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O.I. Free Guaranteed! The publisher of this magazine guarantees that it does not contain March 1995 Vol. 8, No.4 $4.00 a single word about a.}. Simpson.

"Discipline must come through liberty. "-Maria Montessori

o THE CONSTITUTION PARTY The Party ofPrinciples, Not Politicians

We, the founders of the Constitution Party, hold that our federal 7. The CP advocates full financial freedom. The CP believes government has consistently violated the Constitution of the United that individuals have the right to keep all money or prop~r States. The Founding Fathers designed the U.S. government to serve ty they have lawfully earned, to provide for themselves us - the people. It was not designed so that we the people would and their families. The CP believes itis not government's serve government. We no longer wish to see Americans dependent business to know how much money you earn, where your upon or enslaved by government. Generations of Republican and money or property is kept, or to require you to keep Democratic administrations have made it abundantly clear that they records on its behalf. Accordingly, itbelieves that govern are incapable of managing the nation's affairs competently, justly, ment has no right to use any ofits agencies to intimidate or lawfully. The CP is dedicated to ensuring the unalienable right of people into revealing how much money they have or earn, every American to Life, Liberty, Property and the Pursuit of Happi with threats ofjail terms and property seizures. ness by defending the Constitution for the United States of America Government has no right to force an individual to re and making certain that it stays the law of the land. port how much money he or she deposits or withdraws The right to own one's life is a natural right. It requires the from a bank. It also has no right to force an individual to rights to freedom and property ownership in order to sustain that report how much money he or she takes into or out of the life. Therefore, the CP holds that no one has the right to dictate to country. These laws force Americans to spy and report anyone else how to live. It further maintains that no one holds a on each other. higher moral authority to compel anyone else to behave in a particu This stance requires the elimination of the Internal lar way. The CP maintains that each individual has the right to be Revenue Service and the income tax code, the elimina have according to his or her self-determined moral principles, pro tion of all gift and estate taxes, as well as any other direct vided the pursuit of these principles causes no physical harm to any tax not authorized under the Constitution of the United other person or his property. The CP believes that if there is no vic States. To the extent revenue is needed to support the fed tim there is no crime. The CP believes that no entity, including a eral government, within the limits of the Constitution, ex majority of voters or citizens, may take away or violate the rights of cise taxes (i.e. a national sales tax) are authorized in Arti an individual. cle I, Section 8 of the Constitution. Accordingly, the CP calls for a reordering of national priorities. The elimination of these unlawful taxes would cause We aim to restore the right ofevery individual American to be a business to skyrocket, create millions ofjobs, and signifi sovereign citizen, as well as the provision that all 50 States be free cantly reduce unemployment and welfare lines. It would from unlawful federal interference so they can self-govern. Our goal also reduce crime. is to create a truly free country where all people will learn to be re The CP calls for repeal of the 16th Amendment or sponsible for their own welfare. Upon achieving this goal, enterprise formal recognition by the government that it was never will flower, thereby creating an atmosphere of prosperity, abun ratified by the states and is therefore illegal. dance, tolerance, and compassion. 8. The CP calls for the reinstitution of sound money, prefer Therefore, the CP offers the following platform to ensure our ably a hard dollar backed by gold. rights and those of our children: 9. The CP insists upon the elimination of the budget deficit 1. Under no circumstance does the federal government have by a rigorous program ofdownsizing federal government the power to violate the Constitutionally guaranteed rights and eliminating entitlement programs. The CP also calls of an individual. for the elimination of burdensome interest payments on 2. Under no circumstance does the federal government have the national debt by ridding the American people of this the power to violate the sovereignty of the States as de debt once and for all. fined in the 10th Amendment to the Constitution. 10. The CP advocates the elimination ofentitlement pro 3. Each individual should be free to do whatever he chooses grams. Just as noindividual has the right to steal from with his own person or property, provided he does not you, the government has no right to steal from you on be physically harm the person or property of another. People half of other individuals, that is, to redistribute your who harm others are to be forcibly segregated from the wealth. The money you'earn belongs to you and no one rest of society by government. It is society, not the crimi else. How can you properly support yourself and your nal, that should be shown leniency. family while you are constantly being robbed? The price of personal freedom is individual responsibility. Conse 4. The CP supports full private property rights. We reject the quently, it is not government's job to "save" people from idea that federal government may dictate use of private poor choices, calamities, or the vicissitudes of life. At the property or confiscate property without full and just com same time, The CP encourages everyone, individuals and pensation pursuant to the limits of the Constitution. private institutions alike, in the strongest possible terms, 5. Each individual adult has the right to keep and bear arms, to give to the charities of their choice, to care for the providing the owner has never been convicted of a violent homeless, the helpless, and the needy. Charity is tradi crime involving the use of a weapon. tionally the work of religious organizations, individuals, 6. The CP advocates the maintenance of the strongest national private institutions and foundations. In contrast, givea defense force in the world. The CP does not advocate mili way programs run by the federal government rob individ tary interference in the affairs of other nations. uals of the ability and desire to be charitable. The CP further believes that the US should protect its sov The CP further believes that the elimination of givea ereignty by maintaining full control over its own defense way programs will greatly alleviate the nation's immigra systems and not turning them over to the United Nations. tion problem. The CP believes in phasing out the Social Security pro order to enforce the law is not a government worth hav gram after current obligations to the elderly are met. We ing. Therefore, law enforcetnent officers and agencies believe retirement programs are best handled by the pri must be above reproach with regard to due process of vate sector. law, personal privacy, freedom from unreasonable search 11. The CP believes that federal government has no lawful or and seizures, and all the other fundamental constitutional moral authority in health care. The CP believes that gov guarantees. The CP believes that any government agent ernment involvement in health care will adversely affect or employee who does not abide by, or who violates, the the health of the majority of Americans. Constitution should face mandatory criminal penalties. The CP believes that federal government has no right to 15. The CP believes that all judges 01Ust be directed to inform limit our choice of doctors, or medicines they prescribe, every jury of its lawful sovereignty under the Constitu whether they be "alternative" or American Medical Asso tion in that it may find any defendant not guilty if it judg- ciation certified. Government also has no right es the law, even law upheld by the Su to dictate what vitamins ought to be available. preme Court, to be defective, The CP opposes the proposed national health unwarranted, unconstitutional, or card. This card will ultimately be used as wrongly applied. nothing less than a national tracking device The CP believes that we are at the beginning that will result in the further loss of personal of a movement, a movement toward individual freedom. freedoms, as our Forefathers planned. We be 12. The CP endorses full economic freedom. lieve that people have had enough of the taxes The CP believes that government should and the intimidating tactics of an out-of-control, not set prices, set quotas, or create laws DON'T TREAD ON ME unaccountable government which has lost sight concerning hiring, firing, rents, wages, un 1995 of its role as our servant. We believe it is time ionization, or any aspect of non-coercive again to make the government accountable to us private commercial behavior. Economic freedom would - the American people - and to restore our personal freedoms be a boon to both small and large business. which have been slowly but systematically taken from us. We be 13. Government does not have the right to legislate morality. lieve that if we as a people fail to act, the course on which the ship Adult consensual behavior ("victimless crimes") such as of state is currently set is clear: an accelerating bankrupt socialist that involving sexual activity, gambling, drug use, or as police state. sisted suicide are a matter of individual adult morality To all Americans who want to keep their rights: whether it be and not a matter of lawful statute. The traditional organi the right to speak your mind, the right to keep the money you earn, zations for discussion and persuasion regarding such is the right to use your property as you wish, the right to bear arms for sues include churches, synagogues, youth clubs, cham the defense ofyour family from any threat including government, bers of commerce, and other local social organizations. the right to engage in noncoercive behavior, the right to not wear a 14. The CP advocates a strong local police presence for vio seathelt or a motorcycle helmet, the right to practice (or refrain lent crime. By eliminating laws against victimless crimes, from practicing) any religion; the right to choose a doctor or the police will be able to focus on violent crimes, making po medicine of your choice, the right to end your life, or the right to be lice more effective and public safety a reality. The prison gin a life - these are your personal choices, not the government's. system will then have ample space to house violent crimi To all Americans who feel alienated from the politics of our nals for the full course of their prison terms. The streets system and are tired of being treated like juveniles: we understand will be safe, the country's legal and prison systems will your frustration and your desire for change. Come join us! No mat unclog, and vast amounts of money that add to the budget ter who you are or what you do, come join us. It's not whether you deficit will be saved. are on the left or the right, liberal or conservative, it's your individ Nevertheless, a government that must break the law in ual rights that matter.

"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits." - Thomas Jefferson Founder Aaron Russo (Film Producer - Trading Places with Eddie Murphy, The Rose with JOIN THE NEW CONSTITUTION PARTY TODAY! Bette Midler; won an Emmy and had films nominated for various Academy Awards) r------, Partial List ofFounding Members Join the people from all walks oflife who already have Dr. Robert Atkins (Author) become members ofthe Constitution Party. Spread the Larry Becraft, esq. (Attorney) word! Make copies ofthis Draft - Mail it - Fax it Bill Benson (Author - The Law That Never Was) Bob Bishop (Editor, Go/dmining Stock Report) Hand one out to everyone you know. Bill Cooper (Radio Talk-Show Host) WE WANT OUR COUNTRY "FIXED BY '96" ... Vince DeNiro (Historical Political Researcher, Radio Talk-Show Host of America's Town Meeting) o Yes! I want to join the Constitution Party. Larry Dodge (Former Libenarian Parry activist) o Yes! I want to become a Volunteer/Organizer. Bill Fleming (Fleming Firearms) , Roger Fredinburg (Radio Talk-Show Host) Paul Hapenny (Screenwriter) LJ I want to help with a donation of$ . 0 Check 0 Money order Sheriff Richard 1. Mack Graham County, Arizona (Author - From My Cold, Dead Fingers) Pat Murphy (Radio Talk-Show Host) Name: Phone: ( Ron Paul (Forner Member ofCongress) Bob Prechter (Author, Editor, Corporate President) Dr. Gus Prosch (Physician, Author) I Address: . _ Maureen K Salaman (Author, Lecturer) SCOtt Summers (Houston Foundation for Vietnam Veterans) I James Turk (Author and Editor, Freemarket Gold 6- Money Report) I City: State: _ Zip: _ Dr. Julian Whitaker (Author, Newsletter Writer) Neil A. White (Financial Services) I The Constitution Party/P.O. Box 3305/Beverly Hills, CA 90212 Dr :'h:el:.?/':'4~1~~ c~n:t~i::=a:h:n:n: I...-_ _,J_o_na_th_a_n_W_r_ig_ht__(A_u_th_o_r) L I:e:e: .J March 1995

agreed. Moreover, FAC invites students [~======L of all political, social, and cultural back e=====tt=====e=====rs======:::::::::.] grounds to join in our fight. I was bothered by Taylor's labeling What Goes Around ... Also - maybe I'm a bit prudish, but I'd like to see Russo and some of your FAC members"opportunistic defenders Last month, in preparation for a radio of free speech." As with many campus debate on the subject of pornography writers clean up their language a bit. They sound at times like eight-year-olds activists, FAC members are unpaid, (I'm in favor), I was advised to pick up hard-working college students taking your November issue for Wendy McEl who have just learned their first cuss words and want to show them off. time from their academic and social roy's article on the subject ("Talking Sex, schedules to back a cause they believe in. Not Gender"). Not only did it prepare Bill Williford Houston, Tex. The balance of Taylor's articles con me admirably for the debate, it con sisted of ad hominem attacks on FAC, its vinced me that Liberty really was crucial Blame Where Blame Is Due leadership, its membership - even its reading, without which I could no longer While I appreciate Jesse Walker's pizza. Such unreasonable attacks are ex exist. I sent in my subscription the next kind words about Angry Schools, Vacant actly what FAC hopes will diminish in week. Minds ("Scandal for Schools," January the academy, to be replaced with intelli Naturally, I was greatly amused to 1995), he should know that the passage gent and thoughtful argument. read, in the January issue, Mark Man about John Holt he cites did not appear Michael Francis they's letter threatening to cancel his sub twice in my book as "a burst of bad edit Cambridge, Mass. scription over the same article. ing." My publisher asked me to summar Win some, lose some. You do a great ize the book in the preface, and in the A Word for Bedlam deal to advance the cause of liberty by summary I condensedarguments that I As an individual who has had exten publishing such "depraved" material. made elsewhere. That is why the passage sive experience with the mental health Please, keep up the good - and contro Walker quotes is repeated. system in America, I must respond to versial- work. Martin Morse Wooster some of Seth Farber's comments in "The Scott O'Hara Silver Spring, Md. Bedlamming of America" (December Cazenovia, Wis. 1994). Although admittedly there have Check Your FACs How 'Bout the "Frito Party"? been many abuses in the mental health Brian Taylor's article ("Free Speech, industry, some of the things Farber says I was intrigued by the interview with Blah, Blah," January 1995) probably left Aaron Russo ("Russo and Revolution," in his effort to smear the entire field are readers confused about the First Amend inaccurate. January 1995). My first reaction was ment Coalition (FAC), so let me explain it For example, Farber states that "no in somewhat negative; Russo's Constitution briefly. College campuses have in many Party seemed to threaten "my" Libertari patient program ... has proven effective cases become places where administra in ... preventing suicidal behavior." This an Party. Why should a newcomer step tors, faculty, and fellow students single in and take over all the good, hard work is clearly untrue, as there have been out certain ideas for proliferation and many cases of acutely and imminently our people have done, and get the credit others for disparagement and ridicule. for it? suicidal people who have been prevented Too often, the disparaged ideas receive from attempting or committing suicide But the more I read, the more it only nominal consideration (or none at seemed that Russo has some really good because of the safety and structure of an all) in texts, classroom discussion, or dis inpatient psychiatric unit. Many such pa ideas. It doesn't matter who returns us to cussion between peers in the lunch hall free markets and gets rids of the welfare tients admit themselves into psychiatric or dorm rooms. Also, overt acts of intimi state as long as the changes happen. hospitals voluntarily. dation, such as radical groups preventing There seems to be a number of groups Farber also states that "virtually others from entering a public facility, pushing for these things but not working everyone who enters a psychiatric facility have increased in frequency. FAC con together. Why can't we have a merger? is forced to take neuroleptic drugs." This tends that such behavior is inimical to the Russo sounds like the kind of new blood is also false. In most psychiatric hospitals, function of the university. the movement could use. And while a large percentage of patients are nottak FAC promotes the free discussion of "Constitution" is also clumsy to pro ing any neuroleptic (a.k.a. "antipsychot all ideas, "Right" and "Left." FAC be nounce, it at least has more appeal than ic") drugs. Of those who do take drugs, lieves that the greatest learning takes "Libertarian." (If I were picking a name, most do so voluntarily with informed place when individuals discuss ideas in my choice would be the "Freedom Par consent. an open forum. If a belief lacks merit, let ty," with the members being called Jeffrey 1. Schwartz, M.D. that be demonstrated in earnest debate, "Freeders." But no one's seeking myad San Francisco, Calif. not by individual censure. vice, and maybe it's just as well.) I should remind Taylor that the FAC The Will to Intelligence National Board subjected him to no polit The Bell Curve, by Richard Herrnstein icallitmus test when working with him and Charles Murray, is riddled with Letters Policy to start the FAC Binghamton chapter. I flaws, all of which were missed by Jane We invite readers to comment on articles agree that the Columbia conference Tay Shaw and Leland Yeager ("Not to the that have appeared in Liberty. We reserve lor attended lacked widespread represen Swift, But to the Smart" and "Politically the right to edit for length and clarity. All letters are assumed to be intended for publi tation from the "Left." But FAC has Sensitive Science," January 1995). The cation unless otherwise stated. Succinct, worked with the ACLU, campus NOW most glaring and the one that defeats typewritten letters are preferred. Please in chapters, and other traditionally left their very thesis is Herrnstein and elude your phone number so that we can verify your identity. wing organizations when our goals have continued on page 6 March 1995 Inside Liberty Volume 8, Number 4

4 Letters Liberty's readers talk back. 7 Reflections Liberty's editors on masturbation, marijuana, adultery, sexual harassment, school prayer, and other taboo topics. Features 17 Liberty Triumphant? Will the new Congress create a libertarian revolution? R. W. Bradford explains why it is possible - and why it is not likely. 20 Rothbard Remembered Nineteen friends, colleagues, and admirers remember a giant - Murray Rothbard. 29 Back in the States The health-care juggernaut that sunk in Washing ton, D.C., has surfaced in America's hinterlands. Mark Rembert reports from Tennessee, Tom Loughran from Washington state, and David and Mary Lemke from Oregon. 32 Stealth Health If socialized medicine does come to America, don't expect to see Hillary Clinton or Ira Magaziner waiting in line. E.K. Gregory tells where they will get their medical care. 34 A Globe of Villages Bill Knuffman offers an old, local, and disorderly alternative to the New World Order. 38 The Engraved Invitation Has Arrived Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw espy a millennium. Are you coming? 43 Inside Kyrgyzstan Douglas Casey looks for gold in Central Asia, where the government and the Mafia are the same thing. 46 Harry, Don't Runl John Pugsley implores his friend Harry Browne to quit his quest for the presidency. 54 Run, Harry, Run! Robert Prechter explains what's wrong with John Pugsley's criticism of politics. 55 Go For It, Harryl Douglas Casey confesses to the evil soul that makes him support Harry Browne. 57 Sinful Taxes Is there any good excuse for excises on vices? Roy Cordata says no. Reviews 59 American Spleen Brian Doherty contrasts the journalism of old rivals William Buckley and Gore Vidal. 63 Out of the Asylum R. W. Bradford searches for a spot for the madmen. 64 Praise for the Packaging Phil Leggiere discusses a young writer, a pretty good novel, and a case study in literary politics. 66 Pretty Great Privacy Gary McGath offers a few tips to cypherpunks in the making. 67 Booknotes on anarchism, Noam Chomsky, the WOOle Earth Catalog, Michael Oakeshott, and other Tory favorites. ,. ""C~ 68 Classified Advertisements The market in miniature. 69 Notes on Contributors A glimpse at our souls - or at least our CV's. 70 Terra Incognita Weird, wild stuff. Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

Murray's inability to deal with human does not come from fear of evil. It comes bitions" rather than procedural rules. Pre consciousness. The book divides the pa from the fear and hatred of the good. serving ecological communities is sup rameters of thinking into heredity versus When a slave perceives that he cannot posedly analogous to preserving econom environment while overlooking the hu measure up to the good as exhibited by ic communities by protectionist means. man species' ability to choose to focus or another human being, his reaction is to Walker argues I should allow Schumpe not focus their mental capacities upon attack that other person. I've seen it hap tarian "creative destruction" within the certain types of problems, at will. pen countless times and know how to environment as well as in the market. William Voorhies judge such persons. They are the world's Otherwise I violate the logic and spirit of Kansas City, Miss. Judases. I avoid them like the plague. Hayekian liberalism. Westley Deitchler Ecosystems and markets alike need to Randian Psychobabble Corner Miles City, Mont. adapt. But if changes come too quickly, in Jesse Walker's dirty little attack on too unusual a way, adaptation is impossi Irwin Schiff ("The shaft to Schiff," Janu The Great Conspiracy ble in ecosystems and markets alike. This ary 1995) was a classic example of the That Irwin Schiff has spent time in is especially true when the disturbance psychopathology of the willing slave. As prison for refusing to pay income taxes comes from outside the system, arising in most human activity, there is a bell does not prove his legal arguments are independently of the rules that maintain curve among slaves, with those who will faulty. Even in America, people can be the system as a whole. risk everything to get free on one end railroaded into prison. And from what The rules of the market generate the and those who not only willingly submit I've read, Schiff is correct in claiming that conditions within which economic com to slavery but actually help their masters citizens residing in any of the 50 states munities rise, flourish, and decline. But if suppress their fellow slaves on the other. are not required by law to pay federal in a sudden plague wiped out an economic Mr. Schiff is at one end, Walker the other. come taxes. community, this would not be evidence it Schiff knows that taxation is against How the federal terrorcrats perpetu failed economically. The threat was extra the law in America, and I know it, too ate this hoax is a rather involved story. neous, big, and rapid. not from himbut from my own research. They have woven a very sticky web, in An economic community undermined I simply go exempt at work and have volving disinformation and intimidation, by government subsidies to others (say, since 1989. Ofcourse, government is com which convinces citizens that they are re to Minnesota wild rice growers by Cali posed of anarchists who refuse to abide quired to pay a tax the terrorcrats them fornia's irrigated farms) is also hurt by by the law, so there is always some risk. selves must lawfully refer to as voluntary factors extraneous to its purely economic The psychopathology of the willing (see the Note from the Commissioner, viability. Again, the challenge is extrane slave is that he comes to loath himself for which prefaces the instructions for your ous, big, and rapid. But this is not"crea his own cowardice and turns that self form 1040). tive destruction." Creative destruction re loathing outward - not toward his mas Incredible? Where do you get your in fers to changes arising from following the ters, where it should go, but toward formation? School? The media? Bill Clin rules generating and maintaining a spon those slaves on the other end of the ton? The massacre at Waco should con taneous order. curve. He not only ridicules them, as vince us that professional politicians of Ecological principles generate condi Walker does, but actually squeals on any any stripe will stop at nothing to get tions wherein biological communities attempt they make to get free. The classic what they want. arise, flourish, and decline. But the aster identifying signature of the willing slave I subscribe to your magazine to bal oid impact that apparently killed the di is, "A concerned citizen and a taxpayer." ance the propaganda in the newspapers nosaurs does not mean they failed to The willing slave comes to love, in and television. Perhaps Jesse Walker adapt. The principles which generate ad stead of hate, his master. Walker says should be writing for them. aptation never had a chance to operate. that he would vote for Clinton or even Mitchell Stary Again, no "creative destruction." Gus Hall before he would vote for Schiff. New Richmond, Wisc. Similarly, an ecological community The psychopathology of the willing undermined by factory fishing is not in slave becomes a criminal psychopatholo VocabQuiz jured by its "failure to adapt." Adapta gy when he, for instance, sits on a jury in In "To your health" (Decemher 1994), tion is probably impossible. Modern fish a political trial such as tax cases. His atti R.W. Bradford uses the acronym TAN ing is too rapid and too great. In addition, tude becomes, for instance toward Mr. STAAFL. factory fishing is independent of purely Schiff, "He thinks he is better than I am. At the risk of displaying my consider natural processes. Again, destruction, but By God, I'll show him." able ignorance, just what in the devil is nothing creative about it. What Jesse Walker is guilty of is a he talking about? By helping distinguish between simple case of the fright and flight syn Jack R. Kincade changes internal to spontaneous order drome. He is obviously impressed, as are Mason, Ohio and those external to it, Schumpeter's millions of others, by guns and goons, R. W. Bradford responds: "There Ain't No point supports my argument. but he chooses to vilify those of us who Such Thing As A Free Lunch." Gus diZerega are not so impressed. To me, a person Sebastopol, Calif. who must rely upon guns and goons to Schumpeter Meets the Market get what he wantsfrom innocent people Jesse Walker adds a new and interest Useful Feedback is contemptible, not respectable or even ing criticism of my article "Deep Ecology This is bullshit. I despise your rhetoric fearsome. Such a person is making a ter Meets the Market" (November 1994) in and meanness. You are scumbags. The rible confession of incompetence, immo "Creative destruction" Ganuary 1995). American people are fed up - with you. rality, and impotence. He argues I depart from my liberal foun Matthew D. Smith, Jr. But the fright and flight syndrome dation by urging "preservationist prohi- Brownsville, Tex. 6 Liberty Oh, them big numbers - Commenting on the regulations apply only to Congress for a probationary period four-million-dollar book advance offer made to Rep. Newt of, say, ten years. That way, Congress would have a chance to Gingrich, President Clinton said that he'd earned $38,000 per work out the kinks in laws before imposing them on the en year for twelve years and couldn't even think in terms as big tire country. as four million. Great, just what we need from a guy in If Congress had mandated Clinton's health care proposal charge of a $1.5 trillion budget! -JSR for their own staffs while leaving the rest of the country alone for ten years, we wouldn't be risking the health of the entire A modest proposal - The Balanced Budget nation. If the last few tax increases had applied only to sena Amendment, after years of lonely support by a few conserva tors, representatives, and their staffs, we would have had ten tives and libertarians, is now making its way through the years to verify that the increases were equitable. If Medicare House of Representatives. But this plank of the Republicans' had been tried out on Congress and its staff for ten years, we'd "Contract with America" has inspired quite a few attacks and have learned just how expensive the program was going to be objections. Here is a better idea. Simply deny a pension to without its threatening the fiscal security of the entire nation. any congressperson who served during a year in which the And if drug laws applied exclusively to Congress for ten federal budget was in deficit. I bet we would see Congress years, and the whole army of federal drug agents focused its "work together" in a remarkably efficient fashion to bring our efforts on congresspersons and their staffs, maybe Congress country's debt under control. And if not, it would solve the wouldn't pass so many stupid laws in the first place. -RWB idiotic pension problem in one fell swoop. - TWV Have Less than a month after I'll take Haiti, and another slice - Slapping the flunky - you noticed that the conservative Republican congressional Bill Clinton publicly mused about returning organized prayer leadership consists of deracinated college professors (Phil to the schools, Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders raised a Gramm, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey)? In twentieth-century storm by remarking that, since masturbation is an important American politics, our engaged professors have been at best part of human sexuality, it too should have a place in the academy. She later explained that she did not mean students innocuous statists (Paul Douglas, Paul Simon), n\ore typically should be instructed in how to jack (or jane) off - even Elders smug apologists for mayhem and militarism (Arthur realizes that kids are capable of figuring that out for them Schlesinger, Jr., Henry Kissinger), and at worst ... well, Woo selves - but that they should be taught about it. This distinc drow Wilson. Not a one of this new trio had the pleasure of tion was lost on the president (who's never been one for part serving, as they say, in Vietnam, but when we drop the big nerless sex) and Elders was fired. one on Pyongyang all those grad-school nights of pizza, beer, This decision was generally applauded by the political and Risk will reach their logical and utterly depressing culmi Right, for reasons I still don't understand. After all, Newt nation. As we go marching, they grade the papers. -BK Gingrich and his cohorts have spent years demanding that The straight Newt - When Newt Gingrich the schools "teach abstinence." Just what do they expect these charged that as much as 25% of the White House staff had abstinence instructors to teach if masturbation is kept off the used illegal drugs within a few years of entering government curriculum? Cold showers? -JW service, I believed him. Although he produced no real evi Congress, rule thyself - Democrat-controlled dence to support his charge, it seemed plausible that many of Congresses traditionally exempted themselves from the laws the young Stephanopoulites, so soon out of college and grad they passed. So while the rest of the country sweats under the school, had occasionally smoked a joint between student burden of the minimum wage, affirmative action, OSHA, etc., union putsches. the progressive Democrats have maintained their personal But I was appalled when Gingrich offered this as proof fiefs as virtual plantations. that there is a preponderance of "counterculture" types in the In fulfillment of its "Contract with America," the GOP Clinton administration. For one thing, the Clinton administra Congress quickly passed a law ending these exemptions. I tion is populated by the kind of people who were concerned suppose that this was a great step forward in the corrupt in college with getting on the right committees, making the world of politics. But it didn't really go far enough. right friends, and getting ahead. It is hard to imagine any of The problem with Congress' exempting itself from the this crew of class presidents, dean's listers, and fanny laws and regulations it passes is that congresspersons never smoochers lighting a scented candle, much less trying to burn get a chance to know just how onerous those laws and regula Amerika to the ground. tions are. Rather than simply ending their exemption, Con For another, Gingrich is off his cookies if he thinks drugs gress should have replaced it with a law mandating that new are the exclusive preserve of the counterculture. I have Liberty 7 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 smoked pot with a few dozendifferent people in my lifetime, The Consumer Product Safety Commission has responded almost none of whom have a countercultural bone in their to the accident by saying that the company owner should body. Most of them have been blue-collar, middle-class white have done the job safely. It has also sent out memos indicat- males (including two U.S. marines!), the core constituency ing that anyone. who destroys fireworks should consult with that Gingrich is supposed to represent. local fire officials and follow local fire ordinances. A spokes- It looks like Gingrich, who has taken up their banner, man for the CPSC said that the accident "has led us to be would not recognize a "normal American" if he were hit over more precise about how to destroy fireworks." -JSS the head with one - and is probably filled with same fear and Th k D hatred for them that animates most ofour ruling class. -es em wac y emocrats - In power, the Democrats were a fearful force. Out of power, they are sim- Pretty girls, and gridlock too! - I teach a ply silly. After the GOP won the November elections by course in democratic political theory, and every semester a promising middle-class tax cuts, President Clinton proposed student will decry the state of democracy in Italy, which since his own middle-class tax cuts - a program almost identical 1945 has had a new government every ten months on to the Republican proposal he had ridiculed during the cam- average. "They can't get anything done," the student will say. paign. But House Democrat leader Dick Gephardt didn't But what's wrong with that? By turning over want his president to hog the spotlight, so he called a press governments so rapidly, the Italians have discovered a conference just prior to Clinton's so he could propose his own practical form of peaceful, parliamentary anarchy. It doesn't middle-class tax cut. A nlonth later, after Republicans had seem to be hurting the Italian standard of living, which is as floated the idea of a flat tax, Gephardt announced that he also high as the U.K.'s. favored a flat tax - although his version was heavily Imagine if the American system allowed governments to graduated. fall with such breathtaking regularity. Clinton would have As· if he wanted to demonstrate how far he has strayed been gone early last year. We might have had two from reality, Clinton decided to announce his candidacy for governments since. Washington would be in turmoil. But re-election, apparently in hopes that his early announcement everybody else would go on with life as though the might prevent some other Den\ocrat from wresting the nomi- politicians weren't even there. Salute! -JSR nation away from hiIn. Hmm. What other Democrat would want the nomination? · b d Slowly, Marty Douma is recovering Twlce urne - Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton held an informal tea with re- fron\ severe burns over more than a third of his body. His porters, confessing that she had botched things for her hus- accident can be traced to government regulation. band and asking them for help. The journalists responded to Last summer, Douma, the 49-year-old manager of a school the flattering shared confidence by offering the troubled first bus company in Manhattan, Monta.na, was helping out at a lady their political advice and support. Unfortunately, one re- landfill. He drove a Caterpillar bulldozer, burying garbage. membered something about reporters' responsibility to tell One August day a flatbed truck containing a lot of boxes the truth to their readers, and that it might not be appropriate drove up. A U.S. Customs inspector from Great Falls, Monta- to offer public relations advice to their adversaries. The next na also arrived. He told Douma to spread the boxes out, thing Hillary knew, the story was embarrassing her in the crush them, and bury them. Douma started to back up the New York Times. Oops. bulldozer when suddenly fire engulfed it. Desperate for help, Bill turned to Tony Robbins, the Trapped in the bulldozer, Douma searched for an opening toothy infomercial star who helps people lose weight, make in the flames and leaped through. He survived, but his burns money, and "awaken the giant within you." Tony has been were so severe that he had to be rushed to the hospital, and amusing late night audiences for years with his hilarious half- then to the bum trauma center in Salt Lake City to begin a hour spiel; my favorite part is where former football star Fran long and painful healing process. Tarkenton claims that Tony cured him of his preference for The boxes, it turned out, contained nearly two tOllS of de- cheWing tobacco over sex, though I have to admit that Casey fective fireworks. But they hadn't been placed there haphaz- Kasem's countdown on behalf of Tony is pretty funny too. ardly or surreptitiously. The Consumer Prod- r------, Bill didn't reveal what Robbins told him. Per- uct Safety Commission had told the owner to haps he gave Clinton the reverse of his Tar- dispose of them, but just burying them was Liberty's Editors kenton therapy. not enough; they had to be destroyed. The Reflect The Clintons aren't the only Democrats Customs inspector was representing the Com- CAA Chester Alan Arthur losing touch with reality. David Kessler, mission to make sure it was done properly. RWB R.W. Bradford head of the Food and Drug Administration, Crushing the fireworks caused the acci- SC Stephen Cox has announced that he plans to move his dent. Had the owners used their own judg- BK Bill Kauffman agency to a new complex, to be built in bu- JSR James S. Robbins ment and merely buried them, Marty Douma JSS Jane S. Shaw colic Clarksburg, Maryland at a cost of $675 would not be spending his days in physical SS Sandy Shaw million (" one of the largest federal construc- therapy, learning again to move his arms and CS Clark Stooksbury tion projects ever," Kessler said). One prob- fingers. (The rationale for crushing the fire- TWV Timothy Virkkala lem with the plan: it will have to be paid for works, not just burying them, is that workers JW Jesse Walker by Congress, now headed by Newt Gingrich, might take home the fireworks or children LBY Leland Yeager who has proposed abolishing the FDA. Per- might find them if they were intact.) , haps Mr. Kessler should give a call to Donna 8 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

