My Fair Lady

My wife bought tickets, from the local PBS affiliate (so they were more expensive than they otherwise would have been, but they were well worth the price--we brought a spotting scope and a pair of binoculars, not knowing where we were going to end up, but they were absolutely unnecessary--we were in the eighth row), to that play.

I'm having a hard time writing right now without using the passive voice excessively. You see that I did manage to write a topical title without using "I," so I overcame that bugaboo.

The play was...how can I say this without sounding gay (another bugaboo)... Ah, screw it! The play was marvelous! I've loved "My Fair Lady" since I saw it on TV when I was about six. Henry Higgins is the man I want to be. But only if he gets Eliza Doolittle in the end.

Now long time readers (and there actually are a few) know where my passion for Audrey Hepburn comes from. Although, if you don't have a passion for Audrey Hepburn, I'll never understand what's wrong with you.

My wife and I are now contriving ways to get the kids to the play. We all watched the PBS special on the new production (twice) and the older girl really wanted to see it.

I'm going to write more on this on the other blog, but I have to go to the BPOU convention tomorrow. Hopefully I'll feel like it Sunday. I can't imagine losing enthusiasm for the subject, but I know how memories of dreams work.

In that light, I should say right now that although we had the understudy(?) playing Eliza, she was magnificent. What a marvelous voice that girl has! I'll have the playbill in front of me when I write my Bourgeois Philistine review so I can name names, but I had to put something out quickly about how much joy this has brought to my life. I felt terribly guilty about not putting something out about this before now. But my wife needed some attention.

William F. Buckley just died

He was a character, no doubt about that. Not being a "Crown and Altar" guy, I'm not feeling the loss. As a Rand and Rothbard libertarian it's tough to get worked up. The guy was the enemy.

Jason Lewis spent the hour I can't listen to on the subject. You're welcome to check out what he had to say. He's on to other things now.

See if you can guess who said this

before you check the answer:

It was long ago observed that the plain people, under democracy, never vote for anything, but always against something. The fact explains in large measure, the tendency of democratic states to pass over statesmen of genuine imagination and sound ability in favour of colorless mediocrities. The former are shining marks, and so it is easy for demagogues to bring them down; the latter are preferred because it is impossible to fear them.

It's a little more subtle than what you usually hear from the guy... I'll give you a hint: he means every word, and he's one of the greatest experts on the English language ever.

To play the game, open the comments, make your guess, and then post your reaction to the answer. You don't have to publish your comment between, just make a clear division.

Words to live by

My daughter got herself grounded from anything with a screen - TV, computer or anything else anyone can think of - for a month for leaving school and coming home during the day... Actually, it's a complicated situation due to arrangements with the local school district and the daycare lady that are all way off topic - complicated but not interesting.

Anyway, my daughter usually listens to Christian Rock and I enjoy that, but apparently she got bored with that tonight and she cranked up the local country station.

So I just heard the song "I'm Still a Guy" for the first time. Let me see if I can find that for ya.

Yup, right here:

When you see a deer you see Bambi
And I see antlers up on the wall
When you see a lake you think picnics
And I see a large mouth up under that log
You're probably thinking that you're gonna change me
In some ways well maybe you might
Scrub me down, dress me up aww but no matter what
Remember, I'm still a guy

When you see a priceless French painting
I see a drunk, naked girl
You think that ridin' a wild bull sounds crazy
And I'd like to give it a whirl
Well love makes a man do some things he ain't proud of
And in a weak moment I might walk your sissy dog, hold your purse at the mall
But remember, I'm still a guy

And I'll pour out my heart
Hold your hand in the car
Write a love song that makes you cry
Then turn right around knock some jerk to the ground
'Cause he copped a feel as you walked by

I can hear you now talkin' to your friends
Saying, "Yeah girls he's come a long way"
From draggin' his knuckles and carryin' a club
[I'm Still A Guy lyrics on http://www.metrolyrics.com]

And buildin' a fire in a cave
But when you say a backrub means only a backrub
Then you swat my hand when I try
Well now, what can I say at the end of the day
Honey, I'm still a guy

And I'll pour out my heart
Hold your hand in the car
Write a love song that makes you cry
Then turn right around knock some jerk to the ground
'Cause he copped a feel as you walked by

These days there's dudes gettin' facials
Manicured, waxed and botoxed
With deep spray-on tans and creamy lotiony hands
You can't grip a tacklebox

Yeah ith all of these men linin' up to get neutered
It's hip now to be feminized
I don't highlight my hair
I've still got a pair
Yeah honey, I'm still a guy

Oh my eyebrows ain't plucked
There's a gun in my truck
Oh thank God, I'm still a guy

Amen, bro!

I've never felt so close to another man.

I finally met somebody who's heard of Polo Hofer!

Of course it was a woman from Switzerland who's about my age. She told me she'd translate the Schwaitzer Deutsch for me. It's a different accent, or rather, dialect.

Most of the dude's German is incomprehensible to me, so I want to take her up on that. Actually, I suppose it's just one or two word per sentence, but their, like, the nouns and the verbs. The adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions are all obvious.

What?! Did I forget Valentine's Day?

No wonder the wife's been grumpy.

I've failed to mention thus far that David Strom has moved from the Taxpayers' League of Minnesota to the Minnesota Free Market Institute. He's the founder of both.

Other than that, I only have time [before the rolling-pin finds me] to mention these other two things I want to check out: Climate Change Forecasters on the Hot Seat and You Are What You Spend, by W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm.

I got both of those from NPCA, btw.

I got as far as this on the last article:

Income statistics, however, don’t tell the whole story of Americans’ living standards. Looking at a far more direct measure of American families’ economic status — household consumption — indicates that the gap between rich and poor is far less than most assume, and that the abstract, income-based way in which we measure the so-called poverty rate no longer applies to our society.

Oop! Hssst!

Gotta go!

I finally sat down and finished reading

The Betrayal of the American Right, by Murray Rothbard. That guy can sure write! This book should be made into a movie!

Let me give you the punch line, so to speak; though this excerpt is part of the summary (Ch. 13: The Early 1960s: From Right to Left, pp. 182-183 of the hard cover) and doesn't show the drama to be found in the rest of the book - the battles and final split of the paleocons and libertarians and the Buckleyite neocons:

Leonard Liggio then came up with the following profound analysis of the historical process, which I adopted.

First, and dominant in history, was the Old Order, the ancien regime, the regime of caste and frozen status, of exploitation by a war-making, feudal or despotic ruling class, using the church and the priesthood to dupe the masses into accepting its rule. This was pure statism; and this was the "right wing." Then, in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Western Europe, a liberal and radical opposition movement arose, our old heroes, who championed a popular revolutionary movement on behalf of rationalism, individual liberty, minimal government, free markets and free trade, international peace, and separation of Church and State--and in opposition to Throne and Altar, to monarchy, the ruling class, theocracy, and war. These--"our people"--were the Left, and the purer their libertarian vision the more "extreme" a Left they were.

...[B]ut what of socialism, that movement born in the ninetheenth century which we had always reviled as the "extreme left"? ...Liggio analyzed socialism as a confused middle-of-the-road movement, influenced historically by both the libertarian and individualist Left and by the conservative-statist Right. From the individualist Left the socialists took the goals of freedom: the withering away of the State, the replacement of the governing of men by the administration of things..., opposition to the ruling class and the search for its overthrow, the desire to establish international peace, an advanced industrial economy and a high standard of living for the mass of the people. From the conservative Right the socialists adopted the means to attempt to achieve these goals: collectivism, state planning, community control of the individual. But this put socialism in the middle of the ideological spectrum. It also meant that socialism was an unstable, self-contradictory doctine bound to fly apart rapidly in the inner contradiction between its means and its ends. And in this belief we were bolstered by the old demonstration of my mentor Ludwig von Mises that socialist central planning simply cannot operate an advanced industrial economy.

The rest of the book shows the consequences of adopting that analysis. The practical consequences. Rothbard was always trying to find a way to promulgate the message, which led to some bizarre alliances and associations.

This book disentangles the Gordian Knot of Twentieth Century American political history. It places all the movements where you can view them in the proper perspective.

Tom DeSabla is one of those guys

who "rages against the machine."

I just said I believe in politeness, but let's be more clear: politeness is not a metaphysical primary. It's a high value for civilization, but the fact is, sometimes you meet people who don't deserve it. I could probably do a dissertation on who deserves it and who doesn't. Basically, it's those who's ideas would destroy civilization who don't deserve it. What destroys civilization is the fundamental disagreement in politics, of course. That's what we're debating.

DeSabla, kind of a libertarian Michael Savage (both of whom I've managed to listen to this morning), weaves in some pretty strong points among the strong words of his anti-statist-media rant, some of which, to be sure, are about the incentives the media respond to, not all of which are about statism, a lot of their incentives are about their and their audience's short attention span. He's got an outline of the Feb. 6 show on his web page.

