The student resolution, which was approved unanimously, repudiated the Faculty Senate's earlier "hate speech" resolution (also approved without a dissenting vote).

We dare defend our rights! That is the Alabama state motto. That is also what the UA student Senate said to the UA Faculty Senate when it unanimously passed a resolution defending UA students' civil right to free speech on Feb. 24.

In an act of gross overreaction to an incident involving alleged anti-gay comments by a comedian on campus, the UA Faculty Senate passed a resolution claiming that the University"has a duty reflected both in law and in standards of civility to control behavior which demeans or reduces an individual based on group affiliation or personal characteristics, or which promotes hate or discrimination, in all formal programs and activities."

Such a broadly worded statement clearly opens the way for the University to adopt a speech code that would violate the civil rights of UA students.

Volume 6, Number 2 of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies has just been published. This Spring 2005 issue is the second of two symposia celebrating the Ayn Rand Centenary. It is entitled"Ayn Rand Among the Austrians," and it features the articles and contributors listed below. This landmark anthology surveys Rand's relationship to key thinkers in the Austrian school of economics, including Ludwig von Mises, Murray N. Rothbard, and F. A. Hayek. (Some of our L&P colleagues are among the contributors to the issue.)

Spring 2005 Table of Contents

Centenary Symposium, Part II

Introduction: Ayn Rand Among the Austrians - Chris Matthew Sciabarra and Larry J. Sechrest [a PDF version of this article is available online here.]

Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises - George Reisman

Ayn Rand and Austrian Economics: Two Peas in a Pod - Walter Block

Alan Greenspan: Rand, Republicans, and Austrian Critics - Larry J. Sechrest

Praxeology: Who Needs It - Roderick T. Long

Subjectivism, Intrinsicism, and Apriorism: Rand Among the Austrians? - Richard C. B. Johnsson

Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond - Edward W. Younkins

Two Worlds at Once: Rand, Hayek, and the Ethics of the Micro- and Macro-cosmos - Steven Horwitz

Our Unethical Constitution - Candice E. Jackson

Teaching Economics Through Ayn Rand: How the Economy is Like a Novel and How the Novel Can Teach Us About Economics - Peter J. Boettke

Reply to William Thomas: An Economist Responds - Leland B. Yeager

Rejoinder to Leland B. Yeager: Clarity and the Standard of Ethics - William Thomas

For article abstracts, click here.

For contributor biographies, click here.

For information on subscriptions, click here.

Osward Garrison Villard provided a rare direct link between the classical liberal anti-imperialism of the late nineteenth century and the Old Right of the 1940s.

Born in 1872, his early surroundings were steeped in the Yankee folkways of antislavery, free trade, and business enterprise. He was the son of Henry Villard, a wealthy railroad magnate, who owned the The Nation and The New York Evening Post. His grandfather was William Lloyd Garrison, the famous abolitionist.

In 1894, Villard began to write regularly for The New York Evening Post and The Nation. The editor of both publications was E.L. Godkin, a tireless advocate of free trade, the gold standard, and anti-imperialism.

Villard said that he and his fellow staff members at The Evening Post and The Nation were "radical on peace and war and on the Negro question; radical in our insistence that the United States stay at home and not go to war abroad and impose its imperialistic will upon Latin-American republics, often with great slaughter. We were radical in our demand for free trade and our complete opposition to the whole protective system.” Upon the death of his father, he not only wrote for both publications but owned them.

Villard was also a founder of the American Anti-Imperialist League which favored independence for the territories captured in the Spanish-American War. To further the cause, he worked to organize"a third ticket" in 1900 to challenge Bryan and McKinley. His was joined in this effort by several key veterans of the National (Gold) Democratic Party in 1896. Not surprisingly, Villard made a personal appeal to Grover Cleveland, a hero of the gold Democrats, to be the candidate. Cleveland demurred asserting that voters no longer cared what he had to say.

Villard was a pioneer, and today largely unsung, civil rights leader. In 1910, he donated space in The New York Evening Post for the “call” to the meeting which formerly organized the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. For many years, Villard served as the NAACP’s disbursing treasurer while Moorfield Storey, another Cleveland Democrat, was its president.

While Villard continued to champion civil liberties, civil rights, and anti-imperialism after World War I, he had largely abandoned his previous belief in laissez faire economics. During the 1930s, he welcomed the advent of New Deal and called for nationalization of major industries.

