leftlibertarian.org

Rob at Strike the Root asked me earlier this week to be a guest editor for STR for tomorrow (really today depending on your time zone). Yesterday, he asked me to follow the STR tradition of posting only Onion-type satire pieces for April Fools’ Day (aka All Fools’ Day).

I responded enthusiastically:

Sounds cool! I’m game.

I thought it would be easy. I was wrong. Later I wrote to him with my picks:

Here are my picks. It was harder than I thought finding stuff that’s both outlandish and not real…

Jeremy Horpedahl of P-Shock has noted similarly before:

…the growth of the state is starting to put to death that age old form of comedy: political satire. This is not because there is nothing left to satirize. Rather, it is because today’s satire is becoming tomorrow’s reality…. I even make a weak attempt to document this phenomenon each week on Strike the Root (see the bottom of this page, and past Thursdays).

Incidentally, this is acutally a play I confess I have borrowed from Jeremy while doing my own guest editing for STR before. But, it seems that doing this April-fools satire-only guest edit has driven the point home even further:

The internet is full of outlandish, ridiculous stuff; finding it is not difficult. The difficult part is determining whether or not people really mean what they say or whether some or another piece of news is real.

For example, if I didn’t know better, upon first listening to the drivel spouted by (say) Rush Limbaugh, or Bill O’Reilly, or Ann Colter (and, to be fair, I could name idiots from the so-called “left” too, but I’ll refrain) - well, you get the picture.

Show me a newspaper with a “faux news” column like something in The Onion - make it one without The Onion’s typical swearing and so forth - and put it in the Times or the Journal Sentinel, and I’m not so sure I wouldn’t take the joke hook, line, and sinker, every time.

It’s not that I think I’m an overly gullible person. It’s just that the world I was born into is so… ridiculous.

Just a thought.

Via the excellent blogs of Brad Spangler and Wally Conger, two great agorists in our Alliance of the Libertarian Left, comes a reaction by Glenn Greenwald to a recent David Brooks column. Brooks proclaims the Right's official abandonment of limited government and individual rights as motivating goals, preferring empire and an expanded, authoritarian state:

And now here is Brooks, very explicitly repudiating the Goldwater/Reagan template and admitting that this movement is devoted to large expansions of federal power -- justified in the name of "protecting" Americans -- all devoted to what that movement claims is promotion of some objective Good. The central tenets of the right wing movement in this country -- which has seized and now defines the term "conservative" -- are easy to see. They're right there in plain sight -- they want to expand government power in pursuit of mindless, bloodthirsty warmongering and empire-building abroad, and the accompanying liberty-infringement at home.

As a result, to be considered "liberal" or "leftist" now means, more than anything else, to oppose that agenda. All of the people now deemed to be on the "left" -- including many who have quite disparate views about the defining political disputes of the 1990s -- have been able to work together with great unity because all energies of those "on the left" have been devoted not to any affirmative policy-making (because they have had, and still have, no power to do that), but merely towards the goal of exposing the corruption and radicalism at the heart of this extremist right-wing movement and to push back -- impose some modest limits -- on what has been this radical movement's virtually unlimited ability to install a political framework that one does not even recognize as "American."

I had earlier wondered whether it was really necessary to identify this group as explicitly left; Brooks demonstrates the need for the kind of realignment that our name invites.

Via the excellent blogs of Brad Spangler and Wally Conger, two great agorists in our Alliance of the Libertarian Left, comes a reaction by Glenn Greenwald to a recent David Brooks column. Brooks proclaims the Right's official abandonment of limited government and individual rights as motivating goals, preferring empire and an expanded, authoritarian state:

And now here is Brooks, very explicitly repudiating the Goldwater/Reagan template and admitting that this movement is devoted to large expansions of federal power -- justified in the name of "protecting" Americans -- all devoted to what that movement claims is promotion of some objective Good. The central tenets of the right wing movement in this country -- which has seized and now defines the term "conservative" -- are easy to see. They're right there in plain sight -- they want to expand government power in pursuit of mindless, bloodthirsty warmongering and empire-building abroad, and the accompanying liberty-infringement at home.

As a result, to be considered "liberal" or "leftist" now means, more than anything else, to oppose that agenda. All of the people now deemed to be on the "left" -- including many who have quite disparate views about the defining political disputes of the 1990s -- have been able to work together with great unity because all energies of those "on the left" have been devoted not to any affirmative policy-making (because they have had, and still have, no power to do that), but merely towards the goal of exposing the corruption and radicalism at the heart of this extremist right-wing movement and to push back -- impose some modest limits -- on what has been this radical movement's virtually unlimited ability to install a political framework that one does not even recognize as "American."

