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Liberty and Power

  • Apr 4, 2004

    The Difference Between Abraham and Mrs. Laney

    by Liberty and Power

    The difference, Roderick, between Abraham and Mrs. Laney is the difference between day and night.

    The difference between Abraham and Laney is that Abraham's action, whether true, myth or allegory, to remove Issac from the alter and replace him with the offering of a ram was THE decisive moment in the development of Judaism, and indirectly of Christianity, even taking into account the Christ mythology created by Paul and others.

    First, and foremost, is that, unlike Laney, who kil

  • Apr 3, 2004

    God Said to Abraham, Kill Me a Son

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    Few Americans feel much sympathy for Deanna Laney, the woman who bludgeoned two of her children to death in response to alleged instructions from God.

    Yet most Americans believe in the existence of God and in the possibility of receiving communications from him. Nor do they necessarily doubt that Laney had some experience which she interpreted as such a communication.
  • Apr 3, 2004

    Some Thoughts on Campus Hoaxes

    by Liberty and Power

    Don't know if anyone's been following the story of the Wisconsin-Madison student who was the subject of much news attention for having, apparently, been abducted last Saturday. Well, it turns out that it looks to be a hoax. There are inconsistencies in her story, she apparently was caught on camera buying the materials she said her abducter used, and someone used her computer to search for wooded

  • Apr 3, 2004

    Iraq: The "People's War" is Just Beginning

    by Liberty and Power

    The death and mutilation of four American private contractors in Falluja suggests the insurgency has taken another step toward people's war. Iraqis indicate the violence was a retaliation for the First Marine Expeditionary Force's, newly arrived from Camp Pendleton to replace the Army's 82nd Airborne, attacks last week on the Fallujans to"put them in their place." While the Marines, fearing an ambush, did not intervene yesterday to halt the carnage, the American high command has indicated"we

  • Apr 3, 2004

    What About Interventionism After the War?

    by Liberty and Power

    Just a short addendum to Chris Sciabarra's observations about this being the 87th anniversary of our entering WWI. While I am no friend of interventionism, much of the mercantilism and cartelization he mentions, certainly the railroads, much predates the War, going back to before the Civil War. Even Wilson's move on centralized banking was completed before the War as shown in detail in a great essay by Murray Rothbard. But is the War, therefore, a"Watershed," or simply another ratcheting up i

  • Apr 2, 2004

    Who is Responsible for Those Four Deaths?

    by Liberty and Power

    Maybe the reason Tammy Bruce and Bill O’Reilly want to “raze” Fallujah (see David Beito’s post directly below) is because they are having difficulty dealing with their own responsibility for the deaths of those four Americans. Since there are no weapons of mass destruction and no credible proof that Hussein had anything to do with 9-11, there is no real reason that those four should have been there in the first place. Nevertheless they were there, why? I say they died in large part because of th
  • Apr 2, 2004

    Thoughts from a left Hayekian

    by Liberty and Power

    I took the libertarian test mentioned on this blog a couple of weeks ago, and scored in the mid-50s, a score that still counted as libertarian, but was far below many reported in this blog. The major reason for my middling performance might be of interest to readers.

    Many of the questions gave us a choice between two alternatives: favoring private business or favoring government. In my opinion this is a philosophical and practical error, and perpetuates a false dichotomy that deeply imp

  • Apr 2, 2004

    Another Fool, Another Day

    by Liberty and Power

    So, if yesterday was April Fool's Day, today is another historic date that people should never forget, lest they be made into fools. It was on this date, the NY Times reminds us, that President Woodrow Wilson declared war against Germany, marking the United States' entrance into World War I.

    Before Congress, Wilson stressed:"The world must be made safe

  • Apr 1, 2004

    Restoring Power to the Emasculated Executive Branch?!

    by Liberty and Power

    When the Bush-Cheney administration took power three years ago, it wanted to restore power to an executive branch that it believed had withered in influence. The White House is"spinning" its foot-dragging with respect to creating the 9/11 commission, allowing the commission to see the President's daily intelligence briefings, and allowing Condi Rice's public testimony under oath by saying that the President and Vice President didn't want to see presidential power eroded even further.

    Do t

  • Apr 1, 2004

    The Global Bubble

    by Liberty and Power

    This is no April Fool's joke, but rather an addition to my earlier comments on pieces offered by Steven Horwitz. The huge inflationary/derivatives Bubble that I mentioned is Global in nature, not confined to the US. I have included the entire article below because it is available to only Subscribers of the FT. Downloads of the papers mentioned therein are $5 each from the NBER.

    Financial Times March 30 2004

    The Fed is forced to fuel a global boom

    By Martin Wolf

  • Apr 1, 2004

    I Was Wrong!

    by Liberty and Power

    Okay, I admit it. I was wrong. I am now in favor of the War in Iraq and a full, open-ended Period of U.S. Occupation. I think the invasion was justified. Forget all that nonsense about nonexistent WMDs and nonexistent ties to Al Qaeda! What matters is that we are building a democracy in the heart of the Middle East, and a powerful military base from which to launch future campaigns against Islamo-fascists who threaten Our Way of Life. And bring on

  • Mar 31, 2004

    How the Iraqis Really Feel

    by Liberty and Power

    The following is the opening paragraph from a story that describes events that occurred two hours ago. “FALLUJAH, Iraq - In a scene reminiscent of Somalia, frenzied crowds dragged the burned, mutilated bodies of four American contractors through the streets of a town west of Baghdad on Wednesday and strung two of them up from a bridge after rebels ambu
  • Mar 31, 2004

    Seabiscuit and the Great Depression: It's Not About FDR, Stupid!

    by Liberty and Power

    As an instructor of a course entitled,"The Great Depression," I have the liberty to explore this fascinating decade in depth and detail (www.siu.edu/~histsiu/faculty/bean/DepressionSyllabus1.pdf ). I find distressful, however, the bastardized pro-New Deal version of history that is handed down by popular writers and Hollywood screenwriters since--well, since the New Deal propaganda machine revved up! On the latter, see Gary Dean Best, _The Critical Press and the New Deal: The Press Versus Presi
  • Mar 30, 2004

    More Statistics for the "Larger Picture"

    by Liberty and Power

    Steven Horwitz has dished up another pile of statistical data, M2, annual inflation rates and all that. I have become less than enthusiastic for many of the statistics generated for us by government economists. The total number of unemployed may be a"subjective call," but it sure hurts if you are among that number.

    In the larger picture, of course, we all have taxes, and eventually death. There is plenty of blame to go around with respect to government's handling of the economy, with v