Shalala, secretary of health and human services, to see slavement took place here, because their employer was a rela whether Dr. Shalala can find a spot for him in one of her tive of the king of Saudi Arabia, and therefore immune from classier loony bins. -eAA prosecution under the UForeign Sovereign Immunities Act." And so it is that 218 years after the United States declared ~o The Gospel According .Hillary - its independence from class-ridden Britain, 205 years after the Hillary Clinton has advised Newt GIngrIch to consult the U.S. enacted its Constitution and Bill of Rights, 129 years after Old and New Testaments to usee how we should treat each slavery was abolished, and 126 years after equality before the other." Do you suppose Hillary really supports stoning law was explicitly acknowledged in the Fourteenth Amend homosexuals, forbidding women from wearing men's ment, a federal judge dismisses a charge of slavery in one of clothes, engaging in racial imperialism, and imposing a mere America's great cities, on grounds that the accused is immune .20/0 wealth tax? from the legal process because he is a relative of a foreign Then again, maybe she was talking about Deuteronomy king. 22:22 - capital punishment for adulterers. -JSR But all is not lost. Although the judge ruled that slavery is Professional courtesy - A few years ago, whi~e not sufficiently serious to override the immunity granted to attending a conference in Aspen, Colorado, some electroruc foreign potentates and their relatives - not if the U confine equipment was stolen from my hotel room. Since there w.as ment" takes place, in the judge'S words, "in one of Houston's no sign of forced entry and the room was generally undIs ritziest hotels" - he did add that murder would be serious turbed, I concluded that the perpetrator must have been a enough to override that immunity. -RWB member of the hotel staff. I reported this to the hotel's gener Ill-constituted - I oppose prayer in the public al manager, who told me there was nothing he could do. schools because it might embarrass the non-praying minority, The following year, I returned to the same conference and for other reasons. This, however, is not why I also oppose and the same hotel, this time leaving my electronic toys at a school-prayer amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Such an home. The young man driving the hotel van from the airport amendment would seem to concede that school prayer is asked me whether I had stayed there before, and how I had unconstitutional and that only an amendment can change the liked it. I said the hotel seemed quite nice, but someone on situation. Actually, school prayer is not unconstitutional. The the housekeeping staff had stolen from my room. "I sympa Constitution does not forbid everything I consider unwise. thize with you, sir," he replied. "I was staying in a compli What concerns me more than school prayer or its absence mentary room earlier this year, and I forgot to leave a note to is the Supreme Court's twisting and flouting of the Constitu the housekeeping staff telling them I was an employee here. tion on this and other topics. The Court has reached its They stole $300 in cash from my room." present erroneous position by incrementally reading the Fi~st Thus I learned that hotel employees extend professional Amendment into the Fourteenth Amendment and by mIS courtesy to one another, just like police officers or p~ysi reading the First Amendment itself. But how can an interpre cians. I have just learned about another type of profeSSIonal tation at loggerheads with the actual text of the Constitution courtesy, extended among politicians. be justified by its having emerged in a series of small steps? It seemed like an open and shut case. Sriyani Fernando Actually, the Constitution says nothing whatever about a and Josephine Alicog were locked in their employer's suite supposed "wall between church and state." It does not even at the Ritz Carlton, where they were beaten and forced to act bar individual states from establishing religions. What the as servants against their will, forced to eat table scraps and to First Amendment does say is that "Congress shall make no sleep on the floor. Ms. Alicog escaped with the a:sistanc~ of an American security guard, who had told her, JosephIne, law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the this is a free country. If you don't like free exercise thereof" (emphasis added). Our federal system your employer you can leave." Later, ho leaves many matters to the individual states and to the tel staff and another security guard people. Nothing in the Constitution gives the central gov helped Ms. Fernando escape. ernment authority to s~ppress or regulate religion in the After their escape, Ms. Fernando and schools. I happen to think that religion in the public Ms. Alicog sued their former "employer" schools is a bad idea, but this personal judgment is beside in federal court. They had numerous wit the point. nesses among the hotel staff and security More worrisome is the Supreme Court's assault on our guards, plus the testimony of the Houston federal system and on the integrity of legal documents. What Fire Department that their employer had is to be done? Instead of a school prayer amendment, which locked the hotel's fire doors to prevent would seem to legitimize the Court's abuses, I recommend a their escape. simple congressional resolution remind- What seemed like an open and ing the Court of Article VI: "This Consti shut case turned out not even to be tution, and the laws of the United States an open case. U.S. District ~ which shall be made, under the Judge Lynn N. Hughes " authority of the United States, ruled that the two women ,}O l~ shall be the supreme law of the could not sue in the United ~ ,. land; and the judges in every States, even though their en- State shall be bound thereby." Liberty 9 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

The Constitution is binding on all concerned, especially Randy Weaver, his family, and a houseguest were inside including legislators and judges. No amount of misinterpre the cabin when the shooting took place. Under the impression tation, however incremental, can make it say anything other (correct, as it turned out) that they were under military attack, than what it says. The Supreme Court should be reminded of they shot back. Kevin Harris, the houseguest, shot one of the that truth. -LBY attackers, killing him. The authorities retreated, sealed off the area, and called for reinforcements. The FBI arrived and took Uncle Tom's Cabinet - Hurrah for those Repub charge. licans who are talking up the abolition of supernumerary But this was not the FBI that we saw on television or read federal departments - though let it be said that Democrats about in juvenile fiction, or even the FBI of adult fiction (head Jerry Brown and Bob Kerrey suggested such excisions in ed by wacky transvestite J. Edgar Hoover). This was an FBI 1992. The problem: those backwater Cabinet posts on the that decided the proper course of action was to set a policy of chopping block have been filled for almost 20 years by the assuming anyone from the cabin, armed or not, was a deadly Uncle Toms and Aunt Margaritas of the Diversity Brigade. threat. The orders were given: Shoot on sight. Who can forget the lustrous reigns of Transportation The next day, Weaver went to the shack near his cabin Secretary William "Jerry Ford's Homeboy" Coleman, HUD where his son lay dead. As he opened the door, he was shot Secretary Sam "Mr. Mayor" Pierce, Education Secretary Lau from behind by an FBI sniper. He struggled back to the cabin, ro "At Least He Wasn't Bill Bennett" Cavazos, and the cur where his wife Vicki stood in the doorway, holding their ten rent twosome of Energy Secretary Hazel "How'd She Get month-old daughter. The FBI sniper saw an opportunity to That Last Name?" O'Leary and Commerce Secretary Ron get a clean shot at Mrs. Weaver. Mindful of his deadly orders, "That's More Like It" Brown? Attention, bootlicking lawyers he fired a bullet into her brain. It was an easy shot. The FBI of color: if these agencies are killed, you'd better all change sniper, Lon Horiuchi, later testified in court that he could hit a your names to Colin Powell. -BK target smaller than a dime at 200 yards. Vicky Weaver crum Drop that baby, or we'll shoot! - There pled to the floor, dead; what had been her head was now a have been new developments in the sad case of Randy Weav bloody pulp. Horiuchi fired another shot, but his target was er, the mountain man who was entrapped by the Bureau of moving; he wounded Kevin Harris, but not mortally. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms on a minor violation of gun Weaver made it back into the cabin. The FBI continued its regulations, in hopes of forcing him to become an undercover siege. Ten days later, Weaver surrendered to Bo Gritz, Weav agent among people who shared his political beliefs. Weaver er's commanding officer in Vietnam, who had agreed to act as didn't want to betray his compatriots. So instead of appear an intermediary. Weaver and Harris were charged with mur ing for his trial, he protested by moving with his family to a der and put on trial. During the trial, it became evident that cabin in the mountains, where they lived openly and the FBI had manufactured evidence, told lies, and tried to peacefully. cover up its deadly assault. Weaver and Harris were both Federal authorities didn't much care for his protest. So found innocent. they invested several million dollars of taxpayer money in an Not surprisingly, the Justice Department ordered an inves elaborate system of surveillance, and planned to arrest him. tigation by its Office of Professional Responsibility. On De They put their plan into effect on August 21, 1992. Six agents cember 12, the OPR released its 542-page report. It found that wearing body armor and carrying high-power rifles sneaked the FBI's deadly assault on Weaver, his wife, his children, and onto Weaver's property. Three of the agents threw rocks at Harris violated not only FBI internal procedures, but also the one of Weaver's dogs. When Weaver's son came out to see Constitution of the United States. why the dog was barking, the agents shot the dog. Weaver's FBI Director Louis J. Freeh reviewed the evidence and con 14-year-old son took a wild shot in the direction the shot that cluded that Larry A. Potts, the agent in charge at the siege, killed his dog.had come from, and took off running Jor the should be punished. After all, he had violated the supreme cabin. As he ran toward the cabin, one of the agents shot him law of the United States, murdering an innocent woman in in the back, killing him. the process. So a suitable punishment was found: an official "letter of censure" would become part of Larry Potts' perma nent file. This was tough punishment indeed - Freeh himself had suffered the same fate when he lost a cellular phone. At the same time, Freeh promoted Potts to the position of chief deputy of the FBI, perhaps to lessen some of the sting· of punishment. The FBI agent who murdered Vicki Weaver was not disciplined. An internal FBI investigator ruled that Lon Ho riuchi's sharpshooting was justified, since he had "reason to believe his life was in danger." After all, Mrs. Weaver was holding a baby in her arms. For all Horiuchi knew, the baby was armed. . -RWB Democratic Party reptile - We at Liberty pride ourselves on the accuracy of every word we print. Our "Leonard just loves to watch the news." words are not true merely when viewed in such and such a 10 Liberty The Cato Health Care Library A Comprehensive Case for Free-Market Health Policy Reform IJGiving people choices in health care and instilling cost-consciousness is plain old common sense. In Medical Savings Accounts, Goodman and Musgrave have hit upon a bold concept that may revolu- tionize the way health care is delivered throughout America." -Sen. Phil Gramm

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To order Patient Power or other Cato studies, Cato Institute call toll-free 1-800-767-1241 1000 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. (Monday-Friday, noon to 9 p.m. Eastern) Washington, D.C. 20001 Volume 8, Number 4 light, or when seen from such and such a perspective. They are simply and literally true. But just before our last issue was scheduled to be sent to the printer, I woke from a deep dream of peace and realized Liberty • • • that my article on the November elections contained ... an Intellectual sparks flew in Tacoma at the 1994 Liberty inaccuracy! Horrified, I lurched for the phone, dialed the Editors' Conference. There, the best individualist minds met publisher, and confessed my error - only to be told that the issue had gone to press two hours early. (Liberty is not just to discuss the future of liberty and society - and have a ton literally true but punctually true.) My error could not be ex of fun in the process. punged. I awaited an avalanche of mail from indignant "The best libertarian conference I've ever attended!" readers. declared one attendee. Imagine my surprise when no one - not one single "More than my money's worth!" said another. person - wrote in to complain that when I compared the Now you can witness the proceedings for yourself! A Democratic Party to an old mud turtle, I referred to turtles as complete set of videotapes (including an audiotape of the one amphibians, when all the world knows they are reptiles. panel that was not filmed) costs only $420. A complete set of Why this chilling lack of response? audiotapes is just $165. Sessions can also be ordered Many readers were probably so shocked by my error as individually: $19.50 per videotape, $5.95 per audiotape. to be rendered incapable of action. When trust is gone, the Join in the excitement of the 1994 Liberty Editors' spirit dies. If this is what happened to you, I want you to Conference. With these tapes, you can experience it all year! know that I feel your pain. Other readers, I'm sorry to say, may not have appreciated Panels the gravity of the situation. Some of you (forgive my suspi 1969: 25 Years After: Durk Pearson, Sandy Shaw, Karl cions) may take a sloppy, slovenly approach toward zoologi Hess, Jr., David Schumacher, R.W. Bradford & Don cal distinctions. "Cox," you may have thought, "seems to Meinshausen (Video:VlOl; Audio: AlOl) Looking back believe that turtles are amphibians. They're not, of course, on the 1960s ... but what the hell! Why shouldn't they be? They live on both Searching for Liberty in Small Town America: R.W. Brad land and water, don't they? At least some of them do. So Cox ford, Bill Kauffman, Durk Pearson & Sandy Shaw is close enough. When he calls a cowan amphibian, then I'll (Video: VI02; Audio: Al02) Can freedom be found in the write in to complain." rural U.S.A.? By the use of such logic, all will be lost. I, too, am hard Searching for Liberty Around the World: Doug Casey, Bruce pressed to think of any reason why turtles should not be classified as amphibians, but that doesn't mean that that's Ramsey, Jim Rogers, Scott Reid & Ron Lipp (Video: what they are. If writers can get away with calling turtles Vl03; Audio: Al03) How freedom is faring in other cor anything they want to call them, the next thing you know ners of the globe ... someone will be spelling Hillary Clinton's name with one "I" Searching for Liberty in a Virtual Country: David Friedman, or referring to her husband as a giant ground sloth. (There Doug Casey, R.W. Bradford, Pierre Lemieux & Scott are certain resemblances.) Reid (Video: Vl04; Audio: AI04) If we can't find a free Temptations surround the authors of Liberty, and it's up country, we may have to invent one ... to our readers to help us retain a proper discipline. We can't The Economy ofthe Twenty-First Century: Jim Rogers, Vic do everything all by ourselves - not unless we raise sub tor Niederhotl'er, David Friedman, Doug Casey, Harry scription rates enough to hire some writers who can actually Browne, R.W. Bradford, & Leland Yeager (Video: read a dictionary. Vl05; Audio: Al05) How will the economy fare over the But let me be more candid still. My worst suspicion about next 100 years, and how can investors protect themselves? you, the reader, is that you fail to identify mistakes in Liberty because you· fail to read it in the first place. If that is true The Assault on Private Property: Wayne Hage, Jane Shaw, (and I hope, for your sake, that it is not), please ask yourself: Karl Hess, Jr., Richard Stroup, R.W. Bradford, John How much will Liberty have to raise your subscription rate if Baden, Jane Shaw & Fred Smith (Video: Vl06; Audio: we have to start hiring readers? -SC AI06) News from the frontlines of the latest government assault on human liberty ... The gated playscape - The January 1 New York Does Libertarianism Need Foundations? David Friedman, Times reported a new trend: commercial playgrounds. These Wendy McElroy, Bart Kosko, R.W. Bradford, James are indoor playgrounds where children can crawl and swing Taggart, Leland Yeager & John Hospers (Video: VI0?; and jump into piles of plastic balls. (They resemble the play Audio: Al07) What are the philosophical bases - if any areas you can find at McDonald's, and McDonald's is, in fact, part owner of one chain of these playgrounds, Discov - oflibertarianism? ery Zone.) According to the Times, these "playscapes" have Pop Goes the Culture: Jesse Walker, Brian Doherty, Gary mushroomed over the past five years. Alexander & Timothy Virkkala (Audio only: Al08) Is Is the advent of commercial playgrounds ("the privatiza there room for individualism in contemporary pop culture? tion of child's play," says the Times) a good or bad thing? In Global Trade or Globalony? Fred Smith, Brian Doherty & John Baden (Video: VI09; Audio: Al09) Do trade agree continued on page 14 ments like GATT promote free trade or statism? 12 Liberty Share the Excitement! How Long Can We BearArms? Pierre Lemieux, Clark dio: A128) "Fuzzy logic" meets liberty:· a scientist's case Stooksbury, R.W. Bradford, John Bergstrom & Jesse for pragmatism ... Walker (Video: VIIO; Audio: AIIO) How to protect our Jazz: The Music ofLiberty, by Gary Alexander (Video: right to guns - and a few other weapons ... V129; Audio: A129) A musical history tour of the most Looking to 1996 - and Beyond: Robert Higgs, Doug Casey, individualistic brand of American music ... Gary Alexander & R.W. Bradford (Video: VIII; Audio: Canada's Reform Party: Libertarianism in Sheep's Cloth Alii) What happens next in American politics ... ing? by Scott Reid (Video: V130; Audio: A130) A Ca Talks nadian activist's report on rumblings from the north ... Chaos and Anarchy, by J. Orlin Grabbe & Pierre Lemieux Ayn RandAs I Knew Her, by John Hospers (Video: V131; (Video: V112; Audio Al12) The religion and science of Audio: A131) A personal memoir ... unpredictability ... The Nazification ofthe Money Supply, by J. Orlin Grabbe Will the Death ofLiberalism Bring a New Birth ofLiberty? by (Video: V132; Audio: A132) Another front in the R.W. Bradford (Video: Vl13; Audio: Al13) Liberalism is government's battle for surveillance and control ... on its last legs. Is statism? Unlocking the Human Genome, by Ross Overbeek (Video: How HillaryGot Rich, by Victor Niederhoffer (Video: V114; V133; Audio: A133) The latest in genetic science ... Audio: A114) The ins and outs ofthe commodities market ... Women and Pornography, by Wendy McElroy (Video: The Next Hundred Years, by Doug Casey (Video: VIIS; Au V134; Audio: A134) The feminist case for porn ... dio: AIlS) The world according to Doug Casey, iconoclast A Crash Course in Political Economy, by Leland Yeager extraordinaire ... (Video: V135; Audio: A135) A fun, easy explanation of Anarchy via Encryption, by David Friedman (Video: Vl16; economics for a lay audience ... Audio: A116) How new encryption technologies will erode Workshops the power of the state ... How to Write Op-Eds, by Jane Shaw (Video: V136; Audio: Investment Biker, by Jim Rogers (Video: Vl17; Audio: Al17) A136) How to get published on the opinion pages ... A libertarian investor motorcycles around the world ... How to Get Published in Liberty, by R.W. Bradford, Jesse The Forest Service's War Against Me, by Wayne Hage (Vid Walker & Timothy Virkkala (Video: V137; Audio: eo: Vl18; Audio: A118) A property rights activist's battles A137) What Liberty looks for ... with the feds ... Pretense ofProtection: The FDA and Medical Devices, by ~------~ Robert Higgs (Video: V119; Audio: Al19) Government ' Please send me the tapes of the 1994 Liberty • Conference that I have marked below. "protection" that kills ... Yes The Property Rights Movement: Where Do Libertarians Fit In? __Complete Set Video @ $420.00 = _ by Jane Shaw (Video: V120; Audio: A120) Is there room __Complete Set Audio @ $165.00 = _ for libertarians in the property rights movement? Individual Sessions (list by number): Speakeasies in a New Age ofProhibition, by Durk Pearson & Sandy Shaw (Video: V121; Audio: A121) The other war on drugs ... How Property Rights Promote Peace, by Richard Stroup Total Audio Cassettes @ $ 5.95 = _ (Video: V122; Audio: A122) The new wars ofreligion ... @ $19.50 = _ A Globe ofVillages: Toward a Localist Culture and Politics, Total Video Cassettes by Bill Kauffman (Video: V123; Audio: A123) The case Postage & Handling ($5 per order)*

against gigantism, and for human scale communities ... .. foreign orders add $1.00 per audio, $2.50 per video Total _ Why Vote? by Loren Lomasky (Video: V124; Audio: A124) o My check is enclosed Why do people vote, when they're almost certain not to af o Charge my 0 Visa 0 MasterCard Expires _ fect the outcome? Signature _ Building the Cause, by Harry Browne (Video: V125; Audio: A125) How to bring freedom back to America ... Account# _ Why Libertarians Hate, by R.W. Bradford (Video: V126; Au dio: A126) The roots ofinternecine libertarian strife ... The Welfare State as Universal Solvent, by John Baden (Vid NAME

eo: V127; Audio: A127) The ill effects of government ADDRESS imposed "hannony" ... ______For a Fuzzy Libertarianism, by Bart Kosko (Video: V128; Au- L Li~~;T~:~:'~46, P.O. Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368 ... Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 my view, the answer is mixed. publishes pornographic photos of her. It stands to reason that It's good because it is another example of how the market activists would raise hell when the man asserts that the responds to consumer demand. For a modest price (about $6 a woman, who is embroiled in a sexual harassment suit, day), the private sector can provide supervised, healthy activi "enjoyed sex," thereby sanctifying·anything her harasser did. ty. Furthermore, the playgrounds vividly illustrate the fact that This frustrated, spurned boyfriend is making money off private property is better managed and·protected·than public private photographs, thereby objectifying, commodifying, property- public playgrounds are, essentially, commons. dehumanizing the woman. The feminist protests should be The unfortunate part is the fact that such playgrounds are deafening. needed. While one reason for them is the growing demand by So where are the marches, where are the full-page ads, busy parents for more day care, the most important factor is where are the screams of indignation over the treatment of fear of crime, according to Times reporter Iver Peterson. Parents Paula Jones? -JSR want to make sure that their children are playing in a safe place. Indeed, the new private playgrounds remind me of the Dirt Nazis - When the u.s. Department of Agricul chief prediction of The Bell Curve: that the U.S. is heading to ture achieved cabinet status in 1889, it consisted of 3,000 ward a condition in which elites use all the power at their employees. At that point, America had contained about five command, public and private, to protect themselves against million farms. Now the department has accumulated approxi the underclass. The present symbol of this protection is "the mately 125,000 bureaucrats, while the country has about two gated community, secure behind its walls and guard posts." Sadly, private playgrounds fit right in. A libertarian can argue that we shouldn't have public play By the year 2060, there will be no farms left grounds to begin with, but that doesn't make it acceptable for in the United States, but every man, woman, children to have to worry about being molested or mugged. The best lesson I can draw from this trend is that as civil and child will be required to wear overalls and a society deteriorates, whatever help is found will come from straw hat. the private sector. -JSS Sic Transit Gloria Steinem - You have to expect radical feminists to protest vigorously when a woman million farms. By the year 2060, there will be no farms left in in the public eye is exploited by an estranged lover who the United States, but every man, woman, and child will be required to wear overalls and a straw hat. Perhaps the Founding Fathers were investing too. much faith in their posterity when they didn't feel the need to create a federal agency to determine how we use our dirt. Today, The 1995 the USDA doesn't just tell us how to use our dirt: it's willing to back up its opinions with guns. Or at least one of its agen Mencken Awards cies - the Forest Service - is. Apparently bored with extinguishing fires and picking up old Doritos bags, the Forest Service has somehow acquired police power. Best News Story or Investigative Report I discovered this on a motorcycle excursion into one of our Best Editorial or Op-Ed Column national forests. Popular wisdom has it that motorcycles are Best Feature Story or Essay an affront to nature, and that someone like me would be Best Cartoon • Best Book better off riding through the forest on a horse. So far as I can Best Defense ofthe FirstAmendment tell, though, there's only two significant differences between a motorcycle and a horse: (1) it's nearly impossible to locate Established in 1981, the Mencken Awards offer peer recognition replacement parts for horses, and (2) I seldom step in of outstanding civil libertarian writing and canooning. Past win motorcyde excrement. ners include Nat Hentoff, Thomas Szasz, Michael IGnsley, Jane The kind of motorcycle I ride, commonly called a "dirt Jacobs, William Tucker, P.J. O'Rourke, Chip Bok, and Berke bike," used to function under the same legislative barriers as Breathed. horses: none. But on this trip, a Forest Service official went The awards are sponsored by the Free Press Association, a national out of his way to inform me that my bike needed a license network ofjournalists, broadcasters, and freelance writers commit plate and that I needed to be carrying proof of insurance. If I ted to First Amendment absolutism. Work published or broadcast didn't comply, he could issue me a ticket for $1,200. He even between January 1 and December 31 of 1994 is eligible for the showed me his stack of tickets, with immense pride. 1995 awards. The deadline for entries is April 1. Please note: I wasn't cruising down Broadway on a YZ-250. For contest rules and an entry form, send a self-addressed stamped I was in the middle of a forest, isolated from human society. envelope to the Free Press Association, P.O. Box 63, Port Had The only roads around were five feet wide and paved with lock, Washington 98339. pine cones and bugs. People say, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse." But this two awardI've received means more to me than time, it sounded like a pretty good excuse to me. I mean, Roy the Mencken Award, because ofmy admiration for Mencken andthe award's specialflcus on Rogers never had to get a license plate for Trigger. Would a jury of my peers convict me? Not if I could get the trial freedom. " -JaneJacobs, 1985 Best Book winner Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 moved to Los Angeles, where all the fun jurors are. mitters, or brain chemicals, that affect behavior." That is true, This whole problem could be avoided if we didn't have a as far as it goes. One's biochemistry could predispose one to Department of Agriculture. And we wouldn't have one, if our become violent. You could get a similar effect by being Supreme Court justices would read the Constitution they're severely deficient in vitamin C or vitamin B-6 or copper or supposed to be interpreting. It's right there in the Tenth folic acid, which are required for the· brain's manufacture of Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States such neurotransmitters as noradrenaline, dopamine, and by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are serotonin. Or you could have pellagra (a severe deficiency of reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." I've vitamin B-3), which would make you "irritable and easily perused the document, and can find no reference to federal provoked. Hey, it's not my fault. I have a vitamin deficiency. supervision of farms, let alone dirt-bike trails. But behavior does not come from nothing. Genes and But as long as the feds are more concerned with incinerat biochemistry provide the working machinery that permits ing religious groups and molesting Senate staffers than abid behavior to take place. Because of the limitations of this ing by their constitutional constraints, I may have to trade my machinery, people have particular behavioral biases or pre- Yamaha in for a horse. If the Forest Service tries to make me get a license plate for that, they can take it up with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. To believe that genes and brain chemistry -Guest reflection by Damon M. Hunzeker actually make the decisions is to imagine that Slick's willy - It's official: Paula Jones can sue Bill people are hard-wired like insects. Clinton for sexual harassment, but the trial will have to wait until.after the president leaves office. I suppose that this is the most reasonable solution anyone could have come up with, and that U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright deserves dispositions. But to believe that genes and brain chemistry our applause. But I still feel let down. Remember, this case actually make the decisions is to imagine that people are may turn on Ms. Jones' ability to describe correctly Mr. hard-wired· like insects and, like insects, cannot vary from Clinton's genitalia - which means that sooner or later, the fixed behavioral decisions. president may have to drop his .drawers and enter his Jolm You don't even need to argue over "free will" to deal with Thomas as evidence. the problem. If somebody is "determined" by their genes and In her decision, Judge Wright cited English Common Law. biochemistry so that they can't help going about killing I'd have preferred she went a little further afield, and cited people, then they should be locked up or killed (preferably by Bob Dylan: "Even the president of the United States some citizens defending themselves). Most people with predisposi times must have to stand naked." -JW tions to commit violence usually do so at a very young age and either learn to control themselves or end up dead or Sitting bullshit - I take second place to no one in jailed. -SS my disdain for the tendency known as political correctness, but some commentators spot it where it doesn't exist. In the Janu From Russia, with blood - In 1991, in these ary 23 edition of National Review, a commentary about attempts pages, I called for rescinding Mikhail Gorbachev's Nobel to bring"diversity" to the national parks contains a casual com Peace Prize. But Gorby was a veritable peacenik compared to ment making fun of the recent decision to change the name of his successor, Boris Yeltsin. When the tide turned against "Custer National Monument" to "Little Bighorn Battlefield." Gorbachev in Party Congresses or the Supreme Soviet, he Sorry, National Review - this strikes me as a fair and sensi found ways to outmaneuver his opponents politically. When ble change, in light of the fact that the site is within the con the Russian parliamentarians challenged Yeltsin, he called fines of a Crow reservation and that Custer's forces were out the troops and pumped tank shells into their offices. As soundly defeated by the Indians. Removing the name the Soviet republics began to split off from the U.S.S.R., "Custer" is no more P.C. than the fact that most southern taking land, resources, and even nuclear weapons with them, states - defeated in war, if not massacred to the extent that Gorbachev grumbled. but didn't resist. When Chechnya, a the Indians were - contain more commemorations of Stone minuscule "autonomous region" in the Caucasus with a wall Jackson than of William T. Sherman. -eS fraction of the national wealth of Kazakhstan tried to do the same thing, Yeltsin sent in the army. When ground Genes, schmenes - For a long time now, many commanders took umbrage at being ordered to attack criminals have claimed that their behavior wasn't their fault, civilians who had taken no offensive action, Yeltsin sacked that their bad environments "made" them commit crimes. them and sent in the air force. Now that the genetic bases for some kinds of behavior are be In hindsight, one misses Gorbachev and his bloodless coming widely accepted among biological scientists (though political gambits. If you seek an image to symbolize Boris not necessarily among social scientists), you will see more of Yeltsin's presidency, go no further than a blood-spattered the novel argument made by Georgia murderer Stephen child crying over the shattered body of his mother, killed in a Mobley's lawyers: that his genes "made" him kill. (See the daylight raid on a Grozny vegetable market. -JSR November 15, 1994 Wall Street Journal.) Mobley's family is loaded with people who have commit Pulp faction - As I write, the 1995 Oscar ted rape, burglary, murder, suicide, etc. His lawyers argued nominations aren't in yet, but three movies are considered that "genes help regulate the body's production of neurotrans- frontrunners: Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, and Forrest Gump. I Liberty 15 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 hope Pulp Fiction takes the honors, not just because it's the thesis is his assertion that intelligence is partly inherited ... best movie, but for political reasons. this leads to the logical conclusion that the clear disparity in The message of Quiz Show is that television substitutes a IQ between white and black Americans ... can be offset only false, manipulative spectacle for reality. In order to make this through many generations of miscegenation. It also condemns all black Americans, to several point, it tells a false, manipulative history of the 1950s quiz as a class, generations of inferiority while they try to find superior show scandals, featuring as its hero a government bureaucrat white spouses with whom to mate if they want to catch up who in real life went on to be a presidential speechwriter with whites, as a class.... that is, an inventor of false, manipulative political spectacles. It has not been 20 years since every white adult male I Quiz Show symbolizes corporate liberalism in all its gory knew was certain we would never see a black quarterback in glory: sanctimonious, hypocritical, strangely popular, and the NFL. They could jump and run, block, and tackle, but reasonably well-acted. did not have itbetween the ears. How quickly black quarter The message of Forrest Gump, on the other hand, is that it's backs and black NFL coaches seem to evolve. (Wall Street better to be retarded than to be a hippie. No wonder so many Journal, Dec. 30, 1994, italics in original.) conservatives (Pat Buchanan, Richard Grenier,· National My first response is to wonder what sort of friends Wan Review) have claimed this movie as their own. If Quiz Show is niski had 20 years ago. My adult male friends in 1975 didn't quintessentially liberal, then Forrest Gump sums up Beltway believe that that blacks were incapable of quarterbacking. conservatism: inoffensive, predictable, trite, and kind of (They also would have added passing to the list of skills dumb. needed by quarterbacks.) Defeating these two pictures means defeating the two But Wanniski is wrong .at a much more fundamental headed monster of mainstream liberalism and conservatism. level. It makes sense only if the fundamental units of society Whatever you may think of Pulp Fiction, you have to admit it's are racial classes, engaged in competition as races. This ... different. Which is just what this country needs. -]W racism is explicitly eschewed by Charles Murray, who is careful to note that he believes that at both the personal and Redistributing intelligence - I haven't fin ished reading Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein's The Bell Curve, but I have read enough of it to know that most of the criticism of the book is bizarrely wrongheaded. Intelligent people of all races would tend to Murray and Herrnstein argue that there is such a thing as rise in the professions to levels above stupid intelligence, that it is an important element in what makes an people of all races. Tom Sowell wOl1ld have no individual successful in this world, that intelligence is measur able, and that it is partly genetic. These are all empirical prop trouble competing against Dan Quayle. ositions, and the authors spend most of their. book marshall ing empirical evidence in support of them. Yet most of the criticism does not substantially challenge institutional level, all people ought to be treated as their science. Most criticism consists of attacks on the persons individuals and judged by their individual merit. of Murray and Herrnstein, along with handwringing along The Murray-Herrnstein thesis would be purely the lines of "Isn't this awful racist stuff that will undermine "academic," without implications for public policy, if the democracy?" Typical is the criticism of former Wall Street Jour United States had a uniform public policy of non nal editor Jude Wanniski: discrimination on account of race. Each individual might be In fact, the only reason there is controversy about the Murray concerned about where he fits in along the bell curve, but the issue would have nothing to do with race. Intelligent l\Nb 1'ii~tI{'H 1'"ijE' Po\JfrtDrP6rl11V-f Now I Ct\N ~r{Al AN'lIJN" .... people of all races would tend to rise in the professions H1Nl<'lN& IU1JtI( 11)I"E~t> ","f VE( ANY()Nf 1t#lJ A hJl",N~R. to levels above stupid people of all races. Tom Sowell \(\ll[~ A~fr1toU). would have no trouble competing against Dan Quayle. If American public policy were non-discriminatory (Le. individualist), the thesis that African-Americans are on average less intelligent than Euro-Americans would be of no more interest than the thesis that African Americans on average have a greater aptitude for basketball than do Euro-Americans. But America does not have a public policy of non ~[11\rAL discrimination. A whole panoply of laws require dis "'BU11«A, \1-1 Nar crimination in favor of African-Americans, based on the Ml~(LF A dubious theory that whenever white people are more ~o~\(f" prosperous at a trade or endeavor, part if not all of the explanation is that they are the beneficiaries of historic discrimination against African-Americans. Such "affir mative action" laws require businesses and governmen tal bodies take specific action to bring up the success ...J ;R..J"~~a;::::::--- continued on page 33 16 Liberty Interpretation

Liberty Triumphant? by R. W. Bradford

It was the worst of times for Libertarians - and, perhaps, the best of times for libertarians.

