn't think that English students should be writing about murder."

  • May 25, 2006

    Lying is Acceptable for Some

    by Liberty and Power

    Wednesday's Washington Times ran a column on global warming by Cato's Patrick Michaels in which he quoted Al Gore as saying, "I believe it is appropriate to have an overrepresentation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience."

    As a public service I will now translate this politically obtuse statement into English; It is alright to lie to people in or

  • May 25, 2006

    "Stop the Bullshit"

    by Liberty and Power

    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.

  • May 24, 2006

    BIS Working Paper is Favorable to Austrian Insights

    by Liberty and Power

    Martin Wolf, associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, is always worth reading. Although today’s article is behind subscription, the good news is that Wolf writes about a recent working paper from the Bank for International Settlements that is freely available at their website.

    Those sympathetic to Austrian capital theory and business cycle theory will find much of interes
  • May 24, 2006

    News Part 1

    by Liberty and Power

    Issue 28 of Reason Papers will be going to the printer next week and should be available shortly thereafter. The bulk of RP28 is a special War and Liberty section guest-edited by Irfan Khawaja and Carrie-Ann Biondi (who until a day or so ago were HNN bloggers – what on earth has happened to the “Theory and Practice” blog??). The highlights are a symposium on Codevilla’s book
  • May 23, 2006

    Forth to the Firth!

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    I’ve been planning for ages to write about my Vegas and Prague trips/conferences, as well as to add some further thoughts on the French rioters (remember them?). I’ve even got a catchy title for the post: APEE, PCPE, and CPE.

    Well, I’ve been way too busy to get to it, and on Thursday I leave for Edinburgh (ah, Scotland! land of Adam Smith, David Hu
  • May 23, 2006

    New Spring 2006 Journal of Ayn Rand Studies

    by Liberty and Power

    It gives me great pleasure to announce the publication of the Spring 2006 issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. The issue features a dialogue on Ayn Rand's ethics, with contributions from Tibor R. Machan, Frank Bubb, Eric Mack, Douglas B. Rasmussen, Robert H. Bass, Chris Cathcart, and fellow L&P'er Robert L. Campbell. In addition, there are articles covering topics in epistemology (Merlin Jetton) and literature (Ku

  • May 23, 2006

    Katherine Dunham, Tax Revolts, and Me

    by Liberty and Power

    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 198

  • May 22, 2006

    It's criminal because I say so!

    by Liberty and Power

    To start the week on a cheery note, the Attorney General says that “The government has the legal authority to prosecute journalists for publishing classified information,” or more (less?) precisely, that “There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility." Ok, you get back to us on that right away. It gets worse, both politi
  • May 22, 2006

    Mutual Aid Society Calls for State Pensions

    by Liberty and Power

    Here is a report of the proceedings of the Annual Movable Delegation of the Order of Druids. Let me amplify that statement. The meeting took place in 1902.

    What I find to be especially interesting is that"[I]t was resolved that it was the duty of the state to provide old-age pensions of not less than 5s. per week to all thrifty and deserving persons of 65 years of age and over who were unable to work and in ne
  • May 21, 2006

    Oh, But They Will

    by Liberty and Power

    Apparently, the latest issue of National Review has a piece on the "50 Greatest Conservative Rock Songs of All Time," and"Won't Get Fooled Again" is number one.

    Criteria for selection:"The lyrics must convey a conservative idea or sentiment, such as skepticism of government or support for traditional values.""Skepticism about government"?! Oh, my side...

  • May 19, 2006

    Subjective Value, Objective Good

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    A text version of my August 2005 talk “Economics and Its Ethical Assumptions” is now online. (Thanks to B. K. Marcus for editing it to make it a bit less transcript-y.)

    In it I talk about the relation between subjectivism about economic value and objectivism about ethical value,
  • May 19, 2006

    Name the Mystery Feminist

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    Who wrote the following passages?

    1. If he loves you in the right way he’ll not stop you. You were just made for the stage, Anne, and if anyone interferes with your career now you’d never forgive him in after years – you’d always be thinking of what you might have achieved. ... Suppose you didn’t like the motion picture business an
  • May 19, 2006

    Cory Maye Update

    by Liberty and Power

    Cory Maye's lawyers file their brief last week in his motion for a new trial.

    To my untrained legal eye, the brief is absolutely devastating. I don't know how anyone could possibly read it and still believe this guy deserves to die in Mississippi's death chamber.

    The scary thing is the enormous disparity between the brief his talented legal team filed last week and the brief filed by his incompetent trial attorney many months ago. Makes you wonder how many other peopl
  • May 19, 2006

    Homeowners' Associations: Tyranny or Expression of Liberty

    by Liberty and Power

    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.
  • May 18, 2006

    My white hood is at the cleaners

    by Liberty and Power

    It's official: everyone at L&P is a racist, according to Seattle. Apparently, the new definition of racism includes"emphasizing individualism" over"more collective ideology." Hat tip: VC (Interesting comments thread, too, but on a different facet of this topic.) Update: Radley Balko has more.