My friend Gil Guillory told me this:
The best advice I ever got was from my father: people judge your intelligence by your ability to follow instructions.
I love that!
Love this.
A Strong Smell of Turpentine Prevails Throughout
Category: Humour • Psychedelic
Posted on: March 31, 2010 8:20 AM, by Martin RWhen I was in school I read a great story about a man who took opium, felt that he had a great philosophical insight, wrote it down, and then found, after sobering up, that what he had written was “I perceive a distinct smell of kerosene”, Jag känner en distinkt doft av fotogen.
Mucking around on the blessed web, I now find that the man was Oliver Wendell Holmes, an American 19th century physician and author. But it was ether, not opium, and turpentine, not kerosene. Here’s what OWH writes in his essay “Mechanism in thought and morals : an address delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University, June 29, 1870”.
I once inhaled a pretty full dose of ether, with the determination to put on record, at the earliest moment of regaining consciousness, the thought I should find uppermost in my mind. The mighty music of the triumphal march into nothingness reverberated through my brain, and filled me with a sense of infinite possibilities, which made me an archangel for the moment. The veil of eternity was lifted. The one great truth which underlies all human experience, and is the key to all the mysteries that philosophy has sought in vain to solve, flashed upon me in a sudden revelation. Henceforth all was clear: a few words had lifted my intelligence to the level of the knowledge of the cherubim. As my natural condition returned, I remembered my resolution; and, staggering to my desk, I wrote, in ill-shaped straggling letters, the all-embracing truth still glimmering in my consciousness. The words were these (children may smile; the wise will ponder): “A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout.”
This reminds me of a time at a party when one of my buddies was drunkenly talking about how great other drugs than the beer bottle in his hand are, and described some deeply meaningful and intense insights he had attained while tripping on acid. Sadly, as I was sober as always, I failed to see their import. Like my friend the philosopher once said, “When you have that eureka feeling of really having made an intellectual breakthough, you’re generally wrong”.
As I noted last post, due to some career changes and other things, I’ve been unable to keep up with Slate podcasts as much as in the past (mainly because my commute has largely disappeared). So I’m listening to fewer podcasts but Slate’s Culture Gabfest is still just about my favorite one so I still listen almost every week. I’ve just fallen behind in blogging their, as Metcalf calls them, “SAT words” (BTW one thing that annoys me is–usually yankees–who call that test “the SATs”, plural, instead of “the SAT”).
In the most recent episode, which I listened to today, I noted two words that I was thinking about blogging about–not because they were SAT words but because, it seemed to me, the hosts mispronounced them. The first was “presages,” used by Dana, and pronounced “pree-sayj”, I think. I always thought it was “pres-ij,” and this is the favored pronunciation in the dictionary, though “pri-seyj,” which is close to Dana’s, seems to be an alternate.
Then later in the show, Metcalf mispronounced “desuetude” as “de-SOO-eh-tude” (it should be “deh-SWAY-eh-tude,” as Julia rightly notes). I think I already knew desuetude from its legal usages, and vaguely recall it has an international law usage as well; and I am pretty sure I remember my law professor in London, Rosalyn Higgins (later judge at the International Court of Justice), pronouncing it the proper way.
Anyway, right after Julia corrected Steve, Dana said “here comes the Gray Croissant.” So now I feel self-conscious, but I promise I was gonna blog it before they said that! I thought it was funny Dana joined in the chorus about this response to Steve’s mangling of desuetude, when I had already noted her “presages” use. Heh.
(Here I keep a running collection of the terms from this series of posts.) [continue reading…]
Great observation by Rothbard in Living in a State-Run World:
… it is vital to distinguish between two kinds of State activities: (a) those actions that would be perfectly legitimate if performed by private firms on the market; and (b) those actions that are per se immoral and criminal, and that would be illicit in a libertarian society. The latter must not be performed by libertarians in any circumstances. Thus, a libertarian must not be: a concentration camp director or guard; an official of the IRS; an official of the Selective Service System; or a controller or regulator of society or the economy.
This insight also applies not only to questions of employment but also to issues such as privatization and questions of whether state programs are “too inefficient” or not (Rothbard may have addressed this too, elsewhere, more directly, but I have not located it yet. But the idea is that for things in class (1) above, such as roads and dispute resolution, yes these activities should be privatized, and yes, it’s bad that the state performs them very inefficiently. For things in class (2), including also institutions and policies such as jailing drug criminals or tax evaders, these things should not be done at all, they should “privatized,” and we should not want the state to be more efficient at these things–to the contrary, we want the state to be as inefficient as possible at such things.
