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In the Dec. 18 Slate Political Gabfest, the three liberal hosts discuss a case (also discussed here by host Emily Bazelon) of whether a high school could “punish” a student who posted a YouTube video mocking and insulting a fellow student of the same high school. The mean girl was suspended for 2 days (some punishment!) and of course sued for violation of her “right to free speech.” The case apparently turned on whether the mean girl’s out-of-school actions “caused a substantial disruption of the school’s activities.” And the Slate pundits seem to have no problem with this framing of the issue.

Incredible as it may seem, the quite obvious solution never seems to occur to them: and that is that the issue is now what the school’s policy should be, but what the law should be. A school has the right to allow or disallow, to suspend or expel, or to set rules for same, on any grounds they want. If a school chooses to permit students to use its private property only if they comply with certain rules of conduct (whether on or off campus), that is the school’s right. Period. It has nothing to do with free speech. Free speech only means the state itself may not use force of law to censor or regulate speech. The right against the state committing this form of aggression has somehow been transformed into a right to use others’ property even if they don’t want you there. (Arguably if the school was public, some of the restrictions that apply to the state could apply to it; I can’t tell whether it’s a public school here or not, but apparently neither do the Slate pundits, who seem to think this is irrelevant, and would favor such a lawsuit even against a private school.)

[LRC]

I was driving my 6 year old to school this morning. We somehow got into a conversation about how laws were made. I started explaining to him the distinction between law formed by courts, and law artificially made by legislation. This led into a brief explanation of the British system, the role of the king or queen and parliament, how parliament is bicameral, and Britain’s “unwritten” constitution, and to a contrast with our own system with a President instead of king, a bicameral congress, and a written constitution. And so on.

During this Ethan blurts out, “I wish they would make a law against war.” So, this led to a discussion of the United Nations and treaties, and the attempt to limit warmaking in the UN charter. He asked me if it worked. I told him it hasn’t worked very well. He says, why? I say, well, if you are a powerful nation then you are sometimes tempted to use that power to get your way, and so on. So we still have wars.

Ethan is silent for a minute, and then mutters, “The earth is not as peaceful as it looks.” It kind of creeped me out.

Nicholas Dykes: Robert James Bidinotto and “The Contradiction in Anarchism”.

I just recalled interesting article by Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center, Randy Barnett and the Destruction of Federalism. I had made some comments on it to someone in email, which are adapted below. I also commented on this previously in Randy Barnett’s Proposed “Federalism Amendment”. In my view, a better view is that amendments are pointless, as the state is construing its own limits. (See on this Hoppe and de Jasay.) [continue reading…]

What we need is an amendment forbidding the circumvention of the Constitution. It could read: “The Constitution shall not be circumvented.” I just got a big laugh from any lawyers who may be reading this.

–Joe Sobran, “Constitutional Legerdemain,” syndicated column of April 11, 1996 (reprinted in Sobran’s, May 1996, Vol. 3, no. 5, page 12) (quoted here).

Other favorite quotes here.

In Carson: Good Reading!, Sheldon Richman commends Kevin Carson’s Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective, which is fine, but then he seems to accept some standard jabs left-libertarians launch at normal libertarians. My reply:

Sheldon: “the modern American economy is far more the product of government-business collusion than of free markets. Contrary to the way free-marketeers tend to talk, we don’t have an essentially free economy except for a thin interventionist crust that needs to be scraped away. Instead, intervention is woven deeply throughout the economic fabric.”

Radical anarcho-libertarians do not deny this at all. We do not say that we have an essentially free market economy that only has a thin crust that needs to be scraped away. We recognize the entire system is distorted and corrupted.

“Thus our economy would have looked very different had laissez faire been the rule.”

Yes, I think we all know this.

“We can’t undo what has been done, of course, but if all privilege and intervention were abolished, the economy would evolve in a radically different direction than if the State’s favors stay in place.”

Again, this is true, but is this news?

“Libertarians really need to come to grips with this if we are to make a contribution to the continuing debate over political economy.”

Come to grips with it? We know it, and oppose it.

“If we keep sounding like Lawrence Kudlow and Ben Stein, we will be irrelevant.”

Agree with this, but I think this refers more to the Objectivists who romanticize our past, the libertarian centralists who think the Constitution is almost libertarian or can be tweaked a bit or that if we can just persuade the judges to see the light we’ll have libertopia. I don’t think anarcho-libertarians need to come to grips with this. We already see the state for the evil it is, and oppose its intervention in the economy. I am not gainsaying your praise of Carson’s elaboration of this but I am often mystified by left-libertarians presuming to preach to regular libertarians as if we are naifs are apologists for corporatism.

Mises Daily has one of the most powerful, withering attacks on antisemitism ever. By Mises himself: The Socialist Calumny Against the Jews, from Omnipotent Government.

[Mises]

[From my Webnote series]

See Stephan Kinsella, “A Libertarian Theory of Punishment and Rights,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society [LFFS] (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), n.16; Hoppe on Property Rights in Physical Integrity vs Value; “Defamation as a Type of Intellectual Property,” in A Life in Liberty: Liber Amicorum in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, edited by Jörg Guido Hülsmann & Stephan Kinsella (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2024).

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[From this Mises blog post]

A discussion in the comments section of a post about blackmail brings up an issue about which many libertarians are confused. This concerns the idea of “harm.” Libertarians often condemn “harming” others, and this is fine so far as it goes, if it is kept in mind that “harm” here is loosely meant as a synonym for aggression. But “harm” is really a broader category. Libertarianism says that only aggression may be countered with force, that aggression is the only way to violate rights so that a forceful response is justified. Other rightful behavior, even if it is immoral or “bad,” is rightful so long as it is not aggression. (See my What Libertarianism Is, esp. notes 9-11 and accompanying text.) [continue reading…]

In view of the recent passing of Paul Samuelson, it may be worthwhile to recall the “Symposium: On the Occasion of the Eighteenth Edition of Paul Samuelson’s Economics” in the Summer 2005 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, which contained Samuelson and Rothbard: Two Texts and Two Legacies, by Shawn Ritenour, and Samuelson’s Economics: The Continuing Legacy, by Aron A. Gottesman, Lall Ramrattan, and Michael Szenberg. (Hat tip: Koen Swinkels)

(Mises post)

Update: See the version by Roberta Modugno listed here.

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Against Intellectual Property has been translated into Italian by Mr. Robert Newson: Contro La Proprietà Intellettuale (.doc file). Translations into Spanish, Polish, Portugese and Georgian have been made as well.

[Mises; AM]

An article I wrote as an appendix to a book: Economic Calculation Under Socialism, Appendix I to Protecting Foreign Investment Under International Law: Legal Aspects of Political Risk (1997).