TGIF: The Consequences of Liberty

What if we suspended disbelief and supposed that free markets could reasonably be expected to impoverish most people while benefiting only the few?

Read it here.

The American Sniper Is No Hero

Despite what some people think, hero is not a synonym forcompetent government-hired killer.

If Clint Eastwood’s record-breaking movie, American Sniper, launches a frank public conversation about war and heroism, the great director will have performed a badly needed service for the country and the world.

Read it here.

TGIF: What Are Libertarians Out to Accomplish?

When I was researching my recent article on Nathaniel Branden, who died last month, I came across an audio file of a talk Branden gave at the 1979 Libertarian Party national convention in Los Angeles....

[T]he talk, “What Happens When the Libertarian Movement Begins to Succeed?,” is remarkable in more than one respect....

As a psychologist, Branden was interested in how success might be received by libertarians.

Read it here.

Two Kinds of Income Inequality

Income inequality is back in the news, propelled by an Oxfam International report and President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. The question is whether government needs to do something about this — or whether government needs to undo many things.

Measuring income inequality is no simple thing, which is one source of disagreement between those who think inequality is a problem and those who think it isn’t. But it is possible to cut through the underbrush and make some points clear.

We can identify two kinds of economic inequality, and let’s keep this in mind as we contemplate what, if anything, government ought to do.

Read it here.

The Open Society and Its Worst Enemies

Last week’s bloody events in Paris demonstrate yet again that a noninterventionist foreign policy, far from being a luxury, is an urgent necessity — literally a matter of life and death. A government that repeatedly wages wars of aggression — the most extreme form of extremism — endangers the society it ostensibly protects by gratuitously making enemies, some of whom will seek revenge against those who tolerate, finance, and symbolize that government and its policies.

Read it here.

The French Commitment to Free Expression

Well worth reading:

"France Arrests A Comedian for His Facebook Comments, Showing The Sham of The West’s 'Free Speech' Celebration," by Glenn Greenwald

"The Propaganda War: The Horror of the Paris Rally," by Arthur Silber

Understanding the Paris Violence

Contrary to American officialdom and its stalwart “manufacturers of consent” — the intelligentsia and mainstream media — we will never comprehend the reasons for the slaughter of 17 innocent people in Paris as long as we ignore the history of Western violence against the Muslim world.

Read it here.

Missing the Point

I don't know what to make of people who seriously think that mocking both the powerful and powerless shows their even-handedness.

Je ne suis pas Charlie

Yes, there is no right not to be offended. But that doesn't mean there is a corollary obligation to offend.

Recommended reading: "Why I Am Not Charlie," by Scott Long;  "Trolls and Martyrdom: Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie," by Arthur Chu; and "In Solidarity with a Free Press: Some More Blasphemous Cartoons," by Glenn Greenwald.

TGIF: In Memory of the Charlie Hebdo Victims

Words can hardly convey the grief and disgust felt at Wednesday’s executions of the editor, cartoonists, and others — 10 people in all — at France’s satirical weekly newspaper, Charlie Hebdo. Two policemen also were killed, and 11 other people were wounded by the three fanatics who reportedly declared they were avenging the prophet Muhammad, founder of Islam.

Nothing can justify attacks on people whose only offense lay in their use of words and drawings to mock religion and politics. Charlie Hebdo freely satirized all three Abrahamic religions, as well as politicians of various stripes. No source of power was immune from the cartoonists’ and writer’s pens — which is not to imply that had Islam been the newspaper’s only target, the murders would have been less monstrous.

Read it here.

All Right Already!

This was originally posted on Feb. 12, 2006.

I'd much rather think about historical and theorectical market anarchism than the Muslim protests, violent and otherwise, against cartoonists, but I have to add one more thing to what I've already said: Get over it! Non-Muslims are under no obligation of any kind not to depict Muhammad. (It's not even clear that Muslins are under such an obligation.) If a cartoonist wishes to depict Muhammad in order to make a political or social point (or no particular point at all), that's his right. So if you abhor such depictions, do what any mature adult would do: ignore them -- and ignore the governments that have been using the cartoons to stir up hatred. (How come no one cared about the cartoons in the Danish paper when they were first published in September?) If someone were to draw a cartoon ridiculing or besmirching Aristotle or Rothbard or Rand, you wouldn't see me in the streets holding a candle in a silent vigil, much less screaming for the beheading of the artist. And if this outrageous display of anger is really about U.S. and western intervention in the Muslim world, then for goodness sake say that and shut up about the cartoons.

Let's grow up. It's long past time.

The Ominous Republican Hold on Congress

As we face the new year, the biggest concern for peace lovers is Republican control of the U.S. Senate. While Republican votes don’t reach the key number 60, members of the GOP will still be in a strong position to push their belligerent global agenda.

I don’t mean to overstate the danger. After all, the Democrats were hardly better. But those who abhor war will awaken each day knowing that hawkish Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, and their ilk are in control.

Read it here.

America's First "War on Terror"

One can see the future America in its treatment of the Indians. Will Grigg summarizes that history in gory detail in "Bryan Fischer and the Gospel of Genocide." Highly recommended.

HT: Gary Chartier

TGIF: Monopoly and Aggression

The concepts monopoly and aggression are intimately related, like lock and key, or mother and son. You cannot fully understand the first without understanding the second.

Read it here.

TGIF: "And the Pursuit of Happiness": Nathaniel Branden, RIP

The binding together of “perfection” (virtue, or excellence, in the Greek sense) and liberty (internal and external) with the pursuit of happiness is noteworthy.

Which brings me to Nathaniel Branden.

Read it here.

I Love Loosies and the People Who Sell Them

The cops who ganged up on Eric Garner, got him into a chokehold, and mashed his face into the sidewalk didn’t intend to kill him. They intended only to show him who’s boss on the streets of Staten Island — and show him in a way he would never forget.

As a Facebook friend of mine put it, instead they showed him in a way he will never remember.

This pretty much explains the cops’ reckless disregard for Garner’s life that day, and it is what makes the grand-jury sham especially appalling.

Read it here.

Who's the Boss?

The NYC cops did not intend to kill Eric Garner. They intended only to show him who's boss in a way he would never forget. Hence their reckless disregard for his life.

Don't Pray for Peace

Something else bugs me about Wounded Warrior Project commercials -- besides their use of "warrior" as a term of honor: The song says, "Say a prayer for peace." Don't say a prayer. Find a way to act. Also, stay out of the military or refuse immoral orders. 

If prayer could change things, it would be against the law. (I'm sure Emma Goldman wouldn't have minded.)

TGIF: Tackling Straw Men Is Easier than Critiquing Libertarianism

Maybe I’m being unreasonable, but I think it behooves a critic to understand what he’s criticizing. I realize that tackling straw men is much easier than dealing with challenging arguments, but that’s no excuse for the shoddy work we find in John Edward Terrell’s New York Times post, “Evolution and the American Myth of the Individual.”

In his confused attempt to criticize libertarians (and Tea Party folks, whom I’ll ignore here), Terrell gets one thing right when he says, “The thought that it is both rational and natural for each of us to care only for ourselves, our own preservation, and our own achievements is a treacherous fabrication” (emphasis added).

Indeed it is. Unfortunately for Terrell’s case, it’s his treacherous fabrication.

Read it here.

The Logic of Resisting Arrest

One cannot resist an arrest that is not being attempted. Cops and politicians should stop arresting nonviolent people for victimless "crimes." PS: Governments should NOT be construed as the victims of free exchange in black markets.