Too bad he blows out polite company right off the bat.

He rips this op-ed for not mentioning Ron Paul, but it's generally a pretty good article. Mickey Edwards should have mentioned Paul as the one guy who's saying more of what he's saying than the rest of the guys left in the campaign.

Speaking of who's left, Romney proved he's not a real conservative when he dropped out of the race the other day. If he had any real convictions, he would have campaigned through this weekend and tried to convince people that he really is the guy who stands for what we thought he stood for.

And here's what Dr. Paul says:

With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do not now need so big a national campaign staff, and so I am making it leaner and tighter. Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no third party run. I do not denigrate third parties -- just the opposite, and I have long worked to remove the ballot-access restrictions on them. But I am a Republican, and I will remain a Republican.

I also have another priority. I have constituents in my home district that I must serve. I cannot and will not let them down. And I have another battle I must face here as well. If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.

In the presidential race and the congressional race, I need your support, as always. And I have plans to continue fighting for our ideas in politics and education that I will share with you when I can, for I will need you at my side. In the meantime, onward and upward! The neocons, the warmongers, the socialists, the advocates of inflation will be hearing much from you and me.

What's that sound like to you?

An open letter to Ron Paul supporters

I just sent this to Jason Lewis, after a long on-air argument...well, I think you'll get it:

I'd like to say something about my fellow Ron Paul supporters, perhaps this
should be an open letter to them:

Conservatives are not impressed by the Victim Card. Don't call conservative
talk host and expect to be respected when you play it. There are two great
organisations who will teach you how to campaign well for our candidate (and
every call, letter or hand signal to someone with a wide audience is
campaigning): one can be found at http://www.RonPaul2008.com. The other is
The Advocates for Self-Government.

I'm hearing way too much discourtesy from libertarians and paleocons on my
side.

Ron Paul is NOT a victim! He's ahead of his time. His ideas are so old,
they're new. And they're not taught in our schools.

It's OUR job to spread them. It's not Jason's or any other media figure's
job to spread them.

It's MY job.

And the Victim Card ain't gonna get it done.

Thank you,

Al (the Old Whig) from Brooklyn Center

When's the last time I mentioned

Promethea.org? Do I still have them in my blogroll?
http://www.promethea.org/bannersmall2.jpg

Oh, what have I done?

I went and nominated myself (I Freudian typoed "myserf", there) to be Vice Chair of my Republican District. Three of us did and we were all voted in. What a deal!

And all five precinct officers are also delegates to the next level convention.

Now I'm going to have to be an upstanding citizen for two years. What was I thinking?!

The gal sitting next to me was voted Chair. Unfortunately I was feeling a bit euphoric, so I was voicing every silly thought that popped into my head - sort of quietly heckling the proceedings. I think I just made an enemy of my boss. Oh, and also, I have a pulled muscle in my back that hurts whenever I try to move my head, in such a way that I reflexively reach for it - so I was fidgeting like Termagaunt the whole night.

I suspect she's a McCain supporter - the diametric opposite of my guy Ron Paul. She did say that "we have a responsibility to support the candidate who has a possibility of winning."

I respectfully disagree.

BTW, the presidential pole in our precinct went: Romney 18, Huckabee 8, Ron Paul 4, McCain 3.

And we passed along a party plank resolution, authored by a fellow RP supporter saying that we wish to deny recipients of matricula consular ID cards the right to use them for anything valuable in the US. I couldn't argue.

I see the argument for open-borders, but I also see the argument for shutting them down when you've been attacked. And reopening them in a very gingerly fashion.

My guy Dave Thompson just said that he [speaking of Freudian slips, I just capitalized "He"] just said that he had no problem with Ron Paul, he has a problem with some of his supporters. I get that.

Looks like Romney and Obama won Minnesota, but these are caucuses, not a primary, so, essentially, this is a straw poll. And, remember, somehow my neighbors made me a vice chair and a delegate. We just got us a force multiplier.

I think Teflonman has cursed me.

I haven't been able to think of much to write.

Actually, I talked about the Superbowl over on the other blog yesterday. I wasn't thrilled by any of the commercials.

I suppose it's more important that today is Super Tuesday. Go Ron Paul!!

I support Ron Paul because he's the only politician who's right about economics, and is willing to go down in flames for those principles.

Actually, he's a bit of a Buchananite on foreign trade, though he explains that.

I think he's the only one who can and will fix this to my satisfaction.

Ha ha! I got to listen to Jason Lewis twice today

and you didn't! Once on Rush Limbaugh and they ran the replay on his own show. What was so great was that he was on one of his marvelous Freedom rants the whole time. He absolutely kicked ass!

Of course, since he's a libertarian Conservative, and he was covering for Rush, he didn't suggest that everyone go to their primaries or caucuses and vote for Ron Paul in protest - like he did on the local show just last night - that would have gotten him permanently disinvited from EIB.

But, God (I say that prayerfully and in gratitude), it was fantastic listening, knowing that a huge chunk of America was getting an inspirational lesson in the thoughts of the founders.

My brain fries

when I read this kind of stuff, The Case for Free Banking: Then and Now, by George A. Selgin
but it looks like some pretty good thinking.

Don Boudreaux recommended it. Here's Dr. Boudreaux's most recent article, The foolishness of economic 'stimulus': Do we really want to risk prolonging a bad economy? As far as I know.

The latter article has some advice for the President:

First, Mr. Bush should call for a substantial and permanent cut in both capital-gains and personal-income tax rates.

Next, he should insist on a large reduction in federal spending, including elimination of all agricultural subsidies. While he's showing such courage, he might as well unconditionally endorse free trade.

Cutting taxes is, of course, a good thing, but it's important to know why. The goal would not be to increase consumer spending. Instead, it would be to raise the returns on investment and work.

By letting investors and workers keep more of the fruits of their risk-taking, creativity, and efforts, the economy will enjoy more risk-taking, creativity, and effort. Businesses that would otherwise not be started would be created. Likewise with machinery and training that increases worker productivity. Investors worldwide would flock to take advantage of these lower tax rates, further increasing productive investments.

Cutting government spending would result in more of the economy's resources being used by wealth-creating businesses rather than being siphoned away to special-interest groups and boondoggles such as bridges-to-nowhere and Woodstock museums.

Committing to free trade would assure global investors that Americans refuse to turn inward – that producers in America will not be stymied in their efforts to buy inputs from low-cost foreign suppliers and that investments and entrepreneurial ideas from abroad will continue to be welcomed.

Finally, Bush should assure the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve that he neither expects nor wants them to use monetary policy politically. Reminding them of the wisdom of Milton Friedman, he should strongly urge them to keep a tight rein on the money supply.

Sound money, low taxes, and free trade might not "stimulate" the economy today, but this combination will surely increase its vigor over the long-run.

These reforms are about as radical as what Jefferson did when he took over from Adams and the Federalists. Of course, Jefferson should have done more.

Invadesoda sent me the direct link to Mises.org's online library and I've been reading Denson's Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom [828 page pdf].

Let's see the Democrats in this country

do this!

The Republicans certainly aren't.

I just replaced the quote from the Anti-Federalist

with this one from Tibor Machan's article, The Bill of Rights and Moral Philosophy:

The people, so long as their right to free thought is still respected by law, are still in charge. And they can make the difference between a future guided by the principles that gave birth to our nation or one directed by alien philosophies that will take us back to the dark ages of feudalism and despotic rule.

I thought I'd mention it here, so you all can comment.

I was clued to

this by Oldsmoblogger, and I recommend you read their posts for context, but I wanted to highlight this comment:

Fred


How long until Miami starts seeing a flood of Venezuelan refugees? How about now. See yesterday’s New York Times.

“Rise of Chávez Sends Venezuelans to Florida”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/us/23florida.html?ref=todayspaper

It doesn’t matter how much oil you are standing over. If you force producers to sell goods below cost you get shortages. It doesn’t take a genius to figure this out but it still comes as a surprise to your average dictator.

God will bless those who follow those link-trails.

I need to write a review of Doherty's

Sea Venture: Shipwreck, Survival, and the Salvation of the First English Colony in the New World.

Mind if I submit a rough draft for your criticism? Amazon reviews don't need to rate publication in the New York Times, but I do want to write something that encourages people to get ahold of the book and read it.

[Before I get down to business and use that window to google the title and get you the link, I was just reading this guy. He's pretty good.]

The wreck of the Sea Venture has not been denied its fair share of attention in history and the arts - as Doherty shows, Shakespeare appears to have used William Strachey's description of the hurricane that drove Sea Venture onto the Bermudan reef as the inspiration for The Tempest.

Doherty's focus is the contributions the survivors of the shipwreck made to the survival and growth of the Virginia colony, as well as the founding of Bermuda and New England.