In the run-down row house in a Washington, D.C. slum that serves as the Liber tarian Party's national headquarters, the mood was grim. The November election had passed, and the American people had passed the Libertarians by. The voters had been fed up with big government, higher taxes, and increasing regulation. They were in to the faithful, putting on a brave face sentative Dick] Armey, for exam the precise mood that LP leaders had to the world. ple, dislikes almost all government programs equally, which is why he hoped for, had dreamed of. Finally, Across town, in the bright modern allied himself with northeastern lib the voters seemed to agree with liber offices of the nation's press corps, news reporters and analysts looked at erals to fight farm subsidies. In elec tarian attitudes on just about every toral terms, it is attractive to those issue. State after state had passed the same election results and saw a great victory for libertarianism. Karen well-off professionals who have term limits. Tax increases had gotten nothing in common with the relig Hosler of the Baltimore Sun observed nowhere, and several states had ious right but would just like to be passed measures restricting future tax that the libertarian idea of "minimal left alone. And its moral code increases. ist government ... was once·on the that everyone should be responsi The LP had managed to find an fringe but now seems closer to the ble for himself or herself and expect unprecedented number of especially mainstream of congressional no help from the state - has a cer attractive candidates. Party function thought." The Wall Street Journal re tain clarity and finality. Tearing aries had worked hard. Party mem ported that "the libertarian vision of down the state, they insist, will bers had dug deep into their pockets. limited government is the dominant work wQnders; Finally, objective conditions had ideological strain within the House Libertarian Republicans may thus seemed perfect for the LP. 1994 would majority." This appeared in a front pose a far greater political and intel be the LP's "breakthrough" year. age news article - not on the Journal's lectual challenge to Democrats than But when the voters went into the editorial page, which often. expresses either traditional conservatives or voting booth, they ignored the LP lev sympathy with libertarian ideas. the religious right. er, as usual. Instead, they voted for E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post Of course, this is not the first time Republicans. When the networks looked at the same election results that libertarian ideas seemed to be on reported the returns election night, 'and saw a great victory for liber the ascendancy. Two decades ago, the LP was as invisible as ever. tarianism: when an out-of-office Ronald Reagan In the days after the election, party The emergence of the libertarian called his political philosophy "liber functionaries were almost immobi Republicans is the story of one of tarian" in an interview on 60 Minutes, lized, sitting around their offices mut those quiet intellectual revolutions Mike Wallace responded cynically tering darkly about giving up on the that can have enormous political that libertarianism was "in" at the LP. It was days before they could impact. Libertarianism is attractive, time. A few years later, Reagan was return to work churning out optimis especially to intellectuals, because elected president, with such libertari tic press releases, sending fundraisers of its rigor and consistency. [Repre- ans as Martin Anderson and Dana Liberty 17 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

Rohrabacher among his personal staff Republican hands, where it had resid tage: in 1980, the United States was in and libertarian academics in powerful ed 16 of the previous 28 years. It volved in a Cold War with the Soviet positions in his administration. brought the Republicans a small major Union, a war to which Republicans But somehow the promise of a ity in the Senate, but left Democrats were committed and Democrats were renewal of liberty was never fulfilled. with a supermajority in the House, and not. To get money to fight the Cold The Reagan (and Bush) years saw tre with most governors and state legisla War, Republicans were willing to' pay mendous growth in the size and power tures. The Republican victory in 1994 the price demanded by the Democrats of government. In the name of the war was much broader. In its wake, who controlled Congress: capitulation on crime and the war on drugs, indi Republicans had solid majorities in the to the Democrats on many domestic vidual rights were destroyed. In the House, the Senate, the nation's govern programs. name of a stronger America, military orships, and even most state legisla Today, there is no Cold War. The intervention became the order of the tures. The only major institution under United States is virtually the only great the control of the Democrats is a much military power in the world. The Soviet weakened presidency. Obviously, the Union no longer exists. Its successor, Libertarian Party function Republicans are in a much better posi Russia, is having difficulty putting tion to implement their program. down an armed rebellion by a defiant aries were almost immobilized, Ronald Reagan ran for office on a province containing only 1.2 million sitting around their offices conservative platform. But presidential people - less than 10/0 of Russia's total muttering darkly about giving candidates traditionally run on plat population. Chechnya has about the forms with considerable ideological same proportion of Russia's population up on the LP. content. Platforms are drafted by the as Wayne County, Michigan has of national convention of the nominating America's. Can you imagine how long party, usually reflecting the ideological it would take the U.S. Army and Air day. Government spending rose even and financial interests of most constitu Force to recapture Wayne County? faster than taxes, more than quad ents of the party. After the nominating The Republicans of 1994 are much rupling. convention they are traditionally more ideologically committed than the The election of Ronald Reagan hurt ignored. Furthermore, in 1980, Reagan Reaganites of 1980. Many of the old the libertarian movement in two ways, was immensely popular at a personal line Republicans used to picking up both arising out of his widespread level, while his opponent was person scraps as members of a minority party identification as a libertarian. Among ally unpopular. As a result, Reagan's accustomed to defeat have retired. those who had sympathized with liber victory was widely perceived as only Their places (and the places of ousted tarian ideas, his election touched off a marginally ideological. certain euphoria that made them less In contrast, the stunning GOP victo inclined toward activism or philanthro ry in 1994 was based on Newt Gin py. Among the general public, libertar grich's brilliant idea of nationalizing My own attitude toward ianism was identified with Reagan's the elections by getting Republican Cato can be summed up in a program, including elements that were candidates to agree on a "Contract cliche: It's dirty work, but not libertarian; the perceived failure of with America," a specific agenda of Reagan's programs was often blamed programs for reducing the power of somebody has got to do it. on libertarianism. government. Clinton and the Demo Will history repeat itself? Will the crats played into Gingrich's hands by Republican triumph in the 1994 elec campaigning against the Contract, Democrats) have been taken by hard tions have the same short-term impact leaving no doubt in anyone's mind line conservatives, unwilling to make as the Reagan election? Will the Repub that it was the subject of the election. compromises of the sort Bush and licans fail to cut taxes, reduce spend Furthermore, no one could suggest Reagan made on taxes, spending, envi ing, and stem the erosion of liberty that the popularity of the Republican thereby discrediting libertarian ideas? leader was a factor. Most Americans ronmental regulation, and a host of Will marginal libertarians again aban had never heard of Newt Gingrich, other issues. don activism? and of the few who were familiar with There's one more reason to be opti Before jumping to these easy con him, most had vaguely negative feel mistic about the next two years: the clusions, let's consider how different ings. The 1994 election was the most is emergence of the Cato Institute as one things are in 1994 from 1980. sue-oriented in recent history, and it of the most influential think tanks in was also the most decisive. the United States. It is almost impossi The Fin de Siecle Difference So the Republicans of today have ble to pick up a newspaper these days There are at least three major differ two major advantages over the Reaga without reading about the Cato ences between the Republican victory nites in 1980. They have greater control Institute: in 1994 and the Reagan election in of the institutions of power, and they • "Cato Institute's Influence Grows in 1980. The Reagan election brought the have a much greater popular mandate. Washington As Republican office of the presidency back into And they enjoy one additional advan- Dominated Congress Sets Up 18 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

Shop" (Headline, The Wall Street it has sometimes advocated policies In mid-December, the Bipartisan Journal) that merely roll back the power of gov Commission on Entitlement and Tax • "One measure of libertarianism's ernment when I prefer a more radical Reform finished its investigations. The rise is the growing role of the approach. But Cato is operating within 32-member commission quickly identi Washington-based Cato Institute a different milieu, and while Monday fied the problem, and developed 52 as a generator of ideas that find morning quarterbacking is fun and different proposals to bring entitle themselves into Republican legis sometimes enlightening, it is pretty ment spending under control. The lative proposals and rhetoric." plain that Cato has been consistently, result was an orgy of complaints from (Analysis, the Washington Post) persistently libertarian in a situation the recipients. And there are a lot of • IICato is well-connected.... Its where the temptations to abandon recipients: the average American family influence is on the rise because its principle have been omnipresent. receives more than $10,000 per year in fundamentalism offers Republi My own attitude toward Cato can cans a reminder of the true faith." entitlements. be summed up in a cliche: It's dirty (Editorial, The Economist) In a show of courage typical of • IIMaybe the word 'conservative' American politicians, the Commission does not apply to these new never even voted on whether to en Republicans at all, said Edward "There have always been dorse any of the proposed cuts. In the Crane III, head of the Cato Insti Indians who like to hang end, the Commission decided not even tute, a libertarian think tank advo to issue a report. Instead it sent a letter cating minimalist government, around the fort," said Russell to President Clinton, ominously warn which was once on the fringe but Means. ing that "tough action is needed sooner now seems closer to the main rather thanlater." stream of congressional thought." The problem is epitomized by a work, but somebody has got to do it. (Analysis, the Seattle Times) Wall Street /ournal/NBC poll conducted Concocting criticisms of every depre It took a lot of hard work and vi just as the Bipartisan Commission dation thought up by nitwit politi sion for Cato to attain this status. Cato threw in the towel. The survey report cians, developing programs to roll was founded in San Francisco in 1977 ed that 59% of respondents favor back the state, and sucking up to the as a sort of omnibus libertarian think cutting entitlement spending, with media and politicians doesn't sound tank. For years after it moved to Wash only 320/0 opposed. But when asked like fun to me. But I am glad that ington, D.C. and began to reposition whether they favor cutting specific someone is doing it. And gladder that itself as a policy institute, it was a programs (Social Security, Medicare, they are doing it so well. fringe player on the American political In sum, the 1994 GOP has greater Medicaid, and farm subsidies), only stage. Only in the past few years has it power, fewer distractions, a greater 230/0 favored cuts, with a whopping managed to capture the limelight. mandate, and greater ideological com 70% opposed. Libertarians have a curious attitude mitment than the Reaganites of 1980. So while the Republicans might toward Cato. Most are pleased that And it looks to the Cato Institute for manage to cut back around the periph Cato is hard at work, day-in, day-out, ideas on policy. Sounds like paradise, ery of the state, the problem of our bur criticizing just about all government right? geoning national debt will almost intervention, whether into the econo Not exactly. Even with all these ad certainly remain unaddressed. Unfortu my, the intellectual marketplace, or vantages over 1980, the 1994 model nately, it is a problem that will eventu foreign nations, and offering libertari Republican still faces serious obstacles. ally make the other problems seem very an policy alternatives to those inter And the problems don't come from the small. When entitlements and interest ventions. But many libertarians' feel Democrats, who seem to have implod on the debt take up 750/0 of all tax reve ings about Cato are more complex. ed into a sort of bankruptcy, intellectu nues, the pressure for even higher taxes "There have always been some In al, moral and political. and the consequent decline in produc dians who like to hang around the tivity will likely lead to aneconomic cri fort," was Russell Means' answer The Seductive Poverty of sis. And like past economic crises, the when I asked him his opinion of Cato. Welfare Statism ultimate result will probably be a tre Means' colorful metaphor illustrates I refer, of course, to the problem of mendous increase in state power. many libertarians' attitudes. By hang the ballooning national debt, which If entitlements aren't reduced, that ing around Washington and dealing can be solved only by reducing (or crisis will occur less than 20 years from mainly with news media, elected offi eliminating) middle-class entitlements, now. And the outlook isn't very good. cials, and their staffs, Cato seems like it which currently consume approxi The GOP has controlled Congress for has been corrupted by its dealings with mately $750 billion each year. Many barely one week, and already GOP politicians and the media. politicians realize that the debt is a leaders have backed down on cutting I personally don't worry much problem that can be dealt with only by the pork from the Small Business Ad about Cato's mortal soul. In its 15 reducing entitlements. But they are ministration, redUcing farm subsidies, years in Washington, Cato has painfully aware of the fate of politi and even their promise to sell off a sur remained true to its libertarian princi cians who actually propose reducing plus House of Representatives office ples in virtually every situation. Sure, middle-class entitlements. building. 0 Liberty 19 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 Encomia

Murray N. Rothbard 1926 --1995

Murray Newton Rothbard was born in New York on March 2, increasingly revolutionary position. In 1969, he and Hess launched 1926. As a child, he rejected the socialism that dominated his The Libertarian (later The Libertarian Forum), a biweekly environment. At Columbia University in 1948, he helped organize newsletter, and organized the Radical Libertarian Alliance. Students for Thurmond. (Strom Thurmond ran that year in Rothbard's circle now numbered in the hundreds. At the 1969 protest against the racial integrationist policies ofHarry convention ofYoung Americans for Freedom, a conservative Truman.) Rothbard became a libertarian shortly thereafter, largely student group, RLA members precipitated a walkout of through contact with the Foundation for Economic Education. libertarians, an event that some consider to be the birth ofthe During the 1950s, while pursuing his doctorate at Columbia modern libertarian movement. University, he attended Ludwig von Mises' famous seminars on But Rothbard and Hess differed over strategy, and in 1970 they Austrian economics at New York University, where Rothbard ended their alliance. When the Libertarian Party was organized in organized like-tninded students into an informal group he called 1971, Rothbard was at first hostile. But in 1973 he changed his the Circle Bastiat. In 1957, he joined Ayn Rand's circle, along mind, joined the party, and quickly became its ideological leader with other members ofthe Circle Bastiat. Within a year he broke and most celebrated member. He wrote for its newspaper, was a with Rand, along with some other members ofhis group. member ofits National Committee, and attended its conventions. Rothbard's libertarian thinking was grounded in a theory of He remained the single greatest influence on the Libertarian Party absolute individual rights virtually identical to Ayn Rand's. But for the next 16 years, always taking pains to see that it adopted his unlike Rand, Rothbard was convinced that this rights theory led to strategy, that its platform reflected Rothbardian views. anarchism. He also differed from Rand - and from most It was at this time that his influence on the libertarian libertarians - in his radical and principled anti-interventionism movement peaked. In addition to his role in the LP, he wrote a in international affairs, and his belief that the United States was regular column, "The Plumb Line," for Libertarian Review; he the aggressor in the Cold War. also wrote a column for Reason. He helped organize the first As a result ofthese beliefs, Rothbard and his circle were libertarian think tank, the Center for Libertarian Studies, in 1976, isolated from the nascent libertarian movement ofthe early 1960s, and edited its lively scholarly Journal of Libertarian Studies. which generally sympathized with Arnerica's anti-Communist When the better-funded Cato Institute eclipsed CLS in 1977, he foreign policy. In 1964, in afamous letter to Liberal Innovator, took a position there as resident scholar, and CLS became relatively the major libertarian publication ofthat period, Rothbard inactive. denounced both Barry Goldwater (whose candidacy was generally Late in 1980, he split with Ed Crane, Cato's founder and the supported by libertarians) and the conservative movement as "the architect ofthe LP's growth during the late 1970s. Crane moved pre-eminent enemies ofliberty ofour time," concluding that Cato from San Francisco to Washington, where it repositioned "those libertarians who believe in taking part in the political itselffroln academic think tank to public policy institute. During process should bend their every effort to defeat Barry Goldwater the following three years, Rothbard and Crane feuded within the and all Goldwaterite candidates in Novelnber." LP; Rothbard triumphed at the particularly fractious LP During the late 1960s, as the Vietnam War escalated, most convention in 1983, and Crane left the party, never to return. libertarians moved toward Rothbard's opposition to foreign During the next few years, Rothbard resumed his role as the intervention, though Rothbard's views on the U.S. as universal party's leading celebrity and guru. (Rothbard gave his account of aggressor remained unpopular. During this period, Rothbard and his feud with Crane in great detail in the pages ofLibertarian his friend Leonard Liggio refined their position in their magazine Vanguard and Libertarian Forum.) Left and Right. In 1968, former Goldwater speechwriter Karl By 1987, Rothbard was telling friends that he planned to resign Hess embraced Rothbard's views, and the two led many from the LP, but his interest was temporarily rekindled when libertarians toward alliance with the political Left and toward an former Congressman Ron Paul decided to seek the LP's presidential 20 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 nomination. In 1989, he did resign from the Libertarian Party and a fellow member with Murray of the Columbia University fa moved to the Right, to a position he dubbed "paleolibertarianism." culty seminar on the History of Legal and Political Thought. He ended his relationship with all libertarian organizations and Among Murray's historian friends were Ralph Raico, Joseph R. publications except for the Ludwig von Mises Institute and the Peden, Leonard Leib, Justus Doenecke, and myself. An impor CLS, both ofwhich he controlled, and began to write occasionally tant role in Murray's interest in history, philosophy, and theol for conservative publications. ogy was played by his wife, Joey. -Leonard P. Liggio Throughout his career Rothbard maintained a steady flow of scholarly writing. He also was an active journalist, editing and am a scribbler by profession and preference, and I have writing extensively for libertarian magazines and newsletters and cranked out more than my fair share of forgettable occasionally in the popular press. He continued editing The I words. But compared to Murray Rothbard's output, I am Libertarian Forum until 1985, though in its later years it a piker. Murray's throw-away essays in obscure ideological appeared only irregularly. Between 1979 and 1982 he wrote journals with a life expectancy of three years or less were of frequently for Libertarian Vanguard; in the late '80s he wrote greater intellectual value than most articles published in pres movement material for the American Libertarian. He was an tigious scholarly journals. This may be why he never both editor ofLibertyfrom its launch in 1987 until he disengaged ered to publish much in scholarly journals - "incompetence himselffrom the libertarian movement. Since 1990, he and his by association" - and why his essays would have been friend Llewellyn. Rockwell (of the Mises Institute) published The returned promptly if he had tried. The visibly less competent Rothbard-Rockwell Report, a paleolibertarian newsletter. do not want to be shown up by comparison. On January 7, Murray Rothbard died ofa cardiac arrest in the As a stylist, he was a master. The gray sludge rhetoric of city ofhis birth. He was 68. academic discourse never intruded into his pages except when he was quoting some scholar verbatim, which he rarely t is a mark of Murray's greatness that he has left us did. Rare is the occasion when a reader with with so many good memories of his personali- an IQ above Forrest Gump's says to him I ty and intellect. At Cornell University in self, "This just isn't clear" when reading 1973 he and Forrest McDonald lectured at an something by Rothbard. He wrote to be IHS seminar on American economic history. In understood, and he was understood, addition to his late night singing of Cole Port- which is why he was academically er and hymns, Murray and Joey joined some unemployable for most of his career. of us going swimming at Buttermilk With the exception of Isaac Newton, Falls Park. One of the students was in those who have reshaped Western cul the water pestering Murray about bond ture's thinking have been recognized rate forecasts. In frustration at this thick only posthumously by the academic headedness, Murray sank into the water guild. Marx never got a university teach over his head even though he hated to be ing position. Neither did Darwin. Neither underwater. Murray was subjected to much did Freud. Ifyou are recognized as a giant by more than his fair share of pesterers. the academic guild when you are alive, you Murray's distinctive quality was his open will probably be superseded and forgotten ness to people with clear thinking and good within a generation: a defender of one more lost ideas. Many scholars benefited from Murray's cause in a profession dedicated to lost causes. thoughtful discussions regarding economics, Think of Mises. His main academic post, at New York philosophy, history, legal theory, etc. Although University, was as an untenured visiting professor: Larry there has been a harvest of his economic and Fertig put up the money to pay his salary. He got this job philosophical writings, his contributions in history have when he was about 63 years old. Rothbard's posts at only partly made themselves felt. We are lucky that his histo Brooklyn Polytechnic and at the University of Nevada, Las ry of economic thought - Economic Thought Before Adam Vegas were not granted for the magnitude of his academic ac Smith and Classical Economics - now has been published. It is complishments. His ideas will penetrate the academic commu a long-awaited magnum opus. nity only when college professors are no longer on the public Murray's intellectual life has been a preparation to write payroll. This will take a while. this multi-volume history of economic thought. Murray's con He achieved more lasting scholarly output in approxi tact with Ludwig von Mises was a major intellectual and per mately one year of publishing than most scholars achieve in a sonal milestone. Mises not only had a major impact on Mur lifetime: The Panic of 1819 (1962), Man, Economy, and State ray's understanding ofeconomic science, butMises' interest in (1962), and America's Great Depression (1963). He threw in four history and philosophy had an influence on Murray. Murray volumes of colonial American history, Conceived in Liberty trained himselftobe a greathistorian and a greatphilosopher. (1975-79), almost as an afterthought. He never got around to Murray studied contemporary rational philosophy, and writing the fifth. It was a spare time project. Astounding. then studied the history of rational philosophy, leading to his In response, the academic community shrugged its collec expertise on Scholastic philosophers. This permitted him to tive shoulders. (My apologies to his memory: I have invoked understand and describe their contributions to economics. In a .collective.) It took two decades for any historian to pick up this he had the model of Raymond de Roover. A similar histo the trail of America's Great Depression: Paul Johnson, in Modern rian friend was Howard Adelson ofCity College ofNew York, Times. Johnson is also a near-outcast among academic Liberty 21 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 historians, but he is one of the great historians of this century, microscopically small, he helped to shape its development, which is why he is not employed by any university and why and he continued to-be politically active at a time when the he was smart enough and professionally immune enough to movement had grown astonishingly large. He knew every give Rothbard his due. So those of us who recognized thing about libertarianism, and he provided a vital link be Rothbard's greatness during his lifetime, and who shameless tween its future and its past. But his most personal contribu ly tapped into his fertile mind in our quest to make sense of tion was his special gift for ensuring that the movement to the world, have been fringe people. But it is better to be an aca preserve American freedom would preserve America's own demically unemployable fringe scholar footnoting Rothbard free style and spirit. -Stephen Cox as a reliable source than to be a tenured professor footnoting Paul Samuelson or Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. -Gary North here probably never will be alternative "schools" inter preting what Murray Rothbard "meant" when he used to identify Murray Rothbard with his ideas. Mur T advocated free markets and extremely limited govern ray challenged everyone to think the unthinkable about ment. This despite the fact that Rothbard's preferred means I all the things that we can do for ourselves, without for limiting government was the controversial "anarchic" one depending on government. He pushed that idea to the edge; of prohibiting compulsory citizenship - that is, of forcing the on occasion, perhaps, he pushed it over the edge. But he was institutions of police, courts, militias, etc. to acquire clients no wild-eyed eccentric. He was a scholar who expounded only by contract, thereby placing government in the (invisible) Mises' economics more clearly than the master, and whose hands of market competition. own economics and politics derived their persuasive force There will always be disagreement, of course, on the merits from his remarkable knowledge of history. Murray's intellec of his ideas. And I suppose that as long as people care-about tual systems - anarcho-capitalism, paleolibertarianism what he wrote there will be disagreement about why he developed a substance and precision that few modern isms believed as he did. But as we mark his passing, let us remem can boast. ber that he was always very clear about what he was saying. At some point, however, I stopped associating Murray He was no obscurantist. Unlike Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, primarily with those isms or worrying about the extent to Dewey, Hayek, or many another eminent writer or thinker, which I agreed or disagreed with them. I saw that Murray Rothbard did not leave himself open to the kind of predatory was much more than the protagonist in a certain kind of scholarship that plagues our intellectual and academic life. On intellectual debate. I began to see him in his broader and this level, at least, Rothbard was not only honest, but dedicat more important role, as an American. ed to clarity as a way of life. I'm not talking about'where he was born, of course; I'm I knew him chiefly as a reader, and most often think of talking about who he was. Murray was not the kind ofliber him as a consummate stylist, a great explainer, and a marve tarian who just expresses the classic American belief in free lous entertainer. How will future generations judge him? dom and the open society. He was a free and open person. I Probably as a synthesizer of several diverse, but surprisingly know that this is an astonishing thing to say about a college complementary, intellectual traditions. Two are worth men professor, but I am a college professor myself, and I know tioning: the Austrian school of economics and the earlier what I'm talking about. French liberal (or "harmony") school of Bastiat and Molinari. Our academic traditions and systems of authority are This can be seen best in his classic 1956 essay "Toward a derived from European models of subservience to a suppos Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics," wherein he edly elite intellectual leadership. This subservience is ren brilliantly explicated the version of the marginal utility con dered even drearier by a supposedly scientific reluctance to cept developed by his mentor, Ludwig von Mises, defending discuss any issues outside one's narrowest specialization. But it against trendier alternatives, and took on modem welfare Murray had another way of being. He was subservient to economics by expanding the characteristically laissez-faire no nothing, and he was interested in everything. Anyone could tions of the French classical liberal economists. It may be-that become part of the endlessly expanding conversation that he mostly echoed others' ideas, but somehow-these ideas Murray carried on in person and in writing. Ifyou had some seem IOl~lder and clearer in the echo. thing to say, Murray would respond. You might not like his Rothbard was the kind of teacher that the world needs response, but what he handed you would never be the pom more of. If, on his death, we feel that social utility has some pous oracles of an academic priest. It would be fresh, forth how taken a nosedive, we can be confident that things will right, and often hilariously entertaining. improve - in part, no doubt, because of the enduring influ Like every other great conversationalist, Murray knew ence of his best work. -Timothy Virkkala that no topic has any inherent interest. He always knew that it was up to him to make his topics interesting, and he always lthough I knew Murray Rothbard for over 40 years, did. Libertarianism, like every other political movement, is our contacts, mostly at occasional conferences, were ordinarily a mighty dull t~pic, and doubly dull when it is A fewer than I would have liked. I first met him in New treated, as political topics are normally treated by their parti York around 1950 on some occasion unconnected with our sans, with canting solemnity. That wasn't Murray's style. He both being graduate students at Columbia University. (We was a libertarian, but he was never a pious libertarian. Al did not fully overlap in time; and anyway, students numbered though he occupied an importantplace in the movement, he in the hundreds in some graduate economics courses in those wasn't pious about himself, either. early postwar years. ) Murray joined the libertarian movement when it was Murray and Joey invited me to dinner once or twice, prob- 22 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 ably in the summerof1981, atthe house they werethenrenting t is impossible to communicate how exciting Murray made in Palo Alto, California. There, as on other occasions, he was a ideas seem to those of us who crowded into his book-laden delightful host, full of humor and exuberance. He told a rio I New York apartment. Everyone who walked out his door tously funny story about himself, Joey, and Ayn Rand, a story rushed home to look up references, to write up an idea, or to repeated inJerome Tucille'sIt Usually Begins With Ayn Rand. phone a friend to share a fresh insight. His many kindnesses Once when he and Joey were spending a night at my were often unseen. They consisted of a word in the correct ear house in Charlottesville, I asked him to autograph the several on someone's behalf, a letter of encouragement to an impover of his books that I had at hand. Only afterwards did I discov ished scholar who was"on the right track," or just a phone call er, to my horror, that I had written candid assessments in the in which he bubbled over about the importance of "our strug fronts of the books. Yet, so far as I could tell, Murray never gle." One such phone call reached me when I was particularly held these rather mixed judgments against me. discouraged about an index of Tucker's Liberty I was compil Nor did he bristle at knowing that I found his position on ing. "It's key! It's key!" Murray assured me. And when Murray particular issues, notably the Cold War, highly idiosyncratic. stated something, you tended to believe ... He showed similar kindness when I wrote him about his pur ... partly because of the gusto with which he stated it. ported derivations (as in The Ethics of Liberty) of all sorts of Murray was crazy about being alive. He sometimes despaired specific policy positions from a couple of axioms about natu over those of the younger generation who were stiff-backed, ral rights. Several times he went to the·trouble of composing stiff-minded Randians. I remember one conversation in which multi-page letters to answer my concerns. he exhorted me to eat red meat, drink gin, and make love as Unlike some libertarian professors, Murray was no mere often as possible. On discovering I was on a diet, he waved a ideologue or propagandist. He was a dedicated scholar. The piece of pastry under my nose and exclaimed, "Every calorie self-importantly scientific types in academic economics gave says yes!! to life!" him less recognition than he deserved, however; and if he Two generations of the best libertarians became Rothbard were starting his career nowadays, he would fare even less ians. Many of us' came from the black-and-white world of well among these methodologically arrogant workers on the Rand. As in the movie The Wizard of Oz, when we left Kansas supposed frontiers of the discipline. What Ayn Rand called and walked through Murray's front door, life and ideas second-handism has infected these circles: the quest for pres became technicolor. -Wendy McElroy tige - the anxiety to look good by the standards of persons who are aping still other persons - has gained ground over urray Rothbard really was what intellectuals are the goal of learning and teaching how the real world actually supposed to be, but hardly ever are in fact: open works and might even be improved. M minded, curious about a thousand things, only too Murray Rothbard was different, thank God. He has given happy to encounter dissent, always a model of sweet reason, the rest of us a sorely needed example of intellectual and steadfast in his support of liberty. independence. -Leland B. Yeager I suppose I am biased because the first time I met him he mentioned a book I had written about New Orleans jazz riests in training a.re not prepared to deal with an in one of those odd subjects he unexpectedly knew a lot about. ternationally renowned libertarian theoretician who Not only had he read the book, but he quoted a couple of P says, "You know, Father, I can't quite bring myself to things I had said that I had completely forget about myself. believe in God, but I do believe Mary was His mother." I met him only a few times but he was always the same; The remark was made at the conclusion to what had been cheerful, original, filled with optimism and youthful enthu a fine meal coupled with scintillating conversation. My siasm for new ideas. All who knew him must now be thinking response was to turn the water glass that remained on the with regret about the things they meant to say to him, the con table into an impromptu baptismal font and, holding it aloft versations they meant to hold. I meant to go to Las Vegas and his head, entreating, "Murray, just give the word." spend a couple of days with him - we even discussed it. I rel Murray never gave that word. ished the incongruity of Murray Rothbard in such garish Yet here was a traditional iconoclast; an unbeliever who surroundings. knew more about natural law and Thomist thought (and He lived through an age that tried to abolish economic rea held to quite a bit of it) than many theologians I know; an soning, and substitute socialism for it. He resolutely opposed individual who, while not subscribing to a religious faith, that Zeitgeist. I imagine that some time in the next century, nevertheless energetically defended the positive role that when our reigning dogmas are long forgotten, he will be rec religion played in formulating classical liberal ideas. So ognized as one of the most original economists of his day. strong were these defenses that Murray actually had to refute People will surely marvel that it was only in the last few years the rumors that he had become a Catholic. of his life that he was allowed to teach at a major university. If the southern writer Flannery O'Connor.could be called -Tom Bethell the Hill Billy Thomist, then Murray Rothbard has earned the title of the Agnostic Thomist. met Murray Rothbard 40 years ago, at Ludwig von Mises' This priest feels a spiritual loss on Murray's passing, New York University seminar. We became friends and I which is eased only by the hope that the God whom Murray I joined the "Circle Bastiat," a group of his young admirers, couldn't quite grasp may now embrace Murray with His ten most of whom later became academics. der understanding, and introduce him, at last, to His mother. In October 1957, when Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged Requiescant in pace. -Robert Sirico was published, Murray arranged for our group to meet with Liberty 23 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 her. We started at 8 p.m. and left at 8 a.m., everyone exhaust me he enjoyed meeting a congressman who not only read his ed except Ayn and Murray. He repeatedly defended Atlas books but used them as a guide in his votes and legislation. A against hostile critics, including Whittaker Chambers' hate close and lasting friendship was the result, which wasn't ful tirade in National Review. (I recall a reply he wrote to a hard. Murray was the sweetest, funniest, most generous of reviewer who charged that Dagny Taggart was sexually pro men. miscuous. Wrong, he explained, Dagny had practiced "serial He was also a great help with the Minority Report of the monogamy.") U.S. Gold Commission, published as The Case for Gold. But Murray soured on Ayn and dismissed Objectivism as who could be surprised? He was our greatest academic expert "derivative" after he and Nathaniel Branden clashed over a on the history and economics of the gold standard. charge that Murray was guilty of plagiarism. He had not cit When I last talked to Murray, a few days before his un ed Atlas Shrugged in a scholarly article he had written, timely death, he urged me to run for office again. Recent elec though he did footnote unpublished master's theses by two tions or not, he said, our side needs an uncompromising anti young Objectivists. When George Reisman and I fou~d Mur statist voice in Washington, D.C. ray's explanation - that one does not cite novels in an aca The founder of modern libertarianism and an economist, demic essay - lame, he ordered us to leave his apartment historian, and political philosopher of extravagant accom and sent us each a tattered dollar-bill, signifying our expul plishments, Murray also loved - and was an expert in sion from the "Circle Bastiat." Dixieland jazz, the religious paintings of the Renaissance, bas I did not see or speak to him for almost 30. years, yet I ketball, baroque church architecture, and the nitty-gritty of remained a faithful reader of his books and articles, especial politics. With tremendous zest for life and for the battle, he ly enjoying his movie reviews under the byline "Mr. First defended our freedom and our property, and built the ideas Nighter" in his monthly, The Libertarian Fonlm. He preferred that are their foundation. older movies to newer ones. His favorites included Groucho Murray N. Rothbard is now for the ages. My heart goes Marx and Cary Grant comedies, sentimental romances, and out to Joey, his wife of 41 years, and to all who knew him. We the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, reflecting the have lost a matchless champion of freedom. -Ron Paul warm, bourgeois side of his personality, which was seldom seen in his hot-tempered polemical writings. hat can be said, in so short a space, about Murray Six or seven years ago, when he was lecturing at Stanford Rothbard the libertarian? Only that without Mur University, I approached him to ask about the status of his W ray Rothbard, there may well have never been a book about the Progressives, whom he detested. We chatted libertarian movement - certainly not the movement we amiably and he told me that he had switched to writing a know. No Liberty. No Reason. No Cato Institute. No Laissez history of economic thought, in which he would demolish Faire Books. Virtually every libertarian from the 1960s on Adam Smith's reputation as a champion of liberty. (The first wards was influenced directly and profoundly by the work of two volumes have just been published.) Murray Rothbard. Among the rest, most were influenced by Murray's personality was dominated by his need to be some Rothbardian. waging battle. If his viewpoint ever became widely accepted, Before Murray Rothbard's influence was felt, there were I suspect he would have defected and expounded a new isolated pockets of liberals, individualist anarchists, and Ob minority position. I never will accept his views on the Cold jectivists. There were a few organizations doing important War, or understand his admiration for Pat Buchanan or his work. There were thousands of people inspired by the novels alliance with the "paleoconservatives." Nonetheless, I will of Ayn Rand. But there was no Libertarian Movement. Before miss his lucid writings and his incredible erudition. It is a movement could be born, there had to be a systematizer, a impossible to imagine anyone filling the intellectual void radicalizer, a popularizer; for only by first systematizing, radi created by his untimely death. -Robert Hessen calizing, and popularizing the inchoate body of thought called liberal could enough people, particularly young peo merica has lost one of her greatest men, and the free ple, be galvanized into what could be called a movement. dom movement one of its greatest heroes: Murray N. Luckily, a man came along with the intelligence, the A Rothbard. In his 25 books and thousands of articles breadth of knowledge, the originality, the inexhaustible ener - not to speak of his personal example - Murray was an gy, and, not least of all, the charisma to do the herculean job: inspiration. With his death, all who cherish individual rights Murray Rothbard. That's why we called him Mr. Libertarian. and oppose the welfare-warfare state are the poorer. That's why that honorific has never been, and could never be, Murray was a world-class Austrian economist, and he conferred on anyone else. -Sheldon Richman influenced thousands of students. I was one of them, for he taught me about economics and liberty, and encouraged my urray was one of the twentieth century's greatest in political work against war, inflation, and big government. tellectual champions of liberty, so it is hardly sur Although I had read Murray for years, I didn't meet him M prising that many members of the academic main until 1979. I wrote him, he wrote back, and I invited him to stream viewed him, if they viewed him at all, as a fanatic the "belly of the beast" - the U.S. Congress. I knew he had a preaching a dogma. But how could a mere zealot have great mind, but instead of a pompous professor, I discovered acquired such immense erudition? a joyous libertarian, and one of the most fascinating human When Murray wrote me early in 1987 inviting me to join beings I've ever met. the editorial board of the Review of Austrian Economics, I re I loved talking to this down-to-earth genius. And he told sponded that I would be honored but, to allay possible misun- 24 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 derstanding, I explained why I did not consider myself a CIA at the time (1974). When I was interviewed by Robert Ke "card-carrying" Austrian economist. phart, the publisher of the newsletter, I mentioned my contact Murray replied, "No 'loyalty oath' is required or desired. with Rothbard. Kephart called Rothbard, who apparently More broadly, I think that the discipline, particularly in phi gave me a positive recommendation. The rest is history. losophy and the social sciences, advances by the develop Since my first meeting with Murray, our relationship ment of different schools of thought, who almost always con flourished, and I became a major financial supporter of sist of 'card-carriers,' sympathizers, etc., and who interact Austrian free-market think tanks (the Mises Institute, the Cato with each other and various degrees of eclectics. Not only is Institute, and the Foundation for Economic Education, among there nothing wrong with this, but this is precisely how others) and was a contributor to The Review of Austrian Eco these sciences or disciplines develop, and, one hopes, nomics, which was edited by Murray. I spoke at many confer advance more than they retreat. I think all sciences would be ences along with Rothbard and other Austrian economists, the poorer if there were no schools of thought, or if there sponsoring a conference in Vienna in 1988 and an anti-Keynes were no moderates or eclectics. As in every other walk of conference at Harvard in 1989. life, there is a division of labor here as well." The tragedy of Murray Rothbard's premature death is that In the years that followed, Murray never failed to support he was a scholar with unfinished work - in particular, his gi me and my scholarship. I was honored to work with him in a gantic multi-volume history of economic thought. I commis number of programs and conferences, and I relished the long, sioned him to write it back in 1981; it was supposed to be a warm, wise, and witty letters he sent me. He went far beyond 300-page, one-volume review of the major economists, a vast just tolerating me, and I shall miss him terribly. ly improved alternative to Heilbroner's popular yet misguid -RobertHiggs ed The Worldly Philosophers. True to Murray's burgeoning style, the book soon developed into a Schumpeterian tome, or me, Murray Rothbard was the Newton of economic going from 300 pages to 3,000. There were far too many inter thinking. I was first introduced to his cogent, convinc ruptions in writing the history, and so only two volumes were F ing prose in reading his little eight-page article, "The published - just this month. Great Society: A Libertarian Critique." Out of small things I don't know how far along Murray was in the third vol come great things, and I soon discovered Austrian econom ume, but his analysis of twentieth-century economics will be ics and the grand traditions of Carl Menger,' Eugen von sorely missed. -Mark Skousen Bohm-Bawerk, Ludwig von Mises, and F.A. Hayek. But it was Rothbard's Americanization of Austrian economics that he only time Murray Rothbard became visibly upset excited me. Rothbard's pamphlet, What Has Government Done with me -I could tell by a slight gritting of the teeth to Our Money? (1964), hit me like a bolt of lightning, reveal T that contrasted with his usual joyous demeanor - was ing the mysteries of money and banking. His account of the when I was pushing pessimism in the form of Public Choice origin and evolution of the dollar was like a revelation from economics at a summer conference of the Mises Institute. on high. (This is especially ironic, given what I learned about Liberty has no chance in a democracy, I told one and all, economics at Brigham Young University from Paul Samuel because the game is permanently fixed against us. son's statist textbook). Many leaders in the hard-money Dr. Rothbard balked. He explained that we should be movement (Gary North, Jack Pugsley, Jerome Smith, James "short-term pessimists" because events necessitate it, and U. Blanchard Ill, and Harry Browne, among others) felt the "long-term optimists," because truth will out in the end. same way. In fact, Murray Rothbard is the intellectual Moreover, he thought it would constitute a performative con founder of the hard-money movement. As Larry Abraham tradiction to be gloomy about the long run. Why devote one has stated, "Murray Rothbard is the best popularizer of the self to the scholarship and cause of liberty if we are destined 'Austrian' school of economics who has ever lived." to live under state tyranny forever? Thus pessimism becomes My enlightenment continued with Rothbard's America's a self-fulfilling prophecy, just as optimism, if you believe in Great Depression, which offered the one of the first scholarly the power of ideas, increases the likelihood of a quicker proofs that the 1930s debacle was caused by government, victory. not free-market capitalism. (The other was Friedman and I can't remember if I was convinced at the time, but look Schwartz's Monetary History of the United States). Then, as a ing back, he was clearly correct, not only logically but empiri graduate student, I read his magnum opus, Man, Economy, cally. He told me that in 1989, long before the public ground and State. In fact, as my wife will attest, I read this thousand swell against the central state was obvious to one and all. He page tome on our honeymoon - well, some of it, anyway! was nearly always correct - about theory, events, and people Reading it reminded me of the words of Wordsworth: "Bliss - and always ahead of his time. If he enjoyed saying "I told was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very you so," he could have done it, and rightly, ad infinitum. He heaven." didn't have time and he didn't really care; he was on to the I went on to obtain a Ph.D. in economics, doing my dis next project and the next battle. -Jeffrey Tucker sertation in 1977 at George Washington lJniversity on the Rothbard-inspired topic, "The 100% Gold Standard." I could urray struck people who didn't know him as a even say that my job as a financial writer was due to Murray wild, eccentric thinker. That is how I thought of Rothbard. A few months before applying to become manag M him for many years. When I finally got to know ing editor of The Inflation Survival Letter, I met with Rothbard him, I found him exhilaratingly reasonable in even his most at his apartment in New York City. I was working for the unconventional views. This is such a rare quality that I have Liberty 25 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 tried to analyze it. ty of scientific Wertfreiheit, and banking policy (Rothbard Murray's earliest memory of a political conversationwas would require 100% gold·. backing for banknotes). Yet Mises of a family gathering in the '30s at which his relatives, most respected Rothbard, and Rothbard's many profound theoreti of them Communists, were denouncing Franco. The prepu cal works, books, papers, and articles reflect sincere and pro bescent Murray Rothbard shocked them by asking, "What's found respect for Mises and his teachings, and make real con so bad about Franco, anyway?" In that setting, the question tributions to economic understanding. was heretical. Murray started young. With his restless mind and his intellectual curiosity, That incident was typical of Murray. He wasn't perverse; Murray must have led his parents a merry chase as he was just the opposite. Most people are herd thinkers; he wasn't. growing up. Always an independent thinker, he was a loyal He distrusted herd thinking, which causes whole societies to spokesman for his beliefs and a relentless critic of ideas with err without knowing it, and he instinctively sought to restore which he disagreed. Through his many writings, the world equilibrium by questioning and, if necessary, correcting will long reap the benefit of his great mind. The intellectual what the mass of people were repeating like parrots. world is richer for his having lived. -Bettina Bien Greaves He was a spokesman for the underrepresented truth not a heretic, but a seeker of lost orthodoxy. Against the eople can argue over whether Murray Rothbard was huge forces of modern propaganda that try to drown out dis the greatest libertarian thinker of his generation or sidence (making suppression superfluous), he had supreme P whether he merited the title "Mr. Libertarian." But no confidence not only in his own reasoning power but in the one can argue that anyone had a greater impact on the liber power of truth itself. Unlike most denizens of mass society, tarian movement between 1970 and 1990. His influence was he refused to accept the fashionable as virtually true. As Mil the product of the power of his ideas and his ability to express ton put it: "How few may sometimes know when thousands them, and his tremendous capacity to befriend and assist err!" those whom he perceived as sharing his strategic vision. Murray had one of the most original minds of his genera As a thinker, he sought to establish a radical, anarchist tion, but he didn't highlightthis. He delighted in rediscovery, libertarian political theory and to apply it everywhere in the in vindicating the discredited and forgotten - for example, social sciences. His writing was witty, bombastic, brilliant, the "isolationist" Old Right, who were really the last cham and - above all- extraordinarily clear. As a human being, pions of constitutional government. Murray honored them he was consumed with a passion to create and expand a and tried to redeem them from obscurity and scorn. God movement around his ideas. bless his gallant soul. -Joseph Sobran Reared in the dreary years of the Great Depression and World War II, the period in which libertarian ideas were held n 1949, just as Mises' Human Action was coming out, in their lowest esteem by both intellectuals and ordinary peo Murray Rothbard began attending the Mises seminar. It ple, he never wavered in his love of liberty. He hoisted the I was there that I met him. He was then a young graduate flag of freedom -pardon my cliche, but in this case it is as lit student at Columbia University working on his doctorate. As erally true as a metaphor can be - in the face of hostile fire, a result of his study, he introduced Mises' explanation of in the popular press, among students and intellectuals, even business cycles into his thesis on The Panic of 1819, thus de among politicians. laying its acceptance by his board of advisors at Columbia. It Along with Ayn Rand, he was the most influential figure was only after Columbia professor Arthur F. Burns went. to in the rebirth of the libertarian movement that occurred in the Washington to become chairman of the Council of Economic 1960s and 1970s. He adopted the core of Rand's political Advisors that Rothbard was able to get his thesis past the theory, applied it vigorously, and defended it brilliantly. Like remaining advisors. Rand, he attracted many fervent acolytes; unlike Rand, he Murray had a tremendous amount of energy and enthu was a man of great wit and personal charm, warm and outgo siasm for the pursuit of ideas. He was a night owl, working, ing to his friends. He was the most delightful person with reading, and studying all night long when most of New York whom I ever spent an evening in a bar. was sleeping. Night after night, his Manhattan apartment In the end, his influence on libertarians waned, partly be became a meeting place for young people with whom he cause of his apparent retreat'toward his old nemesis, the politi shared his enthusiasm, debating and discussing with them cal Right; partly because of his increasing relish for ideological until dawn. Murray would then go to bed, while his loyal infighting; and partly because a new generation of libertarian wife Joey stood guard over the telephone and protected his intellectuals found his brand of libertarianism too simplistic. sleep from disturbances. He was a founding editor of this magazine, contributing Murray had a tremendous amount of energy and joie de generously his enthusiasm, advice, and writing. He left vivre, which judging from his lifelong output never lagged. Liberty in 1990, as a part of his turn toward the Right. During He refused to be sheltered in the ivory tower of academia, the last few years of his life, when he devoted his intellectual but entered the realm of political debate, taking delight at at energy to the support of such conservatives as Patrick tacking statists and statist programs. I can hear him now, Buchanan, Oliver North, and George Bush, his conservative cackling with delight as he "smashed" some politico or inter friends embraced him as much as his libertarian friends ventionist program. missed him. Rothbard differed from Mises on several points - nota Murray Rothbard was a great man, and a very engaging bly government (Rothbard was an outspoken anarchist), one. His passing leaves the world much poorer. praxeology (Rothbard believed in natural law), the possibili- -R.W. Bradford 26 Liberty Dispatch from Tennessee State of III Health by Mark Rembert

