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Liberty and Power

  • Sep 13, 2004

    Libertarian Hawks?

    by Liberty and Power

    David Beito has commented on Thomas Paine within the context of the discussion over libertarianism and imperialism. I agree with David’s comments and would like to add a few notes.

    Paine was a classical liberal in the Lockean tradition. Basic to his ideology was the notion that Nature had endowed everyone with individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and that they had a right to overthrow governments that failed to protect these rights.

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  • Sep 11, 2004

    9/11 + 3

    by Liberty and Power

    Today, on the third anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I have little to say that I didn't say on the second anniversary.
  • Sep 10, 2004

    Evil is not Scientific

    by Liberty and Power

    Back in August I posted a Blog with a link to an article on the causes of crime by Stanton E. Samenow. In today’s Washington Times Jeff Schaler and Liberty and Power’s own Sheldon Richman respond to one problematic line in the in the Samenow piece with a letter to the editor. He wrote "Until science tells us more, we have no satisfactory explanation for ev
  • Sep 10, 2004

    Not Borders, nor Wilkinson, nor pacifists

    by Liberty and Power

    With all due respect to your headline-writing skills, David, Max Borders doesn’t represent “the” libertarian hawk position. First of all, there probably isn’t just one, and second of all, Borders isn’t IMO making the clearest case. What’s that, Chris, you want me to elaborate? Ok.

    I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the Borders piece, but neither was I satisfied with the

  • Sep 10, 2004

    The Dog that Won't Bark

    by Liberty and Power

    Remember, as Bastiat taught, to look for the unseen (and unheard). A most telling fact about the Bush administration is that we will not see the Mission Accomplished footage in the President’s campaign commercials.
  • Sep 10, 2004

    Unintended Consequences and Iraq

    by Liberty and Power

    F.A. Hayek's insights have helped shape the skepticism that a generation of scholars brings to the study of government action in the public sphere. As a follower of the Austrian school of economics, Hayek believed strongly that one of the fundamental problems with government"planning" was that we lack the knowledge necessary to foresee all of the potential outcomes of our actions. Concern about the unintended consequences of something prompted Hayek to preach caution when it came to government
  • Sep 9, 2004

    Marijuana an Evolving Issue

    by Liberty and Power

    I have had my differences with Ethan Nadelmann director of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) in the past. Sometimes, it seems to me that he is building a kinder gentler war staffed by a drug treatment bureaucracy with a stake in its continuance. I agree with people like Thomas Szasz and Jeff Schaler that the drug reform movement’s current emphasis on medical marijuana smacks of the therapeutic state.

    However, I do not believe that this concen

  • Sep 9, 2004

    Dresner v. Malkin on Japanese Internment

    by Liberty and Power

    "An Oakland, California Grocery store bears a"Sold" sign as well as one proclaiming the patriotism of its owner. The Japanese American shopowner, a University of California graduate, hung the"I am an American" sign the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Soon afterward, the government shut down the shop and relocated the owner to an internment camp, along with thousands of other Pacific Coaast Japanese Americans." See
  • Sep 9, 2004

    Politics Breeds Relativism

    by Liberty and Power

    Thanks, Aeon, for that link to the article"Who Cares About the Truth?" It occurs to me that politics, democratic politics included, breeds relativism. Candidates and parties constantly argue over things that most people have no way of sorting out for themselves. So they decide who's right by party (or sometimes personal) identification? Did John Kerry deserve his medals or not? The answer depends on whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. D
  • Sep 8, 2004

    Tasteless 9/11 Toy #1

    by Liberty and Power

    The lives of over a thousand U.S. troops have been consumed in the Iraq war, and this week marks the three-year anniversary of the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., which led to the deaths of nearly 3000 civilians.

    Some organizations have a weird way of marking the anniversary. Here comes a story of a rather tasteless WTC toy, depicting a plane ramming into the Twin Towers. The toy showed up in 14,000 ba

  • Sep 8, 2004

    "Free as a tethered ass!"

    by Liberty and Power

    Do you want to know what it means to be free in America today? It means that if you want to air a political ad in the last 60 days of this presidential campaign, you are free to wade through this, to see if you're allowed.

    That's freedom in America today. The founders will never stop spinning over this.

    The title of this post is from W. S. Gilbert's Princess Ida.

  • Sep 8, 2004

    Rights versus Integrity

    by Liberty and Power

    Both the NYT and IMDB report that George Lucas' seminal sci-fi film THX 1138 is going to be rereleased to theaters on Friday, and"will be released on DVD on Sept. 14 in a digitally buffed and polished ‘director's cut.’ The new version, five minutes longer than the original release, includes several computer-generated enhancements (like a far more elaborate factory where THX wo
  • Sep 8, 2004

    Happy Birthday Senator Taft

    by Liberty and Power

    Senator Robert A. Taft was born on this day in 1889. He was the last great champion of the old right and, in many ways, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is his successor. While Taft was not always consistent in his views, he generally favored a policy of free markets at home and skepticism toward foreign crusades and entanglements.

    Taft would probably be dismissed as a starry-eyed peacenik,