Category: Politics

Gary Farber asks: Would you assert that a modest libel law, or copyright law, or incitement to riot law, inevitably lead to 1984? How about a law banning private nuclear weapons? I would say that the risk from a modest libel law or copyright law is small, though not nonexistent; look at the way the… Continue reading Inciting to riot

In a trenchant essay he posted on the 30th of January, Vodkapundit fulminates against people he calls “doctrinaire libertarians”. While I sympathize in some respects — I too have been attacked for my pro-war position — I think there is some serious danger that Steve’s arguments are throwing out the baby along with the bathwater.… Continue reading Keeping Freedom Alive: a response to Vodkapundit

If I needed any reminder of why I’m not a conservative, the bizarre contortions that right-wingers have been putting themselves through lately in opposition to the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision on gay marriage would provide one. Watching this has been almost as much fun as watching the left thrash itself to pieces in a futile… Continue reading Gay Marriage

From the Telegraph: A spokesman for Mr Berlusconi said the prime minister had been telephoned recently by Col Gaddafi of Libya, who said: “I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid.” This is the quote that will re-elect George W. Bush president. Because after 9/11,… Continue reading The 2004 election is over

The organizers of the Internet Summit in Geneva have had Dr. Paul Twomey, the president of ICANN (the organization that’s chartered to administer the international domain-name system), ejected by security guards after he’d flown twenty hours to participate in the meeting. I was not especially surprised. The organizers of the Geneva summit seem to be… Continue reading Ejected in Geneva

So, the latest trend to hit the business magazines is falling programmer salaries. I can’t lay hands on the article just now, but it seems some CEO under pressure to outsource his programming to India had the bright idea of offering lower salaries (competitive with Indian levels, not U.S. levels) to programmers in the U.S.… Continue reading Salaries are dropping. Time to celebrate!

I’ve had a copy of David Frum’s Dead Right sitting on my coffee table for months. I didn’t buy it, it was landed on my by an old friend who persists in imagining that I’m interested in reading conservative political theory. In fact, it’s been years since I found conservative theorizing other than wearily predictable.… Continue reading The sleep of reason

Well, the election results are in. The Democratic Party took a beating yesterday — a worse one, I think, than it has really assimilated. The Pew Research Center has analyzed the results. If you guys don’t want your butts handed to you in 2004, I have a few suggestions. First, a reminder for new readers… Continue reading Advice For Democrats (after the November 2003 elections)

VodkaPundit asks: Is the Democratic Party becoming increasingly likely to pull a Whig Maneuver and disappear into history? If so, what replaces it? The Democrats certainly seem to be trying pretty hard to self-destruct. But this is not a new story; it’s been going on ever since the New Left captured the party apparat in… Continue reading The Whig Maneuver

For the kind of articulate extrovert who tends to go into politics or the media, it can be very difficult to believe that a stumble-tongued, inarticulate man can be other than an idiot. As an articulate extrovert myself, I’ve had to struggle with this. Like most of our media and chattering classes, my instinct too… Continue reading Stupid Like A Fox

After a previous post in which I called for the Democratic Party to walk the pro-firearms walk if it wanted to stop alienating freedom-loving independents like me, I was asked in comments what I think of Howard Dean — who, it is alleged, has an A++ rating from the NRA. OK, I like the fact… Continue reading Why Howard Dean Won’t Get My Vote

For many years I’ve been seeing proposals for implementing libertarian reforms that look superficially appealing and plausible, but on closer examination run hard aground either on some pesky reality of politics as it is or the extreme difficulty of waging a successful revolution. Since I’m a libertarian, you may well imagine that I find this… Continue reading Statism — Love It Or Leave It

Fascism is not dead. The revelations now coming out of Iraq about Baathist atrocities lend this observation particular point; Saddam Hussein was able to successfully imitate Hitler for three decades. Baathists using similar methods still run Syria, and elsewhere in the Islamic world there are militarist/authoritarian tendencies that run uncomfortably close to fascism. Recent events… Continue reading Fascism Is Not Dead

A friend of mine, Russ Cage aka Engineer-Poet, comments on my essay Demographics and the Dustbin of History: People used to have children to take care of them in their old age. Social Security took care of this by socializing the benefits, but all of the costs still fell to individuals; worse, taking time out… Continue reading Social Security and the Demography Bomb

Karl Zinsmeister’s essay Old and In The Way presents a startling — but all too plausible — forecast of Europe’s future. To the now-familiar evidence of European insularity, reflexive anti-Americanism, muddle, and geopolitical impotence, Zinsmeister adds a hard look at European demographic trends. What Zinsmeister sees coming is not pretty. European populations are not having… Continue reading Demographics and the Dustbin of History

A policeman was premeditatedly shot dead today. Now, I don’t regard shooting a policeman as the worst possible crime — indeed, I can easily imagine circumstances under which I would do it myself. If he were committing illegal violence — or even officially legal violence during the enforcement of an unjust law. Supposing a policeman… Continue reading When to shoot a policeman

The congressional Democrats have made Nancy Pelosi their leader. Whether or not this is conscious strategy, it means they’re going to run to the left. And very likely get slaughtered in 2004. It’s truly odd how self-destructive the American Left has become. They’re like that famous line about the Palestinians, never missing an opportunity to… Continue reading What a responsible American Left would look like

It’s official. The anti-war movement is a Communist front. No, I’m not kidding — go read the story. Investigative reporter David Corn digs into last Saturday’s D.C. antiwar rally and finds it was covertly masterminded by a Communist Party splinter originally founded in support of the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary. For good later, he… Continue reading That bad old-time religion

The aftermath of 9/11 is a hard time to be an anarchist. For many years before the WTC came down I believed that America could be better defended by have no government than by the system we have now, I imagined a nation of heavily armed militias, without the power-projection capabilities of a conventional military… Continue reading Defeating Hussein Without Government