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Liberty and Power

  • Jan 26, 2011

    Freedom Is Not Compatible with Government’s Initiation of Force against Innocent People

    by Liberty and Power

    In yesterday’s New York Times appears an op-ed article by Edward L. Glaeser, a professor of economics at Harvard. Glaeser’s article is remarkable because arguments in favor of freedom, insisting that economic analysis implicitly rests on a moral presumption that individual freedom has fundamental value, do not appear every day — or every month — in “the newspaper of record.” So, I am glad to give two cheers
  • Jan 25, 2011

    Being Dishonest with Honest Abe

    by Liberty and Power

    You have a soon to be released book and are wondering how to give it a nice boost in the media. Thus, one Thomas Lowry, author of Don’t Shoot That Boy: Abraham Lincoln and Military Justice (published in 1999) took a fountain pen into the National Archives with him (needless to say, pens are forbidden in the research areas) and…hold for it… changed the date (from April 14, 1864 to April 14, 1865) on an actual
  • Jan 25, 2011

    Debating the Great Depression: Steve Horwitz’s Latest Contribution

    by Liberty and Power

    The Great Depression has been a deeply contested subject from the very beginning. After John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory became sacred writ for most mainstream economists, Keynesian interpretations generally prevailed, notwithstanding pockets of resistance among older economists, in general, and Austrian school economists, in particular. Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz’s monumental
  • Jan 25, 2011

    The Liberating Power of Technology

    by Liberty and Power

    Cory Doctorow's latest Guardian column offers a detailed review of Evgeny Morozov's new book The Net Delusion, which seeks to debunk so-called" cyber-utopianism" and the idea that the internet can be used as a force for freedom.

    In Doctorow's words,"the world's oppressive regimes (including supposedly free governments in the west) are availing themselves of new technology at speed, and the only way for activism to be effective in that environment is to use the same to
  • Jan 24, 2011

    A Bad Thing Happened in Virginia

    by Liberty and Power

    The members of the miss named Northern Virginia Violent Crime Task Force are probably feeling pretty swell these days because last week a two year investigation culminated in the arrest of 25 people for distributing cocaine and heroin. They are receiving headlines, praise, justification for the task force’s existence, and perhaps even promotions for the
  • Jan 23, 2011

    Damn the Deficit! Full Speed Ahead!

    by Liberty and Power

    Outstanding …”Mr. Obama will argue that the U.S., even while trying to reduce its budget deficit, must make targeted investments to foster job growth and boost U.S. competitiveness in the world economy.”

    If we are to get out of this depression, Americans need to stop looking at the Federal government as if it were Microsoft and its political grandees
  • Jan 21, 2011

    Fatty Footprints: A Modest Proposal Based on Liberal GroupThink

    by Liberty and Power

    Fact: The USA is in the midst of a obesity epidemic.

    Fact: Fat people are more likely to need health services, work fewer years, and pay less in taxes. They “free ride” by consuming scarce health care resources paid for by those who are healthy and thin.

    PROPOSAL:

    For their own good, and for the Public Good, the Departments of Health (state and federal) will calculate the “fat footprint” of every product that enters the stream of interstate commerce (by def
  • Jan 20, 2011

    Buy America

    by Liberty and Power

    A few of my friends have been concerned about buying what they called an “American Car,” while continuing to purchase all of the Chinese made items in Walmart, boxed as they are often beneath a huge American flag. They simply wouldn’t believe my data that the most “American Made” cars were being built by Nissan and Honda.

    Now along comes some interesting information about the buyi
  • Jan 18, 2011

    Warren Buffett 's Start "at the Bottom"

    by Liberty and Power

    An article highlighted today on MSN describes how Warren Buffett, and six other billionaires, "started at the bottom." It states that young Warren (no doubt after he left the orphanage)"started working on his billion-dollar empire when he was a teenager. His first job, at age 13, was running a newspaper delivery business. Already a budding businessman with an eye on the bottom line, Buffett took a
  • Jan 15, 2011

    Biblically Inspired Verses for Contemporary Americans

    by Liberty and Power

    Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a central bank soweth, that shall it also reap.

    The legislator that is without sin among you, let him cast the first vote to outlaw victimless actions.

    Given that more than 4,500 actions are now considered federal crimes, blessed are the merciful federal prosecutors, for they will be shown mercy after the revolution.

    Blessed are the peacemakers: for if against all the odds, any such persons should be elect
  • Jan 14, 2011

    The Desperation of King Henry the VIII

    by Liberty and Power

    For more than a thousand years the art of alchemy captivated many noble spirits and was believed in by millions.

    ~ from Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

    England’s King Henry VIII (1491–1547) died 463 years ago this month but still deserves our attention, for even antiquity can ring familiar to a modern ear – none more so than King Henry. He ascended the throne in 1509 at the tender age of 17 and was, compared to his contemporaries, a rather enli
  • Jan 13, 2011

    Worth a Look

    by Liberty and Power

    "Patent and copyright monopolies are another way in which the government redistributes income upward. The income from these government granted monopolies flows overwhelmingly to people in the top 10 percent of the income distribution.

    Read leftist Dean Baker's article here. Worth a look, if only for his discussion of intellectual property.