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UPDATE: SEE KOL079 | “Federalist Society IP Debate (Ohio State)” (2011)
Last week I participated in a debate on IP at the The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Student Chapter of The Federalist Society (Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University, Columbus OH, March 3, 2011). This was part of the “John Templeton Foundation’s Big Questions Debate series on Intellectual Property and Wealth Creation”; I debated patent attorney and adjunct IP law professor Steve Grant, who represented the pro-IP side. I recorded it on my iPhone; audio file is here (32MB; the version from the camera’s recording is here), though a video version with possibly better audio should be available soon. Professor Grant did his best, but didn’t have a solid argument for IP other than the standard “I think we should reform IP but not get rid of it.” My opening speech is about 15 minutes and has decent audio quality, and is a summary of a hard-hitting version of the basic libertarian case against IP law (here is the powerpoint presentation I used; embedded version below). Grant’s speech is audible but I was not very close to him; but his conventional and unsystematic, more empiricist and positivist than libertarian and principled remarks will be of only mild interest to libertarians. For my 10 or so minute rebuttal to him, I left my iPhone at the table but it’s still audible; for the Q&A period, it was in front of me so it’s decent again for that part. My host was Aman Sharma, a very staunch libertarian law student and head of the student chapter of the Federalist Society. When I was involved with the Federalist Society (lawyers chapters) in Philadelphia and Houston they were populated with mainly Newt Gingrich loving neocons; good to see some Austro-libertarians infiltrating their ranks. Sharma told me “I had a lot of fellow students approach me after the event with questions showing a new-found interest in the Mises/Austrian worldview.” That is cool and gratifying.
While in Ohio, I met my friend Jacob Huebert and other local libertarians/Federalist Society people–including Katelyn Horn and Maurice Thompson, of the 1851 Center, for dinner at Barrio Tapas. A fun trip, and great people.
As I noted in H.C. Andersen Sculpture, the image at left accompanied my 2006 Mises Daily article “How We Come To Own Ourselves.” I just loved it. Someone at Mises chose it but when I inquired, no one could remember who had done it or where the picture came from.
I started trying to find out more about it. The image file name was something like “andersen father and son”, so some googling finally revealed this to be the work of sculptor H.C. (Hendrik) Andersen. I have a libertarian book in the works—now entitled Legal Foundations of a Free Society—and thought a better picture of this statue might make good cover art for the book. I think it nicely evokes liberty, humanity, freedom, cooperation, love, the natural order, the whole bit. I see it as man becoming man, becoming a self-owner, a homesteader, a rights-bearer. And it’s classical yet modern, and beautiful.
I could not find any better pictures of this statue, but eventually found a few others (see below).
Turns out Anderson’s sculptures are in a special Andersen museum (2, 3) in Rome. I had my friend Roberta Modugno, an Italian scholar, contact the museum for me. She got me the basic info. I then had a Canadian lawyer friend, Daniel Roncari, who speaks Italian, translating for me as I communicated with the museum. Initially I tried to find out if I could purchase a photograph of the sculpture, but they had none. They provided me with a list of approved photographers, and with Roncari’s help I finally hired one. I first paid the museum a fee, then paid the photographer for his services. A few of the photos are below.
Update: I could not find an appropriate place in our new home for the painting so gave it, with Wax’s blessing, to my fellow libertarian friend Mark Maresca, 1 who now has it proudly hung in his foyer:
New home of John Wax painting of Anderson sculpture in Mark Maresca’s home
Anyway, it turns out the child is a girl, not a boy, and the official name of the sculpture is Nudo maschile con bambina sulle spalle (Male nude with girl on shoulders).
I then 
decided that instead of using the photograph itself for the cover, to get a stylized painting done based on it—similar in some respects to the style of the art on the cover of Rose Wilder Lane’s The Discovery of Freedom, which I had always liked. So I asked my good friend John Wax to do a painting for me. A few months later—it arrived in the mail. Now I’ve had it scanned—see below—and plan to use it for my book cover next year or maybe 2013.
John Wax’s Painting
Initial draft cover, by Susi Clark
Update (Oct. 2023): Legal Foundations of a Free Society has now been published. After consultation with my book designer (Susi Clark), I decided to go with a simpler cover, and move a faded version of the painting to the back cover. Final covers below.
Update: In May 2017, I visited Rome and my son and I were able to locate the Andersen museum. Some pix below.
On Facebook, a left-anarchist friend wrote:
To the archists out there. What is your philosophical justification for hierarchy such as the hierarchy of a state, corporation, church, or any social organization based upon a chain of command?
This engendered much discussion. My own reply was:
“To the archists out there. What is your philosophical justification for hierarchy such as the hierarchy of a state, corporation, church, or any social organization based upon a chain of command”
This use of “hierarchy” and “command” to cover both coercive (the state) and voluntary, non-coercive institutions (church, family, corporation) is equivocation. We libertarians do not oppose hierarchy or command or authority in general, but only in the context of aggression. That is why we are libertarians, that is what it means to be a libertarian: to consistently and systematically oppose aggression of all types, both private (crime) and institutionalized (the state), on principled grounds. [continue reading…]
I was a guest on The Medical Freedom Report Podcast, with host Michael Ostrolenk, earlier this month; it was just been podcast. See below.