John Rolfe, one of the survivors, looms very large in the book, partly because he founded the American tobacco industry, but mostly because he married Pocahontas. Marrying Pocahontas, the daughter of the Powhatan, gave Jamestown "the Peace of Pocahontas" which allowed the colonists to recover from "The Starving Time" and the war with the indians and put down roots - literally. And, apparently Pocahontas herself was instrumental in Rolfe's mastery of tobacco growing, which finally made the colony profitable.

I don't think a review is the place to do more than hint at the surprises in store for readers of the book, but there are many. Doherty uses sources, John Smith, Strachey (who wrote voluminously of their experiences) and Rolfe, as well as any other writings of the time, that help you get inside the heads of the participants. Smith and Rolfe seemed to have had a deep understanding of Powhatan. Unfortunately, they weren't in position to moderate every dispute between the colonists and the indians.

I've never said anything here about A Shropshire Lad?!

Well, I'm not going to do it now, either. It's a book of poetry, so the Bourgeois Philistine needs to handle it.

Paul Campaign gets Don Luskin!

Hey! Look at that! He's brought Don Luskin aboard as his economic advisor!

Not that he needed one. We used to have four economists in Congress: Dick Armey, Newt Gingrich and... the other guy's name will have to come to me later...and Ron Paul. Now we have one. Let's get him to the top, shall we?

Helicopter Ben is going to dump cash on us!

He said he would, after all.

All right, it'll be Congress and the President who are going to pay us off to encourage short-term savings wasting. Yeah, that's what we're doing wrong, the economy is f'ed up because we're not blowing enough money on stupid s***. Whiskey and hotrods for everyone!

Hayek! Hayek! Hayek!

OK, so here's what the government is doing: we're about to go into a recession because the last wad of empty calories - excuse me, cash - the government handed out (by holding interest rates below their natural rate) has run its course. People are done buying junk and are about to settle down to attending to their real needs, is how I interpret it. So people stop buying the useless crap that firms have been sinking their subsidized capital expenditures into producing. We can't have that! Crap producers will go out of business!

We need more Truck Nuts, Hoola Hoops and Pet Rocks!

Give a wad of cash to the poor. Hey, liberals! The poor spend their money on chinese junk at Walmart! Eat that, morons!

Oh! And McCain's happy that Congress and Bush are moving fast on this thing. Populist "solutions" always require a big bandaids. And they accused Reagan of going for simple solutions!

This will fuel the shortest recovery in history. And fill my house up with more junk. [Yeah, I'm takin' the money. Better that than leavin' it in their hands. And I pay taxes.]

Here's Ron Paul's reform agenda.

This seems rather important.

I wonder why I've never heard it before. Of course, this is just the beginning of the examination of peaceful conflict resolution:

Glasl shows how parties in conflict loose the ability to co-operate in a constructive manner as their successive and mutual experiences are break down. He identifies several "points of no return" which contribute decisively to the escalation.[36] In stage 1[37], there is a hardening of the positions. It is the content of the conflict that is the centre of attention, and the parties trust that it will be possible to solve the problem. In the second stage, polarisation and debate take place. The conflicted parties unite within themselves (cohesion), and stereotypes develop. When they reach the point where they feel that talking to one another is not productive, they "create facts" (stage 3: "deeds instead of words"). From there the relationship to the opposing party becomes a central part of the content of the conflict itself. "There's no use in talking to them," is the experience, "now we have to act!" From now on behaviour towards one another becomes more clearly negative, as do the notions the opponents have of each other. As the conflict constellation deteriorates, the parties slide into a situation where each feels threatened and endangered by the actions of the other (stages 4-6). In stage 4 the relationship becomes the problem. Stereotypes, and "win-lose" situations arise. In stage 5 direct attacks on the position of the opponent begin, and each party seeks to "expose" the "true character" of its opponent causing him to loose face. In stage 6 the threatening begins, and isolated violent acts might happen.

The next decisive threshold is crossed when threats and ultimatums are superseded by (still limited) actions directed against the power base of the organisation or group concerned (stage 7). From this moment on the parties no longer see each other in human terms but see only objects that they want to be rid of (stages 7-9). From now on the violence directed toward each other becomes the predominant issue of the conflict. In stage 8 the basis of power and existence of the opponent are targets, and mutual destruction takes place. In the 9th and final stage there is total confrontation even at the price of one's own destruction. The only goal is to eliminate the opponent.

Ronald J. Fisher[38] has transferred Glasl's model from its original context of social conflicts, mostly in or between organisations, to the context of political conflicts. He simplifies Glasl's nine stages to four: stage 1: communication, stage 2: polarisation, stage 3: segregation, stage 4: destruction.[39]

I'm not a pacifist (yet, anyway), but I'm all for maximising the use of peaceful methods whenever and wherever possible. And, of course, I'm against initiating physical force.

Steve Forbes is making a good case for Giuliani

in today's WSJ: The Giuliani Tax Cut.

It looks like "trimming," but you can't argue that it's unrealistic, and I think it would improve our lives.

Nobody's ever given me a real poem before!

I deeply appreciate it.

Is that where the whale thing came from?

I'm not at all an e.e. cummings expert. I've read a few of his poems...not enough to make me seek him out. And after buying an edition of Whitman's Leaves of Grass which includes the 1855 edition and the "Deathbed Edition", I feel "once bit and twice shy."

I may be a philistine, but I don't care to feel like one.

Oh! Man! The Cosmo-Libertarians

at Reason Magazine picked on the wrong dude when they pissed-off the gay, Anti-War [.com] activist and biographer of Murray Rothbard, Justin Raimondo!

Check this out:

Reason, of course, in it’s new incarnation as the official organ of the libertarian movement’s aging hipsters and would-be “cool kids,” vehemently opposes reaching out to middle and working class Americans: that is far too “square” for the black-leather-jacket-wearing Nick Gillespie, formerly associated with something called Suck magazine, and Matt Welch, who was an unknown quantity before getting the job at Reason. Right-wing populism? As far as the Suck-y crowd is concerned, one might as well tout the appeal of “right-wing botulism.” Libertarianism, as understood by the editors of Reason, is all about legalizing methamphetamine, having endless “hook-ups,” and giving mega-corporations tax breaks (so Reason can keep scarfing up those big corporate contributors). The decidedly “square” Dr. Paul—a ten-term Republican congressman from Texas, no less, and a pro-life country doctor of decidedly conservative social views—was and is anathema to Team Suck.

Now, if I were like the MSM and only cared about horse-races and cat-fights, I'd leave it at that, but let's hear a little further explanation:

What would the “Smearbund” do without David Duke? No smear campaign is complete without dragging him into it. No matter what the subject—the Iraq war, the Mearsheimer and Walt book, affirmative action—if you take the politically incorrect position, according to the neocons, then you’re marching shoulder-to shoulder with the former Klansman and professional nut-job.

And sure enough, the Kirchick piece takes the Paul newsletter to task for supposedly having “kind words” for Duke. Yet, if you go and read what the newsletter says about Duke, it is clear the author was merely saying Duke’s success is due to his opposition to affirmative action and the welfare state: indeed, Kirchick cites a passage (without citing it in full) in which Duke is taken to task for his lack of a “consistent package of freedom.” Yet the willfully ignorant Radley Balko, another Cato type, avers: “I simply can’t imagine seeing any piece of paper go out under my name that included sympathetic words for David Duke. That a newsletter with Paul’s name did just that demands an explanation from Paul.”

Well, my three paragraph rule just isn't going to work for me here, let's look at a couple more:

The explanation, which would be apparent if Balko had actually cited what is written, is that these weren’t sympathetic words for Duke, per se, or his political ambitions, but for the issues—legitimate issues—that he raised (and exploited) in his Louisiana campaign. After all, libertarians such as Paul reject affirmative action, racial set-asides, and all other forms of state-enforced special treatment for “minorities” precisely because they oppose racism, or any form of collectivism.

By the way, libertarians also oppose so-called civil rights legislation that outlaws discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or disability, because it violates the rights of property-owners. William F. Buckley Jr. famously derided libertarian (and “right-wing populist”) opposition to such legislation as valorizing Lester Maddox’s refusal to “serve a Negro a plate of pork chops.” Buckley’s quip surely underscored the venality and small-mindedness of Maddox and his ilk—and yet, lost in all this, is the reality of the libertarian position, which is that people have the right to be venal, small-minded, and, yes, viciously, stupidly, horribly wrong, provided they don’t initiate the use of force.

I want you to remember, this is written by a homosexual, who lives in the Bible Belt. Or, wait a minute... Am I assuming he lives in or near Auburn, Alabama because of his close ties with The Mises Institute? My intuition is telling me he actually live in San Francisco, where the discrimination against gays isn't quite as acute (nor chronic, for that matter) as Alabama.

Haha.

