A recent US patent (Delphion version) covers a WOODEN STICK or TREE BRANCH for a dog to play with. I am not, repeat, not, making this up. More ridiculous/obscure patents.
Interesting reading: Jude Wanniski’s recent July 23 2002 Polyconomics Memo on the Margin, about his standing offer to pay $1000 “to anyone who could provide evidence that Min. Farrakhan had ever said anything disrespectful of Judaism or the Jewish people.” This memo details an email exchange between Wanniski and Joshua Muravchik about whether Muravchik has earned the $1000.
I detailed a recent debate between the proper view on the state, war, etc., between J. Neil Schulman, J.H. Huebert, et al. in recent posts. For subsequent email debate by libertarians from both sides of the divide, see the WarLibertarians Yahoo Group that I started recently. And Joe Stromberg has a great new column out on this, “Liberventionism II: The Flight from Theory“.
Previous posts:
In my last post about FEE and J.H. Huebert, I criticized J. Neil Schulman’s critique of Huebert. Neil has sent a long letter in reply, which I have posted here with his permission. I’ll let readers judge Neil’s letter on its own merits, for now, as I have bread to earn, and not much time for a tit-for-tat reply sanitized for public consumption.
A few short comments for now: I am glad to see he makes it clear that I was wrong in suspecting his monarchy comment (see last post) was a jab at Lew Rockwell et al. That’s good, because LewRockwell and Hans Hoppe are the best of libertarians, IMHO. And, for the record, of course I realize Neil is a libertarian; and I have no idea what this “read someone out of the movement” stuff is about. I think one source of the confusion is Neil seems to think being anti-war is the same as pacifism. I am not a pacifist; aggressors deserve to be countered with severe retaliatory and retributive force. One need not be a pacifist in order to oppose the warring actions of our imperialist-aggressive federal government. Apparently, Neil is way more into this “true patriot” “America is the best country” rah rah stuff than I am. ‘Nuff said (for now).
In a recent post I mentioned J.H. Huebert’s article, A Great Institution in Freefall, which describes the decline of the Foundation for Economic Education. Huebert’s website now lists various responses he’s had. Someone forwarded to me a letter by libertarian sci-fi author J. Neil Schulman critical of Huebert.
Huebert had criticised FEE for having non-libertarian Rudolf Giuliani as the keynote speaker and guest of honor at their annual trustees’ dinner, and for promoting other non-libertarians such as Nixon-admirer Ben Stein, who was selected to be the keynote speaker at the National Convention. In his response, Schulman first notes his libertarian credentials, and then attacks Huebert.
Incidentally, in listing his credentials, he refers to his “natural-law defense of property rights in information content”. He is referring here to his “logorights” theory. For an explanation of what is wrong with this theory and why it is contrary to libertarian property rights, see text at notes 48-49 to my article Against Intellectual Property. But I digress.
Getting back to Schulman’s attack on Huebert–first, he points out that back in 1993, he himself described Giuliani as “a small-time fed with ambitions of making a political reputation for himself as a Grand Inquisitor” and stated in a footnote to the article, “Rudolph Giuliani is one Republican I wish would go against the trend and become a Democrat. He’s a ruthless opportunist whose political career I hope stalls where it is.” Yet now Giuliani is rehabilitiated in Schulman’s eyes. Why? Because, “I don’t think any mayor could have done a better job than Rudolph Giuliani did following the attack on his city. His post-911 performance won my respect, and I even began resenting him less for his prosecution of Michael Milken once Ben Stein explained during his Q&A; why Milken was, after all, a thief.”
Of course, Giuliani’s actions in the aftermath of 9-11 do not mean that he is now a libertarian. I also cannot see why Giuliani’s “post-911 performance” means FEE should highlight him so prominently. By the way, what, exactly, did Giuliani do, that is supposed to be so great? That he kept his compusure in press conferences? If Giuliani had been a craven idiot at the time, what difference would it have made, exactly? Would 3000 people not have been killed? Would the city have been “sadder”? Would more federal dollars been given to NYC in welfare handouts? What? I’ve been mystified every since 9-11 at the worship of Giuliani’s “handling” of the crisis. The damage had already been done, after all. In any event, even courage under fire does not make one a libertarian, nor appropriate as a keynote speaker and guest of honor for a supposedly libertarian organization, and one that advocates economic education, at that.
Schulman concludes his letter, “By the way, I applaud FEE for inviting Mr. Giuliani to speak. Unlike Mr. Read, and like libertarians ranging from Murray Rothbard to Robert LeFevre to Karl Hess to Samuel Edward Konkin III, I consider that any idea worth holding is worth defending in lively debate. Mr.Giuliani just might learn in that setting why he should read Human Action.” Giuliani read Human Action? As Gary North commented, “If he gets paid $75,000 [by FEE as an honorarium] for never having heard of Human Action, it’s difficult to see why he should start now.”
