Farewell to two great pioneers of left/libertarian reunification.
Saturday, August 18, 2012 - 11:21
Roderick T. Long
ff on the Ryan/Rand connection, from the usually insufferable Lawrence O’Donnell:
How disappointed would Ayn Rand be in her formerly devoted public disciple Paul Ryan? Well, she wouldn’t miss his devotion very much. Because his recent betrayal just wouldn’t surprise her. Because Paul Ryan was never true to Rand’s philosophy. Right-wing hero Ayn Rand couldn’t stand Ronald Reagan. She urged people not to vote for Ronald Reagan and insisted that Reagan clearly did not believe in freedom and respect for the rights of the individual, because, among many other reasons, Reagan opposed the right to choose abortion.
That’s right, Paul Ryan, a Republican anti-abortion fanatic, has until very recently been publicly proclaiming his philosophical hero to be a woman who was a relentless champion of a woman’s right to choose. And Ryan’s pro-war stance in the Congress on every issue and every funding issue involving the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War would have disappointed Rand too. …
Ayn Rand was a much clearer and much more consistent thinker than Paul Ryan could ever be. And she would have seen through Paul Ryan’s phony devotion to her long before Catholics United and vice presidential politics made him turn on her.
Ayn Rand was smart enough to know that Paul Ryan used her. Used her to appeal to wacky conservatives who oppose every abortion and support every war, and then delude themselves into thinking they are devoted followers of Ayn Rand. Citing Ayn Rand was the right wing’s cheap way to sound intellectual, trying to sound like a thinking conservative.
Ryan was using Rand...
Comments
Saturday, August 11, 2012 - 11:02
David T. Beito
Thursday, August 9, 2012 - 23:37
David T. Beito
Very few Americans opposed Japanese internment but prominent among those who did were conservatives, libertarians, and classical liberals, such as George Schuyler and R.C. Hoiles. Here is what Old-Right activist John T. Flynn had to say:
"Many of you have forgotten, I am sure, an incident which occurred just after that war [World War II] started. We were at war with Japan, and on our West Coast there lived thousands of Japanese-Americans - many of them born in this country - American citizens. President Roosevelt called in the War Relocation Authority, uprooted these American citizens, routed them out of their homes and farms and businesses and moved them lock, stock and barrel into the interior of the country. They were put in concentration camps - that's what they are called in Europe. But of course we called them relocation centers. This was because we were at war with Japan. But whatever the reason, it was and remains one of the greatest assaults on civil liberties in our history."
John T. Flynn, Behind the Headlines, Script No. M159, February 8, 1957, John T. Flynn Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012 - 15:58
David T. Beito
Friday, August 3, 2012 - 00:16
Lester Hunt
In the wake of mass shootings like the one in Aurora Colorado, there are always renewed calls for gun control. This familiar phenomenon is a testament to human imperviousness to facts and logic, as such shootings are. of all gun-related deaths, the least likely to be deterred by gun laws.
The worst such shooting, ever, happened in Norway (death toll 77) and the worst K-12 school shooting happened in Erfurt Germany (18 dead). Both countries have gun laws that are far more constraining than those of the USA. As John Lott points out here, four of the five worst school shootings ever happened in western Europe, within the boundaries of gun control heaven....
Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - 18:44
Robert Higgs
Over the years, I have heard many people say that the government’s adoption of a laissez-faire stance during a business recession or depression amounts to “do-nothing government”—the unstated assumption always being that it is better for the government to “do something” than to do nothing. Recommending such a hands-off stance is often described as a “counsel of despair.” Moreover, it is frequently added, in a democratic polity, the electorate will not tolerate such a policy.
Implicit in such criticism is the assumption that the government knows how to improve the situation and has an incentive to do so. If only it will take the known remedial action, people’s suffering will be relieved, and the economy will return more quickly to full employment and rapid economic growth. All that blocks such remedial action, it would seem, are outdated ideas about the proper role of government and, perhaps, the opposition of certain selfish special interests. Government need only step on the gas pedal, by means of expansionary fiscal and monetary policies, and the economic engine will accelerate. If the government is already taking such actions, it need only press down harder on the gas pedal.
Adherents of the Austrian school of economics are sometimes singled out as moss-backed exponents of the “liquidationist” position said to have been taken by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon after the onset of the Great Depression in the United States. According to Herbert Hoover, Mellon urged him to refrain from involving the government in the situation, in order to “liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate…. [I]t will purge the rottenness out of the...
Saturday, July 28, 2012 - 14:28
Sheldon Richman
The New York Times did us all a favor last week when it published the blunt declaration that "Israel’s Settlers Are Here to Stay." It was an op-ed by Dani Dayan, described as chairman of the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, which is how Israelis and their fanatical supporters, Jews and evangelical Christians, refer to Palestinian occupied territory on the West Bank of the Jordan River. Dayan writes:
Israel legitimately seized the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria in self-defense. Israel’s moral claim to these territories, and the right of Israelis to call them home today, is therefore unassailable. Giving up this land in the name of a hallowed two-state solution would mean rewarding those who’ve historically sought to destroy Israel, a manifestly immoral outcome. . . .
[W]e aim to expand the existing Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, and create new ones. This is not — as it is often portrayed — a theological adventure but is rather a combination of inalienable rights and realpolitik. . . .