Always independent-minded, however, he bitterly dissented from the foreign policy of the Roosevelt administration in the late 1930s. He was an early member of the America First Committee which opposed U.S. entry into World War II. He broke completely with The Nation, which he had sold in 1935, because it supported American intervention. At the same time, he became increasingly repelled by the New Deal bureaucratic state which he condemned a precursor to American fascism.

After 1945, Villard made common cause with"old right" conservatives, such as Senator Robert A. Taft, Felix Morley, and John T. Flynn, against Harry S. Truman’s Cold War policies. He died in 1949.

For more, see here.

There is a thought-provoking article by Reza Aslan in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education. Entitled"From Islam, Pluralist Democracies Will Surely Grow," the article asserts that"it is pluralism, not secularism, that defines democracy," that"Islam has had a long commitment to religious pluralism," and that democratic change is therefore not as unreachable a goal as some might think.

Aslan is worth quoting at length:

For most of the Western world, September 11, 2001, signaled the commencement of a worldwide struggle between Islam and the West -- the ultimate manifestation of the clash of civilizations. From the Islamic perspective, however, the attacks on New York and Washington were part of a continuing clash between those Muslims who strive to reconcile their religious values with the realities of the modern world, and those who react to modernism and reform by reverting -- sometimes fanatically -- to the"fundamentals" of their faith. ...

When politicians speak of bringing democracy to the Middle East, they mean specifically an American secular democracy, not an indigenous Islamic one.

There exists a philosophical dispute in the Western world with regard to the concept of Islamic democracy: that is, that there can be no a priori moral framework in a modern democracy; that the foundation of a genuinely democratic society must be secularism. The problem with that argument, however, is that it not only fails to recognize the inherently moral foundation upon which a large number of modern democracies are built, but also, more important, fails to appreciate the difference between secularism and secularization.

Clearly, if the Western world itself had to wait for full and complete secularism in order to achieve even a modicum of freedom, it would still be waiting. But it is a key point, I think, to insist that the secularization of the Western mind took centuries and that such secularization has been a key ingredient in the evolution toward free insitutions. Aslan continues:

As the Protestant theologian Harvey Cox notes, secularization is the process by which" certain responsibilities pass from ecclesiastical to political authorities," whereas secularism is an ideology based on the eradication of religion from public life. Turkey is a secular country in which outward signs of religiosity, such as the hijab, are forcibly suppressed. With regard to ideological resolve, one could argue that there is little that separates a secular country like Turkey from a religious country like Iran; both ideologize society. It is pluralism, not secularism, that defines democracy. A democratic state can be established upon any normative moral framework as long as pluralism remains the source of its legitimacy.

I take certain issue with some of these claims, especially since the"normative moral framework" of an"Islamic democracy" might"force the rights of the community to prevail over the rights of the individual," when the individual's behavior (e.g., drinking or gambling) goes against"Quranic commandments." Alas, if prohibitions on drinking or gambling were the only thing to worry about from within the Islamic world, then it would not be much worse than old Sunday Blue Laws or gambling prohibitions in New York State. Still, I find this nexus of rights, pluralism, and secularization to be persuasive:

... neither human rights nor pluralism is the result of secularization; they are its root cause. Consequently, any democratic society -- Islamic or otherwise -- dedicated to the principles of pluralism and human rights must dedicate itself to following the unavoidable path toward political secularization.

Aslan thinks there is a certain inevitability in the democratic-pluralistic developments in the Muslim Middle East, but I'm not so sure."It will take many more [years] to cleanse Islam of its new false idols -- bigotry and fanaticism -- worshiped by those who have replaced Muhammad's original vision of tolerance and unity with their own ideals of hatred and discord. But the cleansing is inevitable, and the tide of reform cannot be stopped. The Islamic Reformation is already here. We are all living in it," Aslan writes.

