leftlibertarian.org

My latest at the Partial Observer. Excerpt:

I would rather the State "wither away," perhaps through peaceful secession, then collapse under its own weight. But this means working within the context of countries with borders. I hope that the State will eventually dissolve in a happy utopia, but I do not wish it to break apart from bankruptcy and civil strife.

I saw most of the tribute to Paul Simon on PBS this evening, in the event of his being awarded the first-ever Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. The group Ladysmith Black Mambazo performed, bringing to mind Simon's 1986 Graceland album that propelled them to the world stage.

At the time, South Africa's apartheid regime was a pariah. Several countries of the British Commonwealth boycotted the Commonwealth Games because Margaret Thatcher's Britain, host of the event, had not imposed economic sanctions against South Africa. Ronald Reagan's "constructive engagement" approach to South Africa was a sore point for many American black leaders, and didn't help Republican chances with blacks. The United Nations even created a blacklist of entertainers who performed in South Africa. But Simon, whose career was in decline at that point, traveled to South Africa and recorded most of Graceland there, and featured many black South African musicians.

The rest is, well, history. Graceland became an international sensation and cemented Simon's reputation forever. It also caused America's bourgeois upper middle-brow to embrace world music - even domestic forms such as zydeco. It helped make the South African situation real to more outsiders, who only knew in abstract terms that blacks were segregated and couldn't vote. Graceland was a triumph for South African culture, but an embarrassment for the South African government.

Graceland won't go down as the "greatest album of all time," though it's definitely in the Top 100. What makes it special in the annals of rock is that it really did expand the cultural horizons of its listeners. And although his interests were entirely musical, Paul Simon helped inspire more social and political change than UN blacklists ever could. Positive change is the result of individuals pursuing their subversive dreams, not of governments making grandstanding rules.

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

Check out Thorstein Veblen on Icelandic anarchy; conical hat tip to Joel Schlosberg, who sent it to me with the following note:

Here’s an interesting passage from Thorstein Veblen’s 1917 book An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation, chapter 1, pp. 9-14 (available at Project Gutenberg at <http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/20694> – in fact, I came across this passage while proofing the book for PG at Distributed Proofreaders). Even though he’s hostile to it and sees it as a failure, he describes it pretty clearly – just to prove that Icelandic anarchy wasn’t the wishful thinking of modern anarcho-capitalists.

We’re always constantly repeating that “foreign aid” partly goes in the pockets of greedy warmongering dictators, and partly goes to subsidize people who need help to promote growth in their own societies rather than handouts.  But it’s nice to see an economist who sees the disastrous effects of “foreign aid” give us the 411. Huge bureaucracies [...]

Found here. The cause here is global warming, and because the "worst that can happen" is catastrophic, we MUST TAKE ACTION NOW.

But you can plug any issue into the grid. For instance, what of the possibility of some jihadist getting hold of a weapon of mass destruction? Plug into the grid, and one concludes that we must GIVE UP OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES RIGHT NOW to prevent terrorism. If the leader of a Middle Eastern state might possibly hand over WMD's to terrorists, we must GO TO WAR RIGHT NOW.

Fear, of course, is behind every excuse for expanding government. But government coercion isn't the only way to solve a problem. Most of the time, it's not even the best way. A lot of the time, it's the worst way.

In any case, the best thing government can do to stop global warming, if it exists, is to tax bads instead of goods, and we should be doing that anyway.

Yea, too bad for the UCS that the “2″ is “global warming is natural.” So I got this email: On issues from air quality to global warming, government science is being censored, manipulated, and distorted on an unprecedented scale. To draw attention to this problem and have a little fun, the Union of Concerned Scientists is [...]

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

Dick Cheney’s claim that he is not part of the executive branch is silly, but his argument for that conclusion is worth addressing.

Cheney claims that the Vice-Presidency is unique in embodying both executive and legislative functions (the latter being his Presidency of the Senate with the right to cast tie-breaking votes), thus belonging strictly to neither branch.

What’s wrong with this argument is that there’s nothing unique about the Vice-Presidency in this respect. The President, for example, has the right to veto legislation; why doesn’t that count as his likewise exercising a legislative function? The President also appoints the members of the Supreme Court; does this mean he exercises judicial functions too? Of course the Senate can nix the President’s judicial appointments (thus likewise exercising judicial functions?), as well as nixing, e.g., his Cabinet appointments (thus taking over executive functions?). Congress can also impeach the President (thereby intruding into both the executive and judicial spheres?). The Supreme Court for its part can strike down unconstitutional legislation (thus exercising a legislative function?). And so on. If the Vice-President is not part of the executive branch, then by the same logic the President is not part of the executive, Congress is not part of the legislative, and the Supreme Court is not part of the judicial. Which seems rather a reductio ad absurdum.

The point of all these overlapping exercises of powers is checks and balances, a concept with which Cheney is evidently unfamiliar. Each branch of government is given some voice in the operation of the other two, in order to prevent any one branch from exercising unchecked power. While the Constitution’s version of checks and balances is of course inferior to that found under anarchy, it’s still preferable to complete consolidation. Cheney is trying to use his particular example of overlap to frustrate checks and balances, thus turning it to the opposite of its actual function.

If you haven’t noticed yet, the Rational Review weekly symposium (or, actually, post dedicated to comments & discussion on a topic) for this week is Party on/Party off — an examination of Rothbard’s response to Konkin’s New Libertarian Manifesto. Konkin, in NLM, put forth a revolutionary strategy for the promotion of the libertarian goal of an anarchistic society. Rothbard responds in the linked piece to Konkin’s scorn for voting and political parties (among other things). As a point of clarification, Konkin’s “anti-political” approach might be best understood as analogous to the extraparliamentary politics typical of revolutionary Marxists and other far left groups, in that it’s actually intensely political in some senses of the word. Discuss there in the comments.

The prolific leftist-libertarian-anarchist blogger, Arthur Silber, is experiencing a major financial crisis. I have a number of his powerful writings listed on my sidebar under insightful reads. I especially enjoy his heated and passionate denunciations of the psychology driving actions undertaken in the occupation of Iraq.

It is time for some very harsh truth-telling, and it is time to strip away the comforting and false self-delusions in which many hawks wrap themselves. There is nothing loving or kind about a parent who beats his child, while claiming that he does it out of love and concern for the child’s well-being. And there is nothing kind or benevolent about forcing Iraqis to adopt a form of government or a way of life which they may not want — and which they certainly do not want if it comes at the ends of the guns wielded by an occupation force.

We have invaded a country which posed no serious threat to us, and we still maintain we are intent on bringing the blessings of liberty to the Iraqis — but we will do it using force, fear and violence. This is a fatal contradiction that was doomed to fail. But in the process of attempting to make a contradiction true — which can never be done, and which must end in the destruction of the one who attempts it — we are turning ourselves as a nation into monsters. And we are also planting innumerable seeds of hatred against the United States, which may well grow into future terrorist attacks on the U.S., just as they are now causing the deaths of American soldiers on a daily basis.

The Bush administration, by means of this insanely destructive foreign policy, is now achieving one objective for which I truly cannot forgive them: they are making me ashamed to be an American.

Now, that’s what I call quality writing!. I encourage people to consider donating to him on the basis of this kind of passionate commentary.

According to this guy who was on The Colbert Report tonight, straight men and gay women are more likely to have ring fingers longer than index fingers, while gay men and straight women are more likely to have index fingers longer than ring fingers. Result: I have gay hands!

Since, according to so many religious conservatives (see, e.g., here and here), we’re supposed to let our bodily parts define our moral obligations, does this mean I’m now morally obligated to become gay?