The nation was spared the nightmare of the Clintons' health care scheme. The Volunteer State was not so lucky.

And so it was that the Clintons' grand vision of a brand new entitlement for all Americans evaporated. There would be no Health Security Act of 1994. The polls consistently showed that the voters were queasy about the proposed program, and Congress got the message. The subsequent elections merely·confirmed that the "obstructionists" had been right to obstruct. The outline of TennCare could virtually endorsed the plan: "I'd have Freed from the Great Society mod have come right out of Putting People to say after first seeing the plan that I el, the people could now concentrate First. It was all there: a basic benefits think it can work.... We need to try on much-needed market-based package, a state-mandated emphasis this, and if we do have problems, we reforms. But a funny thing happened on preventative care, a global budget can work them out." Newspapers on the way to the repudiation of gov to cap government expenditures, a immediately checked in with their ernment-dominated health care: board for"monitoring and oversight," support, and even conservative Nash not everyone listened. The state of and so on, all catalyzed by that North ville columnist Crom Carmichael, Tennessee chose its own less-traveled Star of efficiency - "managed care." heretofore a consistent opponent of road toward health reform. Clinton Ned Ray McWherter had one huge big-government liberalism, called the ism's critics and supporters alike advantage that the Clintons did not: plan "a logical first step." would be advised to take note. whereas the president was faced with There were, however, a few voices The story of socialized medicine, the task of steering his reforms of dissent. Hospitals found much in Tennessee-style, .began in April of through a recalcitrant Congress, TennCare that displeased them, most 1993, when then-Governor Ned Ray McWherter could enact his plan by importantly the loss of subsidy to McWherter addressed the Tennessee executive order, with legislative institutions with a large volume of General Assembly and introduced his action necessary only for clearing a Medicaid patients. State Medicaid Di "radical new program for the deliv path through the state Medicaid laws. rector Manny Martins flippantly re ery of health care." McWherter, a The program thus insulated from leg ferred to these subsidies as 1/gravy longtime beer distributor and West islative tinkering, the Volunteer payments," which did little to in Tennessee pol whose most ambitious State's brand of ClintonCare was im crease TennCare's support among legislative initiative to date had been plemented without adulteration. hospital administrators. And doctors a failed effort to enact a state income Early reaction was overwhelming scoffed at the claim that a Medicaid tax, had come up with a way (he ly positive, with public and punditry system notorious for low (usually be said) to .control the state's out-of alike agog over McWherter's health low-cost). reimbursement rates could control Medicaid spending. He would care speech. Ofcourse Medicaid was a somehow be amended to accommo withdraw Tennessee from Medicaid disaster: its cost was growing at dou date a half-million more people for and use the money saved to enroll ble-digit rates. Something had to be the same dollars. But with the presi that program's former clients and the done to fix this broken system before dent and his henchmen eagerly add half-million or so uninsured (the it bankrupted the state. The same day ing heft to the public perception of "working poor") in a new statewide Democrat McWherter spoke, Republi doctors as profiteers, the objections of program dubbed TennCare. can House Minority Leader H.E. Bittle physicians did not carry much politi- Liberty 27 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

cal weight. That would come later. care could save the state enough mon It is hard to overstate the impor With little room for the legislature ey to make such a· large program tance of charity care to TennCare's to maneuver, McWherter aimed to viable becomes doubly dubious when fiscal plan, for $3.1 billion of the $3.5 rush his plan through as quickly as the numbers are seen on paper. In billion of projected five-year savings possible, so that a necessary federal TennCare's first year (fiscal '93/'94), come from this one provision. In spite waiver could be obtained and the pro the Medicaid budget allowed funds for of this immense burden of free care gram be ready to roll by his self the care of 1.1 million people. So effi placed on the system, would the effi imposed January 1 deadline. Just one cient would be the new managed care ciency of managed care be enough to week after his introductory speech, the system, asserted an administration deliver the goods? govemor was "challenging" the· few generated cost comparison, that as The essence of TennCare's man many as 640,000 more Tennesseans aged care system is this: twelve Man could be provided either free or subsi aged Care Organizations (MCO's, or dized car.e - for the same total cost. "health alliances," in Clintonspeak) The legislation cleared both Just like that. Three and a half billion were established to accommodate eligi houses of the legislature in a dollars in savings over five years, ble patients. Each MCO receives a per month - a remarkable perfor trumpeted McWherter. patient fee to provide health care ser Where could such savings come vices for one year. The MCO's must mance for a "radical" reform, from? Doctors had little hope that then contract with doctors and hospi but hardly enough time for Medicaid's paltry payment schedules tals to treat the patients who have cho substantive debate. would be beefed up, and sure enough, sen their plan. The logic goes that the TennCare wound up paying providers MCO, which must be profitable, will even less than before. Indeed, the negotiate with providers for the most promise of a 40% larger pool of favorable rates, thus allowing Tenn doubting Thomases "to make an alter patients in a Medicaid-type system Care patients to receive treatment at native proposal." Only a week after only guaranteed that much of the cash the lowest cost. that, he was chastising the state GOP saved by the state would simply be In practice, the result is something for its delaying tactics. shifted to private insurers and to pa along these lines: since the MCO is The only significant bloc of opposi tients who paid for their medical care paid a flat fee per head, it becomes its tion that emerged to challenge the out of their own pockets. mission to hang on to every bit of that McWherter steamroller was the hospi McWherter had thrown in another fee that it can. The more the doctors tals' lobby, but the governor had a sil savings wrinkle, though. His wise men are paid, the more treatments or tests ver bullet ready for them. The hospi had decided that since there was a sub tals were arguing for a go-slow the MCO approves, the lower the bot approach, phasing in benefits to the stantial amount of free treatment being tom line. Such is the inherent flaw in uninsured and working poor rather given to the poor and indigent, that any system of third-party payment: the than covering all eligibles at once. Ned care could be "captured" by TennCare party paying for care is not the one Ray launched a flanking attack by pro and built into the program's costs. Ac whose life and health are at stake. If A posing that the hospitals be taxed $100 cording to the governor's TennCare in is paid to save money on B's groceries, million to help fund the transition to formation packet, the charity care pro then B won't be eating as well. Tales of the new program. Faced with this im vision would "ensure against financial refused. treatments, slow pay (or no mediate threat to the bottom line, the windfalls to providers· which might pay) to providers, and outright coer hospitals dropped their opposition in otherwise result from covering patients cion quickly became the norm. exchange for having this proposal previously treated on a charity basis." As summer '93 faded into fall, the rescinded. Ironically, this agreement to Leaving aside for a moment the gov ball moved into the court of the twelve maintain the status quo was widely ernor's outlandish justification (typical MCO's, whose job it became to sign up reported as a "tax break" for hospitals. office visit charge: $40-50; Blue Cross doctors and hospitals for their net The legislation cleared both houses TennCare reimbursement: about $14 works. When the mailed contracts be of the legislature in a month - a some windfall), these numbers amount gan to hit offices, tiny but intense remarkable performance for a "radi to a 20% surtax per TennCare patient mushroom douds could be seen over cal" reform, but hardly enough time per doctor. Or, put another way, Ned medical districts statewide. for substantive debate. With the legis Ray had figured that every TennCare The MCO agreements were loaded lature assenting by lopsided votes and patient would require $347 worth of with onerous provisions, all presented the necessary waiver from Washington charity care per year. Manny Martins to doctors on a take-it-or-Ieave-it basis. all but certain, the question could now praised the provision, saying, "Logic For starters, doctors were asked to sign be asked - what had Ned Ray would tell you there would be a large their contracts without being informed wrought? reduction in the amount of uncompen what fees would be paid. They could A glance at TennCare's five-year sated care." Perhaps, but only by only presume that the new payments blueprint reveals the dimensions of the spreading theburden, vastly increasing for their services would be no higher gap over which the governor's faith the amount of undercompensated care. than Medicaid's. But if treating Tenn had leapt. The premise that managed Doctors were underwhelmed. Care patients was to be a money-loser 28 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

in the best of circumstances - and the Shield, the largest of the MCO's (48% bugs were being ironed out. In a major Tennessee Medical Association now of TennCare enrollees today have cho concession, Blue Cross agreed to drop figures it's 40% of the cost of doing sen their plan), also provides coverage "take-back," relieving doctors from the business - doctors would be saddled for Tennessee's 130,000 state employ threat of a year-end bill from the MCO. with much that would be far worse. ees and their family members. Blue Dr. Richard Pearson of Memphis, clear On top of that, physicians would Cross's message to providers was suc ly yet to be won over to the plan, said be forbidden to refuse any TennCare cinct: if physicians didn't sign up for in response, "This is like a situation patient in an agreed-upon Mca. This TennCare they would lose their pa where somebody is holding your created a problem: consider the hypo tients who were state employees. This thumb down and hitting it with a ham thetical small town with two doctors, barely-veiled bit of extortion came to mer and when they quit, you're sup only one of whom accepts TennCare. be known as the"cram-down" clause. posed to say, 'Thank you.'" It doesn't take a CPA to see that the Here's the whopper, though: the Despite the removal of "take-back," overload of unprofitable patients into contracts contained a provision the global budget continues to threaten one practice would likely force the ("Allocation of Deficits") that allowed providers, as it is unclear what might TennCare doctor into another line of an Mea to charge back to doctors and happen if the spending cap is breached work. hospitals a portion of the amount they Furthermore, as if to prevent doc had been paid during the fiscal year if tors from applying even the most rudi it became apparent that the MCa had mentary business principles to their lost money on the deal. This "take By the tinle the program practices, TennCare physicians would back" clause spurred the most intense was implemented January 1, be prohibited from refusing patients outrage. ''It is absolutely unheard-of in who had failed to pay their co a business transaction when there is 1994, doctors had pursued the payments. (TennCare patients above satisfaction with the product being de only strategy left open to them: the poverty line must pay some de livered to come back at the end of the they voted UJith their feet. ductibles, co-payments, etc.). The state year and say, 'We want some of our strenuously objected to any change in money back because we had a bad these provisions, arguing that the abili year,'" noted one physician. in a given year. Will doctors be forced ty of doctors to limit their TennCare By the time the program was imple patient load invites discrimination. to accept still lower payments? Or will mented on January I, 1994, doctors There's more. Suppose an ·Mca they just have to finish the year treat had pursued the only strategy left refuses to authorize a test. Here's the ing TennCare patients at no charge? open to them. Having been entirely The state has not answered these without input into .the new system, questions. and detesting the contractual require Republican legislators tried to get As ifto prevent doctors from ments, they voted with their feet. Few into the game by proposing changes applying even the most rudi er than a third of the state's doctors most importantly, to amend "cram mentary business principles to agreed to accept TennCare, with a sub down." All were summarily dismissed stantial number of non-participants by Ned Ray's minions. In a bravura their practices, TennCare phy costing themselves a sizable chunk of performance of buck-passing, the sicians would be prohibited state business in the process (remem administration said, "Under TennCare, from refusing patients who had ber "cram-down"). Certain specialties the state is in many ways out of the with traditionally low reimbursement business of running a health-care sys failed to pay their co-payments. rates, such as pediatrics, were hit espe tem.... We believe it can be done bet cially hard. In Murfreesboro, a town of ter by private enterprise." In short: We 45,000 southeast of Nashville, only one sere'wed it up, now you figure out how to disaster scenario: a patient complains of ten pediatricians signed on. fix it. The governor's position was rem of a symptom, the doctor recommends The doctors that did come aboard iniscent of Clinton's rhetorical shift in a test, the health bureaucrat at the found rough sledding indeed. One spring of '94 to advocating "private in MCa declines permission, and the pa Bradley County pediatrician, John Ap surance that can never be taken away." tient subsequently drops dead of the pling, tearfully characterized the gov So what are residents of Tennessee condition the doctor wanted to test for. ernor as having "the intelligence of left with today? In the name of efficien Sounds like the Mca has a liability Quasimodo, the conscience of Adolf cy, their state government provides free problem, doesn't it? Not so. The Hitler, and the ethics of Pontius Pi or subsidized care to nearly 400/0 of its MCO's contracts with providers speci late." Appling went on to describe inhabitants. It tries to control the costs fy that the liability for poor outcomes TennCare's potential to force hin1 into with the clumsiest form of price control is exclusively that of the doctor or hos bankruptcy: "The cost of doing busi - a total budget - leaving the partici pital. It's a hell of a note for a doctor to ness is just above the reimbursement." pants to carve up the static pie. The be sued because a test he recommend McWherter quickly began to meet carvers, much as the president pro ed wasn't performed. with groups of doctors, pleading with posed, are not government employees Still more odium: Blue Cross/Blue them to stick with the system while the per se, but Mcabureaucrats whose sole Liberty 29 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

incentive is to part with as small a per Until the suit is resolved, Tennes Blue Cross has informally agreed to al centage of their per-head fees as possi seans are left with a program that com low physicians to limit their TennCare ble. And though the rules were estab bines the worst of Medicaid and the patient load to the same percentage as lished and supervision conducted by Clinton plan. It guarantees that there their previous year's Medicaid prac the state, the existence of these private will be a large population of patients tice. There are two problems here. MCO's as its conduit allows the govern whose insurance gives providers a First, few Tennessee doctors have ment to maintain the illusion that the huge disincentive to treat, and that much faith in Blue Cross to uphold this system has somehowbeenprivatized. these effects will be most felt in pre informal agreement. Second, doctors As the horror stories started cisely those areas that TennCare aimed may not figure into their estimates spreading of patients being forced to serve: the poor, rural, and minority those cash-paying patients who were from their doctors, of MCO's reimburs dominated areas that contain the high treated on a charity or reduced-rate ing doctors slowly or not at all, of inad est percentage of TennCare patients. basis, leaving these people effectively equate coverage in certain areas, and Already, doctors are leaving TennCare frozen out or forced into TennCare. so on, the Tennessee Medical Associa networks in droves (a TMA survey With the minuscule fees (one esti tion filed suit against the state to stop projects a 15% decline in participating mate places the payment rate for sur the program and either return to the doctors in 1995); many physicians in geons at about 20-25% of the market old system or reform TennCare radical rural areas are faced with the unappe price), TennCare further insures that ly. The lawsuit argued that TennCare tizing choice of remaining in the Tenn the private insurance-holder and violates the federal Medicaid law, Care system and being bankrupted by health care consumer will have to bear which mandates that the government below-cost payments or leaving the an even larger burden of shifted costs. build a network of physicians by pay network and treating a private market This promises only to worsen, as fully ing them adequate compensation (two that is too small to support a practice. half of all babies now born in the state fifths of break-even surely wouldn't In terms of restricting access to care, it are TennCare patients. qualify). Though the suit was thrown is difficult to conceive of a system that Despite its problems, TennCare en out of state court on a technicality, it is would do the poor more harm. joyed bipartisan support in the recent currently on appeal and is very much In a compromise aimed at halting gubernatorial elections. Both candi alive. the flow of doctors out of the system, dates pledged minor changes, but nei ther was willing to address the sys tem's fundamental flaws. The new governor, Don Sundquist, is a Republi Moribund in Washington can - aren't all new governors Repub licans? - and has spoken against The pamphlet looked wonderful. Enti benefits package, taxes on cigarettes "cram-down." He is also reported to tled "A New Direction in Health and alcohol- the works. dislike the fact that, officially, doctors Care," its cover featured a drawing of Nearly two years later, the vaunted still may not limit their TennCare pa ten people, black and white, young Washington health plan is largely a tient load. However, the system has and old, embracing each other and dead letter. It's still there, in theory. completed its first year at a surplus, smiling. Inside, there were more draw Even as I write, the Health Services simply because far fewer patients en ings of happy people; a black doctor Commission is sending its recommen rolled than had been expected. Though examining a pregnant white woman, dations for the plan's implementation. this has only the effect of disguising an older man walking a dog, and a But Congress refused to grant Wash the coming catastrophe, it's good doctor giving a boy a treat. Beside the ington an exemption from the Employ enough for the politicians, so TennCare drawing were explanations of Wash ment Retirement Income Security Act, appears to have achieved some in ington state's health care reform, how ruling out any mandates for e:'l\ployer stitutiox:'-al momentum. Indeed, in Jan everyone would "pay their fair share," provided insurance. And then came uary the incoming administration an employers would pay half the cost of November 8, 1994, wiping out the nounced that TennCare director whichever uniform benefits package Democratic majority in Washington's Manny Martins would be retained, their employees chose, everyone will government with one fell swoop. scuttling hope of any radical change. have affordable health insurance and As Brent Shirley, an insurance bro So now Tennesseans are stuck with that by the year 2000, premium costs ker, put it, "In their infinite wisdom, a system that, if unaltered, in a genera won't be allowed to rise faster than government said, 'This is the package tion will have half the population sub average growth in personal income. that will get me re-elected.' Well, they sidizing the medical care of the other If all this sounds a lot like the late, didn't get re-elected. They got fired. I half - assuming that there are any unlamented Clinton plan, it should. think the reform is going down the doctors left practicing medicine. The plan was drafted with direction tubes. There's a price associated with And what of McWherter? Trium from the White House. Hillary called it these mandates, and the price is not phant from his two terms as governor, a model for the nation. Actually, it was something we're willing to pay. I think he's off to Washington to serve as one her model for the nation. Managed the last election showed that." of the Clinton administration's newest care, employer mandates, a standard -Tom Loughran advisors. 0 30 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 Death in Oregon

