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If I see, one more time, that wretched FoxNews channel commercial for Christy Lane, I might. This is the commercial introduced by some Vietnam vet who says that he was in the war, but there was “another soldier” over there with him–“Christy Lane,” some gospel singer, who looks like a cross between Alice, the maid from the Brady Bunch, and “kiss my grits” Flo from the sitcom Alice. When the commercial shows her lip-synching to her cheesy version of ABBA’s “I believe in angels,” my trigger finger itches.

According to FindLaw, “A proposal by a California congressman would give the entertainment industry broad new powers to try to stop people from downloading pirated music and movies off the Internet. Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif., formally proposed legislation that would give the industry unprecedented new authority to secretly hack into consumers’ computers or knock them off-line entirely if they are caught downloading copyrighted material.” This bill seeks to legalize trespass onto private property. I.e., it transfers partial control/ownership rights from consumers and others, to holders of copyright. Yet another example of how assigning property rights to intangibles leads to infringement of property rights in scarce resources. Another example is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection technology or to create or “traffic in” circumvention technology. Not to mention the fact that copyright holders can tell property owners what not to do with their own property.

I would venture to guess that significantly more liberals than conservatives take advantage of their right to have abortions. And I would guess that there is a correlation between the parents’ politics and the child’s. Ergo, if abortion is legal, future liberals tend to be killed in the womb at a higher rate than future conservatives (and libertarians?). Hey, I’m not saying I’m pro-abortion, but silver lining and all that, you know?

I like Microsoft’s new statement of their Mission and Values. Okay, maybe it’s a bit puffy, but it’s aspirational and not too buzz-wordy, so I like that. But what struck me as I read it–could you ever imagine, in your wildest fantasy, any government even attempting to promulgate something like this, with a straight face?

Chesterton famously said in his essay The Diabolist that “there is one real difference between men and women; that women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in threes.” I’m not sure I agree with this, but everyone seems to think this is some profound insight. It’s about as scientific as the stupid expression that people die “in threes”. Yeah, you can count them 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, if you want. Wow. Profound numerology.

I do like the longer paragraph though from which the quote is taken: “I value that time [at an art school], in short, because it made me acquainted with a good representative number of blackguards. In this connection there are two very curious things which the critic of human life may observe. The first is the fact that there is one real difference between men and women; that women prefer to talk in twos, while men prefer to talk in threes. The second is that when you find (as you often do) three young cads and idiots going about together and getting drunk together every day you generally find that one of the three cads and idiots is (for some extraordinary reason) not a cad and not an idiot. In these small groups devoted to a drivelling dissipation there is almost always one man who seems to have condescended to his company; one man who, while he can talk a foul triviality with his fellows, can also talk politics with a Socialist, or philosophy with a Catholic.”

I confess I don’t quite undestand the ending of this essay. Would someone please explain it to me. To what was it he referred in the closing line: “God help him, I know the road he went; but I have never known, or even dared to think, what was that place at which he stopped and refrained.” What was the road he went? What was the place at which the Diabolist stopped and refrained?

This why I hate poetry, and dislike lots of English prose. Meandering, vague, faux-deep, hide the ball all the time. Just SAY IT!

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:

• The Decline of Fee?
• The Decline of FEE–Part II: Schulman’s Reply

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!