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Liberty and Power

  • Mar 8, 2004

    Scientific Desert

    by Liberty and Power

    It's been a couple of weeks since my last post at L&P. That's what happens when you're preparing the Spring 2004 issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. (Talk about shameless plugs...) Everything takes a back seat! My goodness! Even Spring Training has arrived, and the countdown has begun to the March 30th Opening Day in Tokyo between my New York Yank
  • Mar 7, 2004

    Martha Stewart and the Anti-Free Market Brigade

    by Liberty and Power

    Cross-posted at LewRockwell.com.

    It's interesting to see the Martha Stewart verdict play out. Watching the TV news today, I saw some of the jurors speaking to the press. Of course, although insider trading or securities fraud were not the crimes brought against her, the background noise from all of that heavily influenced the jury's decision.

    The most hideous comment that I saw from one juror was that her conviction"sent a message to the

  • Mar 7, 2004

    The "No" Party

    by Liberty and Power

    Cross-posted at karendecoster.com.

    Congress thought they'd better get busy regulating space. I thought this was an Onion-type satire at first glance, but it is clearly serious. The last paragraph is worth the price of admission alone:

    Out-of-this-world vacations moved a step closer to reality Thursday with House passage of legislation setting guidelines

  • Mar 7, 2004

    Why They're Known as "the Stupid Party"

    by Liberty and Power

    The GOP passes the biggest expansion of the welfare state since the Great Society, and they can't even get credit for selling out. George Will reports:

    Regarding the drug entitlement, Bill McInturff, a respected Republican pollster, found that 49 percent of those polled had an unfavorable opinion of it. Just 39 percent viewed it favorably. McInturff says recent polling shows the law remains a net negative.

  • Mar 6, 2004

    The Passion

    by Liberty and Power

    I just had a chance to see the"Passion." It is a fine piece of film-making, much better than some recent movies that have made the Oscar finals such as the unremarkable,"Lost in Translation."

    I do not think the film is anti-Semitic. Gibson takes the opportunity more than once to underscore Jewish divisions at the time on the trial and crucifixion. For example, he inserts dissident voices in the Sanhedrin. He also adds a highly sympathetic, and explicitly, Jewish cross-bearer who is bel

  • Mar 5, 2004

    Can We "Privatize Marriage"?

    by Liberty and Power

    I'm as sympathetic as anybody to the idea, often floated on this blog, of getting the state out of marriage. Consenting adults ought to be able to bind themselves into any sort of partnership they freely choose. But as long as there's a state, there will be a host of questions surrounding those partnerships that no contract can solve. Here, via Atrios,, is an interesting collection of legal consequences to marriage that can't be contracted into or arou
  • Mar 5, 2004

    Huh?

    by Liberty and Power

    Robert Campbell asks what strikes me as a strange question: whether recent calls -- by myself among others -- for greater sensitivity among libertarians to left-wing concerns count as advocating"unquestioning adoption of hulking great slabs of ideology labeled 'feminism,' 'multiculturalism,' or 'environmentalism'?"

    I call the question strange because I would have thought that the answer was obvious -- namely, no.

    Haven't
  • Mar 5, 2004

    Should Libertarians Suspend Critical Examination of Left-Wing Concerns?

    by Liberty and Power

    Roderick Long continues promoting libertarian alignment with the Left. He expresses concern that

    today's libertarians are, too often, all too close to the right in their insensitivity and dismissiveness toward feminism, multiculturalism, environmentalism, and other left-wing concerns.

    Sorry, but this doesn’t advance us one smidgen beyond the overgeneralizing groupthink that I complained about

  • Mar 4, 2004

    Legalized Gangstering: Report from the Trenches

    by Liberty and Power

    Cross-posted at the Mises Institute blog.

    What exactly is Bush's Jobs & Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, and what, essentially, are the pros and cons of it?

    First, let me say that anytime we have any tax cut, anywhere, 'tis a good thing. However, all political programs have a"but" to them, and follow-up consequences that eventually negate the so-called new advantages. T

  • Mar 4, 2004

    More on Traffic Cameras

    by Liberty and Power

    Glen Whitman doubts my assertion that lengthening yellow lights will stave off red-light runners. Glen suspects longer yellows might deter motorists for a bit, but that they'll soon become acclimated to the longer yellow lights, and adjust their sense of risk appropriately.

    It's an intuitive theory. But the available evid

  • Mar 4, 2004

    Wearier of Young

    by Liberty and Power

    Citing Cathy Young's criticism of Naomi Wolf, Gene Healey asks whether those on my side of the fence think Reason magazine is"getting its cultural marching orders from the Right these days?"

    Reason magazine in general, probably not. But Cathy Young? She's a perfect example of what I've been complaining about, and her piece on Wolf is particularly shabby.

    Let's look at what she writes about W
  • Mar 4, 2004

    The Non-Issue Issue that Won't Die

    by Liberty and Power

    Without sounding particularly new or original I have a few random thoughts about gay marriage (as if my Slate blog of last week wasn't enough). First off, there is clearly no role for the state in this entire debate AT ALL. Anyone who says it is the business of the state to regulate personal relationships is someone I don't understand and certainly no friend of liberty.

    Second, even if we relax that assumption it's bizarre how afraid conservatives are of letting states make these choices

  • Mar 4, 2004

    A Defense of the Evolution of the Family

    by Liberty and Power

    Well, how synchronistic of David to take up the family issue today.  I feel like such a blogger because I'm on the road in Scottsdale, AZ at the meetings of the American Psychology-Law Society presenting a paper titled"John Stuart Mill and the Teaching of Social Science and Law" with my teaching partner, which grew out of our work together in our First-Year Seminar course on Public Policy and the Family.