History News Network

Departments

Liberty & Power: Group Blog

Jonathan J. Bean (∞); David T. Beito (∞); Brad Birzer (∞); Mark Brady (∞); Burton Folsom (∞); Anthony Gregory (∞); Keith Halderman (∞); Robert Higgs (∞); Steven Horwitz (∞); Jeffrey Rogers Hummel (∞); Lester Hunt (∞); Troy Kickler (∞); Roderick T. Long (∞); C.J. Maloney (∞); Wendy McElroy (∞); Paul Moreno (∞); Charles W. Nuckolls (∞); James Otteson (∞); Ralph Raico (∞); Sheldon Richman (∞); Chris Matthew Sciabarra (∞); Jane S. Shaw (∞); Aeon J. Skoble (∞); Amy H. Sturgis (∞)

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Wendy McElroy

May I Kill A Stranger? Show your support: May I Kill A Stranger? Musing about Capital Punishment

In Illinois, the governor seems reluctant to sign landmark legislation on it. An Ohio Supreme Court justice who helped draft law on it now calls for repealing his own measure.

The it over which so many vacillate is capital punishment -- the sanctioned execution of those convicted of a crime punishable by death. Laws vary across America, with about two-thirds of the states permitting capital punishment, usually in aggravated murder cases, while the others either ban or do not authorize it.

On a federal level, the death penalty attaches to a wider variety of 'crimes' including treason and espionage.

Intense debate surrounds this issue.

Posted on Wednesday, February 2, 2011 at 7:05 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Monday, January 31, 2011

Mark Brady

The Year of the Tiger Gives Way to the Year of the Rabbit

Nick Holdstock links to a censored cartoon from China.

"Despite the politically sensitive nature of the cartoon, some of the people behind it have been willing to identify themselves. Pi San, the director, works at Hutoon, an animation studio in Beijing that also makes cartoons for China Central Television. 'I felt this past year was really depressing,' he said, 'so I wanted to create this thing for fun.'

His apparently relaxed attitude is especially surprising because the cartoon ends with the rabbits growing vampire fangs and slaughtering the tigers. The final slogan seems a clear warning to the state that public concern about such issues as food safety, housing and corruption should not be ignored. 'The year of the rabbit has come. Even rabbits bite when they’re pushed.'"

Posted on Monday, January 31, 2011 at 8:22 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Keith Halderman

Private Inspection Works

For people with serious medical problems who use marijuana for relief the purity of the product is an important issue. However, because medical cannabis is only quasi-legal in some states the government does not perform its customary inspector’s role. Now, however, in California private imitative is providing the amenity. This story nicely supports the notion that the use of government force and coercion is not necessary when a service has value. Unfortunately much of what government does has little or even negative value.

Posted on Monday, January 31, 2011 at 6:11 PM | Comments (0) | Top

C.J. Maloney

1836: The Death of Our Second Central Bank

"In half an hour, I can remove all the constitutional scruples in the District of Columbia."
- Nicholas Biddle, President, Second Bank of the United States (1822-1836)

The Second Bank of the United States (one of America's earlier experiences with central banking) was created in 1816, just in time to exacerbate the Panic of 1819, before succumbing to an untimely death in 1836 at the hands of President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837), who doubtless has Ron Paul's admiration for the deed. "The Bank is trying to kill me", Jackson declared, "but I shall kill it!" Rare for his species, the words were not mere campaign rhetoric; he meant what he said.

Click here to read the rest.

Posted on Monday, January 31, 2011 at 9:27 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Mark Brady

Five Days in February 1917

The overthrow of Tsarism. Interesting in its own right, and not least in the light of current events.

Posted on Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 10:20 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Mark Brady

What's Going on in Egypt?

Juan Cole provides insightful commentary on Egypt's class conflict and useful context for the unfolding drama in the most populous Arab nation.

Posted on Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 10:08 PM | Comments (0) | Top

David T. Beito

Senator Robert Taft's Speech Against Lend-Lease (1941)

Posted on Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 6:56 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Mark Brady

A Cow Most Sacred

Andrew Bacevich explores modern American patriotism and provides an insightful explanation of why military spending remains untouchable.

Posted on Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 2:59 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Mark Brady

"Mubarak, Your Plane Is Waiting"

Adam Shatz writes about the demonstrations in Egypt.

Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 5:07 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Robert Higgs

Freedom Is Not Compatible with Government’s Initiation of Force against Innocent People

In yesterday’s New York Times appears an op-ed article by Edward L. Glaeser, a professor of economics at Harvard. Glaeser’s article is remarkable because arguments in favor of freedom, insisting that economic analysis implicitly rests on a moral presumption that individual freedom has fundamental value, do not appear every day — or every month — in “the newspaper of record.” So, I am glad to give two cheers to Glaeser, one for his theme and another for his courage in placing the argument in such a hostile outlet.