I'm gonna post this now. I'll get the links in later. I'm gonna just steal 'em directly from Raimondo, so if you don't see 'em yet, go to the original article. I recommend that you do so anyway. He has so much more to say. BTW, everything I know about blogging, I learned from him. Getting away from reading him has harmed me. Remember, I always balanced my reading of my hero E.G. Ross with Raimondo.

Those were the best of times.

In other, but related news, I need to put links that I got from LewRockwell.com here where I can get back to them: 1. Mr. Jefferson Comes Home, 2. McCain and the Militarist Mentality: His electoral comeback is an ill omen and 3. Locking a Nation Into Permanent Childhood

Root, hog, or die!

Well, since this guy (or these guys, and/or gal(s) or whatever), cover the meaning of the expression so well, I guess I don't have to.

It's a phrase that pops into my head once a decade or so. I don't remember it being actually used in conversation, accept when one of us kids asked Mom why they put rings in pigs noses. It's a saying with obvious meaning to hog farmers. It implies that times are tough now, I can't feed ya, you're on your own.

I guess I went ahead and explained it anyway.

The only thing left for me to point out is that "hog" is the subject of the two command-form verbs. In case that's not obvious. It's not a choice of three commands.

It's an expression with many applications in politics.

I think God's saying something to me

Ever since I did my little study of William Penn and the Quakers* the other day, I'm running across Quakers all over the place. Here's one, for instance, and he has links to a number of others.

I've had an interest in them since I read what Thomas Paine said about them in The Age of Reason.

Actually, I've liked the sound of them since I saw the ad for a TV movie about The Underground Railroad (I never did see the movie), back in the '70's, in which a character in a Quaker meeting said, "Quakers have never been backward about breakin' laws they know was wrong!" [Apparently they were Down-Mainers: read it with that accent. If they were supposed to be Pennsylvanians, the TV guys got that wrong.]

*Because their links appear to be kind of a mess (not that reading everything there wouldn't be good for you), here's their "brochure".

[Boy! I wouldn't want to see somebody take a red marker and put arrows connecting all the directly related points in this post. Call me Mr. Parenthetical Aside.]

Well, it won't be 0° -

neither air temp nor wind chill - in Arizona for the Superbowl. You had to remind yourself, while watching the Divisional Championship games, that the weather was bad, or you'd have wondered why the teams weren't playing very well.

The Packers are out, as the Minnesotans have been making a point of reminding me. [Is it time for me to renounce my Cheeseheadship, since I've been living mostly in Minnesota since I turned 18? ...No. I became a Packer fan between the Starr/Lombardi era and the Majkowski era, so I think I've earned my seat at that table. The fact that I can spell Majkowski without looking it up...well, that's the shibboleth.]

And I'm not done being a Packer fan. That was a great, great season! And I'm not ready yet for the Favre era to be over yet. This is a very young team, overall, and I want to see what they do next year.

As for this last game, without a doubt the Giants played better. The Packers needed a Desmond Howard to win that game. Driver stepped up to the plate, but in '97, they had two great receivers and Desmond Howard. If Green Bay doesn't have a street named after that guy, they need to get one.

Back to the weather, when the announcers said that the Giants have been practicing outdoors while the Packers were practicing indoors, that gave me a bad feeling. As it was, the difference was one interception. And it looked to me like both QBs were suffering from cold hands in OT. Favre took the greater risk, and paid the greater price.

Look, as well as things were clicking (comparatively) for the Giants' offense, it's a wonder the Pack held them to three field goal attempts, there in the fourth quarter. For those who don't know, only one of them succeeded - the longest one. Any one of them would have won it for the Giants, and the final one did. Score: 20-23 Giants.

Terribly disappointing to me, and, no doubt, my swiss brethren across the border...and it don't look to me like the NFC is going to take the Lombardi trophy this year...

Ah, I'm just going to take the elder Manning brother's advice and be bummed out.

I've been going down the old blog-roll

over the past few weeks, and fixing up the old, out of date links. I notice today that Ogre's is one of them. He's got some good stuff, check him out.

Ron Paul took second in Nevada. Rumor has it that the South Carolinians are voting today. I'll be interested to see how that comes out.

Some knucklehead commenter at that last link was telling people to vote for Hillary or Obama, since Ron Paul's not going to win. I'll probably just vote for the LP guy if the Repubs continue on their hyper-statist track. If we end up with one of those commies in the White House as a result, well, it'll just hasten the revolution.

Parting thought: there is no Department of Love. Not that I want to give them any ideas.

The Republican Candidates

I agree with Tom Sowell that there is no Democrat worth considering, but let me tell you what I think of those running for President on the Republican side.

Mike Huckabee: Sincere Evangelical Christian - social democrat. Not a combination I care for. I want Freedom of Choice in Religion, social relations and commerce.

Rudy Giuliani: Strong leader, saved New York City from going the way of Detroit - authoritarian. He's sure he knows what's best for you.

John McCain: A real hero, a real Christian - a real [chicken-in-every-pot] economic populist - Welfare/Warfare statist extraordinaire.

Ron Paul: near perfect Constitutionalist in his voting record - has taken some odd fliers in his career, and listened to some bad advice on how to advance his libertarian message. And he's raked in a hefty pile appealing to fringies.

Mitt Romney: Professional (and successful) business restructurer, sincere Mormon (not a bad thing at all, in my opinion) - statist. Too willing to leave Constitutional interpretation to the judges, and where he's willing to try to lead them isn't anywhere The Founder's wanted America to go.

Fred Thompson: the truest Reagan conservative in this campaign - I heard tonight that he was endorsing Bush's "stimulus package." That makes him an economic moron.

That ain't what Reagan did. Reagan didn't dodge the recession, he faced it like a man: he gave the whiners a steely glare and rode the Keynesian dragon of stagflation of the Nixon, Ford and Carter years into the ground.

The work of the Reagan Revolution wasn't done when his time was up. I wish I could say - because it would be so much more poetic - when the Constitution mustered him out, but the fact is that I don't think he could have handled another year of the presidency, let alone a full term.

I acknowledge my personal debt to Ronald Reagan, and the debt the world owes him -whether humanity acknowledges it or not - and I'd like to see this current crop of candidates aim for that level of leadership. Giuliani and Romney can lead, but they have no principles - or, rather, that have insufficient principles of the sort I want to follow. If McCain or Huckabee were placed at the head of my column, I think I'd head for the hills.

I like Thompson. I wish he'd lead.

Ron Paul... I think he's trying to decentralize leadership. And I absolutely agree with that.

You want leadership? Get your ass in gear!

ARI asked me to announce this

The Morality of Capitalism

Who: Dr. Eric Daniels, speaker for the Ayn Rand Institute and visiting scholar at Clemson University's Institute for the Study of Capitalism

What: A talk making the case that capitalism is the only moral social system. A Q&A will follow.

Where: Kimmel Center, Room 914, New York University, 60 Washington Square South, NY, NY 10012
Maps and directions: http://www.nyu.edu/about/virtual.html

When: Wednesday, January 23, 2008, at 7 pm

Registration: Attendees must RSVP to nyu@objectivistclubs.org

Description: Despite the enormous success of American capitalism at producing material abundance and political freedom, critics continue their assault on the system, calling it immoral. In this lecture, Dr. Eric Daniels makes the case that capitalism is the only moral social system. He also examines the conventional defense of capitalism, which relies on the practical, economic argument, and illustrates why only a defense of pure laissez-faire capitalism can succeed.

Bio: Dr. Eric Daniels is a visiting scholar at Clemson University's Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He taught for five years at Duke University, in the Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace, and at the University of Wisconsin, where he earned his doctorate in American history. He has lectured internationally on the history of American ethics, American business and legal history, and the American Enlightenment. Daniels's publications include a chapter in "The Abolition of Antitrust" and five entries in the "Oxford Companion to United States History."

For more information on this talk, please e-mail media@aynrand.org

### ### ###




Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

If you would like to know more about Dr. Daniels, he published two articles on Capitalism Magazine: Jamestown: Birthplace of America's Distinctive, Secular Ideal (a must-read for me), and The Real Threat to our Energy Supplies.

I should say, I read an article today by Bob Bidinotto, I find my head spinning on my decision to support Ron Paul. On the other hand, I still find the other candidates less palatable. If the choice is to vote for the lesser of the many evils, at this point I still see Ron Paul as the least evil.

I should also say, that Bidinotto is persona non grata with ARI, but I believe his opinion on this matter would be in line with theirs...were ARI to condescend to recognize Ron Paul at all.

I have an idea for a book.

I'm not going to give the whole thing away, but it ties together at least three things I've managed to sustain an interest in for at least a few years. The only hint I'll give you is that reading Sea Venture qualifies as doing background research. Or perhaps I should say that Sea Venture's a popular history that gets me in the mood to dig a little deeper into the area and era that will serve as the setting.

I've already discovered that my main character isn't even unlikely. I've never run across anyone with the guy's exact history, but similar people were there.