Meet Catherine. Sweet, spry, loveable always hide money.... friends, and grocery-shops for other lady who always takes the time to care "Son," she blurts out through the shut-in seniors like Catherine, to for her friends, family, and neighbors. tears, "that woman went through my wheelchair-bound, ready to die. Cathe She never forgets a birthday or anni purse, and the drawers in my dresser rine fights back the tears. versary. Always, despite her fixed re ... even under the mattress looking for Sometime during the night, Cathe tirement income, sends a card and a my money! I feel like I've been raped!" rine suffers another heart attack. The couple bucks to "the little ones" on But there is nothing she can do. The nurse is to be "sent out in the morning" their birthday. Clips coupons for her state will now be taking care of her. All and her apartment manager finds her fellow seniors down at the Senior "excess" assets are to be confiscated. dead at 9:00 Monday morning. Center. Buys a few extra cans of food Just enough to pay her bills and "an Officially, her death certificate appropriate" amount for food and mis for those less fortunate, whether a reads "cause of death unknown," but cellaneous. She must now mail-order neighbor or a homeless person at the she was really murdered. Murdered by Mission. Yes, she can fixate, get cranky, her prescriptions, as it will save the the State of Oregon and its "model" and occasionally make mountains out statemoney and will only take an extra health care plan. She dies because she of molehills. But it is January 1994, and day or two. was over 70, and the state considered her seventieth birthday is only a few She asks her son for a couple hun her "no longer viable." weeks away. And she is starting to get dred dollars to get by; he sends her a painful, cramping feeling in her four hundred. More when you need it. Well, I've got news for you, Oregon. chest. So, we can forgive her for being Catherine again feels that same pain The hundreds of people who packed cranky. and pressure in her chest in April. the church didn't think she was "no She calls 911, and paramedics are Tearfully and fearing for her life, she longer viable." Many of them had never dispatched immediately. Yes, some calls 911. This time, however, she's 70 met her, yet she touched them with her times it's nothing, but this time it's gifts of food and clothing. Many others congestive heart failure. "Boy, good couldn't attend. And still more will nev thing I'm getting health care under There is nothing she can do. er know she helped them. Oregon's new system," she thinks as The state will now be taking Her daughter-in-law didn't consid she ponders her expected bill. Yes, er her "no longer viable," considering that's the system that Bill and Hillary care of her. her standing as an emergency room held up as a "model for the nation," nurse at a major trauma center. And the very one they had hoped to set up certainly her lone son didn't consider nation-wide. years old and on the Oregon health her "no longer viable" either. Some Catherine mends nicely after a care plan - the same one the Clintons times a pain in the neck, yes. But al couple days in the hospital. Blasted want for you and I- and is told by ways a strong, loving bond. water pills, though. Gotta go to the the dispatcher, "You get some rest, and I should know. That wonderful bathroom all the time. Her son and fu we'll send a nurse out in the morning woman was Catherine Theresa Lemke, ture daughter-in-law come down on to check on you." Click. my mother. And I miss her dearly. She January 28, her seventieth birthday. "Son, if anything happens to me, was, in my humble opinion, very She gets the biggest party she'd ever you sue those bastards! I'll never call "viable." imagined ... cake, ice cream, a little 911 again ... they won't come anyway, Are you listening, Gov. Barbara shot of Bailey's Gust what a diabetic so what's the use?" Roberts? Bill Clinton? Hillary? You all needs, but hey, it's not every day one Early in June, one of Catherine's had a hand in her death. turns 70, is it?), a new 27" TV, and a closest friends, an 87-year-old woman, In life, she helped people. In death, cordless phone, among other things. Mona, with Parkinson's disease, is told let that continue. This is what "health She is Queen for a Day. Nothing could she is "no longer viable." "The state wipe that smile from her face. will no longer pay for your medication. care reform" is all about. What they February, her caseworker drops by It's too expensive, and you are over 70. don't want you to know about. The to get her settled with her new health You can either buy it yourself [after the restrictions, rationing, and God care insurance. No, Medicare is no state confiscated her money], live the playing. Let Catherine be a Martyr to longer active in this state. You must life of a vegetable, or starve yourself. the System, but don't forget her. sign up, or lose all coverage. Now, Besides, you don't want to outlive I never will. how much money do you have? your children, do you?" Within a week Catherine Lemke, January 28, 1924 Where are your bank accounts? Give she goes from a mobile woman who June 13, 1994. Remember. me your purse ... you old folks drives a car, runs errands for her -David and Mary Lemke Liberty 31 Prognosis Stealth Health by E. K. Gregory

Death may be the great leveler, but wealthy socialists will do almost any thing to escape that egalitarianism.

When Hillary Rodham Clinton put together her health care task force, she was care ful to exclude practicing physicians froIn the process, because of their "special interest" ill the practice of nledicine. We since have learned that she was not so careful to exclude other special interest groups. Denying practicing physicians input into the reorganization of health care delivery is akin to NASA having nation to reduce the number of medi- those who are very old,.very weak, to deflect an incoming comet but cal specialists? very sick, or in extremely poor shape are too expensive to keep alive, and rejecting the expertise of rocket de The Road to Rationing signers and manufacturers because thus should be allowed to go ahead Primary care providers are con and die before they bankrupt the sys they might have some 1/special inter cerned principally with maintaining a est" in the finished product. It's tem. On a purely intellectual level, possible that someone· who wasn't a healthy and working human body. this argument has some merit. After rocket physicist might manage to con They can and do diagnose problems, all, 900/0 of an individual's entire life struct a rocket that would transport a and they perform minor repairs when long medical expenditure is typically warhead to the approaching comet the human machine breaks down. But dispersed in the last six months of his but the smart money would be on the whenthings go really wrong- whena or her life. Letting them die six comet. patient is besetbycancer, arteriosclero months early would save the system The various ClintonCare clones sis, major organ system failure, AIDS, some money. But simply making a bubbling up in Congress all contain brain tumor, serious trauma,joint dete policy decision. to withhold medical provisions for an increase in pritnary rioration, etc. - a specialist becomes treatment froIn people with six care providers, with a concomitant necessary if the patient is to survive. It months to live does not resolve the decrease in specialists. No one dis is only a slight oversimplification to problem, for it fails to answer the very cusses what irnpact this will have on say that generalists and primary care real question that the physician medical care delivery. providers keep healthy people from always must face in real world situa Physicians are not a non getting sick if they can, but a specialist tions: How can I be sure when the patient renewable, finite resource. One does treats the illness if it occurs anyway is entering the last six months oflife? not have to decrease the number of unfortunately, often at greatexpense. One way around this very compli specialists in order to increase the Decreasing the number of availa cated problem is to ration access to number of generalists or prinlary care ble specialists results in a correspond specialists. Those who are in the last providers. Even the Health Task Force ing decrease in the number of serious six months of life would simply die attorneys and bureaucrats, who know ly ill patients who receive treatment before their turn comes in the queue. little about medicine beyond how to in time to do some good. Without Studies of countries with govern file a malpractice brief or write a regu treatment, they will expire. The cynic ment-controlled medical care reveal a lation, know that. might posit that this is the point of common characteristic: long waiting So why their unfaltering determi- government-controlled medicine: that lists for expensive procedures. Waits 32 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

of six months to two years are typical Germany, where hospitals have special would have impacted the wealthy Ca for such procedures as cardiac artery wings with private rooms and private nadians and citizens of other countries bypass, carotid endarterectomy, trans physicians for those who can afford who currently seek treatment in the plantation, and MRI imaging. such luxuries, while those participat United States, but they probably Of course, this restriction of access ing in the government system are wouldn't have been allowed to jump to specialists does not apply to the elite admitted to wards of 6-20 beds with the line either. What then would the political class that is dismantling the rudimentary nursing attention. When power elite do? Surely, no one really existing system. In every government actress-politician Melina Mercouri died expects to encounter Hillary Clinton, controlled health care system currently Edward Kennedy, Oprah Winfrey, or in existence, alternatives exist to enable Jay Rockefeller in a packed waiting the super-rich and those in power to No one really expects room or to hear of them queuing up for obtain first-rate care from specialists. life-saving surgery. The elite in Britain does not participate Hillary Clinton, Edward The best guess is that they would in that country's National Health Kennedy, Oprah Winfrey, or take the Concorde to Europe, where Program. They receive treatment by Jay Rockefeller to pack into a until recently a $272.2 million high-tech private "Harley Street physicians" who U.S.-style hospital was being built out practice on a fee-for-service basis in waiting room, or to queue up side Glasgow, Scotland by a group of well-equipped private hospitals. There for life-saving surgery. international investors called Health are no shortage of specialists on Harley Care International. This hospital was to Street. Unfortunately, ordinary people offer top specialists backed up by cannot afford these services, so they of cancer, she was a patient in a hospi cutting-edge technology, according to take their chances in the queue. tal in New York. Ms. Mercouri was an Stephen D. Moore's May 11, 1994 arti Canada does not have a separate, avowed socialist, but when it came to cle in The Wall Street Journal. But recent private health care system, but wealthy her own medical needs, she apparently ly - shortly after Clinton's health plan Canadians do not wait in a queue for preferred treatment in the U.S. fizzled - HeI decided the hospital potential life-saving operations, diag ClintonCare and its congressional would be a bad investment, and pulled nosis, or treatment. They travel to the clones appeared to address these ineq the plug on the project. United States and pay out-of-pocket for uities. Nearly all last year's bills estab For those who can afford it, high private medical care. Australians have lished fines and/or imprisonment for tech super-specialty medicine still a system similar to Britain. The rich can patients who offer to pay out-of-pocket would be available under a govern buy private care; the non-rich take their for treatment in order to avoid waiting ment-run system. Those who can't will chances. and for physicians who accept such have to cross their fingers, say a prayer, The same holds true in Austria and payments. No one knows how this and get in line. Q

Reflections, continuedfrom page 16

rate of African-Americans to the perhaps they are subtly discouraged would develop the same resentment to success rate of Euro-Americans. In edu from playing the game as children, ward whites that white professionals cation, for example, this means admit giving their African-American brothers have toward blacks. "He's only here ting certain African-Americans to a competitive advantage. This hypoth because of affirmative action," they'd graduate school despite their lesser esis is supported by the presence of say, dismissing a white player. "He qualifications than some Euro many European white players in the had advantages that blacks never had!" Americans applying for the same posi NBAi no serious fan would doubt that And the quality of basketball would tion, then providing them greater aid, a European white all-star team could suffer, as teams were required to invest special tutoring, etc., to try to enhance take an American white all-star team. resources and give playing time to infe their graduation rate. Of course, affirmative action could rior players. Happily, this same logic has not be applied in basketball as it is applied And all these efforts to equalize bas been applied to basketball, despite the in the professions. Each team could be ketball opportunity for white boys will fact that the National Basketball mandated to give 80% of its positions fail, if it turns out that the real reason Association is overwhelmingly and playing time to white boys. The that blacks dominate basketball is African-American. Whether this is the public schools could provide special genetic - just as all the expense, the result of heredity or environment we training programs and coaching to ruined careers, the ill feelings engen do not really know. There are those help white boys catch up, and mandate dered by affirmative action will go for who say "white men can't jump" and proportional playing time for whites nought if it turns out that Murray and claim that black men are quicker, fast on basketball teams beginning in ele Herrnstein are correct. No matter how er, and stronger than whites. But the mentary school and extending to much Euro-Americans are discrimin paucity of white Americans at the college. ated against, the difference between highest level of professional basketball Were this to come to pass, it seems their success rate and that of African could result from their environment: likely that black basketball players Americans will persist. -RWB Liberty 33 Essay A Globe of Villages by Bill Kauffman

Liberty will be reborn in Batavia, not Manhattan.

A friend of mine, a police officer in my hometown of Batavia, New York, told me a couple of years ago of an encounter with some boisterous - but by no means criminal· black kids. "We the boyz in the hood," they bragged, and though their hood man bore almost no resemblance to pIe and tending their own gardens. encompassed perhaps five contiguous life as it is actually lived in Batavia, I think it's fantastic that in the late houses this was a nice illustration of New ·York in the 1990s. God knows 1980s kids made music that came Chesterton's dictum that a patriot that Batavia's blacks (at least those of straight out of Compton, and the situ must always boast of the smallness, long residence in town) have legiti ation in my hometown would be and never the largeness, of his mate grievances, but a· white plot much healthier if our boyz 'n the country. hatched by the Rotary and Kiwanis 'hood would tum off their stupid tele "Whiteman tryin' to wipe us out," clubs to lead them into intoxicated vision sets and boom boxes for a few they said. My friend, the white cop, fratricide is not among them. hours a day and start making music asked them to explain. The kids had merely recited, al that comes straight outta Batavia. "There's a liquor store on every most verbatim, the hero's sermon in There are, of course, drawbacks to corner, and a gun store too. That ain't John Singleton's fine movie Boyz N the provincialism -I believe it was. Ice no accident. Whites want us· to get Hood. Singleton's violent South Cube 'who vilified what he called the drunk and shoot each other." Central Los Angeles block had been "chop suey ass" store owners who an My friend was perplexed.. Yes, transplanted to Batavia, which might chor· the poorer parts of our polyglot there are a couple of liquor stores be cute - like Vietnamese refugees in cities. There are few better cinematic downtown; the clientele, like Batavia's 1982 Iowa ·mimicking Sean Penn in treatments of such ethnic rivalry than population, .is overwhelmingly white. Fast Times at Ridgemont High - had it Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, in The gun shops are on the city's out not· provided these young men with which an idealized, harmonious skirts, and they cater to collectors and an entirely factitious set of sham neighbo~hood block in Bedford sportsmen. Cheap handguns are rare, complaints. Stuyvesant is riven by the sore-thumb and besides, we seldom have more One of the stars of Boyz N the Hood, presence of a successful Italian than one murder every two years a Compton, Californian who goes by American pizza-maker. Nevertheless, and that is usually·committed by a the name of Ice Cube, had some years it is within these somewhat homoge boozed-up, jealous, poor (and very earlier been lynched by the white-run neous communities, wherein members white) husband. I can only think of pop music press after he admitted that know and understand each other - if one black man within the last decade he didn't give a damn about Nelson not like each other - that the possibil who was arrested for murder: he Mandela and South Africa. "I ain't ity of a return to local self-government killed a white bum who had attacked gonna wear no 'Free South Africa' but is likeliest, and these local autonomies his brother, and because public sym ton if Mandela don't wear a 'Free seem to me to be the best and most pathy ran so strongly in his favor he Compton' button," was the gist of his practical alternative to the ravenous was let off with a rap onthe knuckles. remarks, and I suggest that our boys and homicidal leviathan whose sub The picture these guys on··the in their Batavia 'hood would've been jectswe are. streetcomer had drawn for the police- better off following Mr. Cube's exam- One of my favorite socialists is Liberty 34 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

Eugene V. Debs of Terre Haute, Haute had multiple newspapers, local There is and will always be a popula Indiana. Debs was a courageous man ly owned for the most part; a strong tion of serfs of the spirit who, after who was jailed during the police-state class of independent artisans and mer watching the ritual two-minute hate administration of Woodrow Wilson, chants and skilled workers; and fac from their recliners, want to kill the dour henpecked Princeton moralist, tories whose owners (and comely Saddam Hussein or David Koresh or who refused, with typically obdurate reformist daughters) lived on wide Kim Il Sung or whoever the enemy of nastiness, to pardon this martyr to free tree-lined Oak Streets. There was a the month is; they'll sob with joy as the speech, leaving it for the pride of Terre Haute then, with its own distinct little girl in the well is pulled to safety Marion, Ohio, Warren G. Harding, to personality and color. Indeed, across down in Texas, all the while deaf to the do the honorable thing. After a meeting these United States in the late nine cries of the hungry child down the between the two men, Debs and teenth and early twentieth centuries we Harding professed mutual understand had an explosion of regional novels on ing, even respect. This is because they new inland subjects, from the Dakota My lonely little recomlnen had shared a milieu, even though they of Hamlin Garland to the Indianas of lived on opposite sides of the tracks. Edward Eggleston and Booth dation is to support localist or Terre Haute and Marion, though differ Tarkington to the Upstate New York of individualistic artistic tenden entiated in important ways, were small Harold Frederic. Garland exhorted his cies and idiosyncratic visions Midwestern cities still governed, in compatriots to be true to your time, part, by civility, civic pride, and mutual true to your place, and true to your you find congenial, and permit respect - virtues a Princetonian cannot locality, and the result was the second others to do likewise. be expected to cherish, much less pos great flowering of American literature. sess. (Pardon the digression, but my The first, of the 1850s, had closed with wife and I visited the Warren G. the advent of the War Between .the street. But these helots are a minority. Harding home in Marion a couple of States; this second ended coincident There are still millions of refractory, summers ago. It's a grand place, with a with the Progressive dawn; the third stubborn, bull-headed, screw youl would not survive the New Deal and show me men and women, the folks the Second World War. It would be sil Robert Frost called insubordinate When you strip local people ly to say that swelling government kills Americans, the people who built this of the power to govern them regionalist art; I cheerfully concede that country. Let me give an example the Art and Theater projects of the homely and prosaic, drawn from my selves you get a world in 1930s WPA produced some fine work own down-at-the-heels town, because I which ordinary people feel ab amid the dross, not least the plays believe anecdotal evidence is always solutely powerless, and engag about Upstate New York gathered by the best evidence. (Numbers lie; trust Alexander Drummond of Ithaca. But I the eye.) ingly wacky ideas like Ross do think that when you strip local peo You may remember from his 15 Perot's electronic town hall ple of the power to govern themselves, minutes of fame - which stretched come to seem positively when you transfer that power to dis into six or so years - Terry Anderson, tant capitals, you set in motion a pro the AP reporter who was taken hostage visionary. cess of demoralization and devitaliza by fanatical A-Rabs in Lebanon. He tion that leads to a world in which men was identified as a native of Batavia, prefer music television to music clubs, though not many people recalled· him: big wrap-around porch, and it's easy to and Madonna to the much more availa he'd only lived in town for his high imagine the handsome whoring rogue ble tramp next door. You get a world in school years, which he spent castling in within its walls, sipping bootleg gin, which ordinary people feel absolutely the chess club and being ignored by the playing poker, enduring the nagging of powerless to affect goings-on in Wash olive dream Italian girls. He joined the his demented wife, the Duchess, and ington, and engagingly wacky ideas service after high school, got an educa pinching the Irish maid whenever the like Ross Perot's electronic town hall tion, and never looked back. But the Duchess was out of sight. The docent come to seem positively visionary. You TV readers told us he was a Batavian, had a charmingly defiant pride in get a world in which presidents and and our town was depicted as a place Marion's native son; he told us more their handmaidens in the corporate right out of Andy Hardy where Boy than once that Harding "was definitely media invade sovereign countries with Scouts and busty virginal gals were not the worst president in our,history." out declarations of war, and there's not waiting at the soda fountain, slurping Given his success at cutting federal tax a damn thing any of us can do about it chocolate malteds and waiting for es, slashing the military budget, and except hit the off button on our remote Terry to come marching home again. returning war-altered America to nor controls. Well, he did. He was released at the malcy, I think he was one of the best.) Yet I am an optimist, because in my end of 1991 and the networks des In any event, Eugene V. Debs used experience, people assume that much cended on Batavia, cameras on shoul to speak longingly of his "beloved little of what Newt Gingrich and the ders and microphones in hands, to cap community of Terre Haute, where all Heritage Foundation and Dan Rather ture the weeping, the shouts, the una were neighbors and friends." His Terre and USA Today tell them is bullshit. dulterated joy. At 6:00 p.m., the church Liberty 35 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

bells throughout town rang in unison rooted on which to site nuclear waste Chappell's North Carolina or Charles for the first time since V-J Day. I dumps. They order the children of Portis' Arkansas or Chilton William walked downtown, through the blow Louisville and Roxbury to ride buses son's Wyoming or Jim Harrison's ing snows of an early December storm, to distant schools, while the children of Upper Peninsula of Michigan: places to hear the peals from the adjacent the decreers attend the poshest acade that are individuated, that are particu Presbyterian and Baptist churches on mies. They clamor to send the 19-year lar and real, that are different from Main Street. There were two or three old boys of Fargo and Tacoma and every other place on earth. other auditors, that's all. We listened Duluth and the South Bronx off to die I am certainly not saying that all for a while and went home. Later that writers or filmmakers or artists must be night, a restaurant threw a heavily regionalist. If they were, I'd probably advertised open party which thou The Batavia City Council shout from the rooftops for cosmopoli sands of jubilant Batavians and assort tanism. But I am saying that the precon ed freeloaders were expected to attend. has never drafted its sons and dition for a transfer of power from To the consternation of the Celebrity sent them to bleed to death in Washington back to New York - or Nation, about 75 showed up. foreign sands, and the Genesee better yet, Genesee County - or better Does this mean that we're unneigh yet, Batavia - or better yet, State Street borly, or shut-ins, or that we refuse of County Sheriffs Department - or better yet, the 'hood in which fers of free pizza and beer? No. The has never massacred 86 mem those black kids live - or better yet, to genuine excitement had occurred the bers of a dissident religious the kids and their parents themselves weekend before, as thousands had - is a nation of revivified local cul made the trek to Rich Stadium, home group. tures, in which people have the capaci of the Buffalo Bills, where the Batavia ty to paint their own pictures and sing High football team beat Grand Island their own songs and make their own for the state's Class B championship. in blighted foreign lands in service of mistakes. These people had chosen real life, the an abstract internationalism to which Yes, there are violations of liberty at ties of blood and kith and kin and the soulless pledge allegiance. the local level: property taxes can be authentic community, over the unreal I have no idea what the twenty-first sky-high; merchants may face dumb and insubstantial images and artificial century holds in store for us. My regulatory hurdles; the zoning board emotions that TV had conveyed. record for prognostication falls some may be unreasonable. But these pale Anderson, by the way, handled his where between Nostradamus and when compared with .the acts of awkward homecoming with grace, Jeanne Dixon: I bet on the Buffalo Bills Moloch in Washington. I can tell you though he immediately moved down to win four straight Super Bowls. Nor that the Batavia City Council has never state. He is plotting a political career as do I believe in comprehensive pro drafted its sons and sent them to bleed a kind of Common Cause Democrat, grams for the remedy of all ills. My to death in foreign sands; the Elba and his evident dignity will stand him political preference is to act on Henry Town Board has never slaughtered a well, even in his Republican cradle. Adams' maxim that power is poison. I single Iraqi or Panamanian or The Kentucky poet-farmer Wendell do not want to fight the power or, God Vietnamese; the Genesee County Berry has identified placeless people forbid, exercise the power. I want to Sheriff's Department has never massa who attain power within placeless and abolish the power. My lonely little rec cred 86 members of a dissident relig puissant organizations as the bane of ommendation is to support localist or ious group. modern America. Berry writes, "Every individualistic artistic tendencies and Small towns are often caricatured as where, every day, local life is being dis idiosyncratic visions you find congeni nests of busybodies prying into the comforted, disrupted, endangered or al, and permit others to do likewise. affairs of others and tut-tutting their destroyed by powerful people who Encouraging diversity has nothing to disapproval of even the mildest non live, or who are privileged to think that do with IBM promoting incompetents conformity. There is of course some of they live, beyond the bad effects of who have the right skin tone or sex or this, though those who know these plac their bad work." They seize by emi gans; it does not mean forcing eight es best - even such alleged debunkers nent domain the ancestral land of the year-olds to sit through dreary lectures as Sinclair Lewis, who in fact loved on AIDS or racism. It means the Gopher Prairie beyond measure Erratum absence of control or coercion; it means understand the value of subtle social In "Periphery Vision" Oanuary 1995), creating a climate in which free men pressures, not least of which is that they Chester Alan Arthur reported that Scott and women can follow their own pole make a kind of community anarchism Grainger's 6.750/0 in the 1994 Arizona sena stars, no matter how blinding or dim; it possible. torial race was the highest Libertarian Party means the flourishing of local cultural One is less likely in a small town to showing ever in a statewide race against two awareness and the prospering of holy march into the grocery store and buy a major-party candidates. In fact, this record fools and outcasts and solid Main bag of Doritos with food stamps belongs to Dick Randolph, who got 14.90/0 Street citizens, whether Gus Van Sant because there is a very good chance for governor ofAlaska in 1982. along the Pacific Northwest tenderloin that the cashier with the glare in her Grainger's showing was the best ever for or George Romero among the eye is an old classmate. Similarly, I will an LP candidate for U.S. Senate. Pittsburgh zombies, whether in Fred pull Jim's car out of the snow drift, not Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

necessarily because I am a benevolent crotchets and eccentricities are tolerat mass wealth, mass conformity." Or, as soul, but because next week I may ed, as are the weirdnesses of native a great band sang, IINo man born with need him to pull me out. A whole web sons far loonier than I. This is not to say a living soul can be working for the of relationships is spun in a small that small town living is for everyone, clampdown." town, with threads running from or that any goofball can move into The American renewal will not be every person to every other person, Dogpatch, Kansas, dance naked at achieved through the enactment of em and while some may find these have noontime, and fall into the welcoming powerment zones or the line-item veto the texture of a noose, for most others embrace of the Rockwellian multitude. or day care vouchers. It will not be they are lifelines. Mrs. Jones the blue Aliens who barge into a town and de planned in Washington or financed in nose over on Elm Street may grumble mand that decades of custom and tradi New York or filmed in Hollywood. It over the promiscuity of this neighbor tion and inherited wisdom be tossed does not depend upon the elevation to or the dissipation of that one, but rare into the garbage will be greeted with the presidency of Al Gore or Bob Dole ly, if ever, does she call in the cops. It coldness or even hostility. Nor do I or Pat Buchanan or Colin Powell. The is no coincidence that the anti-smoking claim that citizens of small towns are one-party system of Washington, D.C. zealots have had their greatest success better people than metropolitans; I - with Newt and Bill as the Brothers es in larger cities and in college towns, have tasted enough of the fruits of ur Tweedle - will not herald its arrival with their mobile and rootless popula ban living to understand completely with Olin-funded gabfests. tions. People who do not know each why one might prefer Boston or even No, the American renewal will oc other are less inclined, in my view, to Los Angeles to life in the hinterlands. cur when Batavia produces a rich and live and let live; they create govern Nevertheless, in fixity begins responsi varied art and literature and music; ments of the busy, by the bossy, for the bility, and we are way past due for a when Batavia speaks for itself; when bully. There is no smoking ban in radical devolution of power to the most Batavia has the confidence and self Batavia or Elba, but there is one at the local level possible. knowledge to tell Washington, D.C. community college - a large bureau The brilliant director Frank Capra and Albany to go to hell, and to allow cratic institution run by outsiders who once said that he wanted his movies to Batavians, individually and within do not know us. utter "the rebellious cry of the individ families and neighborhoods, to chart As one who has spent the better ual against being trampled to an ort by their own versicolored lives and infi part of his life in in a rural county in massiveness - mass production, mass nitely furcated courses. America New York, I can say that my own thought, mass education, mass politics, awaits the flowering of Batavia. 0

Who is the slickest operator in Washington? Do you know what economics book is even more dangerous than Keynes' General Theory? Laissez-Faire Report yo! XXI Do you know which economic theory, once dead and buried, is being A Dangerous Book trotted out by establishment economists as the cure-all for America's The Theory ofSanctions ills? The Malpractice Solution Do you know the labor group that has the coziest deal ofall with the Richard Milhous Nixon government and why it could have a major impact on your life? Inflation Watch The answers to these questions and many more are found in the Institute for the Study of Power, Media and Hypocrisy Economics' monthly newsletter The Laissez-Faire Report. To begin your six-month Anti-Kessler subscription at the special trial rate of $9 and also receive as a bonus at no extra charge The Cupcake Lobby the two recent back issues of The Laissez-Faire Report with the answers to the above questions, fill out the coupon below and mail your check or money order for $9 to The Institute for the Study ofEconomics, 13237 Montfort, Suite 544, Dallas, TX 75240-5185. ~------~------1~ Yes, enclosed is $9 for the special six-month trial subscription to the Laissez-Faire Report. I understand I will also receive the two bonus The Institute for the Study issues at no extra charge. ofEconomics 13237 Montfort, Suite 544 Name ------Address Dallas, TX 75240-5185 City ------State Zip _ Invitation Welcome to the Revolution by Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw

Twenty-five years ago, Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw made the case for es chewing political activism. Today, they argue forjoining the fray.

