David T. Beito
The central government, in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, has disarmed most of the Anuak, and even disarmed Anuak police officers. Ethiopia is among the East African nations which have promised to conduct campaigns against civilian gun ownership, as part of the United Nations-sponsored Nairobi Protocol. Like several other signers of the Nairobi Protocol (Rwanda, Uganda, Congo, Sudan), Ethiopia already had a well-established record of genocide against disarmed victims.
Kenneth R. Gregg
Regular at Antiwar.com and longtime columnist for the Orange County Register, Alan Bock, has entered the world of blog. Good for him! His grasp of foreign policy is the sanest that I'm aware of.
Not only do I blog here and my CLASSical Liberalism website, but I have two other websites dedicated to important libertarian figures: Spencer Heath and Charles T. Sprading. You may find informative material there unavailable elsewhere. I am in the process of adding a number of important material on each.
NockFest
Google Books continues to amaze me. I just came across Albert Jay Nock and Francis Neilson's The Freeman for 9/15/1920-3/1921. Now, if they only get the rest online! Nock's wonderful collection of commentaries, The Book of Journeyman (1930, 1967), is now available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection, courtesy of the Mises Institute, as is his introduction to Our Enemy, The State, "Life, Liberty, and...", "The Criminality of the State", Jefferson, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man and his marvelous, On Doing the Right Thing and Other Essays. This is wonderful for all of you who are unfamiliar with Nock's writings. I have had all of these for many years and treasure the style, wisdom and utter brilliance of Nock at his prime. Now all of you get to enjoy it as well!
In addition, The United States Brewers' AssociationYearbook for 1915 has a wonderful Convention Address (pp. 107-114) by Nock, as does the 1916 Yearbook with Prohibition in Kansas (pp. 85-98) and Prohibition and Civilization (pp. 99-104). Also located are Nock's The Value to the Clergyman of Training in the Classics (pp. 171-179) in Latin and Greek in American Education: With Symposia on the Value of Humanistic Studies (1911) by Francis Willey Kelsey.
Actual Ethics (Cambridge U. Press, 2006)by James R. Otteson is a great treatment of ethics from the standpoint of classical liberalism.
The Bruno Leoni Institute is up and running, including mp3 files from a 1961 Mont Pèlerin Society conference of talks by Leoni and Friedrich A. von Hayek, Wilhelm Roepke, Ludwig von Mises, Luigi Einaudi, Otto von Habsburg, Salvador de Madariaga, Russell Kirk, Milton Friedman, Henry Hazlitt, Daniel Villey, Felix Morley and many others (hat tip to Tom Palmer).
Always on the lookout for new sources of online research, there are a number of videos online of note:
The documentary, Anarchism in America (1981) is available now on the web. Murray Bookchin, Karl Hess, a rare clip of Emma Goldman, Mildred Loomis, the Dead Kennedys and others are in the film which discusses anarchist history, left anarchists and individualist anarchists.
Hat tip to Wendy McElroy on this one: The great documentary, Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists, is now on Google Video. It's a historical commentary on the Jewish Anarchist movement in New York City from the early 1900s through the mid-20th century. As Wendy says,
"My favorite anarchist historian Paul Avrich is the documentary's first commentator and he reappears throughout the presentation. I was particularly pleased to learn more about Freie Arbeiter Stimme, a radical periodical published in Yiddish, which associated with Benjamin Tucker's Liberty. What fun!"
Other finds:
Here are a half-dozen Milton Friedman discussions:
Marc Stevens - Adventures In Legal Land.
The Libertarian Alternative (run by the LP) has a nice collection of interviews. Mark Selzer is an accomplished interviewer and easy with the interviewees:
Alexander Korda's Things to Come based on the H.G. Wells socialist utopia is online. If you are not familiar with this, sit down and get ready to be surprised.
David Zieger's Sir No Sir!, a great anti-war film on the opposition within the ranks. Watch it with someone who was in the military, even if they are pro-war. It will bring back memories which an ex-soldier needs to remember.
First Run Features has all of their trailers online, including ones for Saccco & Vanzetti, and also includes the Human Rites Watch movies
Finally, Google now has a Patent Search engine, superior to the U.S. Patent office's one. I remember the weeks that I spent doing a patent search on all of Spencer Heath's patents at the Los Angeles Public Library in the 1970's. The patent room was all but hidden up a flight of tiny wooden stairs in a terribly uncomfortable little room. Now, all I have to do is turn on my computer and with a few clicks, I have instant access to all of the information I need.