I had earlier wondered whether it was really necessary to identify this group as explicitly left; Brooks demonstrates the need for the kind of realignment that our name invites.

Many thanks to Brad Spangler, who offers a news flash for libertarians this weekend. “We’re all left-wingers now,” he writes, “whether you’re personally down with that or not.”

Brad points to an article by Glenn Greenwald at Salon that credits neoconservatives for re-shaping the Left-Right political spectrum. Greenwald says that today’s empire-building neocons have turned the conservative right-wing into “an authoritarian movement animated by the Orwellian slogan that ‘security leads to freedom’ which embraces and seeks ever-expanding government power based on the claimed need to protect people from all the scary, lurking dangers in the world — dangers which are constantly stoked and inflamed in order to maximize the craving for ‘security,’ derived by vesting more and more power in the hands of our strong, protective Leaders.” He adds: “The central tenets of the right-wing movement in this country — which has seized and now defines the term ‘conservative’ — are easy to see. They’re right there in plain sight — they want to expand government power in pursuit of mindless, bloodthirsty warmongering and empire-building abroad, and the accompanying liberty-infringement at home. ...

“At least for now, until this movement is banished to the dustbin, [the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’] have come to designate whether one is loyal to, or whether one opposes, this government-power worshipping, profoundly un-American right-wing cultism that has been the dominant political faction in America for many years.”

Of course, Greenwald is only recognizing now what we Libertarian Leftists have known for decades — that the real Right has always been authoritarian and has, as Karl Hess wrote many years ago, “traditionally reflected the concentration of power in the fewest practical hands”; the real Left reflects the opposite tendency.

Keep Left!

New York Times foreign-affairs columnist Thomas Friedman laments that most Americans are disengaged from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During a recent radio appearance, Friedman cited comedian Bill Maher’s complaint that “the enemy” has had to fight only 140,000 Americans rather than all 300 million of us.

You hear this a lot. Commentators seem to long for World War II, when “the whole country was at war.” They criticize President Bush for letting most Americans shirk their responsibility. When he’s queried about what sacrifices he’s asked of the American people, Bush says they have forgone peace of mind and paid higher gasoline prices. Naturally, this does not satisfy his critics.

Let me suggest that Friedman and Maher couldn’t be more wrong. (Neither could Bush, of course.) It is a good thing that the current wars are not total wars and that most Americans are disengaged from the horrors inflicted by the U.S. government on Iraq and Afghanistan.

Read the rest of my op-ed, "Thank Goodness We Can Ignore the Wars," at The Future of Freedom Foundation website.

It's too bad that Michael Ray Richardson is suspended, but the sheer absurdity of this cracks me up. From ESPN via Steve Sailer:

The [the CBA's Albany] Patroons have suspended [coach Michael Ray] Richardson for the rest of the CBA championship series for comments made to the Albany Times Union on Tuesday.

Before Tuesdays game against the Yakima Sun Kings, Richardson made anti-Semitic comments to two reporters in his office when discussing the contract general manager Jim Coyne had offered him Monday to coach his team in the CBA and USBL.

"I've got big-time lawyers," Richardson said, according to the Times Union. "I've got big-time Jew lawyers."

When told by the reporters that the comment could be offensive to people because it plays to the stereotype that Jews are crafty and shrewd, he responded with, "Are you kidding me? They are. They've got the best security system in the world. Have you ever been to an airport in Tel Aviv? They're real crafty. Listen, they are hated all over the world, so they've got to be crafty."

And he continued, "They got a lot of power in this world, you know what I mean?" he said. "Which I think is great. I don't think there's nothing wrong with it. If you look in most professional sports, they're run by Jewish people. If you look at a lot of most successful corporations and stuff, more businesses, they're run by Jewish. It's not a knock, but they are some crafty people."

And the offensive remarks didn't stop there.

According to the Times Union, Richardson told a fan who heckled him early in Tuesday's game, "Shut the [expletive] up." And near game's end, he shouted at another heckler, "Shut the [expletive] up, you [derogatory term for gay men],"

Assistant Derrick Rowland will coach the Patroons for the reminder of the series. Richardson will not be allowed into the Washington Avenue Armory during practices or games.