I have another reason for not telling you too much about it: as soon as I promise to do something, I lose all interest in doing it. Particularly if it means going out of my way at all. But that's why this idea might be one I can handle, it's built up out of things that I do/study/think about all the time.

I'll need help with the dialog, though. Nobody talks like me...when I do talk. I don't think I've met many people who talk less.

Three Men in the State of Nature

I'm reading Kieran Doherty's latest and, sadly, probably last, book, Sea Venture, he tells a tale of three men who, one way or another, were left on the uninhabited islands of Bermuda awaiting the arrival of other Englishmen. Their names were Christopher Carter, Edward Waters and Edward Chard. This is from Chapter 13, which is called "Our Hoped and Desired Ilands":

When they were not busy tending their crops, hunting hogs or birds, fishing in the shallows of the harbor, or keeping watch, they often went exploring, rowing a small boat...to nearby islands, where they walked the shore, looking for pearls or Spanish coins or other valuables that might have washed ashore from some stricken and long-lost vessel. On one such trip, as the three men wandered along the beach just above the high-water mark, they spied a man-sized grayish white chunk of material wedged in the rocks that fronted the beach. As soon as the three men--all mariners--spotted the mass, they immediately recognized it as ambergris, a naturally occurring substance that is created in the intestines of sperm whales and found floating on the sea or cast ashore on beaches. They would have known, too, that the roughly 180-pound chunk of ambergris, along with a few other smaller chunks, were worth a not-so-small fortune in England, where the substance was used in the manufacture of perfume.

While Chard would later claim he was the first to spot the ambergris, all three immediately laid claim to it and, no doubt, set to dancing and shouting gleefully on the beach, imagining themselves living the good life in London town or perhaps sailing the seas as the owners of their own ships. Of course, reality soon set in. They must have wondered how on earth could they possible [sic] get a chunk of ambergris--a chunk described in a letter as "a piece...as big as the body of giant [with] the head and arms...wanting"--off the Bermudas and to England, where they could sell it and pocket the proceeds. How could they keep it out of the hands of the adventurers of the Virginia Company who would, if they knew of its existence, claim it as their own?

The first thing the three men did was hide it, perhaps in one of the many caves that mark the Bermudas. Then they began to argue. Chard claimed the bulk of the ambergris belonged to him since he had discovered it. Waters and Carter, not surprisingly, disagreed. The Three argued, then fought, for the better part of two years. At one point, while fishing together in their little boat, they started bickering and the bickering escalated into open combat. They had at each other with fists and teeth and oars and anything else they could use as weapons. Snarling and bloody, they fell overboard, where they kept fighting until, exhausted, they dragged themselves ashore. Things were so bad that a dog that had remained on the island with the three sailors...waded into the middle of a particularly noisy fracas, biting Waters in a apparent attempt to make them stop. Eventually, Chard and Waters were prepared to fight to the death with swords or pistols rather than share the ambergris. Carter, though, was determined to avoid bloodshed and not happy at all at the thought of spending years--perhaps the rest of his life--along in the Bermudas with no company other than the dog. He hid the weapons so that an uneasy peace settled over the little camp on Smith's Island.

There's your sample of Doherty's lively writing style. Now we have to revert to my lesser skills.

Later, despairing the non-appearance any English ships, the men got together to build their own boat, in which to ride the Gulf Stream to Newfoundland, but the effort turned out to be unnecessary, as the Virginia Company finally got around to relieving them.

I think its a real life illustration of the development of morality under Natural Law, and why we really don't need to fear the messiness of life to the degree that we do. And it adds some credence to Crusoe Economics, though with no whitewashing of the dangers.

No anarchist doubts that the State of Nature has its dangers, they just doubt that The State is better. Actually, I doubt it. They flat out deny it.

Amen, Steyn!

You're a genius!

Oh, yeah: "change." Innovation drives change, the market drives change. Government "change" just drives things away: you could ask many of the New Hampshire primary voters formerly resident in Massachusetts. Nevertheless, between Iowa and New Hampshire, almost every presidential contender found himself lapsing into boilerplate assertions that he was the "candidate of change" – or even, as both McCain and Hillary put it, an "agent of change", which sounds far more exotic, as if they're James Bond and Pussy Galore covertly driving the Aston Martin across some international frontier, pressing the ejector button and dropping a ton of government regulation on some hapless foreigners.

But it's capitalism that's the real "agent of change." Politicians, on the whole, prefer stasis, at least on everything for which they already have responsibility. That's the lesson King Canute was trying to teach his courtiers when he took them down to the beach and let the tide roll in: Government has its limits. In most of the western world, the tide is rolling in on demographically and economically unsustainable entitlements, but that doesn't stop politicians getting out their beach chairs and promising to create even more. That's government "change."

I live-blogged the Packers' game

next door.

Congratulations Patriots, for tying the greatest single-season record of all time: 17-0.

All right, I'll try to cool it with the Ron Paul posts

but I've gotta tell ya, I really like the campaign's new blog.

I think we can trust Daniel McCarthy not to "do THAT again," though I strongly encourage you to head over there and keep them honest.

[Oops! I made a rather important typo last time around. I said "can't trust McCarthy." That's a big oops! 1/13/08]

BTW, McCarthy (and I) encourage(s) anyone who has problems with Paul's foreign policy ideas to check out the transcript of the Russert interview. I know for a fact that the transcriber had some problems, but you'll still come away with a better understanding of how Paul, as president, would try to run...I don't want to say "the country," let me just say "his administration."

Let me help him/her out:

All right...now I can't find where he said something [inaudible] about the Department of Education. The word was either "cut" or "eliminate." Or, possibly "abolish."

REP. PAUL: Yeah, no. The point is, Randolph Bourne says war is a helpless state. ...

Bourne's most famous work is War Is the Health of the State.

I think that paragraph deserves quoting in full:

REP. PAUL: Yeah, no. The point is, Randolph Bourne says war is a helpless state. I believe that statement. When you have war, whether it's a war against drugs, war against terrorism, war, war overseas, war--the mentality of the people change and they're more willing to sacrifice their liberties in order to be safe and secure. So, yes, right after 9/11 my reaction was, you know, it's going to be a lot tougher selling liberty. But I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm still in the business of selling liberty and the Constitution and there's still a lot of enthusiasm for it. So all the American people don't agree that we have to have the nanny state and have the government taking care of us. So I have been encouraged. I might have been too pessimistic immediately after 9/11 because, in a way, it has caused this reaction and this uprising in this country to say, "Enough is enough. We don't need more Patriot Acts, we don't need more surveillance of our people. We don't need national ID cards. We don't need the suspension of habeas corpus. What we need is more freedom." So in one way I was pessimistic, but in another way, now, I'm more encouraged with the reception I'm getting with this message.

I think you can fill in the rest of the blanks. The Randolph Bourne thing probably wasn't generally known, so that needed to be done. The issues raised in the quoted paragraph I want to be seriously debated. With Paul's position seriously considered.

And, I want to say this: I want Paul's hand on the Veto pen. If he gives us four years of Gridlock, I think that's just great. There'll be screaming and yelling and gnashing of teeth. There'll be overridden vetoes...probably by the score. But the Founders' vision for our Government was that Congress would control this country, and the President would obey their laws (and, I'm pretty sure President Paul would obey their Declarations as well, to the best of his ability).

And I'm not fond of pure democracy: I don't like 51% overruling the wishes of 49% - 60/40 comes considerably closer to my ideal.

Yeah, I'd like a Paul Presidency.

Oh, crap! I've gotta go and listen to that again...

Dr. Paul is going to be on CNN "5 p.m. ET"

I guess I've missed it already.

Here's the story.

Will we hear what he has to say?

Update: All right. I'm inspired. I believe.

Ron Paul needs to explain better

I'm afraid the Reason guys [Crap! They've got more than one important post or article on this: one, two, three, four. And that's not all, but the first one is the one I'm talking about.] are right about his response to the New Republic story.

It's terse.

I'm inclined to believe what he says, but I'm not the injured party. I'm afraid it looks like Paul isn't concerned about the injured parties. He needs to do a better job of explaining how the principles and policies he espouses preclude effective racism and homophobia. (Though, we don't pretend to be able to preclude the emotions. We would, however, allow racists and homophobes to find places where they wouldn't be bothered by people of the "wrong" color or sexual preference. What we don't--or wouldn't--allow is for the racists and homophobes to force anyone else into a ghetto.)

I trust Paul. His votes have matched his stated principles, and, for the most part, I agree with those principles. The couple that I don't are indeed matters of dispute among libertarians.

It's old news to me, btw. It's come up before during this campaign. I was a bit surprised to see it drop as quickly as it did. Apparently Paul's enemies either didn't really care at the time, or they had their flunkies stuff the info in their pockets for use later. Like during the New Hampshire Primary.