On a personal note, this has not been a good year for me. My health as continued on a downward slope and am now wheelchair-bound. My beautiful 14 year-old daughter, Elizabeth, was killed in a hit and run (driver never identified) in October. And I thought it was hard enough when my son, James, was killed by a drunk driver four years ago on a Los Angeles freeway while he was on his way to his house. I thought the worst day of my life was the day when Elizabeth was killed. I was wrong. It's been every day since. Christmas and New Year's are pagan celebrations of the end of the old gods and the birth of new ones. Perhaps the new gods will smile down upon me and my family. It would be a welcome improvement.
Just a thought.
Just Ken
CLASSical Liberalism
David T. Beito
In an article for HNN, Ralph E. Luker, one of the sponsors, sends a reminder to those historians who opposed a previous resolution linking speech codes and the Academic Bill of Rights as twin threats to academic freedom but volunteered to support a targeted resolution on speech codes.
All AHA members can vote at the business meeting which Saturday, January 6, 2007 in the Hilton Atlanta's Fulton/Cobb Rooms beginning at 4:45 p.m. Here is the resolution:
RESOLUTION OPPOSING THE USE OF SPEECH CODES TO RESTRICT ACADEMIC FREEDOMWhereas, The American Historical Association has already gone on record against the threat to academic freedom posed by the Academic Bill of Rights;
Whereas, Free and open discourse is essential to the success of research and learning on campus;
Whereas, Administrators and others have used campus speech codes and associated non-academic criteria to improperly restrict faculty choices on curriculum, course content, and personnel decisions; and
Whereas, Administrators and others have also used speech codes to restrict free and open discourse for students and faculty alike through such methods as"free speech zones" and censorship of campus publications; therefore be it
Resolved, That the American Historical Association opposes the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom.
Sheldon Richman
Whenever U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, the New York Democrat who will soon chair the House Ways and Means Committee, calls for resumption of military conscription, a host of powerful figures, Republican and Democrat, civilian and military, chime in at once to repudiate his proposal. They respond that the U.S. military doesn’t need or want a draft. It’s good to hear them say that, and let’s hope they mean it. The draft has no place in a free society because it is slavery, the kind that can get you killed or put you in a position where you might kill someone else.Read the rest of my latest op-ed, "End Draft Registration," at the website of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
We opponents of the draft, however, would feel more comfortable if the people distancing themselves from Rangel would do something solid to show that they mean what they say. There’s a great way for them to show their bona fides: end draft registration.
Cross-posted at Free Association.
Scott Horton
No, sorry, not Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri – the men responsible for the mass murder of September 11th, 2001. They are still chillin' in the Hindu Kush, occasionally sending out podcasts predicting American military operations in Africa and such, but otherwise laying low.
But we got Saddam! Former loyal tool of the CIA dating back to 1959 and mass murderer in his own right.
And it only took America killing as many Iraqis as he did to"bring him to justice."
USA! USA!
Sheldon Richman
In the case of Gerald Ford, a man who spent most of his adult life"reaching across the aisle" to impose laws on other people and taxing and spending their money, isn't it almost uncanny how destiny happened along and picked just the right man exactly when he was needed? And isn't it remarkable that in hindsight his decision to pardon Criminal-in-Chief Nixon (whose offenses, domestic and foreign, were endless) was the wise decision after all? (Why couldn't we see it back then?!)
I feel so secure knowing the locomotive of history is always on the right track, even when it doesn't appear that way. We can count on the government-media complex to be there to remind us just when we need reminding.
Cross-posted at Free Association.
Mark Brady
However, for libertarians I think the choice has to be between Martin van Buren and Grover Cleveland, with Warren Harding as runner-up.
David T. Beito
A black professor at MIT has threatened to go on a hunger strike and"die defiantly" outside the provost's office if the university does not grant him tenure, which he said was denied because of racism.
David T. Beito
If you sign, make sure to say something about yourself in the blank on the right. Of course, feel free to use it to say that you are a Liberty and Power reader.
Sheldon Richman
Fine. If they all really mean it, let them end draft registration. Bush can do this by executive order. The incoming congressional leadership should call on him to do it. If there is no need for a draft -- there can't be; it is slavery, after all -- there is no need for registration.
