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Liberty and Power

  • Feb 7, 2004

    A Necessary Reminder

    by Liberty and Power

    I was just rereading my discussion of Irving Kristol's"The Neoconservative Persuasion." Here is the conclusion of that essay -- which I repeat here, since it appears that many prowar libertarians still have not comprehensively or persuasively addressed these concerns. I also offer it again, because I honestly do not know how to state these issues any more clearly:

    I want to emphasize once more the major the
  • Feb 7, 2004

    Just Pathetic

    by Liberty and Power

    Well, I see that Mr. Radley Balko has finally revealed the bigoted and fowl nature of his soul. I can't say that I'm surprised. I've had my suspicions for some time. But some of us had an altogether different view of this story.

    And I think there's an interesting subtext to Radley's post, as there usually is in such cases. You can almost hear it:"I feel this stran

  • Feb 7, 2004

    Birdie Buggery

    by Liberty and Power

    This is just sick and wrong. Heaven's sake, is no corner of earth safe from gay propaganda?

    Given our trash culture, and the way the homosexuals have been pushing their agenda down our throats, I suppose it was inevitable that the"alternative lifestyle" mindset would soon enough take ro

  • Feb 7, 2004

    "Our Children Will Sing Great Songs..."

    by Liberty and Power

    Jim Pinkerton, on Bush's budget-busting ways, and on the GOP as the party of warfare and welfare:

    In the last decade, both parties have discovered that big government can be popular with the middle class -- if those big-government bucks are spent on the middle class. Clinton steered the Democratic party away from exotic and fringe concerns; he made the bulk of Americans feel good about getti
  • Feb 7, 2004

    CHENEY'S "LIE FACTORY"

    by Liberty and Power

    Blog readers may wish to consult the linked article below which details the way in which the Vice President and his Neocon minions cherry picked pieces of intelligence and used those for blatant propaganda purposes.

    With politicians and bureaucrats like these, do the American people need any"official enemies?" Click Here

  • Feb 7, 2004

    IT WAS FORTY YEARS AGO TODAY...

    by Liberty and Power

    ...that The Beatles landed at JFK and that I was born in a hospital in Detroit. Hitting 40 gives me a chance to think back over my adult life a bit and prompts me to make a couple of remarks about the liberty half of liberty and power.

    I first got interested in libertarianism around the time of the Ed Clark campaign in 1980. How I got there is a story for another time, if I am so requested. I was in high school at the time and had no idea what I wanted to do with eithe

  • Feb 6, 2004

    ANOTHER COMMISSION MEMBER

    by Liberty and Power

    I would suggest to Chamblers Johnson that in addition to James Fallows and Seymour Hersh he name David Halberstam to his commission investigating government intelligence failures preceding the invasion of Iraq. After all, Halberstam has written an entire book, Best and the Brightest, on the subject of the diff
  • Feb 6, 2004

    SAME-SEX MARRIAGE - FROM SIMMER TO FULL BOIL

    by Liberty and Power

    Well, thanks to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, same-sex marriage moves from simmer to full boil. It nothing else, the spectacle of Bush attempting to appease the Religious Right by head-faking toward a constitutional amendment while managing to never really go that way and alienate the majority of Americans will be equalled only by the spectacle of the Democratic nominee (whichever one is deemed "electable" this week) trying to appease the left wing core activi

  • Feb 6, 2004

    MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND IRAQ

    by Liberty and Power

    On Saturday Chris Matthew Sciabarra posted a blog titled ”On Grave an Gathering Threats”. In it he described how historian Victor Davis Hanson continues his support for the invasion of Iraq, even in light of the Kay report citing a lack of weapons of mass destruction. He quoted Hanson and these words reminded me of another quotation, one of my favorites. It comes from an exce
  • Feb 6, 2004

    WHEN "TROUBLE" STRIKES...

    by Liberty and Power

    Americans now seem automatically to turn to the government, and say:"Help us, please!" I think it is fair to say that this is not a development that would bring delight to the founding fathers, or to the other rebels of the Revolutionary Era, who distrusted government more than any other human institution.

    Yet, today this is the common response:

    Upset television viewers ha
  • Feb 6, 2004

    NOT WITH MY MONEY, DAMN IT

    by Liberty and Power

    I realize that for many prowar types -- those people who think, for example, that"the Senate's decision to turn Iraqi aid into loans is an asinine -- and near-treasonously stupid and destructive -- idea" (discussed in this post) -- this is probably wonderful news:

    The United States will fly four Iraqi wrestlers to Colorado and fund their train
  • Feb 6, 2004

    A COUNTRY GOES MAD

    by Liberty and Power

    And so does its legal system:

    It took almost three days, but the first lawsuit has been filed in connection with Janet Jackson's breast-baring incident during the Super Bowl halftime show.

    TV watcher Terri Carlin wants to make a federal case out of Ms. Jackson's bare breast.

    Ms. Carlin filed a proposed class-action lawsuit in federal court in Knoxvill

  • Feb 6, 2004

    Chalmers Johnson, A Modest Proposal

    by Liberty and Power

    Published on Thursday, February 5, 2004 by TomDispatch.com

    A Modest Proposal by Chalmers Johnson

    So the Bush administration -- under considerable pressure from people outraged that we invaded Iraq not only without U.N. approval but on false intelligence that Saddam Hussein had"weapons of mass destruction" -- has now decided to investigate itself. For this important task it is proposing a panel of former CIA officials (Robert Gates, Richard Kerr), former Congressional members w

  • Feb 5, 2004

    HALF A CHEER FOR HOWARD DEAN

    by Liberty and Power

    A word for Howard Dean before he disappears entirely, his descent too abrupt and ignominious even to secure him a post at the Kennedy School. It's not that I liked him--not so much. He always struck me as a stubby arrogant schmuck, the kind of doctor who'd get a bitter thrill out of giving you the cold-rubber-glove treatment and shooing you out of the office before you got it entirely clear whether you were sick or well. No, I never much liked the guy, but I'm sorry to see him go. He was the
  • Feb 5, 2004

    ADULTS NEED NOT APPLY

    by Liberty and Power

    (I see that Chris Sciabarra has already been here. I should have known. Well, here are some additional thoughts anyway. And it's not fair: since he's on the East Coast and I'm on the West Coast, he has a three-hour advantage. I want the FCC to look into that!)

    I have commented before on the immaturity and Puritanism revealed by the" controversy" over Janet

  • Feb 5, 2004

    WHAT KIND OF ATTACK ON TENURE?

    by Liberty and Power

    Steve Horwitz pointed to this recent article by David Deming as an example of an immediate and pressing threat to tenure for faculty members.

    Obviously it is. Deming says that his tenure was “abrogated” by the dean of his college after he openly criticized the dean’s views on affirmative action for women.

    What’s been happening to Deming goes in my Category 2 (arbitrary firings of tenured faculty). Demin