Our presence in all of Judea and Samaria — not just in the so-called settlement blocs—is an irreversible fact. . . .
And consequently, instead of lamenting that the status quo is not sustainable, the international community should work together with the parties to improve it where possible and make...
Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 17:31
Roderick T. Long
On Obama’s “you didn’t build that,” see Anthony Gregory’s excellent post.
Saturday, July 21, 2012 - 19:54
Sheldon Richman
Alex Cockburn, 71, died today. I am saddened. He was a true maverick who wasn’t afraid to take positions that alienated allies and lost him friends and publishing outlets. From the start he saw through Obama. He distrusted centralized power and hated war. He was pro-gun and a skeptic about manmade catastrophic global warming. Alex was not fond of the free market (which he probably thought could not be kept clear of corporatism) but his website, Counterpunch, was open to libertarians (me and Kevin Carson included).
I met Alex once a few years ago and kept in touch with after that. I liked him and admired him. I’m sorry he’s gone.
Thursday, July 19, 2012 - 17:31
David T. Beito
Jesse Walker, one of my favorite historians, provides a thoughtful and informative overview of the history, and increasing respectability, of Mormonism in the United States:
For many Americans Mormons are scary, or weird, or at least not the sort of folk you'd want marrying your first lady. Last year a Gallup poll found that 22 percent of the country would not support a Mormon candidate for president. MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell claimed in early April that Mormonism "was created by a guy in upstate New York in 1830 when he got caught having sex with the maid and explained to his wife that God told him to do it." Jacob Weisberg, generally a reliable barometer of center-left conventional wisdom, wrote during the run-up to the last presidential campaign that he "wouldn't vote for someone who truly believed in the founding whoppers of Mormonism."
Thursday, July 19, 2012 - 17:31
David T. Beito
Jesse Walker, one of my favorite historians, provides a thoughtful and informative overview of the history, and increasing respectability, of Mormonism in the United States:
For many Americans Mormons are scary, or weird, or at least not the sort of folk you'd want marrying your first lady. Last year a Gallup poll found that 22 percent of the country would not support a Mormon candidate for president. MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell claimed in early April that Mormonism "was created by a guy in upstate New York in 1830 when he got caught having sex with the maid and explained to his wife that God told him to do it." Jacob Weisberg, generally a reliable barometer of center-left conventional wisdom, wrote during the run-up to the last presidential campaign that he "wouldn't vote for someone who truly believed in the founding whoppers of Mormonism."
Friday, July 6, 2012 - 13:05
Sheldon Richman
Two on the Supreme Court's ruling on Obamacare:
TGIF: "Obamacare and the Court"
Op-ed: "Supreme Court’s Word Game Saves Obamacare"
Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - 12:54
Sheldon Richman
The terrorist and once-prime minister of Israel, who called Palestinians "grasshoppers," is gone. Read about his monstrous career, which included a massacre at a Palestinian village and the assassination of a UN peace envoy, here. The only thing missing from the linked article is Shamir's efforts to collaborate with the Nazis against the British, who were running Palestine in those days.
Also see this.
Also see this.
Saturday, June 30, 2012 - 11:56
David T. Beito
Follow the link for my lamentations. The two other historians who comment are still celebrating.
http://blog.historians.org/articles/1681/aha-roundtable-historians-perspectives-on-the-supreme-court-health-care-ruling
Thursday, June 28, 2012 - 14:12
Wendy McElroy
Michael B. wrote to comment, If you're looking for some good news, the SCOTUS blog just noted:
"The rejection of the Commerce Clause and Nec. and Proper Clause [as the Constitutional basis for Obamacare] should be understood as a major blow to Congress's authority to pass social welfare laws. Using the tax code -- especially in the current political environment -- to promote social welfare is going to be a very chancy proposition."
Meanwhile, Ryan W. McMaken has a different take on the LewRockwell.com site.
SCOTUS voted 5-4 to uphold Obamacare and have concluded that the Constitution actually empowers the government to force people to buy things. In this case, it's health insurance, but now that the precedent is set, the feds can now require you to buy anything it wants, apparently justified by the Constitution's granted power to tax.
This nicely illustrates the theory that SCOTUS judges will almost always come down on the side of more government power unless doing so will dangerously undermine...
This nicely illustrates the theory that SCOTUS judges will almost always come down on the side of more government power unless doing so will dangerously undermine...
Thursday, June 21, 2012 - 19:43
Robert Higgs
Anna Schwartz was one of the best economic historians of the past century. With Milton Friedman, she wrote (among many other works) that century’s most influential economic history book, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 (1963). Although not an economic theorist of Friedman’s caliber, she was a fine economist in her own right. Friedman’s statement that “Anna did all of the work, and I got most of the recognition” was not a mere expression of false modesty, but an honest confession that the immense body of historical evidence meticulously collected, compiled, annotated, and displayed in their landmark books was overwhelmingly the product of Anna’s efforts.
Although I never knew Anna personally, I felt as if I did because I knew so many people who knew her well and because she was always friendly and helpful when our paths intersected. She wrote positive reviews of several of my books, and when Oxford University Press published my book Depression, War, and Cold War in 2006, she wrote a laudatory blurb for the dust jacket. Previously, when David Theroux and I made plans to launch a new journal, The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy, in the mid-1990s, we invited Anna to become a member of the journal’s board...