Twenty-five years ago/we wrote an essay entitled "What If There Was a Millen nium ... and No One Came? Or, Don't Wait for the Engraved Invitation."t We wrote the article for freedom-lovers who, inundated with information, needed a set of heuristic principles to use that information in the search for greater personal freedom. Our essay concluded that there is freedom-lovers started planning for movement includes about 1,000,000 no single blueprint for self-liberation, large-scale freedom in America in people in hundreds of different only guiding principles that help you stead of focusing exclusively on what groups. During the past year, environ figure out where to look. You can't can be done at a personal level. mentalists were unable to get a single follow the general public because they Getting involved as this process starts major bill through Congress, aside aren't looking for the degree of free gives us a greater chance of affecting from the California Desert "Pro dom that you are - and even if they the outcome than waiting until things tection" Act, passed as a courtesy to were, they probably wouldn't know have become too advanced. Accord California's senators. They couldn't where to find it. You'll do best by ing to chaos theory, there is an opti get the Endangered Species Act reau reading widely, reading between the mal time (a crisis point) when small thorized, and they couldn't get the lines, and using your resources inputs will produce the greatest National Biological Survey passed. wisely. effects later. We don't know how to Grassroots political lobbying by prop Today, because of technological calculate that point, but it's hard for erty rights groups succeeded in get advances in communications and in us to believe that it will be more than ting amendments to protect property formation-processing, there are more a few years from now. rights attached to these and other en opportunities than ever before to You always knew that a time vironmental bills - requiring, for ex expand your personal freedom, de would come when you would need to ample, acost/benefit analysis, written spite the general increase in govern stand and fight. For us, that time is permission from landholders before mental power. Yet many freedom now. government agents can go onto their lovers have not yet discovered these During the past three years, we land for "surveys," and compensation rapidly expanding micro-ecosystems have watched with amazement (and for regulations that reduce the value of freedom. When we tell people that participated, too) as several anti of private lands. we think a second American Revol federal political movements have 2. Another movement is demand ution has already begun and that the grown to such an extent that the polit ing that the federal government com time is ripe for getting involved in ical bigwigs in Washington, D.C. have ply with the Tenth Amendment by selected activism, the suggestion is started to take alarmed notice. Here exercising only its enumerated consti often met with cynicism and disbelief. are a few examples: tutional powers, while respecting the Here, then, is how we see the situ 1. A grassroots private property constitutionally reserved rights of the ation today. The millennium has started. rights and Fifth Amendment "tak states and the people over everything The Wall may fall at any time within ings" clause movement has emerged else. A resolution supporting the the next 15 years, and it's high time into a politically powerful force. The Tenth Amendment and asserting state 38 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

sovereignty over all except those pow ed economic analyses of the costs of federal government's claims to these ers specifically enumerated in the unfunded mandates to America's cities lands, basing their case on several Constitution has passed several state and is actively lobbying to eliminate doctrines: legislatures, including Illinois, Colo these. mandates, including the Endan A. The Equal Footing Doctrine. The rado, California, Missouri, and Hawaii. gered Species Act, the Americans with Constitution has a provision whereby The resolution has been introduced in Disabilities Act, the Clean Air Act, and states joining the Union after the origi Ohio, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, the Clean Water Act. In the latest nal 13 do so on an 1/equal footing" (on and has passed one house in meeting of the nation's governors, the same terms and conditions) as the Oklahoma. Eight other states - Utah, there was wide agreement that un original 13 - which had no federally Oregon, Idaho, Washington, New funded federal mandates were the owned lands. Mexico, Nevada, Michigan, and states' greatest problem. B. Prior appropriated lands. In the Wyoming - plan to introduce the res It has occurred to us .that it might west, much of the so-called unappro olution when their legislatures recon be possible to harness the tremendous priated lands that the federal govern vene. Some counties have also passed political forces arrayed to eliminate ment now claims already had the resolution, including ours in federal unfunded mandates. This Central Nevada. would cut off a major form of federal 3. Educational efforts by the Fully regulation and off-,the-books spending. More and more people are Informed Jury Amendment movement (For example, the Clintons' "health thinking, talking, and writing have influenced the outcomes of sever reform" and the Brady Bill are unfund al important trials involving abuse of ed mandates on the states.) The best about the Constitution today. power by agents of. the federal govern approach, we believe, is a constitution They are thinking about why ment, including the Randy Weaver al amendment to be passed through this "limited government" has and Waco trials. England's Glorious state legislatures. After all, states have become so unlimited. Revolution of 1688 began with jury the biggest incentive to get rid of nullification of laws restricting free unfunded mandates. We asked our at dom of speech .and religion. Jury torney, Jonathan Emord, to research extensive private rights on them at the reform (greater power for juries) is the issue from historical and legal per time the western states joined the now being debated seriously in several spectives and to report on the poten Union. For example, large grazing state legislatures, such as Arizona's. tial benefits of getting rid of federal areas that the federal government now The Arizona bill would allow members unfunded mandates, to advise how of juries to take notes and ask ques holds were previously in private use, the constitutional amendment process and these private rights were recog tions, although the Arizona legislators works through state legislatures, to nized by territorial and local court de evaluate the risk of runaway conveh cisions; essentially all surface water tions, and to write a proposed state The millennium has started. rights and riparian areas had been ap assembly resolution and accompany propriated by the time of statehood. The Wall may fall at any time ing constitutional amendment for pas These "unappropriated" lands were within the next 15 years, and sage through the states to eliminate supposed to be transferred to the fed it's high time freedom-lovers federal unfunded mandates. He con eral government with recognition of all cluded that the risk of a runaway con prior rights. started planning for large vention was no greater than the risk in C. Rights-oj-way in "public" lands in scale freedom in America. the congressional constitutional the west. R.S.2477 is a congressional amending process, provided that the statute passed in 1866 that allowed authorizing resolution is properly people to establish public highways were afraid to include information on written to strictly limit the authority of across "federal" lands. The statute was jury nullification (there would be the conventions. He has prepared a de terminated in 1976 under the Federal IItoo many acquittals"). tailed report on the subject, which we Land Policy Management Act; how 4. The "No Unfunded Mandates" are making available to the public at ever, all R.S.2477 rights-of-way estab movement is an unlikely political alli the cost of copying.2 lished prior to 1976 were grand ance of liberal and conservative state, 5. The "Taking Back the West" fathered. These state-controlled public county, city, and town government of movement is sweeping the western highways criss-cross the west, threat ficials, along with citizens' groups states. Over 500/0 of the land in the ening the federal government's at opposing high taxation. These groups west is. controlled by federal agencies tempts to close off "wilderness" areas are taking action to scale back the fed (the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land that, by definition, must contain no eral government's growing takeover of Management, etc.). Many state, roads. Until recently, the feds had sim the economic base of lower levels of county, and city government officials, ply been· illegally closing R.S.2477 government through unfunded man including district attorneys, are trying roads into areas they wished to seal dates. The Mayors' Task Force to kick the federal government off its off, but now some Nevada county chaired by a liberal big-city mayor, huge tracts of land. This movement commissioners are bulldozing them Richard Daley of Chicago - has fund- has developed a legal challenge to the open again in deliberate defiance of the Liberty 39 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

feds. "Prove to us that you have juris approve, preferring to restrict market supplements and on FDA-unapproved diction over these roads," they are ers' freedom of speech. The FDA's pol uses, also called off-label uses, of drugs demanding, while citing some of the icy is the most egregious example of the FDA approved for another extensive legal case precedents that the use of unconstitutional prior purpose. consistently supports state control of restraints on free speech. The FDA's and Justice Depart R.S.2477 rights-of-way. We are happy to have played a ment's attorneys are bewildered by our D. The Tenth Amendment. As men major role in this particular revolt. First Amendment challenge. Their tioned above, the Tenth Amendment Until last year, when we filed objec briefs display an unfamiliarity with the specifies that all powers not specific tions to the FDA's regulation of truth- legal jurisprudence of the First ally granted to the federal government Amendment. (Emord put it this way: in the Constitution are reserved to the "Neither the FDA nor the Justice states and the people. The implications We believe that as long as Department have been able to identify of this for the west should be obvious. precedent sufficient to exempt the E. Exceeding delegated authority. these mqvements' goal remains FDA's prior restraint from the Many of the actions taken by federal the restoration of constitution Supreme Court's First Amendment land agency employees "under color of al rights, it is worthwhile to case law, which stands foursquare law" are illegal because they go get involved. The Constitution against it.") beyond their specific delegated author Court rulings are notoriously diffi ity. They are now being legally chal isn't perfect, but it's a hell ofa cult to predict. We are encouraged by lenged in many parts of the rural west. lot better than what we have the fact that the First Amendment For example, Forest Service employees now. seems to be on a roll in the courts. In do not have the legal authority to en the most recent decision, the U.S. force the law, to have police-type rotat District Court for the Northern District ing lights and sirens on their vehicles, of Illinois (Eastern Division) decided ful speech accompanying the sale of or to carry guns while on duty. Some on October 27, 1994 (Ameritech Corp. v. dietary supplements, the FDA had Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico United States) that Section 533(b) of the never been challenged on a First counties have declared that federal 1984 Cable Communications Policy Act Amendment basis. land management employees who (which prohibited telephone compa Now it seems as if everyone and his nies from providing cable TV services) violate the constitutional rights of the uncle in the dietary supplement indus is an unconstitutional infringement of residents of their counties in the guise try - along with many of its custom of law enforcement will be arrested, ers, some physicians, and even a few the First Amendment because, as the charged, and prosecuted. Some of the research scientists - has discovered Supreme Court has said, cable pro feds in those areas are quite upset that there is such a thing as the First grammers and operators "engage in about the possibility of being tried be Amendment, that the FDA is wildly and transmit speech, and· they are enti fore a local judge and jury and thrown flouting it at great cost to the health of tled to the protection of the speech and into jail for actions that, until now, Americans, and that court precedent press provisions of the First Amend they have committed with impunity. strongly supports our position in ment." (It is interesting to note that, after the opposition to the FDA's prior re In the area in which this court has Border Patrol, the Forest Service has straints. Many people are now avidly jurisdiction, telephone companies may the highest incidence of employees following our FDA legal challenge be now compete with cable companies in bumped off on the job of all the gov fore the Ninth Circuit Court of the provision of video programming ernment "services.") Appeals. The case has been reported to the home. The basis for this deci F. Violation of trusteeship. When the extensively in FDC Reports - The Tan sion - that the law provided for an federal government acquired the Sheet, a widely circulated source of in unconstitutional "prior restraint" on "unappropriated" lands from the west formation about FDA regulations. By speech - is the same issue involved ern states as a condition for joining the the time you read this, oral arguments in our case, and we have brought up Union, it was understood that the fed by Jonathan Emord and by the govern many of the same arguments in our eral government would hold these ment's attorneys may have been heard lawsuit against the FDA. This is not lands in trust for eventual sale. There before the Court. too surprising, since Emord was one was nothing in these state-federal gov The stakes are immense. The FDA of the attorneys who filed a brief ernment agreements about perpetual is the greatest roadblock to improved advocating that the Court strike federal occupation of these lands until biomedical technology in the United Section 533(b). the above-mentioned Federal Land States. The FDA denies access to a Emord was also one of the attor Policy Management Act of 1976. huge and growing scientific literature neys who filed a brief in support of 6. The self-medication movement is on preventing disease and extending Bell-Atlantic Corporation in United gaining ground. Today, the govern lifespan.3 The FDA's restrictions on States v. The Chesapeake and Potomac ment is less likely to attempt outright truthful speech apply to communica Telephone Co. of Virginia, Bell Atlantic prohibition to prevent the use of prod tion of truthful, non-misleading infor Video Services, and Bell Atlantic Corp. be ucts in ways the government does not mation on the effects of dietary fore the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 40 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

Fourth Circuit. In that case, Section 7. Citizens' militias now exist in all and truly free information and bank 533(b) was struck down as an uncon 50 states. In mid-October, CNN report ing markets). stitutional violation of the First ed a protest by members of the Amendment rights of telephone com Michigan citizens' militia about the fly In the Beginning ... panies wanting to provide video ing of the United Nations flag at a town The United States began with 13 programming to their customers. hall. (They ought to have protested the colonies. Now there are 50. Just as the Gonathan is on a roll, too.} flying of the federal flag, too; we fly the colonists of old sat around in taverns In the meantime, Congress has 13-star Bennington Revolutionary War and argued about the rights of man passed the Hatch-Harkin bill intended banner.) The militia movement has also while developing the philosophical to protect the dietary supplement attracted the attention of the New York principles that led to the American industry from those FDA regulations Times, U.S. News & World Report, and Revolution, we are seeing more and that threaten the continued availability other major media. We hope that gov more people thinking, talking, and of many dietary supplements and ernment awareness of the growing writing about the Constitution today. prevent comnlunication of truthful in number of armed citizens training in They are thinking about why this "lim formation about any supplement's militias may deter recurrences of such ited government" has become so un health effects. Unfortunately, the bill naked government aggression as the limited and how constitutional rights (which started out pretty good) went mass murder at Waco. can be restored and strengthened. In through extensive modification in a 8. - and beyond. There are a num some parts of the country - such as

last-minute Iicompromise" process to ber of technological opportunities for central Nevada, where we live - the get Rep. Henry Waxman to permit the increasing freedom which we haven't federal government has about as much bill to reach the House floor for a vote. the space to discuss here, including the moral authority in the eyes of the Although the compromise law has talk radio marketplace of ideas, the ex inhabitants as an occupying army. This SOllle good features, it perpetuates the plosive growth of desktop publishing, view of Washington, D.C. is spreading FDA's speech restrictions. Our First the Internet (where people select the rapidly and is starting to scare the hell Amendment court challenge assumes non-geographical societies in which out of the Beltway crowd. greater importance in the face of they wish to live and make their own Will D.C. be a ghost town in 2005? Congress' failure to do anything about rules), the increasing availability of in We don't know, but it certainly seems the FDA's continuing violations of free formational databases, and encryption possible. Lech Walesa once said that speech. (with the potential of 100% privacy the most important factor in Eastern "This Book Should Be in the Hands of Every Teacher

and Every Parent" -John Hospers Professor Emeritus of Philosophy University of Southern California

Laissez Faire Books, the world's largest source of books on liberty, says this about Separating School and State: "This is a thrilling book! It goes where no one has dared go before. This book mounts the most fundamental challenge to the government school monopoly and provides an exhilarating vision of how much better off everyone will be with 100% private, voluntary schools." John Taylor Gatto (New York Teacher of the Year) says: "Mr. Richman is right-state schooling doesn't work because it can't work." And Dr. Walter E. Williams Oohn M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University) calls this book "a powerful contribution." You'll call it an essential addition to your bookshelf. Separating School and State by Sheldon Richman Future of Freedom Foundation VISNMasterCard accepted 11350 Random Hills Road, Ste. 800 $14.95 paper' $22.95 cloth Fairfax, Virginia 22030 (includes shipping) Tel.: (703) 934-6101 Full money-back guarantee. Fax: (703) 803-1480 March 1995

Europe's break with the former Soviet store those limits. Even the Supreme Union was the availability of cheap Court realizes that its power stems How to information technology. The sudden from its moral legitimacy, and that it influx of information about the "real" will lose that legitimacy if it fails to Subscribe world caused a catastrophic decline in support the Constitution during.this the Soviet government's moral legiti crisis. macy, followed by the breakup of the If it does fail, we will have to rely to U.S.S.R. on constitutional amendments passed To stay in power, any government, through state legislatures to curtail even a totalitarian one, has to have a unconstitutional federal actions. Inter Liberty significant degree of legitimacy in the vention by the citizens' militias is the eyes of its subjects. To a great extent, last resort. We do not want to see coercive laws (such as income taxes) things get to this point, which is why Liberty takes individual depend upon voluntary compliance. we are expending so much of our time, freedom seriously ... and Most people harbor some belief that money, and energy on the movements the status quo with more the government represents them. we've just described. Without this quasi-consent, enforce Please join us. The party has just than one grain of salt! ment costs would get totally out of begun! Q hand. Washington, D.C. is losing legiti Liberty tackles the tough problems. Notes: Every issue of Liberty presents es macy in the eyes of many Americans right now. 1. Originally published in The Libertarian says studying current trends in Connection #13. Reprinted in Liberty, There could be many outcomes of political and social thought, discus December 1987. this, some good, some bad. The U.S. sions of the strategy and tactics of 2. Available from The Invisible Hand social change, analyses of current might break up, possibly into 50 coun Foundation, P.O. Box 1181, Port events, and challenges to popular tries. If this happens, we hope the 50 Townsend, WA 98368. $5.50 per set of beliefs. Liberty also offers lively are smart enough to have a strong free 43 pages. book reviews, fiction, and humor. trade treaty among themselves. 3. At a 1994 scientific conference we at You won't want to miss a single Alternately, the federal government tended, several scientists from large issue! might be chopped back to something pharmaceutical companies took part in more like the strictly limited federal a panel discussion of industrial initia Act Today! system intended by the framers of the tives involving free-radical-induced dis Liberty offers you the best in liber Constitution. If so, this time we need to orders. In the question-and-answer tarian thinking and writing. So put in stronger checks and balances, to period, one scientist asked them when don't hesitate. You have nothing to avoid (or at least obstruct) the federal they were going to develop a drug for and the fruits of to lose, Liberty government's destruction of constitu the purpose of retarding aging itself, gain! tional rights without increasing that rather than simply treating diseases of aging. The panel members looked at risk at the state or local level. one another and one of them answered Use the coupon below or call: We believe that as long as these slowly (requesting that he not be quot movements' goal remains the restora ed on this, which is why we haven't 1-800-854-6991 tion of constitutional rights, it is worth identified him or even the conference it.. while to get involved. The Constitution self) that he thought an anti-aging drug isn't perfect, but it's a hell of a lot bet could be developed within five years ~------,' Please enter my subscription ter than what we have now. These with what we know now, but that this I·YeS to Liberty immediately! I grassroots groups are trying to reduce work will not be funded at their compa Q Six issues (One Full Year) $19.50 I federal power (we call this "a mid ny because they would never be able to I Q Twelve issues (Two Full Years) $37.00 course correction") in relation to the get FDA approval. The other panel I Add $5 per year for foreign subscriptions. I power of state and local governments members agreed and expressed consid and in relation to the power of erable frustration about this situation. individuals. There will be a large increase in public There is no guarantee, of course, dissatisfaction with the FDA as soon as that the ultimate outcome of all this the public discovers that the FDA is suppressing information about the abili will be large-scale personal freedom. It ty of low-dose aspirin, moderate alco is clear, though, that growing numbers hol consumption, and antioxidant of Americans are demanding that the vitamin supplements to prevent 50 federal government return to constitu 800/0 of heart attacks. tional limits, and that this is leading to I signature a constitutional crisis in which, among For a list of sources and addresses for the I account # expires other things, the courts will have to groups mentioned in this article, send a Send to: Liberty, Dept. L46, decide whether they are going to re- #10 SASE to Liberty Sources, P.O. Box L P.O.------_Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368..• Travelogue In Kyrgyzstan by Douglas Casey

Through the ex-Soviet ex-Union with a gun and an investment portfolio.

Late last July, I flew across twelve time zones to Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan. From there I drove south to Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan. Despite the hundreds of thousands of miles I've traveled in the Third World over the last 20 years, this was only my second trip to the old Soviet Empire. I went to check out some Kyrgyz gold mining properties that I was thinking of investing in, but I also dence is omnipresent that the country Kyrgyzstan is awash with bureau wanted to see the country and the is going nowhere fast. Gasoline is sel crats from the World Bank and people. I can assure you: it's nothing dom available at filling stations, which International Monetary Fund, anxious like Kansas. mostly are stripped and abandoned to squander Western tax dollars on all Just north of Afghanistan, nestled because they're still state property; gas manner of cockamamie schemes between China, Tajikistan, and is peddled from tankers by entrepren hatched by the apparatchiki. In recent Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan is about the eurs on the roadside. No construction years they've emphasized privatiza size of South Dakota, with 4.7 million cranes grace Kyrgyzstan's cities. tion, deregulation, and tax reduction, inhabitants. Even though the people You see men squatting in court which seems sensible enough. But speak a Turkic language, they're eth yards, smoking cigarettes and palaver neither the IMFers nor the World nic Mongols, tall and rangy. Almost ing, for lack of anything better to do. Bankers believe in those values. They all are Muslims, but few are funda No restaurants, no shops, no foreign simply recognize it's the only way mentalists. Ethnic Russians are newspapers or magazines. No foreign they stand to recover any of the unpopular and are rapidly vacating ers either, for that matter. In Kyrgyz uneconomic loans they've made to the premises. It's a pastoral society; hotels, you make your own bed. these countries, and thus hold onto once you'reout of the city it becomes Expect grim and unsmiling service, al their jobs. I doubt that a single apparent that the people prefer yurts though "service" isn't quite the right employee of either boondoggle insti to the god-awful apartment blocks the word. tution has any experience running a Soviets tried to herd them into. Meanwhile, the old government business, or would last five minutes Uponarrival I was greetedbya sur officials remain employed; that is, in a real venture capital firm. They're ly but unarmed customs officer, who they hang around their offices, figur just the type you always find running collected a form that asked how much ing out ways to bedevil and extort the around in Third World countries, currency I was carrying. A stupid nui citizens so as to justify their existence. playing bigshot instead of working sance, and always a tip-off th,at a coun- H any improvements are to be made for the post office, where they belong. try has problems. But he was a less in in the lot of the common man here, I met a female lawyer employed trusive than the armed, midnight-blue they're going to have to be imported by the SEC, on loan to the Kyrgyz jumpsuited little bedbug from U.s. from the West. But that's not the kind government to assist in setting up a Customswho asked me the same ques of help the West is delivering. stock exchange. In a brief (and pre tion as I boarded the plane in Dallas. dictably unpleasant) conversation, I The official line pays lip service to· The Development Game learned that she was a firm believer in free-marketization and liberalization. What passes for development aid regulation and had no practical in But talk is cheap, and anecdotal evi- from the West is simply perverse. vestment experience, but did have an Liberty 43 r------, March 1995 abiding distrust of markets. Your tax dollars at work. Speaking of tax dollars, I was Early Liberty informed that the IRS is also on hand to Indulge your mind with the pleasure and stimulation of early instruct the natives on how to set up a Liberty. Or complete your collection of the most exciting libertarian proper tax system. I kid you not. That's magazine. Enjoy! not going to make business here any easier. August 1987, 4Bpp., $4.00 by Jerome Tuccille • David Ramsay Steele on Notwithstanding all this, Kyrgyz • "The Films of Ayn Rand," by Stephen Robert Anton Wilson • An interview with stan is a place in which an enterprising Cox • "Life or Death in Seattle," by Murray L. Neil Smith • "Rand-Bashing: Enough is fellow could do very well. Rothbard • "The Mystery Man of the Enough," by Ross Overbeek Plus Stephen Libertarian Movement," by Ben Best Plus Cox, Tibor Machan, Bill Kelsey, and others. Doing Business Ross Overbeek, Butler Shaffer, Ida Walters, Timothy Virkkala, and others. September 1988*, BOpp., $10.00 I visited the mining properties in a • "Scrooge McDuck and His Creator," by Phil helicopter. The properties checked out October 1987*, 4Bpp., $8.00 Salin • "Liberty and Ecology/' by John pretty good, the Western managers on • "The Sociology ofLibertarians," by J. C. Hospers • "The Ultimate Foundation of site seemed competent, and the prices Green & J. L. Guth • "The Apostasy of Private Property Rights," by Hans-Hermann of their stocks were fairly cheap. Even Robert Nozick," by Ethan O. Waters • "The Hoppe so, I decided not to buy. I can't get very Rise ofthe State," by Murray Rothbard Plus Stephen Cox, William P. Moulton, Jonathan November 1988, BOpp., $4.50 enthusiastic about properties in this Saville, and others. • "Taking Over the Roads," by John part of the world. If they were almost Semmens • "The Search for We the Livingt" anywhere else - South America, December 1987, 56pp., $4.00 by R.W. Bradford • "Cooperation vs Envy," Africa, Southeast Asia - it would be a • "The Most Unforgettable Libertarian I Ever by John Dentinger Plus Walter Block, different story. Knew," by Karl Hess • "Easy Living in the Stephen Cox, and others. Even when the company and its Bahamas," by Mark Skousen • "Libertarians management are clearly held in high in a State-Run World," by Murray January 1989, 72pp., $4.00 Rothbard Plus Walter Block, Erika Holzer, regard by the locals, it's not going to be • "Ronald Reagan's 'Revolution,'" by William easy doing business here. For one Stephen Cox, and others. Niskanen • "AIDS and the FDA," by Sandy Shaw Plus John Hospers, Leland Yeager, Jane thing, it's going to take at least a gener March 1988, 64pp., $4.00 Shaw, and others. ation to overcome ingrained corrup • "Libertarians & Conservatives: Allies or tion. Everyone will have his hand out, Enemies?" by John Dentinger & Murray March 1989, 72pp., $6.00 awaiting the right amount of baksheesh, Rothbard • "Free Speech and the Future of • "Ronald Reagan: An Autopsy,t' by Murray Medicine," by Sandy Shaw & Durk before signing papers or granting per Rothbard • "What IfEverything We're Told Pearson • "The Majority vs the Majoritarian: mits. American companies are con About Safety Were Wrong?" by John Semmens Robert Bork on Trialt " by Sheldon strained by American law to abstain Richman Plus R.W. Bradford, William Cate, and Diane Kresich Plus writing by Jeffrey Friedman, David Ramsay Steele, Sheldon from bowing to local traditions of that Stephen Cox, and others. Richman, and others. nature. I questioned them about it, and May 1988, 64pp., $4.00 they feel that being known as straight • "Ayn Rand: Still Controversial After All May 1989, 72pp., $4.00 shooters will inure to their long-term These Years," by David Ramsay Steele & • "The End of the Secular Century," by Murray advantage. But this is Kyrgyzstan, not David Brown • "The ACLU: Suspicious Rothbard • "Man, Nature, and State," by Karl Kansas, and I suspect that ignoring this Hess, Jr. Plus David Gordon, Justin Principlest Salutary Effects," by William P. time-honored practice will generate Moulton • "The Two Libertarianisms," by Raimondo, Stephen Cox, and others. non-cooperation from those in power. Ethan O. Waters Plus Gary Alexander, Here's the real problem I have with Nathaniel Branden, Erika and Henry Mark July 1989, 80pp., $8.00 Holzer, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, and others. • "Viking Iceland: Anarchy That Worked," by mining in this part of the world. The David Friedman • "The Myth of the Rights of deposits controlled by various compa July 1988, BOpp., $4.00 Mental Patients," by Thomas Szasz Plus Tibor nies are generally huge and rich. They • "Confessions of an Intractable Individualist," Machan and others. have generally been drilled to a fare "Photocopy thee-well by Soviet geologists. Envi Circle each issue you want, and add $1.00 shipping & ronmental and official (as opposed to handling per order (foreign orders add 50¢ per issue). o My check is enclosed Fill in the appropriate information below. baksheesh-driven) regulatory problems Charge my: are trivial. Labor is cheap and plentiful. CJ VISA CJ Mastercard Name Financing is usually subsidized by some government or international Address Signature agency. It's all perfect except for one City thing: this part of the world is a ticking Account # bomb. State ______Zip _ Expiration Phone # Strangely enough, that doesn't mean that companies here won't suc- L __ ~~t!.t!!.:_L.!..b~r.!Y~!?~.!..!3!6~ ~·9:..B2~ !.l~b ~~!.!0!VE~e~~ ~A..9~~6~ _ .J .... Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

ceed in making mines, and making the ideal entree, would result in a hun snow-capped peaks. It could have them work~ The various warring fac dred times more commerce than any been Colorado. Two large yurts were tions have more interest in plucking a Stock Exchange from Hell set up by joined together, and all manner of bi golden goose than killing it. They some lawyer from the SEC. zarre food was served; it was some know they can't run a high-tech mine This needn't be just interesting the thing like combining a quaint picture - after all, they watched the Soviets ory and cocktail-party chatter. If you from your fourth-grade geography try and fail for decades. And they were to send your son or grandson book with the feast from Indiana Jones know the foreigners will cut and run if (female progeny have the odds loaded and the Temple of Doom. Every meal in it gets too unpleasant. against them in this part of the world, I don't mean to say that an unless they're already really tough American couldn't make money here. and street smart) to check it out for a What's currently going on If I were a younger man, hot on the few weeks or months, I promise you trail of adventure and fortune, I'd be he'll get far more value than from in Chechnya is simply a well tempted to open a restaurant in years in an MBA program, "learning" reported version of what's hap Bishkek. The success of McDonald's in from professors who couldn't make it pening all over old U.S.S.R. Russia and China is instructive, and in the business world. I picked up a few lessons, myself. There are six provinces in Kyrgyzstan, In Kyrgyz hotels, you make and my companions and I were hosted Kyrgyzstan is planned around mutton. The guest of honor was an executive of your own bed. Expect grim and by the governors of two of them. One governor made no secret of the fact a mining company, a fact publicly unsmiling service, although that he was at a stage of life when get acknowledged when he was presented with the sheep's head. By the time it 1/service" isn't quite the right ting rich was important; we discussed word. the prospect of the restaurant with got around to me, all the choice parts, him, ,knowing he could make things a such as the nose and eyeballs, had lot easier. I asked him if the various already been high-graded. I consoled myself with other dishes whose com several friends of mine who have fi mafias that control Russia had moved ponents defied recognition. .nanced a pizza chain in southern down into Kyrgyzstan, and whether You may remember that song from Poland are also doing well. we were likely to have any trouble the '60s whose refrain goes something The first thing people do with dis with them. He answered, "Don't wor like, "The French hate the Germans, posable income - all people, every ry. I am the Mafia." the Germans hate the Dutch, and I where - is eat out once in a while. And while there's nothing wrong with A Bit of Local Culture don't like anybody very much." Well, catering to the masses, the real money, Of course, an individual American multiplied by 100 nationalities, that and the fun, doesn't lie in slinging entrepreneur could safely disregard could be the theme song for the entire hash to the hoi polloi; it's in running an the idiotic American law against bak old Soviet Empire for many years to upmarket gin joint, perhaps in the sheesh, so he could cough up a little come. What's currently going on in style of Rick's Cafe Americain. The peo now and then, enough to keep on the Chechnya is simply a well-reported ple who have big money here - at the good side of the authorities. I person version of what's happening all over moment, most of it appears to have a ally didn't have to pay any on this old U.S.S.R. In the civil war in genesis in things like stolen cars from trip, but I did partake of some other lo Tajikistan, there have been more than the West, sale of recently liberated cal customs. 100,000 casualties, including 20,000 government property, and plain old Near the miners' housing at one deaths, in the last year alone. fashioned corruption - simply don't mine site was a camp of nomads, liv For some reason - probably have any place to spend it. ing in yurts, dressed in traditional because they all get their copy from For the life of me, I can't see why garb, riding skinny little ponies; things the same State Department press anyone would put up with a low didn't look like they'd changed much releases - the media think these plac return, highly competitive, aggrava since Ghengis Khan came through es are "countries" in some real sense. tion-intensive business like a restau town. Just as they rode up to my It's more realistic to forget about the rant in the developed world when, in house, I went out to greet them and of borders, which are meaningless lines a place like this, there is no competi fer them a Coke; they reciprocated some successful criminal in a capital tion and infinitely higher returns. with fermented horse milk. The stuff city drew on a map after some war. Admittedly, aggravation is an integral tastes somewhat like a watery alcohol And forget about such inane con part of the restaurant business. But the ic yogurt. cepts as "democracy," too. Even in the real money in a place like Kyrgyzstan On the way back, the governor of West it's just a polite variety of mob is in deals - real estate, construction, another province hosted a traditional rule; here it's a laughingstock, useless import/export, venture capital. A Kyrgyz feast alongside a stream in an except for pieties delivered to credu- properly run bar in Bishkek, which is aspen grove, in a valley overlooked by lous reporters. 0 Liberty 45 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 Open Letter

