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Liberty and Power

  • Nov 9, 2004

    More Frum Bashing

    by Liberty and Power

    It's not quite the life-and-death issue Don Boudreaux correctly chastises him for, but last month, David Frum also made a bizarre case for taxing" caloriffic" foods on his National Review blog. It was a really strange post, full of anecdotal observations and more than a few assertions that were just plain wrong.

    I put together a thorough, line-by-line rebuttal that ran on Tech Central Station last week.
  • Nov 9, 2004

    Frum on war

    by Liberty and Power

    In today's Wall Street Journal, David Frum has a curious op-ed.

    First I offer here a letter that I just sent to the WSJ in response.

    9 November 2004

    Editor, The Wall Street Journal
    200 Liberty St.
    New York, NY 10281

    To the Editor:

    David Frum criticizes Americans who criticize the war in Iraq, and seeks bipartisanship as a means of quelling this internal criticism (“A New Style Mandate,” November 9th). He opens his ca
  • Nov 9, 2004

    Red and Blue Addicts

    by Liberty and Power

    In this month’s issue of Reason Cathy Young has a column in which she quotes James Madison. He wrote, ”Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops every other.”The absolute truth of this insight, as the work of Robert Higgs and others too numerous to mention has shown, is even more remarkable when you consider that at the time Madison penned the above there was no neverending war on people who use certain kinds of
  • Nov 8, 2004

    A Question of Context

    by Liberty and Power

    I know I am starting my contributions to “Liberty and Power” unpropitiously by quoting Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., but I can’t resist. He’s making a point--unconsciously, but still emphatically--that I’ve been looking for a way to make myself. It has to do with historical context, and the knowledge and use of history.

    Speaking in Madison, Wisconsin, the day after the election, Kennedy blamed his party’s defeat on America’s (conservative?!) press, referred to the winning party as “ba
  • Nov 8, 2004

    The New Crusaders

    by Liberty and Power

    Well...the invasion of Fallujah is now underway with the first brave target being the city's main hospital. ABC Action News reports,"The invaders used special tools, powered by .22 caliber blanks, to break open door locks. A rifle-like crackle echoed through the facility. Many patients were herded into hallways and handcuffed until troops determined whether they were insurgents hiding in the hospital.

    "Dr. Salih al-Is
  • Nov 8, 2004

    "Ben-Hur" Comes to Iraq

    by Liberty and Power

    Last February, I wrote about The Exorcist Experience in Iraq."The Exorcist" is one of my favorite horror movies of all time, so the thought that they were giving tours of the site where the movie's opening sequence was filmed was quite fascinating to me.

    Well, I've just learned that the troops in Iraq, awaiting orders for the blitz of Fallujah, have needed another Holly

  • Nov 7, 2004

    Ugh!

    by Liberty and Power

    I didn’t vote on Tuesday, and I wouldn’t have voted for George W. Bush if I had voted. But this doesn’t keep me from being revolted by how the left-socialist pundits and cultural elite are interpreting the election results. (There is already a set of maps purporting to show that the red states correspond to the pre-Civil War slave states and territories.)

    I would disagree with the typical Bush voter on many things. Nevertheless I am confident t

  • Nov 7, 2004

    The Base Secure ... Now Check Its Premises

    by Liberty and Power

    I would have posted these comments in the various threads to which they relate, but I find myself wanting to address issues raised by a number of our faithful contributors.

    First, I'd like to address legitimate points made by Sheldon Richman in his"Ugh" post. Sheldon puts his finger on some very important points that we should not forget. It is surely true that"the left-socialist pundits and cultural elite" have serious problems. I s

  • Nov 6, 2004

    Don't Blame the Victim

    by Liberty and Power

    Some prominent Democrats are making me very, very sorry that I was reluctantly driven to vote for Kerry. For example:

    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Gay and lesbian advocates have been doing some soul-searching since President Bush's election victory, wondering if same-sex wedding marches through San Francisco and Massachusetts tipped the scales to Republic
  • Nov 6, 2004

    Garet Garrett Fifty Years Later

    by Liberty and Power

    Garet Garrett died fifty years ago today. Garrett was an exemplar of the"old right" which opposed both U.S. entry into World War II and the Cold War. Before that, he had been a figure of some note as a novelist, editor of The Conference Board, and the economics essayist for the Saturday Evening Post.

    Not long before his death, he penned the following lament:"We have

  • Nov 6, 2004

    Hmm...Maybe It Was Terrorism, After All

    by Liberty and Power

    Damn, but this gets confusing. After all the talk about how it was"moral values" and the evangelical Christians which provided Bush's crucial margin of victory (which talk I have indulged in myself), here comes Paul Freedman to say it ain't so:

    Gay marriage and values didn't decide this election. Terrorism did.

    The morality theory rests on three claims. The first is that gay-marriage bans led to higher turnout, chiefly among