That shouldn't surprise me any - it's SOP for all political campaigns. That's not a conspiracy theory, it's just something I assume all campaigns do. And all campaigns should be prepared for.

Let's hear the great, inspiring speech, Ron.

Update: Virginia Postrel suggests that Lew Rockwell, president and founder of the Mises Institute, may have written these things. Murray Rothbard was around back then, was he okay with all this?

This is probably as much of an answer as you're going to get from Lew.

On the other hand, there was a lot of that kind of talk on the local talk-radio shows back then, too. I don't think Limbaugh did any of it--I was a passionate fan of his then--but there were plenty of others. In fact, let me admit it right now, libertarianism doesn't prevent anyone from hating anyone, it would just prevent them from harming anyone based on that hatred. I'm pretty sure Paul and Rockwell are all for the libertarian non-aggression principle: you may not initiate aggression against the person or property of another individual, nor may you delegate such aggression to any individual, group, organization or government.

They also fully support the First Amendment. All of it.

But those excerpts sure don't look like pure individualism to me--they look like that crudist form of collectivism: racism.

Update: Sheldon Richman weighs in. Thoughtfully, as usual.

I guess I'd take one of these,

if you wanted to give me one:

Bugatti Veyron

I should tell ya, I got that pic here where you can also find out what an awesome vehicle it is.

I shrunk the pic for my use here; his is bigger.

Holmgren's coming back to Green Bay!

Unfortunately, he's not coming back to coach my team. The Seahawks just whupped the Redskins to knock that politically incorrect team out of the playoffs.

So now we know who the Packers will be playing next week.

Hopefully playing against Holmgren won't rattle Favre. I've seen games where it looked like that was going on. Favre needs to just remember what Holmgren taught him.

And an observation I made last Sunday is, the Packers' offense has a lot more weapons than just Favre and Driver. They, for instance, seem to finally have an O-line that can give Favre time to figure out who the best receiver is.

Huckabee, schmuckabee!

The guy's a "pro-life" socialist. But, then, what do you expect from Iowegians.

I used the quotes for my non-American readers. I wouldn't have used them if half my regulars weren't from overseas.

I'm afraid that most Baptist ministers that I've listened to wouldn't have made good Legislators (note the capitalization). Social conservatism and fiscal "liberalism" don't mix well.

Remind me to write a whole post on that last sentence.

The title of a Sinclair Lewis book was flashing like a warning beacon in my mind all day, since I heard Huckabee'd won the Iowa Republican Caucuses.

The book? Hey! It's a free e-book on Gutenberg! It Can't Happen Here!

Should I tell you why ever I'd vote for this guy? Oh, all right: the irony of having a former Governor of Arkansas defeat the wife of his predecessor is just too... I'm sorry, the standard word to use in this context is "delicious." I rhetoricly painted myself into a corner there.

What really needs explaining is:

Why do things usually turn out all right (more or less), no matter what the effin' bleep-ups [who think they're runnin' the place] do?

That's the anomalous reading I keep getting from my gauges. Everybody's crying wolf all across the political spectrum all the time: Liberals, environmentalists, union leaders, conservatives, fundamentalists, libertarians and populists - name a group: they're crying wolf.

Lobbyists.

They're all howling louder than the damn wolves! We should hunt 'em all down and... Well, I've given up advocating violence. What I was going to say was, essentially, do to 'em what shepards used to do to the wolves.

This guy talks about some of what I'm saying.

What?! Where'd he go?

Ah, it was probably an email I deleted.

Or maybe this post was inspired by the first paragraph of this article, which then takes off in a completely different direction (and revives your worries after I've tried to salve them).

I took these notes while reading Higgs'

If Men Were Angels:

R. J. Rummel

I have a book, High Adventure in Tibet: The Life and Labors of Pioneer Missionary Victor Plymire, by David V. Plymire, that describes conditions of anarchy there in the 1920's and '30's. It's not encouraging.

I suppose you could say that there was only one, or at most a couple, of hordes of poorly armed marauding heathens ravaging the, admittedly sparce, populace.

I don't recall that either Plymire was concerned to analyze the origins of either the chaos or the anarchy, let alone whether one caused the other, but I need to reread the book. It's been lost in my stacks for years. I've wanted to refer to it before; now I've found it.

For three bucks I'd seriously consider ordering a new copy, though these people (the one's I linked above) need to get the message about what "online business" means. Having to go upstairs, get my phone and call a phone number kills my impulse to buy, when I'm sitting here right now with my credit card and my keyboard.

Not that I mean to discourage anyone else.

Here's some pretty strong argumentation (and language):

Classic discussions of state versus nonstate societal outcomes usually involve static comparisons; they ignore the changes that occur systematically with the passage of time. Thus, for example, a Hobbesian or Lockean account stipulates that in a “state of nature,” which has no governing state, a great deal of disorder prevails, and adoption of a state brings about a more orderly condition: in terms of my notation, D-NS(0) > D-S(0). [Translation: Disorder in a Non-State condition (anarchy) is greater than Disorder in a State, -ed.] Analysts recognize that the people sacrifice some of their liberties when they adopt a state—Hobbes goes so far as to suppose that the people sacrifice all their liberties to an omnipotent sovereign in exchange for his protection of their lives. Even if the trade-off is less severe, however, L-NS(0) > L-S(0) [Liberty in Non-State is greater than Liberty in a State] upon the establishment of a state. A ruler always assures his victims that their loss of liberties is the price they must pay for the additional security (order) he purports to establish.

Well might we question whether the ruler has either the intention or the capability to reduce the degree of social disorder. Plenty of evidence exhibits state-ridden societies boiling with disorder. In the United States, for example, a country brimming with official “protectors” of every imaginable stripe, the populace suffered in 2004, according to figures the government itself endorses, approximately 16,000 murders, 95,000 forcible rapes, 401,000 robberies, 855,000 aggravated assaults, 2,143,000 burglaries, 6,948,000 larcenies and thefts, and 1,237,000 motor vehicle thefts (U.S. Census Bureau 2007, 191). The governments of the United States have taken the people’s liberties—if you don’t think so, you need to spend more time reading U.S. Statutes at Large and the Code of Federal Regulations, not to mention your state and local laws and ordinances—but where’s the protective quid pro quo? They broke the egg of our liberties, without a doubt, but where’s the bloody omelet of personal protection and social order?

I'm spending my New Year's Eve

(it's not midnight here yet) reading these three articles by Robert Higgs*:
From the Armistice to the Great Depression
Military-Economic Fascism: How Business Corrupts Government, and Vice Versa, and
If Men Were Angels: The Basic Analytics of the State versus Self-government
I just finished the first one and found it pretty convincing. It's basically a catalogue of all the mistakes made by the Great Powers after WWI that led to the Depression. And Hitler's ascension.

*Well, after taking the younger girl swimming and reading Lemony Snicket to the older girl. By the way, if you want to get an idea of how I talk to my kids, read a Lemony Snicket novel aloud. Then, when I'm with my peers, as seldom as that happens, mix in some sailor language. It doesn't work well, but I can't help myself. When I'm irritable, you just get the sailor. Or somebody does; I try to direct it at inanimate objects.

I resolve to be more irresolute than ever

in this New Year.

Yeah, that thought was inspired by Lileks, but I think I've taken his thought in an Escherian "direction."

The thing is, I'm not just trying to be funny; I really mean it!

I wonder if Robert Ringer wants to be remembered for all time

for this stroke of genius:

"Government is a contract between those who want their lives and property protected and those who want power."

He follows that up with this:

The Founding Fathers’ original idea was that those who aspire to power were to be given limited power in exchange for protecting the lives and property of those who granted them that power. Never was it stated, or even implied, in the Constitution or in any other document, that government would have the right to plunder at will, violate the constitutional rights of its citizens, or engage in any other kind of activities not expressly spelled out in the Constitution.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan promised that if he were elected he would abolish the Department of Education. I believe Reagan’s intentions were sincere, but, like almost all politicians, he was corrupted by the system. Once elected, his advisors quickly “rehabilitated” his “misguided thinking.” As a result, not only is the Department of Education still in business, but government mischief has brought us one misleading education program after another, the latest and most misleading of all being George Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” scam.

His topic for a while now has been "What went wrong with Cho":

...[I]n the next installment of this series, I’m going to move on to other steps that I believe could be taken to slow the Cho incubation rate without regard to whether schools are private or public … without regard to whether teachers are forced to sell their services in the marketplace or remain chained to the NEA agenda.

He's not providing direct links to this series, so I don't know how to prove that he said these things (or give proper attribution), but if you sign up for his newsletter here (he's not heavy-handed with the advertising, in my opinion) you can get the most recent articles.

Oh! Here's the first of the series. Maybe I can cheat and get to the one quoted here. Looks like it:

The Cho Factor is installment I, same as the link above.

