I am leaving for a long delayed vacation so my initial response will have to be short. Here is one vital point. Not even the Bush administration has ever claimed that Iraq ever attacked us or had an plans to attack us. Saddam led a secular/socialist regime which was hostile to both the Shi'ite fundamentalists (now in power in Iraq courtesy of Bush) and Sunni fundamentalists, such as Al Qaeda. Thus by definition the Iraq War can not be considered one of self-defense even for the “mainstream libertarian.”

For the sake of argument, however, let’s concede that Randy is right. Let’s assume that libertarianism does not “commit one to a particular stance toward the Iraq War.” If this is true, then libertarianism belongs in the trash can of history. If libertarianism can not answer such a vital question of the day, it is a dead philosophy that is more suited to parlor games than to discourse about problems in the real world.

[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire and Mises Blog]

Next year, 2008, marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) – abolitionist, anarchist, postal entrepreneur, and the leading legal theorist of 19th-century libertarianism.

Today Spooner is best known for his 1867-70 No Treason series of pamphlets attacking the authority of the Constitution (and by implication government generally) and defending the right of secession. Murray Rothbard called No Treason “the greatest case for anarchist political philosophy ever written.”

But Spooner’s interests ranged still more broadly, touching on nearly every aspect of the moral, economic, and legal case for a free society. Over a fifty-year writing career Spooner penned defenses of jury nullification, deist theology, natural law, and Irish revolution; as well as critiques of slavery, victimless-crime laws, the postal monopoly, and both sides in the U. S. Civil War. He also developed controversial theories of legal interpretation (according to which, e.g., slavery was unconstitutional regardless of the framers’ intentions) and of property rights (including a case for making the term of patents and copyrights perpetual); produced numerous economic tracts on banking and currency reform; and drew up plans for guerilla warfare to liberate slaves. (Note: most of Spooner’s writings are available online here; a few more can be found here.)

In honour of the upcoming Spooner bicentenary, the Journal of Libertarian Studies is planning a special symposium issue on Spooner. Submissions dealing with any aspect of Spooner’s life and thought are hereby solicited. Articles may be historical, interpretive, or critical; comparisons of Spooner to other figures are also welcome. Submissions should be sent to JLS@mises.org by 1 April 2008.

[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

Ill news this Bastille Day: the Atlas Shrugged movie is apparently shuffling right back into its old home: Development Hell.

Here are the key passages, to my way of thinking.

Mr. Fulmer [Gilbert Fulmer, a Full Professor of Philosophy] and some of his colleagues also had specific worries about the world of Rand scholarship, which has occasionally been marred by schisms and accusations of scholarly foul play. In particular, the Ayn Rand Institute, a nonprofit organization with which the Anthem Foundation is closely associated, has sometimes been accused of enforcing rigid ideological conformity — and even of failing to acknowledge the work of scholars associated with rival organizations.

Debates surrounding Rand's work often"resemble a religious dogma surrounding a sacred text, and not the free give-and-take of ordinary scholarship," says Rebecca Raphael, a senior lecturer in philosophy at Texas State.

Much of the opposition was organized by Ms. Raphael, the lecturer in the department, who was disturbed by the notion that money might shape the department's offerings."Debate about Rand's quality and significance should be pursued — but not by these means," she says.

While researching the objectivist world online, Ms. Raphael began to fear that Anthem's grants were given only to a narrow range of scholars associated with the Ayn Rand Institute. No Anthem grants appear to go to scholars associated with David Kelley, a former Vassar College philosophy professor who broke with the institute in 1990 amid a personal and ideological dispute that concerned, among other things, whether it is appropriate for objectivists to speak at events organized by libertarians. Mr. Kelley, who now directs the Atlas Society, an objectivist group in Washington, says he can understand that the institute might not want anything to do with him personally. But he believes it is absurd for the institute to demand that its associates"repudiate" any and all scholars who"tolerate" him — a formulation that often appears in objectivist blog posts.