How might the United States encourage this kind of political secularization? It's one thing to introduce procedural democratic rules into countries like post-Hussein Iraq. But it's quite another to actually achieve some sort of liberal democracy, because, as Aslan suggests, political secularization is crucial to that achievement. There are hopeful signs that this process is underway in such countries as Iran, for example. But there is something to be said about a"laissez faire" U.S. approach to Iran under these highly volatile conditions. As Stephen Kinzer writes in"Clouds Over Iran," in the current issue of The New York Review of Books:

One of my Iranian friends, a graduate student in his twenties, recently wrote this to me:"The US government is helping Iran's government with its continuing hostility.... Every time the State Department or White House speaks about human rights conditions in Iran, our government uses this against reformers. It says that reformers are supported by the United States. Many reformers are in jail because of these accusations. Many newspapers have been closed. The United States should be concerned about Iran's problems, but this policy is hurting the reform movement. Non-intervention is the best help the United States can give to Iran's people." ...

There is every possibility that in time, Iran will return to the democratic course from which the United States so violently forced it in 1953. If Americans allow events there to proceed at their own pace, they will finally see the result for which they hope. It is also the result most Iranians want: an Iran that respects the will of its people and helps to stabilize a dangerously unstable region. ... Seeking to destabilize [Iran] will intensify its leaders' sense of isolation. Attacking it will turn its remarkably pro-American population into America-haters once again. Military intervention could set off a wave of patriotic indignation that will solidify the mullahs' regime rather than weaken it, and would probably set the cause of democracy back a generation."Regime change" would probably not even turn Iran off its nuclear course, since most Iranians of all persuasions agree that their country has at least as much right to nuclear power as Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea. Treating Iran as a member of the world community with its own set of reasonable hopes and fears, however, might lead it toward responsibility, peace with its neighbors, and perhaps even democracy.

Alas, this might be wishful thinking. But it is certainly in keeping with many of my own observations (archived here) about the delicate evolution toward liberal democracy and cultural secularization that is required not only in Iran, but throughout the Middle East.

Cross-posted to Notablog.

Frank Chodorov suggested in"A Fifty Year Project" (analysis, October, 1950, reprinted in his Out of Step: The Autobiography of An Individualist (New York: Devin-Adair, 1962. 261 pp.) that libertarians

have the most challenging opportunity in education before them. It will not be an easy or quick job. It will require the kind of industry, intelligence and patience that comes with devotion to an ideal. And the only reward they can hope for is that by the end of the century the socialization of the American character will have been undone. It is, in short, a fifty-year project.

Perhaps the job should be begun by going after the pre-adolescent mind, even in the kindergarten grade. The socialists, it may be recalled, did not neglect to turn nursery rhymes to their use, and since the advent of the comic strip, the communists (or advanced socialists) have employed this medium of indoctrination. But, that is a specialized effort that could be well deferred until the college mind, the mind that will soon enter the active arena, is taken care of. The assault must begin on the campus.

Assault is the proper word, and the proper attitude, for the proposed job. The possibility of winning over the faculty might well be dismissed, simply because the faculty is largely beyond redemption; it is both the cause and the effect of the conditions that is to be corrected. The professor is by and large a product of the socialistic clubs and socialistic education of the 1920's and 30's, and thus is committed to perpetuate that line. Here and there an atavism will be found, and it will be welcomed, but the safe thing to do is to write off the faculty. That tactic, moreover, will find favor with the students, aprticularly those endowed with the gift of intellectual curiosity; to be able to controvert the dicta of the professor is always a sophomoric delight. To win the student over to the idea of individualism it is necessary to equip him with doubts regarding the collectivistic doctrines insinuated in the lecture rooms, or the text books. If the suggested undertaking should apply itself to a refutation of the"adopted" texts, especially in the fields of economics and government, a veritable revolution could be started on the campus; socialism is replete with dictates unsupported by empiric data, and therefore lends itself to easy refutation.

The apparatus for initiating the project suggests itself. It would consist of a lecture bureau manned by a secretariat and a corps of competent lecturers. The business of the bureau would be to arrange for lectures on the campus.

The lecturers--who might also be organizers, though this is not necessary, since the students interested in the subject would organize themselves--would have to be acquainted with socialistic theory, so as to point out its fallacies. Whatever the subject matter of the lecture, the doctrine of the primacy of the individual must be emphasized, thus the student will be presented with a point of view not met within his text book and will be able to challenge the text and its professorial protagonist.

