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Liberty and Power

  • Jun 1, 2004

    Okay, So I Was Wrong. Big Deal.

    by Liberty and Power

    So...I've been thinking. (Having too much to drink over a holiday weekend will do that to you.) I decided I'm wrong.

    Freedom isn't about what you do, or what you can read, or how you can act. It's all a state of mind. It's what goes on between your ears, see? That's all.

    So I just don't understand why people get all worked up about things like this:

    I've recei
  • Jun 1, 2004

    I See your Che...

    by Liberty and Power

    ...and raise you a hammer and sickle.   I can't find the pictures at the moment, but the old Soviet symbol has been making a return in posters and banners on my campus, presumably as some sort of class solidarity sign.  I hardly need to say what would happen if swastikas suddenly appeared on banners as a symbol of  national solidarity.  The ignorance of students (and faculty?) who think it's perfectly fine to use the hammer and sickle in a positive light given th
  • May 31, 2004

    Predicting Bad Predictions

    by Liberty and Power

    Having read several new books on climate change, New York Times Book Review reviewer Verlyn Klinkenborg advises readers to be frightened (“Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid,” May 30th). I’ll resist.

    How is it possible to review the updated Limits to Growth book and Paul Ehrlich’s latest tome without showing even a trace of recognition that these authors’ predictions are infamous for being consistently and dazzlingly wrong? In The Population Bomb (1968), for example, Ehrlich predicted that “the

  • May 31, 2004

    Bobbleheads, buttons, and buttonholing reporters

    by Liberty and Power

    David's and Charles' posts are insightful. Distraction has gone on here at SCSU for a long time, including a button offered one year at convocation by President Roy Saigo that read"We're All In This Together", except of course for all the administrators he's fired. Our interim dean upped the ante to t-shirts with a college logo -- this while we had no equipment budget.

    One point I made in

  • May 31, 2004

    Libertarian Convention

    by Liberty and Power

    Like Roderick Long I too watched the Libertarian Convention mainly too see old friends on television. Lately I have been much less involved with Libertarian politics than previously, so I had never seen or heard Michael Badnarik before and must say he greatly impressed me. Listening to him during the candidate’s debate and to his speech at the very end I thought an approach that uses detailed knowledge of the Constitution presented in an engaging
  • May 29, 2004

    New Field: "Distraction Studies"

    by Liberty and Power

    Perhaps there already is such a field of interest. If not, there should be."Distraction Studies" means all the things university administrators do to distract faculty from the political economy of their institutions.

    Want to distract a professor from examining health care fraud or financial wrongdoing in the Administration? Just start talking about affirmative action, diversity training, or multiculturalism. Left and right will oblige by dropping everything as they fill the trenches for

  • May 28, 2004

    The Noble Warriors Speak

    by Liberty and Power

    I summarize.

    Bill O'Reilly:

    If the United States is going to defeat the terrorists, we need to have a total commitment to crushing the bastards. My study of history indicates that the role model we ought to adopt is that provided by one of the most noted liberators of the oppressed and a noble exemplar of freedom and individual rights. I speak, of course, of Genghis Khan
  • May 28, 2004

    Of Bats and Rats, Pigeons and Poles

    by Liberty and Power

    "Blowback" is not restricted solely to the area of foreign policy. Even municipalities must deal with the ancient principle that intentional human action will, by necessity, create unintended consequences in a social setting. Especially when that social setting is extended outward to encompass other species ...

    Take the New York Rat. Please. The City of New York has forever been unable to

  • May 28, 2004

    US Army Intelligence Chief in Iraq Unscathed

    by Liberty and Power

    The General who is head of US Intelligence in Iraq remains untouched, as yet, by the growing prisoner abuse scandal -- but, she's a woman and has been one of the"Stars" of the"new" Army. To read the story, click here.