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Liberty and Power

  • Nov 5, 2004

    Most Likely to Secede

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    In my previous post on secession and the red/blue divide, I forgot to include a link to Secession.net. This is a worthy outfit whose goals include the following:

    Legitimatize Secession of Small Political Entities: the United Nations and human rights organizations give lip
  • Nov 5, 2004

    Causes Which Impel

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    As the blood-red electoral tide oozed across the map of America's heartland, many in the blue states were starting to think about secession (see, e.g., here and here). Most such talk has
  • Nov 5, 2004

    A Pox on Both Their Houses

    by Liberty and Power

    I must confess that this morning's NY Times has given me a much-needed chuckle. The Op-Ed section has a group of articles written by a bunch of liberal Democrats trying to rally the spirit of the"minority party." Since I now have a little track record for my soothsaying, I'll make another prediction, though this one is a lot easier: The Democrats will never present any radical alternative to the GOP. And

  • Nov 4, 2004

    Declaring War Against Zealotry

    by Liberty and Power

    I must say that I was a bit annoyed some months ago when I was routinely criticized by those who supported the President despite their reservations about his religious agenda, because I dared to suggest that he was using religion as a political and cultural weapon for the re-making of the modern world. When I wrote my essay about the alarming growth in evangelical Christianity as a mainstream cultural force

  • Nov 4, 2004

    Neocon-B-Gone

    by Liberty and Power

    Here's an interesting post from James Landrith. Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation is calling for the de-neoconification of American foreign policy in the name of traditional conservatism.
  • Nov 3, 2004

    Thoughts on Government Debt

    by Liberty and Power

    Government debt is one of the modern State's foundations. It not only allows the State to exploit financial markets, extracting resources, but it also ties in closely with national defense. Governments usually depend on borrowing to wage war, with those that are better at doing so wielding far more power.

    Government debt is a vulnerability of the modern State as well. Government fiscal crises helped provoke both the American and French Revolution in the past, for just two prominent e

  • Nov 3, 2004

    A Crumb of Consolation

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    One minor (well, okay, very minor) bit of solace regarding today's election results: according to the count so far, Badnarik received only slightly fewer votes than Nader, despite having been accorded far less publicity by the media. How well might he have done otherwise?
  • Nov 3, 2004

    Ubi Libertas Ibi Patria

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    The latest (Dec. 2004) issue of Reason magazine has an article by Brian Doherty,"Revolt of the Porcupines!," about the Free State Project and other attempts to establish autonomous libertarian regions. Because of my history of involvement in the free-nation movement (most notably through the
  • Nov 2, 2004

    Memo to the Proud Voters I Saw on My Lunchtime Stroll

    by Liberty and Power

    Ahem. Can we agree on the following? You are an adult. You are a person, presumably with a job, a person who pays bills and perhaps has a pet or even a child dependent upon you. You are a person who reads the newspaper, and strives to form an intelligent opinion about public affairs. Given all of that, you should not be caught walking around with a vacant look in your eyes, a vaguely satified smile on your face and an "I Voted!" sticker on your shirt. A laudatory sticker is perfe
  • Nov 2, 2004

    Why Can't We Have a Man Like Warren Harding Again?

    by Liberty and Power

    I couldn't resist noting that today is the birthday of Warren G. Harding, the man who released Woodrow Wilson's political prisoners, cut taxes and spending, and signed one of the most significant arms limitation agreements in world history.

    Bush and Kerry can't hold a candle to that platform.

  • Nov 1, 2004

    On The Eve of the Destruction of Fallujah

    by Liberty and Power

    Soveriegn Iraq's appointed, parliament-less"Prime Minister" says a military assault on Fallujah is still really, really close, closer than it was yesterday - imminent, even. Although the US persists in putting forth the farcical line that the great and powerful Allawi is the triggerman who will launch the assault to crush Fallujah once and for all, Allawi claims that he has" “no choice but to secu
  • Nov 1, 2004

    Toss A Brick-Steal A Vote

    by Liberty and Power

    If the large voter registration numbers are a measure of this election’s intensity so also is the conviction held by each side that the other is trying to steal it. This is a belief which has the patina of age since the earliest documented attempt to rig an election that I know of occurred in the 1792 New York State gubernatorial contest in which Federalists burned a bunch of Democratic ballots before they could be counted.

    During and immediately after an election,

  • Nov 1, 2004

    General MacArthur's Ghost

    by Liberty and Power

    It's not just that Halloween has just passed; I feel the presence of the General's spirit more generally. Perhaps it's because I think it inhabits the mind of President Bush. Indeed, if you read Doonesbury, you know what I mean: it would make more sense to me if the little voice that speaks to the invisible Dubya from inside his Roman helmet is the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers rather than Dick Cheney. Why?

    MacArthur, whatever his faults, articulated a clear policy and found th