Patents & Copyrights: intellectual property rights or monopoly control of ideas?
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Why are medical devices protected by patent law while medical procedures are exempt? And what about the government’s use of compulsory licenses to force pharmaceutical companies to produce certain drugs like CIPRO. These are two medical-related examples in a long list of arcane exceptions and arbitrary details written in to intellectual property (IP) law. It is commonly believed that IP rights, such as patents, copyrights, and trademarks are necessary to foster innovation and protect the interests of the people and companies that create new products and ideas. Patent attorney Stephan Kinsella of the Mises Institute, holds an opposite view, and in this podcast with Michael Ostrolenk, discusses the growing movement that views IP law as not only anti-competitive and a barrier to innovation, but also as incompatible with true property rights. Michael and Stephan also talk about the evolution of IP from laws like the 1709 Statute of Queen Ann, an attempt by the monarchy to control the output of book printers, the influence of which carried into the copyright and patent provisions in the U.S. Constitution.
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I was a guest on the Feb. 15, 2011 episode of Thinking Liberty, “an interactive libertarian anarchist talk program.” We talked for quite a while about IP; the hosts asked very intelligent questions. (My segment is from about 25:00 to 1:16:00.) (local MP3 file) (KOL Podcast version)
My article, Rethinking IP, was published yesterday on Mises Daily. It details the content and purpose of my upcoming Mises Academy course, “Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics,” Mises Academy (March 22, 2011 – April 29, 2011).
This is a 6-week course and will run starting March 22, 2011 (on Tuesday evenings, 9pm EST) and will provide an overview of current intellectual property law and the history and origins of IP. This is the second time I’ve offered this course (the first offering, during Fall 2010, being very successful), and my third Mises Academy course (I am currently teaching Libertarian Legal Theory: Property, Conflict, and Society). Click here to read my reflections on teaching the Rethinking IP class the first time.
Here is some feedback provided by past students of this course:
“The class (everything) was perfect. Content wasn’t too deep (nor too shallow) – the reviewed material was just brilliant and the “tuning” was great for someone like myself (engineering background – no profound legal/lawyer experience). It provided all the material to really “understand” (instead of “just knowing”) all that was covered which I find always very important in a class.”
“Instruction was very comprehensive and thought provoking. The instructor was fantastic and very knowledgeable and answered every question asked.”
“Learned more then i expected, the professor seemed to really enjoy teaching the class, and the readings provided were excellent. Overall for the cost I was extremely satisfied.”
“Very interesting ideas I was not exposed to. Inexpensive, convenient, good quality.”
“It is a very fascinating topic and I was quite eager to learn about what I.P. is all about. I thought that Professor Kinsella was able to convey complicated issues to us clearly.”
“Professor Kinsella’s enthusiasm and extra links posted showed his true knowledge and interest in the subject. Great to see.”
As noted, live online lectures will be Tuesdays at 9pm EST, with Office Hours later in the week, probably at 7pm London time.
Sign up!
http://www.law.nyu.edu/journals/lawliberty/symposia/index.htm
I’ll be a panelist on the “Intellectual Property Law and Policy” panel of Symposium: “Plain Meaning in Context: Can Law Survive its Own Language?”, being put on by New York University School of Law/Journal of Law and Liberty (February 18, 2011). Details below:
Yesterday I was a Guest panelist on Denise Howell’s This Week in Law, Episode 97, entitled “God Creates. We Patent.” TWiL is part of Leo Laporte’s impressive and growing private TWiT (This Week in Tech) netcast network (I regularly listen to the TWiT network’s This Week in Tech, MacBreak Weekly, and TWiL, in addition to my some of my other favorite podcasts, such as Mises podcasts, Lew Rockwell, and the Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest.)
In addition to Howell and me, there were two other IP/tech lawyers. We had a very civil and wide-ranging discussion of a number of topics, from the Google vs. Bing “search cheating” dispute, Internet access rights as “human rights,” abolishing IP and gene patents, defensive patent publishing, lawyers as vigorous representatives of their clients’ interests, and more (most of the topics we discussed are linked on Howell’s Delicious bookmarks page for that episode).
I already knew Howell was a very good host, having seen the show before, but I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised at how tolerant and even libertarian-leaning the other lawyers were of my very radical anti-state, anti-IP views. We had a very good conversation and the other panelists were very receptive to my outspoken libertarian stance. Maybe there is hope!
The video is below; it’s also on the TWiL page for this episode; you can also subscribe to the audio or video podcast for this show. (podcast at KOL104)
[Mises crosspost]
Update: For more information on this topic, see my post Net Neutrality Developments.
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