Installment II: A Soul Without Purpose

...All right, I can't hand 'em all out for nothing. The titles are great though:

III: The Great Copout: “Evil”
IV: No Other Option?
V: Victims and Victimizers
VI: Quiet Suffering
VII: Prime Targets
VIII:

...hmm, apparently this is where he changed his archiving method.

So this current one is IX: Eliminating the Two-Headed Snake.
Sign up for the free newsletter yourself and(/or) figure out how I'm cheating and do it yourself. Actually, you can probably Google the ones I found. I don't know if this is just a glitch related to revamping his website or if he specifically doesn't want strangers accessing his content directly.

Enchanted, Packers, Patriots

That's my outline, but, since I have the least to say about them, first I'll say Congrats Pats fans for selecting such a fine team to admire. 16-0. I guess I have seen that before, but it didn't make much of an impression back when I was seven and eight. I had other things to worry about. (That was when this kid in my class wasn't happy unless he'd just had the crap pounded out of him. He did things to make sure it happened.)

While they were winning their last regular-season game, I was taking my family to see Enchanted. I thought it was pretty funny. It starts out as a self-parody of all the cloyingly sweet cartoons Disney has ever made, then they throw all the people who need a good hard slap into the middle of New York City, where they're sure to get it.

Then the characters who thrive on reality get sorted out from the ones who need romance and all of them end up in their proper places.

The song and dance routine in Central Park is hilarious.

Hey, I'm not writing a sales pitch here! I'm just saying that the movie deserves to be the top-rated comedy in theaters right now.

And in other news, the Packers beat Detroit 34-13. It was a game they should have won, but, after last week you had to wonder. So the Pack finished the season 13-3. The same record they had the last time they faced the Patriots in the Superbowl.

Of course, the Patriots didn't have a 16-0 record then. And, should they face each other in the Superbowl, that record will have grown to 18-0. They only have to keep doing what they're doing to get there. The Packers have to keep improving.

The Packers won the first-round bye a couple weeks ago, now all we gotta worry about is who they'll face in two weeks (the choices are Seattle, Tampa Bay and the New York Giants), whether the bye week will be good for them or bad, will they come healed-up and hungry or overconfident and lazy... I hate bye weeks.

I didn't get the TV on in time to watch Favre play, but Nall and everybody else seemed to be getting the job done.

Benazir Bhutto was a beautiful woman

Physically and spiritually.

I feel the loss of her personally, I had a bit of a crush on her.

I know that's about the silliest thing anybody will write about her. Hopefully.

Here's a link to a serious obituary and analysis.

May she rest in peace. And may Pakistan achieve peace.

I plan to read all

of these Walter Block articles ASAP.

My long Christmas weekend

Saturday: slept in, went to relatives, came home, cleaned house a bit, waited for inlaws.

Sunday: slept in, shoveled drive, rented pickup to transport new garage door home, picked up door and purchased boards and hardware needed for the job, went home and unloaded door, got stuck returning two-wheel drive rental pickup in snowstorm, paid late fee, drove my 4WD pickup home, dismantled old door, read door manual, discovered that new door is a torsion-spring door rather than an extension-spring door (thus requiring a beefed-up wall to mount), shoveled driveway, discussed alternatives.

Monday (Christmas Eve): returned wrong garage door opener, purchased right one, purchased better door-frame boards and more hardware, looked over door parts, tried new door in opening, discovered my opening is non-standard.

Discussed major renovations.

Went to candle-light Christmas Eve service at church (I needed it), caught In-laws cleaning house when we came home, joined them, up until 2:00 AM.

Tuesday: (Christmas Day): opened presents, repaired and reinstalled half of old garage door, ate Christmas dinner, finished installing old door, shoveled driveway, up intil 1:30 AM.

So, now you know.

Sorry to tell ya, kids: Bill Benson's a casuist.

I mean, it's the same sort of casuistry that convinces juries and courts to do stupid things all the time (and trust the b-tards to get all "spirit of the law"-y and "check and balance"-y on an issue that hits them in the pocket-book) but I'm afraid that the argument that the 16th Amendment wasn't properly ratified just doesn't fly.

At the latter link you'll find this link to the best summary of 'why Bill Benson's wrong.'

Your fellow citizens have decided that they want to squander your money, and as long as you accept democracy, you'll have to accept that.

[Update: Crap! Why did I come in here? Never mind, sorry.]

I need to give this a link

Roy Childs' Big Business and the Rise of American Statism.

It ties together about 85% of what I've been trying to say lately.

Sheldon Richman, whose blog I've now linked

rather high up on my side-bar, wrote an essay a couple weeks ago... Ah, if I don't find it, I'm not going to be able to say anything intelligent...

Go check out William Penn here. The only thing I really knew about him before was what Macauley said. Apparently Macauley's been refuted. Penn was a hero! A true libertarian icon!

And check this out from Quaker.org.

Anyway, TF was talking about the foundation of rights the other day. I wanted to see what he thinks of de Jasay's piece, which says, basically (as they intro it there):

Nineteenth-century utilitarians introduced into liberalism ideas incompatible with its essence, thus giving rise to a contemporary “liberalism” that discounts the value of liberty. For genuine liberalism to resist the penetration of alien elements, it must affirm vigorously two basic principles: the presumption of freedom, and the rejection of the rules of submission to political authority.

He also says that rights are crap and should be replaced by those principles.

Richman says, after quoting Jasay's paragraph, which says approximately what I just said:

When some Americans in the late eighteenth century demanded that a bill of rights be added to the newly proposed Constitution (in fact the second U.S. constitution), defenders of the Constitutional Convention's handiwork responded that a list of rights, although necessarily incomplete, would be taken to be exhaustive. Advocates of a bill of rights countered by proposing what became the Ninth Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

That seemed to solve the problem. Except that it didn't. The courts have not used the amendment to defend unenumerated rights. Conservative legal scholars claim not to know what it means. Robert Bork famously said it was as if the framers had obscured the text with an ink blot. So despite that language, the Bill of Rights has been regarded as exhaustive. Conservatives glibly parry privacy claims by noting that the word privacy appears nowhere in the list.

Things, then, have worked out pretty much as Mr. de Jasay suggests. Rights are seen as a few islands in a sea of prohibitions. But pushing for recognition of the Ninth Amendment has its risks. Once people start excavating that mine, they are liable to dig up all sorts of "rights" no libertarian would like. Most Americans already think they have a right to a minimum wage, health care, and education. Be careful what you ask for.

For this reason, I am drawn to Mr. de Jasay's simpler approach, although it will be hard to kick the rights habit. Instead of defensively proving that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, let's start demanding that those who would interfere with freedom prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. Let them be on the defensive for a change.

It's one of those articles I have a hard top not quoting all of. [Yeah, yeah...grammar...preposition...mutter...] Right at the moment, I'm having trouble summarizing the rest. Probably too much sugar.

Richman's disappointed, however in de Jasay's prescription for action, "It is worth the effort, however, constantly to challenge the state's legitimacy. The pious lie of a social contract must not be allowed to let the state complacently take its subjects' obedience too much for granted.... The best that strict liberalism can do is to combat this [democratic] state intrusion step by step at the margins, where some private ground may yet be preserved and where perhaps some ground may even be regained."

Richman's response, "Observing today's dismal political-economic landscape, it is easy to think that this modest, though by no means easily achieved, agenda is all that strict liberals can hope to win. But if that's all we aim for, we'll never know if we could have gotten more."

Maybe he'd be heartened by Paul Goodman's assertion that anarchy works whenever it's tried, and [I think it's in The Black Flag of Anarchism] he shows examples.

BTW: Anarchy links.

I got my wife a new garage door for Christmas.

With opener.

Or, perhaps, what I got her was the opportunity to do a home project with her father, which she apparently finds very satisfying. [Whoops! I mean "the opportunity for her to see her husband bonding with his father-in-law through means of a home improvement project. She ain't doin' no manual labor!]

All arranged by her, btw. The garage door is about number 38 on my priority list.

Anybody else got any fun plans for your long weekend?

Der Heilige Römische Reich Deutscher Nation

has been revived in spades. [Do I have my genders right? Always a question when going from a sexless language like English (or Finnish) to one of those oversexed languages (like German and Greek--the Romance languages I've looked at only have two genders, and are, therefore, merely sexy--damn near conventionally so.]

The European Union is about to become unified into a single nation.

Oh, and, lest I forget, here's a fascinating discussion of Ron Paul on Mother Jones' blog.

One of the latter discussants brought up the previous matter.

Time to update your understanding of John's Revelation. Makes me want to warn the Eurocrats, "If you &%$# with the bull, yer gonna get the horn!"

I haven't mentioned yet that I spent a number of hours with my brother when I went down to Oklahoma for the funeral, have I? Not as many as we'd have liked, 'cuz I was so effin' sick on Tuesday.

Outside of the realm of the supernatural, I doubt that joining together in a supernation will work out as well for them as they expect. Political matters are going to suck.

