StephanKinsella.com

Pat Buchanan’s latest book, The Death of the West, looks to be an important wake-up call about the dangers that immigration, multiculturalism, and the like pose to western culture and civilization. However, Buchanan has written a recent column linking libertarians with a pro-immigration stance–despite explicitly libertarian anti-immigration arguments by arch-libertarian Hans-Hermann Hoppe (longer PDF article) and other reservations about open borders by other libertarians. In response to Buchanan’s lumping of all libertarians together under the pro-immigration banner, WorldNetDaily published today a response to Buchanan from paleolibertarian Karen De Coster, plus other responses and articles on immigration. De Coster makes it clear that not all libertarians are pro-open borders, despite Pat’s incorrect assumption to the contrary.

Another Pat Response

In addition to the commentary linked in the last blog, see also Buchanan’s column accusing libertarians of being pro-immigration.

I’ve come across DynamicDrive.com, a neat website with cool tricks, tips, and tools for web sites, e.g., mouse trail effects.

I’ve been using Netflix–a great service that I recommend–and the other day rented The Man in the Moon. It’s a fantastic movie; I agree with Roger Ebert’s review.

There are a growing number of sites containing free, electronic copies of classic and other books, such as Bibliomania. Others are listed here.

Two good articles: The Seven Wonders of the Web; and Democracy vs. Freedom (And The Nation-State)?, by Jared Taylor (discussing the provocative new book by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy – The God That Failed).

Another fantastic article is Gary North’s Advice to a Would-Be Scholar. One I wish I’d read when I was younger.

January 6, 2002

Interesting article on FoxNews.com, Setting Sail on a Giant, Floating City. Unlike some libertarian fantasies, this one may work.

My former partner, Erid Sinrod, reports on an interesting recent case, Intel v. Hamidi, in which a California appellate court ruled that waves of unsolicited e-mails sent to Intel by a former employee constituted trespass on Intel’s server. The court applied the common-law doctrine of trespass to chattels. See Intel’s argument, which pointed out that, under California law, unconsented access to a computer system constitutes a trespass to chattels. This was established in Thrifty-Tel, Inc. v. Bezenek, 46 Cal. App. 4th 1559 (1996), and extended to e-mail systems in CompuServe, Inc. v. Cyber Promotions, Inc., 962 F. Supp. 1015 (S.D. Ohio 1997). In that case, the court enjoined the defendant from sending unauthorized e-mail onto the plaintiff’s proprietary computer systems. The CompuServe court found that the defendant’s electronic signals, comprising the e-mail, physically invaded the plaintiff’s computers after a demand to cease. America Online, Inc. v. IMS, 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17437 at *4-*8 (E.D. Va. October 29, 1998) also based its trespass to chattels holding primarily on the reasoning in CompuServe. In my view, this is a legitimate application of libertarian principles of property rights and trespass.

Are we headed toward a technological singularity? The end of life as we know it, in 40-50 years, due to the unpredictable and ever-accelerating pace of technological “progess”? See: Vernor Vinge’s The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era; A Critical Discussion of Vinge’s Singularity Concept ; and Kurzweil’s Law. Food for thought…

Nice Fox News/ifeminist article by Wendy McElroy, Good Will Toward Men.

I came across a hilarious web site of a small, mostly-female-owned Colorado law firm, who call themselves The Bitches From Hell. See especially the new firm announcement and their fan mail. I’d hire ’em.

Excellent article, exploring the evils of patent and copyright: Suddenly, ‘Idea Wars’ Take on a New Global Urgency, by Amy Harmon, New York Times, Nov. 11, 2001 (free registration may be required).

I’ve come across something pretty cool–favicons. This is an icon that replaces the default Microsoft Explorer “e” in the address bar of Interent Explorer next to the URL. For examples of some nice ones, see: FoxNews, Amazon.com, Google, and Slate. If you have trouble seeing the icon, try “dragging” it with your mouse to a blank space in the address bar, and “drop” it there; doing this once or twice usually makes it show up. Favicons only display when using Internet Explorer 5.x and above; for more info on how to see Favicons that are not appearing, see this Webmonkey page. I just downloaded the new Internet Explorer 6, which also handles them well. For more information on favicons, see the Webmonkey icons tutorial; to design your own, see Favicon.com; and for samples, see Favicons.com. My new favicon () was prepared by Favicon.com; they will design one for you for $75.

A few comments in the wake of the terrorist attacks on America (and see my recent article, New Israel: A Win-Win-Win Proposal). Given the attitude of hysteria and simpleminded accusations of treason hurled at anyone who dares to challenge the official government line, let me preface this by saying that I’m not a pacifist. The terrorists and any governments or individuals or groups that supported, aided and abetted them, deserve to be put out of our misery, ruthlessly exterminated (see my article Punishment and Proportionality). There is no justification for their attacks, especially on innocent civilians. They committed unspeakable evil, and have shown themselves to be savage animals.

Because the government monopolizes defense and policing services, we have little choice but to use the U.S. military to pursue the terrorists, if they are to be pursued at all. However, we should be cautious endorsing government action to pursue and punish these miserable animals. We must keep in mind that the actions of these criminals do not justify our taking innocent lives abroad, which would only serve to generate even more hatred of America and thus more terrorists and American deaths. And we must be wary of the federal government using this as an excuse to expand its power and extend its reach over the lives of foreigners and citizens, as it invariably does. Any government action should be focused on the actual perpetrators and their collaborators. (We should also explore private solutions, such as the encouraging development of a private $1billion bounty fund apparently being raised to hire mercenaries to kill or capture terrorists.)

Any government retaliation should be limited in scope and in duration. After the perpetrators are dealt with, we should also take a good, close look at our foreign policy to see what sensible, sound adjustments should be made. For example, a more isolationist foreign policy is bound to be cheaper for us and also less likely to stir up additional hatred and enemies. I, for one, do not think foreign interests are worth thousands of American lives.

Incidentally, some good columns on the attacks, from a paleo perspective, have appeared over the last few days at LewRockwell.com; see also AntiWar.com, and Wendy McElroy’s FoxNews/iFeminist columns; also Wendy’s Just War article. Two of the best are: the superb article is Jacob Hornberger’s The War on Terrorism; and Congressman Ron Paul’s Sept. 25 Speech to the House of Representatives.

Interesting, nicely-opinionated article: An Engineer’s View of Venture Capitalists. But it has fallacious statements such as: “VCs don’t appreciate that the electronics revolution is built on the backs and brains of engineers, not of executives. … The engineers are the creators of wealth; the VCs are the beneficiaries.” This of course ignores the fundamental nature of capitalism as being driven by entrepreneurs and capitalists. The wealth is created by joint activity of workers and capitalist-entrepreneurs and, one could argue, primarily by the latter, but in any event their role can’t be denied, and so a statement implying that the engineers alone “create” the wealth is flawed. As is a statement such as “The engineers building the future deserve a fair equity share in the value they create; today they don’t get one.” Of course they do; what’s fair is what happens on a free market. Fairness is defined by process not result. But an interesting piece nonetheless.

Good recent article: Imagine a world without government, by Doug Casey.