I cannot give Glaeser a third cheer, however, because toward the end of the article he inserts a concession that I find wholly inconsistent with the rest of the argument. He writes:

Economists’ fondness for freedom rarely implies any particular policy program. A fondness for freedom is perfectly compatible with favoring redistribution, which can be seen as increasing one person’s choices at the expense of the choices of another, or with Keynesianism and its emphasis on anticyclical public spending.
Many regulations can even be seen as force for freedom, like financial rules that help give all investors the freedom to invest in stocks by trying to level the playing field.

Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 3:34 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

C.J. Maloney

Being Dishonest with Honest Abe

You have a soon to be released book and are wondering how to give it a nice boost in the media. Thus, one Thomas Lowry, author of Don’t Shoot That Boy: Abraham Lincoln and Military Justice (published in 1999) took a fountain pen into the National Archives with him (needless to say, pens are forbidden in the research areas) and…hold for it… changed the date (from April 14, 1864 to April 14, 1865) on an actual, honest to goodness pardon written by Abraham Lincoln himself.

All this was done so he could claim in his book to have “discovered” that Honest Abe, in one of his last official acts as president (he was assassinated the night of April 14, 1865), showed mercy by pardoning a Union Army deserter from execution. How nice.

Besides the fact that his disgusting act was Stalinist in its blatent attempt to change the historical record to fiction, Mr. Lowry’s altering of the letter showed all the cunning and ability of a sixth grader forging a note from his mother. “National Archives archivist Trevor Plante reported to the National Archives Office of Inspector General that he believed the date on the Murphy pardon had been altered: the “5” looked like a darker shade of ink than the rest of the date and it appeared that there might have been another number under the “5”.”

Unfortunately, the statute of limitations has passed for Mr. Lowry to be prosecuted for a truly heinous act, but at least the National Archives banned him for life from all its facilities. Judging by Mr. Lowry’s character and disdain for the truth, his books should be banished from polite society as well.

Discovered via Thomas DiLorenzo’s blog post here on LewRockwell.com

Posted on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 9:42 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Robert Higgs

Debating the Great Depression: Steve Horwitz’s Latest Contribution

The Great Depression has been a deeply contested subject from the very beginning. After John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory became sacred writ for most mainstream economists, Keynesian interpretations generally prevailed, notwithstanding pockets of resistance among older economists, in general, and Austrian school economists, in particular. Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz’s monumental A Monetary History of the United States eventually helped to displace Keynesian interpretations with a monetarist interpretation, especially after the stagflation of the 1970s worked to discredit Keynesian macroeconomics.

Posted on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Amy H. Sturgis

The Liberating Power of Technology

Cory Doctorow's latest Guardian column offers a detailed review of Evgeny Morozov's new book The Net Delusion, which seeks to debunk so-called "cyber-utopianism" and the idea that the internet can be used as a force for freedom.

In Doctorow's words, "the world's oppressive regimes (including supposedly free governments in the west) are availing themselves of new technology at speed, and the only way for activism to be effective in that environment is to use the same tools."

Read "We need a serious critique of net activism."

Posted on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 10:59 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Monday, January 24, 2011

Keith Halderman

A Bad Thing Happened in Virginia

The members of the miss named Northern Virginia Violent Crime Task Force are probably feeling pretty swell these days because last week a two year investigation culminated in the arrest of 25 people for distributing cocaine and heroin. They are receiving headlines, praise, justification for the task force’s existence, and perhaps even promotions for their efforts. This event is definitely a good thing for them but what about the rest of us?

First the taxpayers will now have to pay for expensive prosecution of 25 people and since most of those on trial will be low level dealers the public will also have to pay for much of their defense. If the government is successful at trial we will have to house, feed, clothe, and provide medical care for those convicted. In some cases this responsibility will last for decades. When you also consider the direct costs of the two year investigation and the fact that for this time period law enforcement resources were not being used to protect the public from rape, armed robbery, murder and other forms of mayhem you can see that these drug busts are very expensive with little return for the rest of us.

The article in The Washington Times does not mention any violence just street level sales of illegal substances. Since the task force has done nothing to reduce demand for the product, disruption of supply will be minimal or perhaps even non-existent. However, there will be a period where market share is contested with the most vicious and ruthless people winning. In the black market of illegal drugs disputes are settled with guns and murder. Therefore in this instance the main accomplishment of Northern Virginia Violent Crime Task Force will most likely be to engender violence that would not have occurred if they did not exist, putting at risk the rest of us.

Cross Posted on The Trebach Report

Posted on Monday, January 24, 2011 at 9:43 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Sunday, January 23, 2011

C.J. Maloney

Damn the Deficit! Full Speed Ahead!

Outstanding …”Mr. Obama will argue that the U.S., even while trying to reduce its budget deficit, must make targeted investments to foster job growth and boost U.S. competitiveness in the world economy.”

If we are to get out of this depression, Americans need to stop looking at the Federal government as if it were Microsoft and its political grandees all Bill Gates in their own right. America's Executive and Legislative branches today reminds me of what Andrew Dickson White once said about the French legislators – “men who had never shown any ability to make or increase fortunes for themselves (yet) abounded in brilliant plans for creating and increasing wealth for the country at large".