The man should apologize for the gay slur, and for saying "Jew" when he means Jewish and "Jewish" when he means Jew. But why should he be suspended?

There are two things at work here: any stereotypes, including positive ones, are apparently out-of-bounds, because to utter complimentary stereotypes leads to the possiblity of negative ones. And in this context, Richardson, who is black, was clearly comlimentary; "crafty" and "shrewd" should no more be derogatory than "smart," "persuasive," or "far-sighted."

But something else is at work here. Acknowledging that Jews are successful is apparently anti-Semitic, because it therefore downplays their status as a "victimized" group. Success itself is considered wrong. To be successful is to exploit somebody else. Therefore, to call Jews successful is to call them exploitive. So success becomes a knock on one's character.

I wonder if the problem of anti-Semitism is, overall, the opposite of other forms of racism. The white racist may detest blacks and Hispanics, and view himself superior because he views whites are on average more successful; economic prosperity is "proof" of White superiority. But then he resents, rather than admires, Jews (and gays, for that matter) for being more successful than he is, so he ascribes to them sinister motives and evil practices.

Michael Ray Richardson, however, seems to admire Jews for being successful. Because he said so in a sloppy way means he's probably lost his career in coaching.

• Preface

PART I. REVIEWS.

1. Introduction
2. Henry George: his Economic Absurdities and Contradictions
3. The Single Tax: Inadequate, Illogical, Cumbersome, and Unjust
4. State Socialism: its Origin, Objects, and Methods
5. State Socialism: its Foundation and Necessary Development
6. The Fallacies of Karl Marx
7. The Fallacies of Edward Bellamy
8. The Fallacies of P. J. Proudhon and his School
9. Social Palliatives
10. Reform by Political Methods

PART II. PRINCIPLES

1. The Motive of Human Action
2. The Object of Human Life
3. The Purpose and Condition of Human Society
4. The Development of Individual Character
5. Human Equality
6. On Property
7. Human Liberty
8. Slavery
9. The Church and the State

PART III. GOVERNMENT—LAW

1. Recapitulation
2. Government: Its Nature, Origin, and Tendencies
3. Government: Its Functions
4. The Real Scope and Functions of Civil Administration
5. Government: Its Relation to Public Enterprises
6. Crime: Its Nature and Cause
7. Crime: Its Treatment
8. Public Education
9. How Laws are Made
10. Summary

PART IV. THE REMEDY

1. The Abolition of the Law
2. Effect Upon Public Order and Security
3. Effect Upon the Distribution of Wealth
4. Effect Upon the Development of Individual Character
5. Solution of the Woman Question
6. Solution of the Race Question
7. Solution of Every Phase of the Social Question
8. Conclusion
   

For historian Arthur A. Ekirch Jr., the decline of American liberalism tracked the rise of nationalism and the corporate state, the intimate alliance between business and government. He equates liberalism -- libertarianism -- with economic freedom and property rights for the common citizen, not just for an aristocracy. From the relative, though imperfect, laissez-faire periods of the Jefferson and Jackson presidencies, the United States moved almost unswervingly to become what Albert Jay Nock would call a "Merchant-state" in which the central government heavily intervened on behalf of particular business interests, hampering the independence and progress of upstart competitors as well as workers. For most people, this is what the word "capitalism" would come to denote.

The Civil War was the great impetus in this direction....

Read the rest of this week's TGIF column, "Jeffersonianism Interred," at the website of the Foundation for Economic Education.

Cross-posted at Liberty & Power.

My luggage arrived at Tbilisi International Airport this morning. To make sure I got it right away, I went to the airport to pick up myself. Thanks to Gia Jandieri for keeping on top of KLM for me and for driving me to the airport. Now for a shower and fresh clothes. Then back to the seminar.

This morning I lectured on the case for a free market in education. Two members of the Georgian Education Ministry attended, and we engaged in a lively discussion of the alleged need for state-controlled schooling. I regret to say that I didn't persuade them. But the seeds were certainly planted.

William Gillis is putting together a tentative planning group for AgitSat.

I just slapped up a listserv to clear up communications between those of us looking into and planning some sort of anarchist presence in Low Earth Orbit. I’ve fired off invites to most of the folks involved in the email discussion so far, but if you’re even tangentially interested in building a microsatellite for hactivist uses we’d love to have you sign on. Right now we’re just testing the waters in a very preliminary fashion.

This is very, very, very pre-alpha — but at the very least it’ll be a fun and challenging exercise in project planning.