Harry, Don't Run! by John Pugsley

Dear Harry: Your decision to seek the Libertarian Party's nomination for presi dent in the next election has electrified libertarians. It is, without doubt, the most exciting news that has hit the Party since its formation in 1971. Many of us were stunned. Your writings over 30 years have consis tently argued the futility of political action and maintained that people waste their freedom working to affect the government. However, on For 25 years, Harry reviewing your writings, along with your explanation for the change, I'm satisfied that youhaven't reversed course. You just believe that the pub Browne argued against lic's perception of government has changed. Today, tens of millions of Americans - perhaps the majority -can see for themselves thatgovem ment doesn't work. Where in the past you felt political action was futile; participating in electoral you now are convinced thatthe time is hereto wage the battle for indi vidual liberty through the ballot box. With heightened public recognition politics. Now he is run that government is the problem, you sense that the right candidate could be a lightning rod, collecting the disparate energies of a disenchanted ning for the presidency. populace and focusing them on disbanding the state. As a long-time friend who has been one ofyour greatest admirers, I An old friend asks him to can testify that your considerable skills as a speaker, coupled with your brilliant mind and rapier wit, make you the most powerful candidate the reconsider. Libertarian Party has ever put forward. The emotional appeal of a person of your intelligence, wisdom, and knowledge in the position of president makes the thought of joining your crusade compelling. Win or lose, such a campaign would bring the free-market argument to hundreds of thou sands of disenchanted individuals, spreading the truth that big government is their enemy and the sole source of America's social decay. And yes, it would be an extreme long-shot, but with luck, the Libertarians might actually win. Ifyou became presid~nt, it would appear that you'd be positionedto strike a potentially mortal blow to the state. And even if you didn't win, reaching voters with the truth might exert tremendous pressure on politicians in the other parties, leading them to change the direction of government. I hear that support is pouring in from libertarians whohave never before deigned to touch a ballot. Many of my close friends and col leagues, including such independent thinkers as Doug Casey, Mark Skousen,Bill Bradford, Rick Rule, and Bob Prechter, have told me that theyare joining your campaign. The calls are coming in thick and fast entreating meto join the new libertarian army at the political barricades. As I said, this is emotionally compelling. However, I ask you and all of our libertarian friends to re-examine the premises on which political action is founded before succumbing to its visceral appeal. Your charisma and persuasive power will attract thebest and brightest minds of the libertarian world onto the political battlefield. Ifyou are wrong, the 46 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

potential injury to the cause of freedom could take a century action was the only rational strategy primarily because vot to heal. ing is futile - one vote doesn't matter. However, you now The goal of all individuals of good will today and for feel that masses of voters will choose a candidate who prom most of history is and has been freedom. The brightest ises to bring down government, so that individual votes will minds of every generation in recorded history have matter. It's not clear why if one vote doesn't matter in one searched for the path to that goal. The discovery of how to election, it does in another. If it's because now there is a achieve freedom has been and is mankind's most important chance of winning when before there wasn't, then that quest. You and I are painfully aware of how completely would presume that votes only matter if there's a chance of mankind has failed. Nowhere on Earth does man live in winning. freedom. But you also argue that even if you don't win, a large vot Why has our species failed to achieve this, its most er turnout for a Libertarian candidate will send a message to important goal? the Democrat or Republican who does win in 1996. But I think you would probably agree that it has failed again, I'm not clear as to why this wasn't true in past because those searching for freedom have incorrectly assumed that freedom could only exist if we first designed the perfect form ofgovernment. Even those enlightened men whom we call our "founding fathers" started from the I ask you and all ofour libertarian friends to premise that a society can only function if individuals sub re-examine the premises on which political ordinate at least some of their personal freedom to a action is founded before succumbing to its vis political authority. Outside of you, me, and a relative hand ful of libertarians around the world, thisfalse belief that ceral appeal. mencannot live in harmony without government is nearly universal. Libertarians and anarchists have long recognized the elections. If influence on the winner is a reason to participate wolf in grandmother's nightgown, and now conservatives in politics, this should have been just as legitimate a reason and even many who consider themselvesliberals at last are for voting in the past, too. becoming aware that each time grandmother kisses them, You've talked with people all over the country and they they wind up with a nasty bite. As the victims of govern universally distrust government. The polls themselves con ment multiply, the search intensifies for a way to contain it. tinually signal the public's disenchantment with the state. If The central issue facing all freedom-seeking individuals asked, even many liberal Democrats will say that govern conservatives, libertarians, and anarchists alike - is, How ment is doing a bad job. But have the majority of people can the cancerous growth ofthe state be stopped? What can become anti-government? There is some evidence to support the idea that a great number have become fed up with big government. Perot's appeal in the last election stemmed Every person in the lynch mob is as guilty as partly from his government-bashing. But part of it also came from his Japan-bashing and his courting workers and busi the person who pulls the rope. ness owners with protectionist arguments. We shouldn't forget that in spite of all, the election was won by the "big government" party. individuals do to effectively reverse the trend toward omnip It would be dangerous to assume that just because some otent government and ultimately achieve a stateless society, one says he thinks government is too big, he is ready to or at least the maximum degree of individual freedom? eliminate those areas of government in which he is a benefi There are two fundamentally different strategies from ciary. If history is any guide, the next election will be won by which to choose. The most popular strategy is to use the the candidate who promises to bring big government under political process to take control of the state apparatus. Those control, without cutting offthe flow ofgovernment benefits. who choose this strategy believe that through education, Assuming there is a majority of voters who could be won political campaigning, and the voting booth, political power over to a candidate that promises to bring down big govern can be wrested from special interests, spendthrift politicians ment and repeal the income tax, what will happen to the can be excised from government, and the state can be sub attitude of these voters when the consequences of repealing dued. The Libertarian Party was founded to pursue such an the income tax and downsizing government become obvi agenda. The other strategy, that of using individual action, is ous? How many senior citizens will vote for repealing the far less popular. Those who see~ freedom through a strategy income tax if they believe that the effect will be to curtail of individual action refuse to condone political action even Social Security or Medicare? How many corporate execu as a means to an end. They reject all political action. They do tives will back away when they realize that their regulatory not register. They do not vote. They do not campaign for or shield will be removed and they'll face open competition? against candidates. They do not contribute to political parties How many managers of subsidized export industries will or political action committees. They do not write letters to defect when they realize the foreign loans that pay for their congressmen or presidents. This non-political road is one products will be axed? How many public school employees some libertarians and all pure anarchists have followed. will vote Libertarian when they learn that education will be In the past you have rigorously argued that individual privatized? How many union members will vote Libertarian Liberty 47 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 when they learn that minimum wages and other pro-labor the Declaration of Independence, all men are created equal laws they have worked years to get passed will all be and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, trashed? including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Ifeach Yes, seven out of ten people will say they want less gov person has a natural right to his body and property, then ernment - but I fear their desire will last only as long as it another individual cannot have a right to aggress against him. doesn't interrupt their own turn at the trough. The point is Ina political democracy or republic, voting appoints a candi that the number of people who want smaller government is date to be your agent and implicitly sanctions him to aggress no indicator of how many will be willing to sacrifice imme against others in the community. It is equivalent to saying that diate gratification to secure their longer-term well-being. you have the right to give A permission to aggress against B. Only an election will tell us. The anarchist argues that no individual, including you, has Your arguments for political action basically revolve the right to give anyone else permission to aggress. According around a belief that political action really can ultimately to the natural rights hypothesis, voting is an immoral act. Before I go on, I should say that I don't harbor the illusion that nature granted any special rights to human beings. The The voter implicitly agrees that 'whoever most that nature granted each of us was life. Moral is a word we use to signify an action that is right or good, immoral an wins the election is entitled to regulate, tax, action that is wrong or bad. Aggression is not wrong for the imprison, and kill. reason that it violates some natural right; it is wrong because every act of aggression diminishes productivity, prosperity, peace, and progress, thus diminishing the well-being of man result in freedom. But I ask you to reconsider each of the kind. Whether a person believes in the doctrine of natural arguments against political action, one by one. Some, I grant rights or not, voting remains an immoral act. you, are weak, as I will point out. But others require your The would-be voter, in a fall-back defense of voting, response. argues that he is not voting for just anyone, he is voting for 1. One vote doesn't matter. The front-line argument Harry Browne. You're ready to swear that you'll never, never against voting, and the reason that most people don't vote, use the gun of political power against anyone, but are seek is simply the belief that one vote doesn't matter. ing that gun only in an attempt to destroy it once you hold it This is one of the weaker arguments against voting, since in your hands. If the other candidate wins, he may aggress, we all know that this is not quite true. It's more correct to but you will not. say that one vote probably won't matter. But it could. You and your voters know that the office carries with it Elections have been won or lost on small margins. Since vot - by law, by the Constitution, and by tradition - the power ing could swing an election, the low probability of casting a to aggress. Each voter admits he knows the authority exists useful vote should not be considered a valid reason for and delegates it to the individual for whom he votes. The abstaining from political action ... providing that political voter implicitly agrees that whoever wins the election is enti victory could eventually lead to a free society. I think you tled to those powers - the power to regulate, the power to properly qualified this argument when you said in How I tax, the power to imprison, and the power to kill. Ifyou are Found Freedom in an Unfree World, lithe individual's efforts elected, you'll be required to swear an oath to carry out the become almost irrelevant to the outcome." The operative duties of the presidency and uphold the law, as specified in word is "almost." the Constitution. You and the voter don't set the contract, but 2. Libertarians can't hope to win. The futility-of-one-vote your participation is your agreement to abide by its rules. argument above is harmonic with the argument that the You condone the existence and authority of the office by the Libertarians can't hope to win. Because of the power of the very act of entering the race and entering the voting booth, two major parties, the great sums of campaign money they so you must therefore be responsible for acts of aggression command, and the bias of the media, the odds against free performed by whoever wins the election. Where on the ballot is market advocates are overwhelming. Furthermore, even if there a box that you can check saying you do not agree that free-market advocates gain media coverage, the majority of the person elected should be given the powers of the office? individual voters will probably prefer to vote themselves Where on the ballot can you withhold the authorization for benefits in the short term because they fool themselves into some or all of the powers that are attached to the office? believing that somehow they will personally be able to Where on the ballot is there a box to check denying personal avoid paying the price in the long term. responsibility for the acts of any of the candidates once they Again, I think this is one of the weaker arguments are in office? Ifan appointed agent acts within the boundaries of against political action. There is no law of nature that says a the office to which he is appointed, every individual participating in Libertarian candidate couldn't win. Victory is not impossi appointing an agent to that office is responsible for the acts ofany ble, just unlikely. The low probability of winning an election agent appointed to that office. The voter is not absolved of his is not an insurmountable reason for abstaining from politi responsibility simply because his candidate didn't win. In cal action ... prOViding, that is, that political victory could truth, what is missing from any ballot, and which should be eventually lead to a free society. printed on it, is the entire Constitution and body of laws set 3. Natural rights. The central anarchist argument against ting down in detail the duty and powers of the office being political action, and the first one, it seems to me, that is voted on, as well as the place to check of the person you impossible to refute, is that of "natural rights." As stated in want to fill the office. It would then become crystal-dear that 48 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 every voter endorses the office, and is thereby responsible the Allied nations share the responsibility for the deaths of for the acts of whoever wins the election. the innocent civilians who died in the bombing of Dresden. In response to the moral argument, your campaign man Those who voted in the Clinton/Bush election have perma ager, Michael Cloud, asked me: "If libertarian politics were nently stained their hands with the blood of the families who an act of self-defense, would you consider it morally died in Waco. Those who vote in the next presidential elec acceptable?" tion will share responsibility for the theft, coercion, and In order to understand the implications of this position, destruction the next administration will wreak on all burrow down to the basic principle on which the question Americans as well as on innocent people around the world rests. Political action is a synonym for aggression, and the who fall victim to American intervention. Every person in the term "libertarian politics," therefore, is an oxymoron. lynch mob is as guilty as the person who pulls the rope. Since Substitute "aggression" for "politics" and he's really asking, a voter appoints an agent and empowers that agent to aggress "llaggression were an act of self-defense, would itbe mora]?" against others, the act of voting is immoral. It is wrong. Well, something can't simultaneously be moral and not Unfortunately, for the majority, including the moral. The proper question is, "am I justified in majority of libertarians, the moral argument is often aggressing against B in order to defend brushed aside. Just as the preach myself from aggression by A?" While er's sermon fails to make all in his aggression in the name of self-defense is congregation honest, moral sua widely accepted, I'm not certain Michael sion consistently fails to deter or you would be comfortable absolving some libertarians from endorsing yourself of guilt in this way. If you are coercion as a defense against coer threatened by a lion, are you justified in cion. It's far too easy to believe throwing me to the lion in order to save I that the end justifies the means yourself? What if the lion is about to in just this one case, of course. attack our group? Can individuals in the Political action to end political group vote to throw you to the lion action is like drinking for temper and claim that it's an act of self ance, being gluttonous to stop defense? If a mugger tells you he's obesity, stealing to end theft, wag stealing your money to defend ing war to end wars. himself against his neighbor, or 4. It doesn't work. In spite of the hunger, or illness, does that moral arguments, your supporters make his aggression morally may still argue that although it acceptable? may be immoral to vote, if a minor Of course, aggression in the violation of principle might result name of self-defense is politically in a free world, it would be ration correct. In the Civil War, the North al to vote. If it was possible to elect claimed that it was fighting to free the you to the presidency you would slaves, that the battle was in defense of dramatically reduce the power of the slaves' rights. In Sherman's famous the state and the ends achieved march through Georgia, his soldiers left a swath of death would justify the means. Even though it violates morality, and destruction, destroying crops, burning homes and kill even though political action may be wrong on some erudite, ing civilians. Sherman himself acknowledged that only 20% ideological, hoity-toity level, why don't we just give it a try? of the destruction inflicted by his invasion was inflicted on What do we have to lose? Maybe this time the country is military objectives. Civilian non-combatants, essentially ready to abandon government and all it needs is the right innocents, suffered 80% of the losses. Was this self-defense? voice to lead it. Let's give it one more try. The Allies in WorId War II claimed to be acting in self The cry to give politics one more try reminds me of P.J. defense against Hitler. The saturation bombing of German O'Rourke's book, Give War A Chance. Those who are swayed cities, where there were no military bases, killed hundreds toward political action have forgotten that we have already of thousands of innocent German civilians - men, women, given it a try. It has been tried for thousands of years in thou and children. Would you or I have considered such actions sands of nations, in tens of thousands of elections and morally justified? through hundreds of thousands of political parties and can By definition, any attack on the life, property, or freedom didates. Even if political action only had one chance in of an innocent third party is aggression. It does not become 100,000 of resulting in a free nation, statistical probability right or moral simply because it is carried out while acting alone would suggest that there would be at least one free in self-defense. Voting does not become moral simply nation today. Mankind has reached the brink of self because the voter declares that he is acting in self-defense. extinction giving politics a try. In summary, according to my reading of morality, the Thus, the most obvious, and therefore most overlooked voter can't deny responsibility for the acts of elected offi reason to eschew political action is that it simply doesn't cials, nor can he deny being an aggressor because he work. All of political history can be summed up as a struggle appointed them in self-defense. Just as much as those who to throw the bad guys out and put the good guys in. Just as voted for Hitler share in the guilt of his atrocities, voters in Sisyphus was condemned to spend eternity in Hades rolling Liberty 49 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 a rock up a hill, only to have it roll down again, so the tages of a stateless society, the quick retort is that such an human race seems to be sentenced to spend forever trying to idea is utopian; it would never work. Government is put the good guys in office only to find they turn bad once required to control man's selfish nature. But clearly, the truth there. I'm sorry to say it, but when it comes to placing power is precisely the opposite. in the hands of humans, there are no good guys. Which Because of the selfish nature of man, it is utopian to give a brings us to the next argument against political action. human being authority over the lives and property of strang 5. Human nature. Ithasn't yetoccurred to most freedom ers and expect that person not to consider his or her own seekers that the reason political action hasn't succeeded is well-being first. Because he is genetically programmed to be not a matter of bad luck, bad timing, or inarticulate candi self-interested, man cannot be given authority over another dates. The reason is that it can't work. No matter how many without taking advantage. The idea that a government com times you roll the dice, they will never come up thirteen. Let posed of human beings would put the well-being of the me explain exactly why political action must fail no matter population before its own well-being is utopian. Historians how many times it is tried. have completely rewritten history, making it appear that A principle is a fundamental truth derived from a natu political leaders have acted in the interests of nations, rather rallaw. As A.J. Galambos so clearly pointed out in his than in their own, but you and I know thatbehind every law some politician or political supporter benefited. For individu als elected to positions of authority, acts of altruism are You condone the existence and authority of almost non-existent. Lord Acton's famous maxim, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely," is the office by the very act of entering the race merely an astute observation about the nature of man. We and entering the voting booth. find the statement compelling because it so perfectly describes the history of state power. The only way government might work would be if man courses on volitional science, the proper means to reach any were not selfish. If man suddenly changed and became com objective is to establish a set of first principles. Thus, scien pletely altruistic, he would have to be forced to look out for tists establish a set of principles that describe the basic his own self-interest. Then, perhaps, a coercive government mechanisms of physics and from this they design the devic would be essential to prevent the extinction of the species. es to reach their objective. If an engineer wants to design an Political activists of all persuasions are uncomfortable airplane, he first tries to understand the principles govern when confronted with the corruptibility of anyone given ing the nature of the materials involved. He then tries to political power. All candidates assure voters that they will design the plane according to those principles. If he violates never be corrupted by power. A few, such as yourself, Harry, one principle of physics, the plane will not fly. have a reputation for adhering to principle. And perhaps, in Just as the principles of physics are determined by the this one case, you may be that exception among humans who nature of physical objects, the principles of human action are determined by the nature of man, a nature that has emerged over thousands of generations by natural selection. As sociobiologist Edward o. Wilson argues, "mankind Political action is a synonym for aggression, viewed over many generations shares a single human and the term "libertarian politics," therefore, is nature.... Individual behavior, including seemingly altruis an oxymoron. All political action ultimately tic acts bestowed on tribe and nation, are directed, sometimes very circuitously, toward the Darwinian advan enhances state power. tage of the solitary human being and his closest relatives. The most elaborate forms of social organization, despite their outward appearance, serve ultimately as the vehicles will not be corrupted in the slightest, no matter how many of individual welfare" (On Human Nature, Harvard temptations are paraded bef<>re you, no matter how many University Press, 1978, p. 50, 159). Simply put, individual "means-to-an-end" choices you are faced with. Even if you man always acts in his own self-interest. At our core,we are are not corrupted once in office, can you find hundreds more programmed to be selfish, although we may not always be incorruptibles to populate the legislative and judicial branch conscious of the fact. es? Can you find thousands of incorruptible appointees to The species exists because genes that impelled the indi staff the executive agencies? Even assuming you are incor vidual toward personal survival were replicated more ruptible, and I believe you probably are, you must see that frequently, surViving more often than genes that impelled your candidacy will lend respectability and attract resources the individual toward unsuccessful behavior. Man's genetic to the Libertarian Party, making it a more potent tool for programming requires that his actions be self-centered. your successors, who may not be so pure. Hasn't history Those species whose individual members cared more about proven that once a political mechanism is given life, it others than about themselves are extinct. Man isn't bad or becomes a magnet for the corruptible? good because of his individual selfishness: he exists because 6. All political action ultimately enhances state power. I have of it. And this leads to a curious mistake made by most described the pragmatic arguments against political action. I people. have described the moral arguments against condoning the When you talk to the average person about the advan- political process. I have touched on the scientific evidence 50 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 that indicates political action must fail because of the nature change, and that political action can be a mechanism to dis of man. Yet if you reject all of these arguments, there is still mantle the state. Your brand name, earned through a compelling and over-riding reason to abandon political providing positive products to the free market, gives a patina action. of respect to the very system of coercion and force that has On a practical and immediate level, political action is not enslaved the people. Your participation in the political pro only futile, it is not only immoral, it is not only bound to fail cess does not convince people that the process is wrong; it scientifically, it is always destructive. I once published makes people believe that the right leader could be the "Pugsley's First Law of Government." It was: "All govern answer to a perfect society. ment programs accomplish the opposite of what they are Meanwhile, I fear that your support of political action designed to achieve." The same is true of political action. plays right into the hands of the constituencies that nurture The libertarian's involvement in politics always will achieve and feed on state power. Businesses that gain market share through regulations, laws, and subsidies; trade unions that depend for survival on coercive labor laws; entitlement recip Those who voted in the Clinton/Bush elec ients who demand their subsidies; welfare recipients; government employees - all are absolutely dependent on tion have permanently stained their hands with the survival of the myth that "you must get out and vote." In the blood ofthe families who died in Waco. the end there will always be more votes for subsidy than votes against taxes. There will always be more people strug gling to get up to the feeding trough than there will be people determined to keep them away. That is simply the opposite of the result intended. No matter who the can human nature. Encouraging individuals to vote strengthens didate is, or what issues motivate him, political action will the institution of voting. It violates the principle of human not reduce state power. It will enhance state power. nature. It violates the principle of morality. It violates the Consistently down through history, all efforts to put the principle of justice. Encouraging people to vote encourages JJgood guy" in power have resulted in more government, them to abandon, to moderate their principles. And as not less - even when the person elected was overwhelm Thomas Paine said in The Rights ofMan, "Moderation in prin inglyelected to reduce the size of government. Let us not ciple is always a vice." forget the mood in the United States when Ronald Reagan Nor does history support your hypothesis that electoral ran for president in 1980. Here was a popular hero, a man of politics might lead to a freer society. There is no case on the people, who rode into Washington on a white horse. His record that I am aware of where electoral politics has campaign was simple and directly to the point: government reduced the size and scope of government in a fundamental was too big, it was taxing too much, ilwas spending too or lasting sense. However, fundamental shifts have come on much, it was strangling the economy with regulations, and heels of trauma. Wars, depressions, or the outright failure of it was no longer a servant of the people. His mandate from the state have, on occasion, led to fundamental changes. The the American people was clear: balance the federal budget destruction caused by governments through economic poli and reduce the size of the federal government. cies has caused their collapse and a necessary turn toward Yet what was the result? In 1980 federal spending totaled $613 billion. In 1988, at the end of his tenure, it totaled EMERGENCY APPEAL $1,109 billion. In 1980 federal tax revenue was $553 billion. In 1988 it was $972 bil Help scop lion. Total government debt went from $877 billion to $2,661 billion. Then, to Reno prove the ultimate futility of electing a and her white knight, the electorate decided that the government wasn't doing enough, so t CAU E Foundation we b lIeve that Gun it put aliberal Democrat in office. All of Janet ·chlld abuse really burns me up· the rhetoric of the Reagan campaign is Reno and her black booted henchmen Grabbjns forgotten. All of the public anger over of the BATF should not get away with Waco-like tactics against any more the bureaucracy is forgotten. Americans. Goons Government is bigger than ever. We want to make It very expensive for them to drive tanks Political action will solve the prob over the Constitution and to set fire to the Bill of Rights. lem? In some other universe, perhaps. In federal court, we have already flied suit on behalf of surviving Branch Davidian family members. We are SUing Reno and everyone else connected with this atrocity. Harry, when you, who have earned As a non-profit civil rights organization, we depend on respect and admiration in your own field, Send your donations from patriots like you. Our supporters are announce that you will seize the standard people Who want to do something about these problems Instead of just reading about them. Won't youjoln us? of liberty and lead us to freedom through most generous contribution to ~:t~~;nt~~~~~netthink twice next time she cranks the ballot box, you convince thousands of honest, desperate individuals that politics CAUSE FOUNDATION is respectable, that voting is the answer to P.o. Box 1235. Black Mountain. NC 28711 (704)669-5189 FAX(704)669-5191 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 freer markets, as has been the case with the Communist harm." Unless you know that the action you are undertaking nations in recent years. But none of these changes can be is right you're much better off doing absolutely nothing. traced to electoral politics. The best that can be claimed for Fortunately, doing nothing is far from the only alterna political action are small retrenchments of government tive to political action. What positive steps can we take? The intrusion, such as happened under Margaret Thatcher in energy that is now expended by well-intentioned, freedom England or in recent years in New Zealand. But inevitably, seeking individuals on the destructive course of politics can the relief is brief and has never resulted in a continuing ero be turned into powerful steps that will have a positive effect sion of state power. Electoral politics has never succeeded in on the future. All are moral, right, and just. None require achieving a free society. So, to all ofthe other arguments aggressing against your neighbor. None require you to aban against political action, you can add the evidence of history. don principle. Consider the following. Inthe end, no matter how forceful, howprincipled, or how 1. Improve yourself. Perhaps the single most important scientific the arguments presented, youand manyof your thing a person can do before he sets out to improve others is to improve himself. Become a model citizen. Don't use gov ernment to attack your neighbor, even if you don't like his There may be places in the world where you dog or the color of his house or the color of his skin. Ifyou want to stop others from aggressing through the political can live in greater freedom than in the U.S. process, start by excising from your own life all vestiges of Find them. Vote with your feet. comfort and support for political aggression. 2. Stop subsidizing your enemy. Stop loaning the govern ment money. Stop thinking you're profiting by getting a followers maysay, "Principle and reason be hanged, we have safer return. You wouldn't loan money to your local car thief to dosomething!" You can argue thatwecan'tjuststandhelp to see him through a dry spell. Why would you loan it to the lesslyby and let the politicians have their waywith us. Evenif thugs in Washington or Sacramento? Moreover, point out to itis immoral, evenif itis contrary to man's nature, evenif in others that buying T-bills is supporting the muggers and the long run it is counterproductive, and even if there is no mass murderers in Washington. Pull the drapes back and evidence that political action has everbeenproductive, we expose these criminals to the light of day. have to do something. After all, "theonly thing necessary for the 3. Stop doing business with your enemy. Don't provide triumphofevil is for good mento do nothing." products to the government. Don't accept government con This idea that "something must be done" is a disaster. tracts. Don't do business with government employees. Don't History is replete with instances in which well-meaning peo cash government checks - with the pOSSible exception of ple who didn't understand the nature of the thing that was tax refunds. Ifyou're in business, don't cash them for your hurting them, but were intent on doing something, turned customers. Don't take government money. Don't take gov their discomfort into catastrophe. In past centuries, doctors, ernment subsidies. Don't be a willing, eager beneficiary of ignorant of causes of many ailments, but wanting to do political theft. something for their patients, commonly bled them, making a 4. Stop doing business with people who support your enemy. sick patient even sicker. Obstetricians in the mid-nineteenth Boycott businesses that live ongovernmentcontracts. Boycott century, not understanding the cause of "puerperal fever" those who lobby for protective legislation. Tell them you but eager to do something to stop the fatal disease, gave don't approve of them stealing from you through the state. unsanitary pelvic examinations that spread death from 5. Support private alternatives to government services. patient to patient. In order to avoid doing nothing they were Wherever you can use a private service instead of a govern doing something: they were bringing death. When the Black ment service, use it. Usefaxes instead of the Post Office. Use Plague swept Europe in the fourteenth century, people private libraries instead of public ones. Use private schools didn't understand the cause, but they wanted to do some instead of public schools. thing. They killed cats. They burned witches. The flagellants 6. Create parallel mechanisms to replace government functions. beat themselves and each other with sticks and chains to A positive step for society is to show that private enterprise atone for their sins. Was "doing something" to fight the is the correct alternative to government monopolies. By plague better than nothing? creating Federal Express, Fred Smith did more to reveal the The first rule of medicine,as Hippocrates said, is "do no insanity of a government mail monopoly than all of the free market politicians who have ever argued for private mail service on the floors of Congress. Most individuals will nev er understand that all services are best provided by the free market. They do not need to understand the philosophical or intellectual basis for this truth. All they need to do is be giv en the opportunity to use one or the other. Most of the people who use Federal Express don't understand that it is superior to the government service because it is operated for a profit and not bycoercion. They just know it works. Spend your creative energies developing products that compete "You trust politicians? - You're a very sick man!" with government. Put it out of business by offering consu- 52 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 mers a better product. Think of all of the things we are told 14. Write free-market novels and produce free-market movies. government must do. Develop better home, neighborhood, Support companies and individuals that bring a positive and personal defense services, better consumer protection message to the audience. Atlas Shrugged may have had more ideas, safer money, more secure retirement plans, better influence on the direction of freedom today than all the liber educational opportunities. With the government absorbing tarian political activity since it was written. more and more of the private sector, the opportunities for 15. Consider becoming an expatriate. Stop falling for the successful private competition are exploding. ridiculous cultural blather that says, IJMy country, right or 7. Expose the enemy among us. Instead of talking your wrong." Just because you're born at a place controlled by a neighbors into voting, spend your energy explaining why particular group of politicians doesn't mean they are right. the political process is their enemy. Talk to centers of influ ence. Identify the real culprit as the individual who pron\otes bigger government by secretly lobbying for subsi Political action to end political action is like dy or privilege. Expose the businessman who is lobbying for a protective tariff, the defense contractor lobbying for tax drinking for temperance, being gluttonous to dollars, the individual seeking government handouts. Call stop obesity, stealing to end theft, waging war them what they are, moochers and thieves. Embarrass them. to end wars. Shame them. 8. Master the issues. Libertarians should master the issues and learn to communicate so they can explain and persuade others. You, Harry, are the acknowledged master. You have There may be places in the world where you can live in developed simplicity of example and persuasion to an art greater freedom than in the U.S. Find them. Vote with your form. Teach others how to confront the irrational arguments feet. Basically, look for solutions that don't violate your princi of government advocates. ples. Design the system to be fully compatible with the laws 9. Have the moral courage to confront others. When some of human nature. Don't think you can work around them. body makes a statement like, "I'm not in favor of Finally, Harry, I would hope that you, Doug Casey, Mark government medicine, but we do have to do som~thingto Skousen, Bill Bradford, Bob Prechter, and all the other writ help the poor," or "Even if there are abuses, legalizing drugs ers of our group return to the principles of free-market is not a serious alternative - we have to enforce the drug economics as outlined in the works of such giants as Adam laws," libertarians should never sanction such statist propa Smith and Ludwig von Mises. The central theme of our eco ganda by silence. nomic philosophy is that the "invisible hand" of the 10. Get involved in campaigns designed to enlighten and marketplace - the individual efforts of independently acting enrage the public. Speak out against victimless crimes. people - creates progress and plenty; and that any attempt Support organizations such as the National Taxpayers to "organize" and "centrally plan" economic activity sub Union, Amnesty International, the Fully Informed Jury verts progress and eventually leads to tyranny. Association, and Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Political action is built on exactly the same false premise Work with groups that are working against regulations. Put as that of a centrally-planned economy: Le., that an orga pressure on those who are supporting government intru nized group of political activists engaged in a planned group sion. But don't get involved in electoral politics. Don't fight effort can build freedom more rapidly or better than the indi crime by becoming a criminal. vidual efforts of independently acting people. The positive 11. Engage in civil disobedience ifyou are preparedfor the con actions listed above are merely the top-of-mind suggestions sequences. Henry David Thoreau went to jail for refusing to of a few thinkers. They are only the obvious steps. But if all pay a small poll tax. Hebelieved that civil disobedience was a of the energies now being expended on political action by moral obligation. His view of political action as a means of libertarians around the world were focused instead on find changing government was succinctly stated in his tract, "On ing individual solutions, we would marvel at the ideas and the Duty of Civil Disobedience": "How does itbecome a man mechanisms that would be bound to evolve. to behave toward this American government today? I answer Harry, I am acutely aware that you understood all of the that hecannot withoutdisgrace be associated with it." arguments against government that I have brought up in this 12. Find ways to avoid taxes. Cut every corner. Make life letter long before I had heard of them. It was your teaching miserable for a tax collector. Consider using trusts, founda that helped lead me to many of these conclusions. I laud you, tions, tax-deferred investments, and offshore charities. Your our mutual friends, and all of those libertarians who are will success will be emulated by others, and every dollar denied ing to go to the political barricades in defense of freedom. I a thief makes him that much more likely to find another line recognize your sincerity and respect your integrity. of work. However, I implore you all to reconsider. Let us gather 13. Pamphleteer. Follow the noble lead of Thomas Paine around the single, unifying principle set down so clearly by and Lysander Spooner. Tell it like it is. Inundate the talk the great founding fathers of Austrian economics. Let us shows, newspapers, and magazines with rational arguments have the courage of our convictions and leave the design and against government. Let other people who are fed up with construction of freedom to the invisible hand. Big Brother know they are not alone. But show them there is Sincerely and in friendship, another way than voting. Jack Liberty 53 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 Criticism

Anti-Politics in Action by Robert Prechter

Dear Jack: You are right to point out that in the past, Harry thing at all." With that approach, King George would have Browne has "consistently argued the futility of political continued to runAmerica. In 1917, had youbeena citizen of action." And I agree that taking political action to meet Russia, you would have said, "00nothing to kick outthese social goals is immoral, and that human nature dictates that newCommunists. Itwill onlysanctiongovernment." Your such action is futile. progeny may nothave forgiven youfor sucha stance. But Harry Browne's presidential campaign is not a I'm not sure you would be willing to go this far, even "political action" in the sense that you use the term. Harry's though your argument demands you do so. After all, you do stated goal is to eliminate, to the greatest degree possible, urge people to support such groups as the National political action. Harry is engaged in the opposite of political Taxpayers Union, Amnesty International, and the Fully action; he is fundamentally anti-political and anti-coercive. Informed Jury Association - organizations whose eptire mandate is to attempt to influence government. Ifelecting a candidate who wants to eliminate government coercion is sanctioning the state, then certainly supporting these institu If I can support NORML's efforts to lobby tions is, too. If I can support NORML's efforts to lobby Congress, why can't I support a Libertarian Congress, why can't I support a Libertarian president's president's efforts to lobby Congress? efforts to do the same? Your next suggestion, to eliminate taxes by using trust foundations, tax-deferred'investments, etc., is a complete surrender to the coercive apparatus that government has So it is perfectly moral for Harry to run for office and for erected. It is not a drive to eliminate that structure; it is a people to vote for him. sanction of it by living quietly within it. Ultimately, this tac Ah, you say, but voting grants politicians the right to tic will fail anyway, because it places funds in identifiable aggress against others. Not necessarily. Nowhere on a ballot places that the government can later seize at will. is there a little box that reads, "By voting, you are support And your final suggesti~n - "Consider becoming an ing the state's coercion." Politicians will coerce whether or expatriate" - simply means to sanction some other govern not you or I vote. At least, by voting for Harry, we can vote ment. This approach, while occasionally necessary, is hardly to remove aggression against others. This is not immoral. It is prudent as a policy. It announces to any political thug, profoundly moral. (Your argument that anyone newly in "Come on in and take whatever you like. We freedom office must swear to uphold the laws as specified in the loving people will simply get up and leave" (if there's any Constitution, and therefore is agreeing to aggression, is place left to go). It is both cowardly and counterproductive. seductive. But it overlooks the fact that the Constitution If a pro-freedom party were to win an election, that includes methods for changing and even abolishing the gov would send government a harsh message: that it no longer ernment, and is therefore not an inviolable statist document.) has the sanction of the majority. And even if we never win at I don't think you've thoughtthroughthe implications of the ballot box, each electoral effort will demonstrate to / yourstance. Ifany act that attempts to influence the state is a young people that the drive for freedom is alive. That way, political action- and, thus, unethical-youwind up prohib when the next depression or crisis comes, at least some of iting almostevery possible form of libertarian activism. To them will know that there is an alternative. ThomasJefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and Sincerely, Patrick Henry, you would have had to say, "Don'tdoany- Bob 54 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 Defense

Lighten Up, Jack by Douglas Casey

Politics is a dirty business, but somebody has to undo it.