However, it is unnecessary in throwing out the idea to detail an entire program. Once started, the project would develop momentum of its own; the students will see to that themselves. It might be suggested that the lectures be followed, or preceded by the organization of Individualistic Clubs, and that intercollegiate affiliation be instituted. Prizes for essays on individualism would do much to stimulate thought, and a publication offering an outlet for articles would be necessary. Out of such activities would come an esprit de corps, based on the understanding and enthusiasm of a"new" idea. The individualist would become the campus radical, just as the socialist was forty years ago, and the halo of intellectualism would descend on his brow.

Is the effort worth while? To which one could offer as answer another question: What in life is more worth while than the pursuit of an ideal?

Now that we are past the half-century mark offered by Chodorov, it is, perhaps, time to make an evaluation of our progress.

The first to take up Chodorov's cudgel were Leonard Read's Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), Chodorov's own Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (ISI) and Robert LeFevre's Freedom School. Each of these have continued along their own ways. I've lopped off discussions of a number of other groups here (Institute for Humane Studies, John Birch Society, Liberty Amendment Committee, etc.), partly because it would run my discussion too far afield.)

FEE has maintained a long-standing effort to publish both established libertarian intellectuals and new thinkers and writers within libertarian circles with the periodical, The Freeman, and their lecture markets, providing an international audience for these thinkers, in addition to publishing the books written by Leonard Read, who promoted limited government laissez-faire within FEE, and others.

ISI morphed over the years into the Intercollegiate Studies Institute with an emphasis on a more conservative effort founded upon the ideas of Burke, Kirk, and the like through Modern Age and other publications and books which they supported. Taking their cue from traditionalist values, while allowing libertarians to be occasionally published, their concern has primarily been that of a support for local government/states rights position.

The Freedom School, with the efforts of a dynamic speaker and writer, the pacifist and antipolitical free market anarchist Robert LeFevre, developed courses and writings for young libertarian minds who would attend the school in Colorado (later moved to California). Publishing numerous pamphlets and periodicals, including the highly regarded, but difficult-to-find, Rampart Journal, as well as writing for R.C. Hoiles' Freedom Chain newspapers, the lecturers (including Rose Wilder Lane and James J. Martin) and graduates remain some of the most important libertarian intellectuals of today.

During the early 1960's, new organizations were coming to the fore, the most important were the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI) and the Free Enterprise Institute (FEI). An entirely new group of young libertarian radicals came from these, with rather different approaches.

NBI, with the novelist Ayn Rand's approval, was Rand's outlet for espousing her philosophy of objectivism (and promoting her nonfiction, as well as her fiction). Primarily based in New York, NBI supplied lectures, periodicals and opinions which students were expected to adhere to, with little or no dissent from the heavily-structured belief system that Rand, Branden (both Nathaniel and Barbara) and others presented in the classes. Objectivists were strident in their advocacy of laissez-faire than others and purged numerous groups within and opposed other libertarians who differed in any respect from Rand. It has grown and expanded under the auspices of several post-NBI organizations and individuals with some differentiation between each group.

Andrew Galambos' Free Enterprise Institute based in the Los Angeles/Orange County, CA area provided a wide range of courses on an antipolitical free market anarchist philosophy developed by Galambos with suggestions from Al Lowi, Spencer H. MacCallum (and his grandfather, Spencer Heath), Jay S. Snelson and others. Expanding upon his unique approach toward intellectual property, his students often moved in more creative directions than many of the other groups.

By the late 1960's and 1970's, organizational efforts had come in many new and unusual directions, from the brilliant writings of Murray Rothbard, the creation of the Society for Individual Liberty (SIL--later the International Society for Individual Liberty, ISIL), Cato Institute, the beginning of many of Antony Fisher's efforts creating classical liberal/libertarian organizations throughout the world, and political strategies culminating in the Libertarian Party.

During the 1980's through the turn of the century, we have seen many of the institutes and foundations working together through the Atlas Foundation, more student organizations than one can count, libertarian intellectuals producing papers and books which are gradually transforming every school of thought, if not by allowing an evolutionary process of changing the emphasis toward individualism and freedom, then by providing trenchant critiques of long-assumed beliefs of statist/socialist thinking which beginning and graduate students must consider when working within their own specialties.

Looking back over the past fifty years, I would think that Chodorov would be surpised, and very pleased at what has occurred.

Now we are at the beginning of a new century. What are the directions that liberty is going to move? Which are the new battles to be fought and where is the new assault going to be made?