Oh, I should explain the title: it's the official name of Karl der Grosse's (better known to English and French speakers as Charlemagne--though he wasn't French. He was a Frank: a member of a German tribe that lived around Aachen) realm. The name of which was The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Some have been known to call it The First Reich.

You will be a better person if you read Theodore Dalrymple's essay

What the New Atheists Don't See.

It's a bit long. Steve directed my attention to it, and you might want to read what he has to say before you delve into it.

There were a couple of allusions I had to look up. I'll give you the links where I found the answers:

Gradgrind

If you've never read Dickens' Hard Times (I haven't), this Wikipedia article is a fine summary of it. I read it all up to the description of the character Gradgrind:

Tom Gradgrind is a utilitarian who is the founder of the educational system in Coketown. 'Eminently practical' is Gradgrind's recurring description throughout the novel, and practicality is something he zealously aspires to. He represents the stringency of 'Fact', statistics and other materialistic pursuits. Only after his daughter's breakdown does he come to a realisation that things such as poetry, fiction and other pursuits are not 'destructive nonsense'.

Juan Sánchez Cotán
Dalrymple's description of the painting is a work of poetry itself:

Even if you did not know that Sánchez Cotán was a seventeenth-century Spanish priest, you could know that the painter was religious: for this picture is a visual testimony of gratitude for the beauty of those things that sustain us. Once you have seen it, and concentrated your attention on it, you will never take the existence of the humble cabbage—or of anything else—quite so much for granted, but will see its beauty and be thankful for it. The painting is a permanent call to contemplation of the meaning of human life, and as such it arrested people who ordinarily were not, I suspect, much given to quiet contemplation.

Ah, a fine philistine I am!

To reclaim my bona fides in that respect, it's only the majority of the currently avant garde stuff that I don't get. I'm not much impressed by abstract paintings, sculpture, architecture and (even) literature.

I usually "get" "representational" art.

Hey!! How about those Packers?!!

[He said, trying desperately to change the subject.]

33-14 is a convincing win, wouldn't you say? They secure the "Bye" and home-field advantage for the divisional playoff game...

Let's see, what else was interesting...?

Favre tossed two interceptions. I'm used to that sort of thing from him, but I was getting used to him not doing it lately.

Does the number 61,405 mean anything to you?

It's the new all-time passing yardage record for a quarterback.

Time to get me a Brett Favre jersey. Let me tell you something: being a Packer fan before the Brett Favre era was a discouraging experience. And one big reason good things are happening for him now is that Favre wouldn't put this as succinctly as the Packers.com writer:

One undeniable and invaluable factor in the offense's prowess that has also helped Favre close quickly on Marino's yardage record is his receivers' yards after the catch.

Approximately 52 percent of Favre's 3,678 passing yards this season have come after the catch, as the Packers have made big plays both on short routes that turn into long runs and long throws that become huge gains when the receiver gets behind the entire defense.

He goes on and on about the help he's getting. And that just encourages those guys to go out and do more.

Did you have any doubt?

I am a
92%DRUNKARD

Looking for payday loan?

Of course, you don't need to know the history and provenance of every alcoholic beverage to be a drunkard or alcoholic, you just have to drink them.

And here's another important "fact" about me, that I'm sure has been tested empirically
30
Not randomly chosen five-year-olds I'm sure. Only kids with a big-enough "Why?"

My Uncle died.

[I hate to admit it, but this needed editing. I know better than to post when writing time is crunched... but I keep doing it anyway.]

I don't want to call him my favorite uncle of all time, because all of them took their turn in that post. I had, uh...[1, 2, 3,...] eight uncles back in the seventies. I'm down to four. The youngest one was the first to go in 1980.

But Uncle Bill was my first favorite: he was brilliant with little kids.

I started to write this Friday, but that was as far as I got. The Minister, a family member, said that Uncle Bill always brightened up a room when he entered it. He always made you feel welcome...that he was glad to see you...that you were important.

As I went through life as a fat kid, a gawky teenager, a jock, a smart-alecky college kid, family man and lately, a fat, old, bald guy, I can tell you that it's absolutely true.

Uncle Bill was a wiry cowboy type - he looked, and dressed, like someone you'd find wrangling cows on a ranch. And he did his share of that kind of thing. "Wiry" is a funny pun - he made his living as an electrician.

I won't do his whole biography, I'm not qualified. (I would be, if I'd learn to take notes.)
...
Muskogee didn't get hit by the ice storm, though Tulsa, 40 miles to the northwest, was shut down. The funeral was on Monday; I was going to come back North Tuesday, but that's when the storm hit... So, I was stuck.

28 people died, last I heard, due to the ice storm, mostly in car accidents. I'd be surprised to find out that even one of them wasn't a tragic loss to humanity. Each of their unique contributions to society are now lost.

It's just as well I didn't try to drive in that, I was in no shape to drive Tuesday. I had some kind of inexplicable disease that day (fever, aches and pains, I wanted nothing more than to go back to bed...uh ... other unpleasant symptoms) that cleared up by the next morning.

From FEE--In Brief, a daily newsletter I get:

Revamped Consumer Agency in the Works
12/6/2007
"The Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act of 2007 would initiate the first major overhaul of the Consumer Product Safety Commission since its founding in 1973. It seeks to reverse a steady decline in the size and effectiveness of the agency by increasing its annual funding to $100 million, from $63 million, over four years." (Washington Post, Thursday)

What good is a reinforced false sense of security?

FEE Timely Classic
"The Role of Brands in Consumer Markets" by William G. Stuart

I would very much like to see my

beloved Dr. Sowell elaborate on this point:

I believe in libertarian principles but not in libertarian fetishes. In any context, the difference between principles and fetishes can be the difference between night and day.

I suppose I could blather on about what I think he means, and no doubt I will, but I'd rather hear him say it.

It's something that deserves elaboration. All my time studying Libertarianism leads me to wonder, for instance, what the greatest libertarian world leader of all time, Thomas Jefferson, was thinking when he imposed the Embargo Act (I think I know what he was thinking when he purchase Louisiana from Napoleon, though, really it was an unconstitutional act).

Anti-War.com prints libertarian fetishes multiple times daily, as do other major libertarian websites - I've quoted some here, and even endorsed them to a degree...but guys like me are longing to be straightened out by the wisdom of an experienced man like Dr. Sowell.

That won't happen if he doesn't define his terms.

Jeez, I should do a post at the

other blog. I got some family pix I could post, I suppose.

Part of the problem is that I've been wallowing in bourgeois-ness for quite a while, and I'm afraid I can't find much of it worthy of comment. I mean, I've been doing yard work: raking leaves, putting away the inflatable pool (which looks like it'll last at least one more year; which makes four--though, I find it's not a babe-magnet to have an inflatable pool, so what's the point... unless you take the word "babe" literally, in which case the lock on the gate has been helpful), shoveling snow...

Oh, yeah! That's what I was going to say! You may have noticed that it's been cold around here so far this month. I'm too much of a solipsist to know if it's been cold and/or snowy in the neighboring states, but My Higher Power has been giving me plenty of exercise in keeping my driveway clear for the past five days. Come to think of it, I haven't cleaned up the mess the city left at the lower end yet today... although, I shoveled out enough of the street to keep it from being a major concern.

I'm forced to drive on the freeway for a couple miles every workday, and I'm pissed at the people who refuse to drive faster than 25 mph! Listen! If you've never done a shitty (that's what we called "doughnuts" back in the '80s--I don't know what they're calling them now; 360 degree spin-outs--near as I can tell, the art has been forgotten) in a parking lot, you don't belong behind the wheel in the winter. Get ye to the parking lot! Don't worry about the cops, they're too busy eating doughnuts to worry about any hell-raisers roaming the streets.

And, by the way, that reminds me of what I learned about parenting while raising two rotten dopers: if the cops don't care what your kids are up to, they don't care what you're up to. (We booted the older boy out half a year before any court would have allowed.)

The great line from "V", "Anarchy in the UK!" applies everywhere.

The true downside of Ron Paul, and I

have it on good authority, is that he's never read the second page of The Constitution.

Boy! I need to write some crap!

Not that that would be unusual, or anything, but I need to tamp down the front page a bit. I've been kind of...courting disaster by not getting some new posts up here since the other day.

So what is there to blather on about?

You got any ideas?

I need to check my receipts. My credit card guardians called me up and asked me about a purchase on the card today. On the spot, I told them that I knew what it was, and I think I do, but I don't recall the exact name of the organization that I bought the thing from. So now I get to dig around and try to find that.

Is this something that ought to be mentioned on a blog?

It's weighing on my mind a bit. I'll have to get right on that.

Khartoum Imams are Morons

"Kill her! Kill her by firing squad!"

I know Muslims. They're not all morons.

Is Muhammed God?

The kind of response these people have to naming a teddy bear Muhammed looks like worshipping something other than Allah to me.