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Liberty and Power

  • Oct 14, 2004

    Their Land

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    In last night's debate, did anybody besides me notice how much John Kerry's market-socialist plan for fixing health care sounded like President Bush's market-socialist plan for fixing Social Security?

    In related news, I've recently posted on my website an article I wrote in 1996 trying (unsuccessfully) to persuade local gun-rights activists to vote for the LP; it's my attempt to
  • Oct 14, 2004

    Shameless Plugging

    by Liberty and Power

    Reason Papers vol. 27 is back from the printer. Those of you who contributed or who pre-paid will be receiving it in the next couple of days. The rest of you: click on the link above or here to see what's in vol. 27. Ordering info is here.
  • Oct 13, 2004

    Best Question of the Night

    by Liberty and Power

    I thought the best question of the town-hall-style presidential debate was put to Kerry: Why should someone who believes abortion is murder be forced to pay for it? Unsurprisingly, Kerry gave an idiotic answer. See my analysis here.
  • Oct 12, 2004

    academic freedom

    by Liberty and Power

    The following just came to my attention, and explains why there is an ENORMOUS difference between liberals and the fascists masquerading as conservatives who dominate Republican Party politics these days:

    Terry Tempest Williams is touring the country to promote her new book, "The Open Space of Democracy." The board of trustees of Florida Gulf Coast University voted 11 to 1 to prohibit Williams from speaking at a convocation, unhappy with her statements lamenting the Bush
  • Oct 12, 2004

    Grade Inflation

    by Liberty and Power

    The last time I wrote here about Walter Williams I was pretty hard on him. Today he has redeemed himself somewhat in my eyes with an excellent column in the Washington Times on grade inflation taken to its illogical conclusion.

  • Oct 12, 2004

    Anti-New Deal Cartoons from the Chicago Defender (Part III)

    by Liberty and Power

    Here is the third of four installments of anti-New Deal cartoons by L. Rogers from the Chicago Defender, the leading black newspaper in the United States.

    This one is from May 26, 1934 and compares the Agricultural Adjustment Adminstration to a"Modern Simon Legree" because of policies that drove many blacks off the land.

    For the other cartoons and some background information, see

  • Oct 11, 2004

    Presidential Hermeneutics

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America. But if and when you do it, Jim, you've got to do in a way that passes the test -- that passes the global test -- where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing, and you can prove to the wor
  • Oct 11, 2004

    Not a Vest

    by Liberty and Power

    According to the New York Times and several other sources, this is the Bush administration's response: "First they said that pictures showing the bulge might have been doctored. But then, when the bulge turned out to be clearly visible in the television footage of the evening, they offered a different explanation.

    "There was nothing under his suit jacket," said Nicolle Devenish, a campaign spokeswoman."I
  • Oct 11, 2004

    The Bulge continued

    by Liberty and Power

    Isn't it much more likely that the "bulge" is some sort of personal protection vest? I would think that any time the president is out in public that he's wearing Kevlar or some such thing, and the debate would be no exception. I have no doubt that Rove et. al would love to be able to push words at W, but to attempt that in the most public of forums with hundreds of cameras and millions of viewers seems to involve a degree of stupidity that runs in contrast to the "evil genius&qu
  • Oct 10, 2004

    Updating the Marine's Empire Handbook

    by Liberty and Power

    Dear Chris,

    While I think it a good thing that someone like George Will now questions the war in Iraq, I do not see that his questioning of the tactics of Empire is the same as turning against Empire. People like Michael Scheuer, the “Anonymous” author Imperial Hubris are not against Empire, but simply the recent tactics of same.

    It is perhaps more significant to observe how lewrockwell.com and antiwar.com have become part of those arguing for a more efficient war effort. W

  • Oct 10, 2004

    America First

    by Liberty and Power

    A very interesting article by Franklin Foer appears in today's NY Times:"Once Again, America First." Foer talks about how conservatives, with their typical distrust of government power, have begun to turn against the Bush administration's neo-Wilsonian desires to"democratize the Middle East." The critics include George Will, Patrick Buchanan,"the libertarian Cato Institute and

  • Oct 10, 2004

    Bravo Badnarik

    by Liberty and Power

    The true obstacle to the success of the Libertarian Party is the failure of the American media to inform the voters about all of their choices. Libertarian candidates not only fail to get many votes they also fail to get name recognition. Day in and day out people read newspaper articles and watch television reports about the election, which contain no hint whatsoever that anyone other than a Democrat and a Republican will appear on the ballot.

    That is the problem. It is not about money. I

  • Oct 9, 2004

    Here We Go Again...

    by Liberty and Power

    The headline on the front of the Boston Herald announced this morning :"GO YANKS! We want to kick your butts on our way to the Series!" One of the few times any Boston periodical called for a Yankee victory. And the Sox fans have been salivating at the thought of avenging the beating they got in last year's hi

  • Oct 9, 2004

    They Fought the Law ...

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik and Green candidate David Cobb deliberately got themselves arrested at the Bush-Kerry debate in St. Louis last night in order to protest the exclusion of third parties from the debate process.

    This doesn't strike me as a particularly useful tactic, though given that they did it
  • Oct 9, 2004

    Why is a mouse when it spins?

    by Liberty and Power

    Derrida has died, whatever that means.
    Not to speak ill of the dead, but his influence in the Academy has been quite pernicious, so don't look for any eulogizing. I'm simply passing along the information.

    (Sorry if that's not an accessible link, I can only do the magic linking trick from my office.)