Cross-posted at Free Association.
Scott Horton
It's running this weekend at Antiwar.com
Thanks again to David for the opportunity. I'll try to make better use of it...
Mark Brady
Hat tip to Frank Furedi, author of Do they know it's Christmas? on how Christmas has become a battleground in the culture war over the status of religion.
Roderick T. Long
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
Two news items for today:
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A recent study of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and its viewers reveals that “exposure to the show lowered trust in the media and the electoral process,” and thus had “detrimental effects, driving down support for political institutions and leaders.”
Another study reveals that the show is, horror of horrors, turning viewers off of both parties: “98% of the evaluations of Republicans prior to the election were negative, while 96% of the ‘reporting’ on Democrats was negative.”
Voices of concern are being raised in the punditocracy; the Washington Post’s Richard Morin, for example, sounds the alarm:
Jon Stewart and his hit Comedy Central cable show may be poisoning democracy.
Two political scientists found that young people who watch Stewart’s faux news program, “The Daily Show,” develop cynical views about politics and politicians that could lead them to just say no to voting.
Oh nooooooooo!!! The end is nigh!
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So Saudi princess Hana al-Jader is being deported, and forced to pay restitution, for keeping her domestic servants’ passports locked in a safe, thus preventing them from leaving, and forcing them to work for low pay.
Okay, fair enough. But what crimes was she officially charged with? Lying on immigration forms and harbouring aliens.
In other words, her real crimes against these actual people had to be redescribed as fictional crimes against the state and its immigration laws in order for justice to be done.
You see, it’s really the state that’s the aggrieved party in every crime. The human victims are merely occasions.
Gene Healy
Summing up the results of one of his surveys, the historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. -- who in 1948 introduced the practice of presidential rankings -- noted that"mediocre presidents believed in negative government, in self-subordination to the legislative power," while top-ranked presidents"left the executive branch stronger and more influential than [they] found it."
And scholars continue to see it that way today, favoring presidents who expand executive power and preside over major wars.
Thus, in a 1996 survey by Schlesinger's son and namesake, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., five of the top 10 presidents were war leaders, including James K. Polk, whose major distinction is an unconstitutionally begun war of conquest; Woodrow Wilson, who brought us into a war most historians view as pointless carnage, and Harry S Truman, who launched our first major undeclared war and was rebuked by the Supreme Court for claiming that his powers as commander in chief allowed him to seize American companies.
I also did a podcast on the subject, here (scroll down to December 19).
Roderick T. Long
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
To anyone planning to be at the APA in DC next week, don’t forget to check out the Molinari Society’s third annual Symposium:
GVIII-4. Friday, 29 December 2006, 11:15 a.m.-1:15 p.m.
Molinari Society symposium: “Anarchist Perspectives”
Virginia Suite C (Lobby Level), Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, 2660 Woodley Road NW
Session 1, 11:15-12:15:
chair: Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)
speaker: Matthew MacKenzie (Muhlenberg College)
title: “Exploitation: A Dialectical Anarchist Perspective”
commentator: Charles W. Johnson (Molinari Institute)
Session 2, 12:15-1:15:
chair: Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)
speaker: Geoffrey Allan Plauché (Louisiana State University)
title: “On the Myth of the Founder-Legislator in Political Philosophy”
commentator: Charles W. Johnson (Molinari Institute)
Also, don’t miss the AAPSSfest on Jan Narveson (Thursday at 9) or the ARSfest on Tara Smith (Friday at 1:30). (But do miss Narveson’s other session, since, alas, it conflicts with the Molinarifest.)
In other Molinari news, look for the first issue of The Industrial Radical some time next month.
Sheldon Richman
When every one is somebodee,
Then no one's anybody!
Cross-posted at Free Association.
Keith Halderman
Mark Brady
Jason Kuznicki
Chris Matthew Sciabarra
I grew up on a steady diet of Hanna-Barberacartoons, among other favorites, including"The Flintstones,""The Jetsons,""Yogi Bear,""Jonny Quest," and"Huckleberry Hound."
So when I found out about the passing of Joseph Barbera, I paused for a moment to recall all the joy his wonderful animation brought me.
And this passing comes after the recent passing of Chris Hayward, a writer responsible for many of the characters featured on"Rocky and Bullwinkle," among other timeless TV shows (hat tip to David Beito).
Cross-posted to Notablog.
