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Liberty and Power

  • Jul 20, 2004

    Oops, They Invaded The Wrong Country?

    by Liberty and Power

    A potentially major news story—that Iran had more connections with al Qaeda than Iraq ever did, according to the 9/11 Commission’s interim report—has been relegated to the back pages of national newspapers and underplayed by the electronic media. The commission found that as many as 10 of the September 11 hijackers were given safe passage by the Iranians during the year before the attacks. Has the U.S. media already become so cynical about the Bush administration’s motives for invading Iraq that
  • Jul 20, 2004

    Job Approval the Number to Watch

    by Liberty and Power

    Much criticized by the public and pundits, polls still give careful observers of politics a lot of information about the landscape in which elections are fought. This time of year most folks are carefully watching the tracking polls for insights on November, which is not really all that informative.

    Presidential elections don't set up clearly until we're much later in the cycle, so the current polls really don't tell us much. Past research has shown that polls don't start to get it"right

  • Jul 20, 2004

    "The First Landing of Ayn Rand in Japan!"

    by Liberty and Power

    In a Not a Blog Exclusive, I take a look at the publication of the Japanese translation of The Fountainhead. As I explain in the essay, I was approached by Kayoko Fujimori, who was translating Rand's 1943 classic, to help explain certain idiomatic expressions that might facilitate the Japanese translation.

    The publication of this volume is interesting on many levels. For fans of

  • Jul 19, 2004

    Senate Intelligence Committee Lets Bush Off The Hook On Iraq

    by Liberty and Power

    (July 13 2004)

    The Bush administration has been let off the hook by the Senate Intelligence Committee’s skewering of U.S. intelligence agencies for providing unfounded or overstated conclusions on Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD). The key issue, unaddressed by the Senate committee, is whether the Bush administration created pressure for the intelligence agencies to reach such an exaggerated opinion of the Iraqi threat.

    The Democrats on the committee foolishly
  • Jul 19, 2004

    Every Man Pharaoh

    by Liberty and Power

    You know the pejorative phrase,"market worship"? Well, having just visited Wegman's, the temple of the great god Market, sign me up for the cult. As Tyler Cowen put it, Wegman's"makes Whole Foods look like a 7-11." The first 15 minutes in the store, I couldn't buy anything, my circuits were so fried by the obscene abundance around me. I wanted to jump through bins of sausage and bruschetta cacklin
  • Jul 19, 2004

    The "Amos 'N' Andy" Radio Show Reconsidered

    by Liberty and Power

    When I was a child, my parents told me that my grandfather, who died in his nineties before I was born in the 1950s, was a loyal listener of the “Amos’ n’ Andy” radio show in the 1930s. I always wondered about this.

    My grandfather did not seem to fit the profile of an “Amos ‘n’ Andy” fan. He was a Lutheran minister who pastored several churches in rural Minnesota. He had little contact with American urban conditions or blacks and was most comfortable in both his conversations and sermo

  • Jul 19, 2004

    Rule of Law, Property Rights Working Again

    by Liberty and Power

    What makes for a successful transition from a poor colonial state to one that grows and gains political stability? Simple - one decent politician (just one is needed) who will step down after one or two terms as president rather than become president for life and the basic institutional structure to create markets - property rights and the rule of law.

    It's not that complicated, but a tough combination to find. See Ral

  • Jul 19, 2004

    Democrats, Republicans, and the Failure of U.S. Intelligence

    by Liberty and Power

    A compendium of quotes from Democrats has been circulating on the Internet; some people have claimed that all these Democrats, who previously recognized the threat of Saddam Hussein, now claim that the President lied. I comment on the compendium at SOLO Yahoo Forum, and reproduce some of my comments at"Not a Blog."

    My essential point: The real scandal is not that Democrats attack Republicans, or that

  • Jul 18, 2004

    This Land is Your Land

    by Liberty and Power

    My problem with the upcoming election is that one of these two men, George Bush or John Kerry is going to win it. Here is an absolutely excellent and very funny piece of animation that points out the absurdity of the above fact. When you get to the website click on animation then choose This Land. Be patient it takes a small amount of time to download but it is worth it. Also, do not turn on your sound until you see the picture, sometimes part of the son
  • Jul 17, 2004

    Iraq, Then and Now

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    Before the fall of communism, Republicans were fond of pointing out that people were risking their lives to get out of communist countries, and risking their lives to get in to capitalist countries. This, they insisted, was all one needed to know in order to evaluate the respective merits of the two systems.

    Interestingly, the Republicans have been remarkably slow
  • Jul 17, 2004

    Maybe They'll Hit It Off

    by Liberty and Power

    Thought I would share these two emails in response to my last Fox column which arrived within about an hour of one another:
    The tone and language of your questions directed at Senator Edwards clearly expose you as a patsy for the Republican Party, and most of the questions you pose for Vice President Cheney are"softballs" that my grandmother could knock out of the park. Do me a favor, when you get home tonight, go up in
  • Jul 16, 2004

    The Paradox of Religious Conservatism

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    Walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit;
    for they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh,
    but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit.

    -- Romans 8: 4-5.


    Religious conservatives are a puzzle. They like to denounce socialism and ethical relativism; they also like to deno
  • Jul 16, 2004

    Frequent Flyer Meets Civil Libertarian

    by Liberty and Power

    The moments when your politics and real life clash are always anxious and unpleasant ones. For me they normally involve morphing uncontrollably into my father, an unabashed Daley (the orignal not current one) Big-Government Democrat from Chicago. You hope that none of your liberal and/or conservative friends notice the slip and you search vainly through your mind for some intellectual escape hatch from your sin.

    One of the most problematic areas for me has been the TSA and privacy fights