As for Ben Stein, Schulman claims now that the illustrious jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none, the Clear-Eyes commercial actor, Ben Stein, “explained,” during a “Q&A;”, that Milken was, “after all,” a “thief.” If we are defer to authorities to settle the Milken issue, I’d prefer Rothbard to Stein, in both ethics and economics. In particular, take a look at Rothbard’s comments on Milken in chapters 28and 49 of his Making Economic Sense.
Schulman continues, “What I most object to in your article is your phrase ‘a panel on the war on terrorism where only one panelist, Harry Browne, took the libertarian position.’ Your statement is offensive, arrogant presumption.” Hunh? It’s not arrogant for Huebert to think the proper libertarian position is antiwar. What is arrogant is the belief that pro-war, pro-Israel libertarians have a monopoly on moral outrage. Schulman goes on:
Libertarians are divided on the war on terror. [] Some oppose the war because they take a pacifistic approach reminiscent of my old friend, Robert LeFevre. Some libertarians are knee-jerk opposed to anything done by the United States Government. Then there are libertarians such as myself who consider themselves American patriots in the tradition of the founding fathers, who object to theocratic terrorists hijacking our private-enterprise passenger jetliners and ramming them into our office buildings, murdering thousands of our countrymen, and laying waste to our country’s oldest commercial trading districts and our national defense headquarters.
This falsely implies that anti-war and anti-federal government libertarians do not oppose the 9-11 attacks and are not patriots. I.e., according to Schulman–if you don’t support the Feds on this one, you are not a patriot and you don’t even oppose terrorist attacks on American skyscrapers. Instead, either you are pro-war, or you are a “kneejerk contrarian [pacifist]”. No middle ground, eh Neil? Let me make it clear, Neil–any libertarian worth his salt of course condemns and opposes the murder of innocent Americans by crazed Islamic terrorists. (Duh!) Some of us even, gasp, support retaliation–yes, by the feds–against those acting in concert with those terrorists and posing a threat to innocent Americans. Of course this support is reluctant because, as libertarians, we recognize what a dangerous entity the feds are, and that much terrorism has been generated–but not justified!–by American imperialism. (See Lew Rockwell’s Peace Archive for insightful commentary on such distinctions and subtleties.)
Schulman is right in describing Islamic terrorists as “ongoing threat from a bunch of unreasonable dickheads who consider their grievances more important than our lives and property”. Of course this is correct. And of course, it is even more true of the feds, as Schulman knows. Every day the feds take about half my earnings from me. I suspect they will for the rest of my life. This is a serious, systematic, almost inescapable violation, and its chance of occurring is about 100%. Whereas, my chances of being harmed by a terrorist attack are much smaller, and even manageable to some degree. What would most reasonable people choose, if given the alternative: freedom from federal government taxes for the rest of your life; or a guarantee that you would not be killed in a terrorist attack? Well, I’d like to have both guarantees, but if I had to choose, I know which one I would pick (and I suspect Schulman, if pressed, would say the same). So which is the more dangerous criminal entity–the feds, or Islamic terrorists? Which violates the rights of Americans on a systematic, severe basis? Gee, I dunno.
Schulman also writes, “I consider myself an isolationist. I did not support the Gulf War, which I considered defense of a monarchy.” Waitasec–the problem with the Gulf War was NOT that it was a “defense” of monarchy. There were many reasons for libertarians to oppose the Gulf War–taxes, deaths of innocents, fomenting hatred of America, unconstitutional executive actions required to support it, etc.–but “defense of monarchy” is the weakest criticism imaginable. In fact, as Hans-Hermann Hoppe points out in Democracy: The God that Failed, monarchy is preferable to democracy, from a libertarian perspective, in many ways. Or was this curiously out-of-place attack on monarchy meant to be a veiled jab at the Mises Institute, LewRockwell.com, and Hans Hoppe?
In a recent post I proposed that we establish a new political party, the Tax Cut Party. The more I think about it, the more I like this idea. The perfect party, the perfect issue. Now, someone out there take these pearls and go get it going, and call me when it’s time for me to sign up!
J. H. Huebert’s article, A Great Institution in Freefall, describes the decline of the Foundation for Economic Education.
In a recent article (“Liberty and Union, Now and Forever,” July 2002 Liberty), libertarian law student Tim Sandefur argues that libertarians should take the Lincoln-Union side of the War Between the States, unlike anti-Lincoln libertarians such as Murray Rothbard. There are several problems with Sandefur’s reasoning, a couple of which I will highlight here.