The politicians need to stick with what they know best, and running a business and investing wisely do not fall into that category. They need to stick to their knitting, as the saying goes.

Posted on Sunday, January 23, 2011 at 3:13 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Friday, January 21, 2011

Jonathan J. Bean

Fatty Footprints: A Modest Proposal Based on Liberal GroupThink

Fact: The USA is in the midst of a obesity epidemic.

Fact: Fat people are more likely to need health services, work fewer years, and pay less in taxes. They “free ride” by consuming scarce health care resources paid for by those who are healthy and thin.

PROPOSAL:

For their own good, and for the Public Good, the Departments of Health (state and federal) will calculate the “fat footprint” of every product that enters the stream of interstate commerce (by definition, everything in the universe). A new value added tax (VAT) will be added to all food items to cover health care costs and encourage healthy behavior on the part of those “irresponsible” fat people.

The government will also require all state and federal workers to work out at their local gym, eat food from an approved list, and reduce their weight to a level deemed adequate by F.A.T.S. (Federal Agency for Trimming and Slimming America).

This regulation will also extend to employees of businesses that contract with the federal government. Currently. F.A.T.S. is working to devise universal coverage beyond those groups. After all, one reason why children are “left behind” is that they are too fat to catch up with their peers. This must change.

Civil rights laws will be revised to add thin-to-normal weight people to the list of protected classes for affirmative action purposes. Employers must seek out thin-to-normal weight employees by casting a wide net in their recruitment. These workers will boost the bottom line of companies and make for a more socially just distribution of resources. The EEOC will supervise the formulation of goals and timetables to achieve real progress.

The tax code will extend credits to those who can document weight loss. Other candidates for tax subsidies: those with reduced cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and other markers of good health.

A half century ago, normal-weight president John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” His promise lays unfulfilled next to the potato chips on millions of American couches.

Fifty years is too long, we know what you can, should, and must do for your count

Posted on Friday, January 21, 2011 at 10:43 AM | Comments (0) | Top

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Mark Brady

Tunisia and the West

Brendan O'Neill explains how the people of Tunisia come out of this uprising well, and Western politicians and observers do not.

"The idea that this was a 'Wikileaks revolution', an uprising brought about by a revelation of the truth by wise men in the West, is more than just another example of media self-obsession and self-congratulation – it is an updated version of the White Man's Burden. This is the White Wikileakers' Burden, the notion that it falls to media-savvy folk over here to open the eyes and energise the hearts of enslaved brown people over there. Tunisian authoritarianism was backed for years by Western governments as part of the fantasy politics of saving the world from African chaos and Islamic fundamentalism – and now a Tunisian uprising is depicted as simply a physical extension of the fantasy politics of bedroom-based bloggers and leakers who seem to believe they can liberate people at the push of a button."

Posted on Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 6:00 PM | Comments (0) | Top

David T. Beito

Warren Buffett 's Start "at the Bottom"

An article highlighted today on MSN describes how Warren Buffett, and six other billionaires, "started at the bottom." It states that young Warren (no doubt after he left the orphanage) "started working on his billion-dollar empire when he was a teenager. His first job, at age 13, was running a newspaper delivery business. Already a budding businessman with an eye on the bottom line, Buffett took a deduction that year for the use of his bicycle on his paper route.He went on to start a pinball-machine business while in high school. Always looking for business opportunities, Buffett had $10,000 from his business ventures when he graduated from college."

All well and good....except for one detail that might contradict the alleged start "at the bottom." The article does not mention that Warren's father was none other than Howard Buffett, a prosperous businessman and member of Congress who was a key mentor to his son. Why can't the elder Buffett get any respect? Could it have something to with the fact that, unlike the pro-establishment, pro-Obama Warren, Howard had strong libertarian views?

Posted on Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 4:53 PM | Comments (0) | Top

Monday, January 17, 2011

David T. Beito

King on Marxism

Several times over the years, I have put up these statements from Martin Luther King, Jr. in his book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story published in 1957, but they are well worth repeating:

During the Christmas holidays of 1949 I decided to spend my spare time reading Karl Marx to try to understand the appeal of communism for many people. For the first time I carefully scrutinized Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto. I also read some interpretative works on the thinking of Marx and Lenin. In reading such Communist writings I drew certain conclusions that have remained with me as convictions to this day. First, I rejected their materialistic interpretation of history. Communism, avowedly secularistic and materialistic, has no place for God. This I could never accept, for as a Christian, I believe that there is a creative personal power in the universe who is the ground and essence of all reality-a power that cannot be explained in materialistic terms. History is ultimately guided by spirit, not matter. Second, I strongly disagreed with communism's ethical relativism. Since for the Communist there is no divine government, no absolute moral order, there are no fixed, immutable principles; consequently almost anything-force, violence murder, lying-is a justifiable means to the 'millennial' end. This type of relativism was abhorrent to me. Constructive ends can never give absolute moral justification to destructive means, because in the final analysis the end is preexistent in the means.

Posted on Monday, January 17, 2011 at 12:30 PM | Comments (1) | Top