Mr. McCaskey, the Anthem president, says that Ms. Raphael's concern about narrowness is unfair and unfounded. Many of the Anthem Foundation's grants, he points out, go to institutions like the University of North Carolina, where there are no objectivists on the faculty. And Mr. Gotthelf noted that he himself has historically had an arm's-length relationship with the institute. In 2000, four of its leaders declared that they felt"morally obliged" to criticize Mr. Gotthelf's book On Ayn Rand (Wadsworth) for being written in inaccessible academic language. Ms. Raphael is correct, however, to note that the foundation has never supported any scholars associated with Mr. Kelley, some of whom have published extensively in objectivist philosophy.

Another red flag for Ms. Raphael was an abject apology distributed online in 2002 by Andrew Bernstein, a visiting professor of philosophy at Marist College. Mr. Bernstein lectured on Rand at Texas State this past March, and Mr. McCaskey mentioned his name as someone who might fill the position that Anthem offered to finance.

In his 2002 statement, Mr. Bernstein apologized for having contributed a one-paragraph letter to The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, a journal that publishes a variety of approaches to Rand's philosophy, many of which the institute's leaders find false and offensive. (Mr. Bernstein's short contribution was a reply to a negative review of his CliffsNotes of Rand's novels.)

"The so-called Journal of Ayn Rand Studies is filled with writings by people with whom I refuse to knowingly associate under any circumstances," wrote Mr. Bernstein in his apology."I deeply regret my thoughtless decision to contribute to this journal, and hereby irrevocably repudiate any and all association with it. In this regard, the fault is entirely my own. This journal does not hide what it is. Its contents are available on the Internet for all to see. In failing to do the requisite research and gather the necessary data, I failed to properly use my mind. I must now suffer the consequences of that. To all who are sincerely concerned with objectivism, I apologize, and recommend a complete repudiation and boycott of this journal. ..."

When asked by The Chronicle about his 2002 comments, Mr. Bernstein replied that rejecting The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies was a moral and intellectual obligation."We are literally in a struggle to save human civilization from the destruction wrought by irrational philosophy," he wrote in an e-mail message. The editors of the journal have been hostile to the Ayn Rand Institute, he said, but"anyone who sincerely supports Ayn Rand's philosophy, and appreciates its indispensable role in promoting cultural renaissance, must, as a logical consequence ... respect ARI's dauntless, indefatigable, gallant struggle on behalf of a rational philosophy."

In the puffed up optimism produced by shock and awe, the figure of “Baghdad Bob” (Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi Information Minister) was the center of much mirth. His predictions of U.S. defeat, even as American tanks rolled in the background, repeatedly made the rounds on the internet, especially on pro-war blogs. But four years later as Bush’s Iraq policy is in tatters, “Baghdad Bob’s" pronouncements no longer seem so delusional.

Here are a few examples:

“Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!"

"I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Baghdad. We will encourage them to commit more suicides quickly."

"I can assure you that those villains will recognize, will discover in appropriate time in the future how stupid they are and how they are pretending things which have never taken place."

"We have them surrounded in their tanks"

"Now even the American command is under siege. We are hitting it from the north, east, south and west. We chase them here and they chase us there. But at the end we are the people who are laying siege to them. And it is not them who are besieging us."

Any apparent American gains, he said, were a cunning ploy by the Iraqis to lure the enemy into a trap."Our armed forces, according to their tactics, are leaving the way open"

[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

Was David Rice Atchison President of the United States for a day – or at least for a few minutes?

Maybe. Here’s an argument for the affirmative, and here’s one for the negative.

But if he was President, he was a pretty darn good one.

Not that he was a particularly good man. (A vigorous proponent of slavery, he advocated executing abolitionists without trial. This seems a mark against him.) But during the course of his presidency, such as it was, he did absolutely nothing.

That may put him ahead of William Henry Harrison (not an especially good man either) as least harmful president, since unlike Harrison, Atchison neither convened a special session of Congress to enact mercantilist legislation nor subjected anybody to a two-hour inaugural address in the winter wind.