First, Sandefur tries to argue that it was not “States” that were parties to the Constitution, but rather, the whole people of America. Therefore, as the Constitution is not a “treaty” between separate States, none of the States can “withdraw” from the treaty. States cannot “break the constitutional compact,” because they are not parties to it; “the people” as a whole are the parties to it. One problem with this argument is Article VII to the US Constitution. It provides: “The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same” (emphasis added).
As Art. VII makes clear, the Constitution was established “between” the first nine States to ratify, upon New Hampshire’s ratification (it was the ninth). This is the classic language employed in treaties, which provide that the treaty becomes effective, among the states ratifying, when a certain threshold number of states have ratified it. Such treaties are clearly among and between the member states and bind only those who voluntarily adhere to it. Likewise, the American States were the original parties to the Constitutional compact. This is also made clear from the Federalist papers and the ratification documents, which say over and over again that the States were the ones ratifying, and joining, the Constitution and the new Union; not the people as a whole. (Thanks to Tom DiLorenzo for the last point and link to the ratification documents.)
Rhode Island was the last of the thirteen American States to ratify. It did not have to ratify. By the time it did, the new Constitution was already in force, and the United States consisted of twelve States. However, by Sandefur’s reasoning, Rhode Island could have been forced into the new Union, just as the Southern States could be forced not to secede. But this conclusion is contrary to international law and the very language of the Constitution. In actuality, if Rhode Island had ultimately decided not to ratify, but the other twelve had, then there would have been a Constitution by and between twelve United States, with Rhode Island being left out of the compact. It would have remained a sovereign state, a neighbor to the 12-member USA. As for secession, just as Rhode Island did not have to join this new union, but did—Rhode Island could also withdraw.
Second, Sandefur argues that the Constitution guarantees to every State in the union a republican form of government (Art. IV, Sec. 4). Yet, “such a guarantee would be meaningless were a State able to secede from the union.” After all, the seceding state might set up a non-republican form of government. This argument is weak, because the Constitution merely guarantees to every State in the union a republican form of government. But if a State secedes, it is no longer, of course, in the Union. Just as the Constitution does not authorize the federal government to “guarantee” a republican form of government in, say, Liechtenstein or the Holy See, so it does not authorize the feds to guarantee this in a former member of the Union. (And anyway, it is not clear what “guarantee” means here, and there is no power granted to the feds to enforce this guarantee.)
Third, and worst of all in my view, Sandefur tries to show that there was no “right to secede” built into the original Constitution; there was no explicitly recognized “permission” to secede. Sandefur here appears to miss the entire concept of enumerated and limited powers, i.e., the idea that the federal government has power to do only that which is authorized by the Constitution (see ninth and tenth amendments). It does not matter whether the Constitution explicitly provides for the right to secede. What matters is whether the Constitution empowers the federal government to go to war against a seceding state. This power is not granted. (Just take a look.) Therefore, the right to secede is implicit in the very structure of the Constitution.
Likewise, it does not matter if a given individual right (to free speech, to use or sell drugs, to own firearms) is specified explicitly in the Constitution, so long as Congress is not given the power to regulate in this area. Consider: The Federalists originally claimed no Bill of Rights was needed, because the new federal government was simply not empowered to violate natural rights. But to address the concerns of the Antifederalists, the Bill of Rights was added (in 1791, two years after the Constitution was adopted in 1789). The ninth and tenth amendments were added to make it clear that the listing of these rights did not mean these were the only ones that existed, or to imply that power was granted to the feds to invade other rights not listed.
Consider the two-year period from 1789 to 1791, when there was a Constitution but no Bill of Rights yet. During this time, a federal law banning handguns, or censoring speech, or establishing a state religion, would have been unconstitutional because ultra vires—beyond the powers granted to it. This did not change after the Bill of Rights was added. This is why, for example, the constant debate over whether the second amendment “really” protects an individual right to own guns is beside the point. Let’s assume it does not, or that the second amendment did not exist. Still, the feds can’t regulate firearms (just as they could not have from 1789 to 1791), because the Constitution does not authorize such federal laws. For someone to say a federal law is valid unless one can point to a contrary right in the Constitution, shows a lack of comprehension that the federal government is one of enumerated and limited powers. It is the federal government that acts by permission, not the populace.
The case of secession is similar. The Constitution nowhere authorizes or empowers any branch of the federal government to prevent a state from seceding. We do not need to find “permission” for States to secede; rather, the federal government has to find “permission” (authorization) in the Constitution, to stop secession. Since there is no such authorization, the Union’s war against ex-member States was unconstitutional.
Is there anything more annoying than Ditech.com commercials? You know, the chubby, nondescript Ned Beatty-ish car-insurance salesman who always screams, “Darn you, Ditech.com!” when he loses business to Ditech. In the latest commercial, he plays his own mother, who prefers to buy insurance from Ditech than from her own son. That one pushed me over the edge.
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