Well, it would seem I have some explaining to do. Since ry's something of a Renaissance man at heart, and probably Harry declared he covets the ignominious and despicable feels the need to be known as something other than a writer post of president of these United States, I've not only given and thinker. Sure, he could finish his long-awaited book on him the maximum allowable contribution ($1,000), but have opera, but that's just going to keep him indoors and up late. I made it my business to get everyone else to do so as well. think maybe Harry feels like he needs something new and Naturally, the question arises: How can an avowed anarchist different to divert himself, and locked onto this simply (me) justify aiding and abetting another avowed anarchist because it has the prospect of being so very interesting. (Harry) in a quest for the presidency? Well, a quick answer I support this because I tend to support anything that would be to ask how an anarchist can support anyone but buoys my friends' spirits, or amuses them, just on general another anarchist for president; certainly, Harry is the only principle. Yes, yes, I can hear Jack muttering, "Would you person I've ever supported for that office. support Harry if he thought becoming an axe murderer I'm sure Harry will have his own rebuttal of the points Jack makes. I can only speak for myself. First, let me say that I agree with absolutely everything The American people have bought practically Jack says in his excellent letter. So it's pretty tough for me to justify this whole adventure; the most I can do is rationalize every cockamamie scheme that every political it. So I'll explain why I'm supporting Harry, even though I charlatan has ever come up with in the past. suspect little of it will hold water with Jack. At least then Why shouldn't they buy from us too? Jack won't be able to say "I wonder what the devil is going on in Casey's head, raising money for a political campaign." There are at least six good rationalizations I can come up would make him happy?" Well, let's leave that question for with. another essay. Itseemed like a good idea at the time. Patience my ass. Years ago, Harry and I discovered we were both fans not My favorite piece of poster art shows two buzzards on a only of the movie The Magnificent Seven, but of a particular scene in it where, as I recall, after the Seven realize they're in withered tree in the desert. One buzzard says to the other: a real jackpot, the Ricky Nelson character says to the James "Patience my ass, I'm gonna kill something." Jack makes the Coburn character, "You know, I always thought you were a point that we have to win the hearts and minds of the hoi pol pretty smart guy. What in hell are you doing here?" To loi by education and such. I certainly do my part, but perhaps which the Coburn character responds, "Well, it seemed like a I'm a bit of a Leninist at heart. I believe a real libertarian revo good idea at the time." lution is inevitable, but I'd also like to see it in my lifetime. Well, I may come to regret this (and so may Harry). May I support Harry for president because it may speed up be Holy Mother of the Church was right, and my soul will and alter the process of evolution. If evolution is sped up suffer the eternal fires for having done such a Bad Thing. enough, you can put the letter R in front of it. You gotta fill those idle moments somehow. Revolution for the hell of it. I've known Harry for close to 20 years; he's always been In his open letter, Jack lists 15 ways to change the political a fairly private person. My guess (and I haven't asked him, world for the better without resorting to actual politics. There so this is just conjecture) is that he's up for something is, however, one he left out, although I can assure you he's besides writing his newsletter and an occasional book. Har- aware of it, and it's on his mind. That is revolution. You can't Liberty 55 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 talk about it much, or you might get a surprise visit from Who cares? Let's just see if we can raise some hell. some guys in dark glasses, cheap suits, and wires growing Now, as I already acknowledged, nothing can serve to out of their ears. Which is, of course, one reason why it's on make involvement in the political sphere any more "right." people's minds. I believe the U.S. is starting to look like But politics is not now, nor will it ever be, an intellectual or France in the mid-1770s, or Russia in the early twentieth cen moral arena - and all Jack's arguments are intellectual and tury. Or even itself in the 1760s. The pot is likely to boil over moral. Politics is a creature of emotion; the human animal in the years to come. It's increasingly desirable, and probably largely disregards moral and intellectual arguments when it inevitable, even ifnot imminent. comes to politics. Stuff like love and loyalty are there, to be In an environment like this, revolutionary libertarian ide sure. But its main ingredients are the capital sins and assorted as presented in the way Harry can present them could have minor vices like glee, revenge, antagonism, and a general a powerful and salubrious influence. Maybe they'll touch a blood lust. Philosophy gets trampled in that stampede. match to the powder keg. Being involved in a political campaign is not unlike being True, revolutions entail a degree of unpleasantness and in on an attack helicopter swooping down on an enemy village convenience. Butso does filling outa tax form everyApril 15. to the strains of the Ride of the Valkyries. Not everybody is The thrill of victory. Mother Theresa. And I'm not even sure she's a libertarian. I'm a big fan of science fiction. There's plenty of evidence Finally, youmightask, is there somethingpersonalinall this that the speculations you'll find in its pages come a lot closer for me? Isn'tittrue that the only reason anyone ever really sup to predicting the future than the output of a thousand wonk ports a political candidate is that he hopes to share in the loot? infested think tanks. And they're a hell of a lot more fun to Well, of course. Let me disclose what my payoff is. I believe I read. mightconvinceHarryto dotwo thingswhenhe'spresident. In his classic The Moon Is a Har~h Mistress, Robert Hein First, I want him to replace "The Star-Spangled Banner" lein describes a revolution on the moon. A friendly super with a song both more melodic and more in keeping with the computer calculates the odds of the rebels' success as the spirit of the times. My choices are "On the Border" by Al plot hatches. It starts out at a million to one against success, Stewart and "Street-Fighting Man" by the Rolling Stones. but as the rebels do various things, the odds keep dropping, (Listen to the lyrics, and see whether you think I'm kidding.) until it's a one-to-one shot. The other is to be appointed chief of the Secret Police. Harry is about as good a spokesman as I can imagine for Because if Harry is ever elected, the powers of darkness will a libertarian point of view. The American people have go totally berserk, and we might need one. (Okay, this time I bought practically every cockamamie scheme that every am kidding.) political charlatan has ever come up with in the past. Why So, in conclusion, although I do agree with everything shouldn't they buy from us too? Maybe Harry's actually Jack has said, that doesn't mean there aren't some appealing right in believing we can win. Maybe we'll get lucky; maybe reasons to support Harry for president. There are m.any paths the odds of a libertarian revolution here will start dropping up the mountain; let a thousand flowers bloom. fast. Sure, that's no moral argument. But the thrill of victory I just hope Harry doesn't disavow my support after doesn't relate to morality. reading this. 0 The Future is Now!

The Politics ofLiberty - Are you tired of living in an unfree world? The statists have their backs to the wall, says Harry Browne. Libertarians have an historic opportunity to roll back the state, he argues. If you've never heard Harry Browne speak, here is your opportunity to see one of libertarianism's most articulate spokesmen in action! The Economy ofthe Twenty-First Century The future promises to challenge everyone of our prejudices, every one of our expectations. Sparks fly when famous international spec ulators Victor Niederhoffer and Jim Rogers join investment ad visors Doug Casey and Harry Browne and academic economists David Friedman and Leland Yeager and journalist Bill Bradford in a fascinating exploration ofthe future! Either title: Video: $19.50 each To order, call toll-free (800) 854-6991, Dept. T46 Audio: $5.95 each Or send your order with payment to plus $3 per order shipping & handling Liberty, Dept T46, PO Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368 Economics Sinful Taxes by Roy Cordato

Live fast, die young, and send a big check to Uncle Sam.

"Sin taxes" - excises on alcohol and tobacco - have again become popular with policymakers. Plans for such taxes are embedded in several current proposals for health care reform, and are often proffered as reforms in themselves. Pass them, the reformers say, and Americans' health will improve; pass them, and health care costs will go down. Pass them. They'll work wonders. driving a wedge between the amount array of goods. In this atmosphere, it is rank here a seller receives for his product and Excise taxes also hurt the demo sy to assert that these taxes do little the amount the consumer pays. The cratic process. Taxation should inform good and much ill. But that is precise price the consumer faces in the mar the electorate how much their govern ly the case. Sin taxes undermine eco ketplace is greater, by the amount of ment is costing them. But the actual nomic efficiency, individual liberty, the tax, than the amount the seller amount of most excise taxes is hidden and the democratic process. receives when the good is purchased. in the prices people pay; few In a free market unencumbered by Ultimately, the quantity of the good is consumers are aware how much the taxes, prices capture information less than the amount most consistent tax is, or even that the price includes a about consumer preferences and the with actual conditions of demand and tax. cost of production. The relative prices scarcity. of goods and services bring consu The distortion doesn't stop there. The Problematic Panacea mers' decisions into accord with Activities associated with production In general, economists don't dis resource scarcities, which in tum of the taxed good are also scaled back. pute that excise taxes cannot be justi encourages sellers to adjust their out A typical example of this followed the fied on economic grounds. But there put to be consistent with consumer 1990 budget agreement, when new is one exception: the "social costs" preferences. taxes on large recreational boats led to argument. Burning fuels causes air Economists usually argue that tax major cutbacks in the yacht-building pollution, a cost borne by people oth policy should strive to be "neutral" industry. Many workers whose live er than the ones burning the fuel. Tra with respect to .this process. Taxes, lihood depended on production of the ditional welfare economics calls for an we say, should exert as little influ "luxury good" were laid off. excise tax on the use of such fuel to ence as possible on the relative costs Further economic damage can re- force the market to "internalize" these and benefits of different activities , suIt if the item being taxed is used in social costs. Thus, the argument goes, and, thus, on relative prices. (There is other production processes. Consider an excise on carbon or gasoline can no such thing as a truly neutral tax, the effects of excises on cigarettes and help solve both environmental and of course. All taxes influence deci on gasoline. Both generate inefficien budgetary problems while promoting sion-making. This doesn't imply, cies in their particular markets and overall economic efficiency.* though, that all taxes are equally non industries, but the gasoline tax also The case for sin taxes is similar. neutral.) increases production costs through Excise taxes alter relative prices in out the economy, because motor fuel * For a criticism of the case for pollution tax order to penalize a particular activity, is necessary for producing a wide es, see Roy Cordato, uExcises, Social Costs, Liberty 57 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

Advocates argue that the use of alcohol costs on the health care system. There economic well-being. and tobacco generates costs that .are is no way to determine if, on net, social But why should this require a tax? not borne by consumers or producers costs exist. If there really is an egregious cost here, of those goods, falling instead on the Here's why. The sin-taxers argue it should be reflected by wage rates. To shoulders of the medical industry, pur that smokers have more health prob the extent that someone has a chasers of health care and health insu lems than non-smokers. This in turn in relatively low level of productivity, he rance, and taxpayers (the government creases overall demand for medical or she should expect to receive less being the single largest payer of medi services, driving up health costs for compensation. And if employers were cal bills). Thus, the argument goes, sin everyone. Additional excises on cigar allowed to take drinking and smoking taxes should be used to pay the costs ettes would force smokers to pay these into consideration when making per associated with health care reform. In additional costs. sonnel decisions, it would be harder this context, cigarette taxes of as high But viewed over a lifetime, it is not for such workers to find employment as $2.00 a. pack have been proposed. at all clear whether smokers actually - assuming that smokers and drinkers Some argue for new sin taxes even in are indeed less productive. the absence of comprehensive medical The government is currently pre reform, simply because, by reducing The benefits people derive venting labor markets from respond smoking and drinking, they would from smoking and drinking are ing efficiently in this regard. Under the reduce.the costs borne by society. Americans with Disabilities Act, the But even if the sin-taxers are right personal, subjectively .experi fact that someone has had problems about the social costs of drinking and enced, unobservable, and, with alcohol or other drugs in the past smoking, alcohol. and tobacco are therefore, unmeasurable. cannot be considered in hiring, firing, goods that people voluntarily choose and wage-setting decisions. Current to consume, implying that they derive proposals for "community-based rat satisfaction from them. Any tax on ing" would prevent health insurers incur greater medical expenses. More these products reduces not just social from considering personal behavior in costs, but also the benefits these consu likely, smoking simply transfers costs determining rates, further socializing mers enjoy. Sin-taxers need to demon from later to earlier years in life. If what would otherwise be private costs. strate that the advantages of reducing smokers indeed have shorter life the former will outweigh the costs of expectancies, as is typically argued, The Bottom Line losing the latter. they would require fewer IIold age" All the talk of social costs boils This cannot be done. The benefits services - long-term care, nursing down to little more than a smoke people derive from smoking and home care, etc. They would also collect screen for a tax grab - yet more mon drinking are personal, subjectively less in Social Security, and would incur ey for a government that apparently experienced, unobservable, and, there fewer Medicare costs. These savings sees no economic or moral limits to fore, unmeasurable. No comparison must be factored into any calculation what it can extract from the private between these benefits and the alleged of the social cost of smoking. Yet they sector. With antagonism toward drink social costs is even conceptually possi never are. ing and smoking on the rise, people ble. Claims that society is made "better And what if smokers do raise the who·indulge in those activities have off" by excise taxes on cigarettes and price of others' medical services? Even become politically acceptable targets alcohol can have no meaningful eco that would not justify a tax. The price for punitive taxation. Smokers in par nomic validity. of every good and service is affected ticular are an unorganized minority In addition, the social costs cited unevenly by different consumers. No whose decision to smoke is generally are too narrowly defined and are often two individuals are likely to demand under scientific dispute. For example, regarded as somewhat masochistic. any product to exactly the same extent. while there is ample evidence that Politicians never fail to notice opportu The taxers' tortured logic could be used excessive drinking has negative conse nities fcir new revenues to support new to justify taxing anyone with a greater quences, there is also considerable evi programs - in this case, a costly take than-average demand for anything. dence that consuming red wine is over of the medical industry.- and are Those who play golf three times a week correlated with reduced risk of heart anxious to exploit the smokers' social disease. Similarly, the argument that contribute more to the overall demand and political powerlessness. second-hand smoke increases the risk for golf courses than those who play The result is a small but real tyran of lung cancer is heavily disputed. three times a year, thus raising the cost ny. Besides their unpleasant economic More significantly, even undisput ofgolfing. Should they be taxed to sub consequences, .sin· taxes are similar to ed risks - .the connection between sidize occasional golfers? other excises in another respect: their smoking and cancer, for example - do Another social cost allegedly gener intent and effect is. to control citizens' not necessarily impose burdensome ated by smoking and drinking in private behavior. Such social engineer volves lost productivity. It is argued ing subverts individual liberty. that smokers and heavy drinkers take In what purports to be a free socie and the Myth of Efficient Taxation: The Case of Carbon Taxes," fRET Policy Bulletin #56, more sick leave from work, and ty, sin taxes should be opposed on that July 3, 1992. therefore contribute less to society's ground alone. 0 58 Liberty Happy Days Were Here Again: Reflections ofa Libertarian Journal be charmed and impressed by Vidal's ist, by William F. Buckley, Jr. Random House, 1993, 473 pp., $25.00. sensibility and imagination bears a United States: Essays, 1952-1992, by Gore Vidal. Random House, 1993, crabbed soul indeed. The essay's conclusion is a master 1,295 pp., $37.50. piece of humor, tenderness, and sur realism: I have a recurring fantasy that if one were to dial the telephone number of someone in the past, one would hear again a familiar voice, and time would instantly rewind from now to American Spleen then. I still have Orson's telephone number in my book (213-851-8455). Do I dare ring him and talk to him back in 1982, where he is busy trying to convince Jack Nicholson to play Pellarin for two not four million dol Brian Doherty ley with subtle insinuations of homo lars? Should I tell him he'll not get sexuality and casual accusations of the picture made? No. That would be Nazism. I don't know whether he acted too harsh. I'll pretend that I have For most people on the Right, ex sincerely or merely out of a puckish de somehow got a copy of it, and that I pressing affection for Gore Vidal is akin sire to raise Buckley's ire. He certainly think it marvelous though perhaps to declaring that you find that darn succeeded in the latter: Buckley called the handkerchief was, from so prud Mao Zedong a puckishly charming him a queer and threatened to "sock ish a master, a bit much? Even character. Some conservatives accuse him in the goddamn face" - hardly a incredible. "Incredible?" The voice booms in Vidal of anti-Semitism, because of his picture of conservative civilized virtue, my ear. "How could it be incredible strongly expressed disapproval of Is a role Buckley's chosen public persona raeli state terror and Israel's mooching when I stole it from Othello? But generally.forces him to play. now I have a real treat for you. off the United States. Others denounce Vidal is largely free from such con his readiness to criticize his country's Standing here is your neighbor ... straints.. This makes him a far more en Rudy [Vallee]! Overcome that 'quiet government harshly - especially while gaging and rewarding writer than reserve of shyness.' Sing." spending most of the time in Italy. But I Buckley. Vidal's most obvious virtues From out of the past, I hear "My suspect that the Right's hatred and con are his biting and hilarious irony and time is your time," in that reedy, tempt for Vidal stems mostly, to bor wit. The virtues of fitting into a pre highly imitable voice. The after-life's row R. Emmett Tyrell's awful neolo scribed range of acceptable opinions only a dial tone away. "What makes gism, from the Right's "Kultursmog": a have never occurred to Vidal; he is en you think this is the after-life?" Or received opinion whose very lack of tertaining and provocative in direct re son chuckles. "This is a recording." considered thought makes it seem all lation to how far he ventures from the Stop story here. the more necessarily true. range of prescribed opinion. He writes Buckley, too, rarely disappoints, As an adolescent quasi-right-winger, of "this great land of ours where the once one learns what to expect from I formed an opinion of Vidal, before I price of freedom is eternal discretion," him: tortuous expressions of predicta read him, from the frequent denuncia but he never has taken this lesson to ble establishment conservative bro tions of him in National Review. Indeed, heart. In the vernacular, he is a "crank," mides (with a handful of brave excep I've come to suspect that the \lltimate and of such American public life never tions such as drug legalization, where root of conservatives' hatred of Vidal is has enough - or, at least, never enough he and Vidal are in precise agreement) National Review founder William F. who write so well. with occasional tangents into the ill Buckley's personal contretemps with To dismiss Vidal for his occasional considered prerogatives of institution him, so vividly displayed during ABC's intemperate opinion is to value political alized celebrity. Appreciators of Nation coverage of the 1968 political conven correctness over intelligence, piety over al Review as a bazaar of the bizarre are tions in Miami Beach and Chicago. vividness, and propriety over wit. Any surely still perplexed by such classics Vidal did not comport himself well one who reads, to give one example, Vi as his book-length, inconclusive pero during these exchanges, pricking Buck- dal's essay on Orson Welles and fails to rations on the possible anti-Semitism of Liberty 59 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 various friends and associates and, of linking Buckley's and Vidal's latest es never proceed as though providence course, the demon Vidal. Buckley has say collections occur to me. Neither the and the morally informed intellect had also had free range to essay at length queer nor the crypto-Nazi has distin not posted, however distant and ob the joys of obscenely expensive wrist guished himself in their public "de scure on the horizon, lights to guide watches, and his senescent Catholic bates"; but who ever manages to do so our thought and conduct." Amazingly, musings on his pilgrimage to Lourdes. on a televised political show? These to the political Right (with the excep The most absurd and, to the average men are American writers, not TV stars. tion of Chronicles) Buckley is a premier reader, utterly confusing specimen of I'll leave the comparative analysis of intellectual and thinker and most metic Buckley's runaway Vidal-hatred ap their novels to the more qualified; I've ulous crafter of words, while Vidal is a peared in the September 20, 1993 issue never finished one by either. But from vile, anti-American queer. their range of subject matters But ignoring Vidal means ignoring Buckley writes only spy thrillers, Vidal a sharp and sometimes catty wit that has ranged from historical novels to occasionally slides off pleasingly into Vidal is entertaining and war memoirs to comedies of manner the absurd; a refined sensibility, dem provocative in direct relation about transsexuals to science-fiction ep onstrated most powerfully in his amaz to how far he ventures from ics - Vidal seems to have the imagina ing memoriams for Tennessee Williams tive edge, at the very least. Their essays and Orson Welles; and a wide-ranging the range of prescribed confirm this judgment. and meticulous bookishness. He also opinion. On one level, comparing these two has a real sense of history: he fancies books is unfair. Buckley does most of his himself America's biographer through essaying in the constricted format of the his series of historical novels, and is as of National Review. There, Buckley dedi BOO-word commentary oncurrent politi tute enough in studying the life of his cated six pages to reprinting.a friendly cal events. Vidal ranges from literary re chosen subject to notice that it has had correspondence with Professor R.W.B. view essays to reminiscences on dead three lives already - the new ones be Lewis, to prove that Lewis had indeed friends to multi-thousand-word medita ginning with Lincoln and Roosevelt II's been very gracious and friendly to him tions on matters political and social. But regimes - and is quite ready for a over 20 years ago. But now something both men chose their paths in life, and it must have gone heinously wrong with says something important that only his old friend - as if Buckley's readers Buckley chose to so constrict himself. Buckley is more likely than It's possible that Vidal would be even should care - because he dared praise Vidal to spiral off into faux Vidal's new book in the pages of the more irritating than Buckley if he wrote New York Times Book Review and now in Buckley's realm, but Buckley would Jamesian nightmare sentences doesn't promptly answer Buckley's cor almost certainly fail embarrassingly if from which the reader fears he he attempted to enter Vidal's. One does respondence. Buckley seems to want might never awake. the reader to consider this some sort of not get the impression, reading Buckley, tragedy of lost comradeship and vile that he has indulged much in belles let betrayal: once he walked with me, tres since his college days. laughed with me, called me Bill; now When each writer is at his best, their fourth. The range of writers and liter he is impressed by the writings of ... prose styles are similarly elegant, bal ary ideas Vidal is able to discuss intelli (choke) ... Gore Vidal. anced, and careful. But Buckley is more gently and with insight merits an ad likely to spiraf off into faux-Jamesian miring whistle from those of us who Two Writers nightmare sentences from which the can't imagine having the time to do all Obviously, it was their decades-old reader fears he might never awake. It is that reading, much less all that think public conflicts that made the idea of not a particularly thoughtful and cer ing. Vidal, unlike Buckley, is capable -----.,1r------__~ tainly not well-edited writer who every few pages of inducing a teeth can partiturate thalidomide grinding jealousy: Why couldn't I have prose like the following: "Any seen that, thought that, said that so well? discussion of the role of ideas in Some examples: While gently mock evitably brings to mind the para ing a portentous conclusion to a James digm: How ought things to be, if novel that went "We shall never be things were as we wished they again as we were": "The fact is that might be? But of course the con people are almost always exactly as cern of the Ethics and Public Poli they were and they will be so again and cy Center is to explore the bridge again, given half a chance." On a bad between the paradigm and the Arthur Miller sentence: "That is not a particular: the criterion and actu writer writing or a man trying to get ality. Though they are separate, through to others; it is the voice of a 11 ~". the one ought never to shrink holder of a degree in Education." On ''They're letting me out on bail- can I bring you from its authority to inform the Anthony Burgess reviewing an Antho guys anything?" other, even as the latter should ny Burgess book: "Shouldn't there be at 60 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 least one review in all of England writ come, through effort with help from In Buckley, a far less subtle and ten by someone who had actually read lineage, American legends of sorts. dextrous thinker, conflict and division the book?" On the takeover of the novel Buckley is the acknowledged Vater are dealt with only on the cartoonish by professional teachers of English: of a significant American political level of conservatives VB Lowell Weick "On that day the kingdom of prose will movement given credit (though per er, or debates about abortion, or won end, with an exegesis." On consensus: haps blame might be more appropriate) dering why American liberals hate Na liTo take at face value any newspaper for the election of a president. Vidal's zis more than Commies. story is to be dangerously innocent. But family and soul are rooted in old Wash Which brings us to the Right's key one can't challenge everything that has ington and the venerable traditions of excuse for admiring bland Buckley ever been printed. So, through weari the American ruling class, tied in with while hating vivid Vidal: the latter's ness and ignorance, there is a general the likes of the Adamses - I suspect politics. Vidal's political instincts and consensus, which then becomes what I opinions are sometimes admirable and call an 'agreed-upon' fact. We all de sometimes goofy. He loves the Old Re cide not to worry it." On political con One comes away from Vidal public, and can even find a good word flict: "The country is now dividing, as it for the likes of Pat Buchanan, "a reac did a half-century ago, between those enriched and energized and in tionary in the good sense - reacting who think that America comes first ver spired One comes away from against the empire in favor of the Old sus those who favor empire and the Buckley mostly bored. Republic." Now, what other monothe continued exertion of force everywhere ism-hating queer would write that? in the name of democracy, something Vidal is no libertarian, of course, not much on display here at home." and he is not particularly thoughtful or that being a new Henry Adams is a And this only scratches the surface; on sensible on politics much of the time. self-indulgent fantasy in the back of Vi matters of literature and national char He harbors a cliched aversion to the ac acter, his thoughts and conclusions are dal's mind. And, in a true American cumulation of wealth, seems to believe not so readily condensed to epigrams. spirit of barely contained fratricide, the capitalism can only succeed by driving Vidal needs to be read in toto to appre two men bear a deep and unbridgeable its workers into penury and quasi ciate his brilliance. enmity. slavery, and holds an affection for so Envious as we may be, we can't all The official spirit of America is uni cialistic redistribution of income that is be Vidal. But just about anybody can ty: the United States. But the American not practically compatible with his ha probably manage a reasonable simula people have always seemed unable to tred for the national security state and crum of Buckley's writing. His ideas meld their differences into one. Vidal and impressions rarely rise above the for a government that, since Lincoln deals thoughtfully with the repercus and Roosevelt, can get away with obvious, though they can sink toward sions this has had for American politics the ridiculous. See his occasional ill whatever it pleases. and culture. He considers it prima facie Yet even when indulging his moral thought attempts to grapple with the evidence of Norman Podhoretz's un "light" issues the regular columnist ism toward commerce and those who Americanism that he expressed scorn feels compelled to essay, such as rock untowardly succeed at it, the patrician about Vidal bothering to write a play music and Elizabeth Taylor's mania for Vidal never gets as cloyingly sanctimo about the Civil War: matrimony. nious as Buckley does when trying to Vidal never sinks below his sub I explained to him that my mother's show his admiration for the Common jects, whether they be lengthy analyses family had fought for the Confedera Man. While he occasionally lectures on of obscure James novels; meditations cy and my father's for the Union, and the sometimes barren landscape of the on the life, death, and works of Mishi that the Civil War was - and is - to the United ma; appreciations of Edgar Rice Bur J roughs and L. Frank Baum; his fami States what the Trojan War was to the Greeks, lies' connections with the history of the great single tragic flight and Amelia Earhart; or his event that continues to delightfully libelous speculations that give resonance to our Re E. Howard Hunt is the true author of public. "Well, to me," the diaries of would-be George Wallace said Poddy, "the Civil assassin Arthur Bremer. War is as remote and as ir relevant as the War of the Two Americans Roses." I realized then Despite their many differences, that he was not planning there are interesting areas for compari to become an "assimilat son between the two old antagonists. I ed American," to use the emphasized above that they were both old-fashioned terminolo American writers; they are, indeed, both gy; but, rather, that his exemplary Americans. Both have run first loyalty would al - ~~----~-I'& for elected office, and both have be- ways be to Israel. Liberty 61 MarchJ995

American middlebrow mind - in one real risk in identifying himself as such, essay he mocks the intellectual dull and in fact might be adding a soup\on Learn at ness that characterizes many questions of daring to his calcified image. In he receives - Vidal usually shows the some circles of the Right a .certain common folk the respect of leaving radical chic adheres to suggesting that, them alone.* His biggest complaint by gosh, I am such a man of the Right, about his countrymen is that they tend one might almost consider me a IILibertyl1 to not like reading novels much any libertarian. more, a matter of concern to a crafts Buckley's own words put the lie to man such as Vidal. his ideological usurpation. Consider his Are you interested in But Vidal never stooped to using essay "To Bind the Wounds." In his typ working as a journalist? them for a sententious deadline-buster ically scattershot fashion, he praises Jim Would you like to im piece like Buckley's "A Quiet Ameri Baker's decision to send $500 million in prove your writing and can," a cloying paean to the ordinary aid to the former Soviet Union by first editing skills? working Joe who once drove him to acknowledging with a firm-jawed nod the airport in Portland. The guy jogs of the head that yes, these are hard Liberty offers full-time, every day (!), and was in Vietnam (!!), paid internships at all times we're living in, as evidenced by and works for a living insulating vol the fact that some Rolls Royce owners times of the year. Interns leyball courts (!!!) after years of teach in Beverly Hills are having to pawn are involved in all aspects ing himself a trade (!!!!), and likes to their vehicles at 4% interest a month. (If of editing and publishing read Emerson (!!!!!). Buckley, a self Vidal had written this, it would have Liberty. made aristocrat whose soft streak for For information, write: the volk is a mile wide and an inch deep, concludes this dull presentation R. W. Bradford, Editor thusly: "I felt like Antaeus. I had To dismiss Vidal for his oc Liberty touched earth, and it's a fine feeling." casional intemperate opinion P.O. Box 1181 Buckley then, I suppose, went on for Port Townsend, WA 98368 is to value political' correctness another few years conversing with no one but professional intellectuals, poli over intelligence, piety over ticians, and jet-setters. vividness, and propriety over Libertarians Not wit. Protest Buckley is the archetypal American conservative, yet his book's subtitle U.S. Government identifies him as a "libertarian" jour been amusingly snide irony; Buckley, nalist, which is not only misleading alas, appears entirely earnest.) Yet think Terrorism and wrong, but·curious. In my experi of the poor hordes of twelfth- and ence, the term is suspicious to Joe thirteenth-century France, penurious Eightpack, vaguely connoting a freak wretches by today's standards, who Remember Waco, Weaver, ish subculture of nerds and LaRouch managed to dig deep into their pockets Peltier, and other victims of ies. (This doesn't prevent me from us to finance building the glorious French U.S. Government domestic ing it, because it is accurate and, within cathedrals. Thus can Americans do no terrorism. its own realm, noble.) Why did Buck less than send $500 million (surely ley, who patently is no such thing, bur Buckley can't be so much of a political den himself with the term? naif to believe that that would be the Tell them to stop. Join us on Given his already considerable cul start and end of it) to save the Russians April 19, 1995 outside the FBI tural stature and audience, he takes no from hunger or reaction? This man's vi Building in Washington, DC sion of the role of government cannot, if words are to retain their meaning, be ,. He does give them the credit of assuming called libertarian. 11 :30 AM to 2:30 PM. they would not sell their birthright for a Vidal's certainly can't either. He Protest. Bring your own signs, mess of pottage in the event of a new con hates tyranny, but seems also to hate stitutional convention. Vidal would like wealth and that which is often done to memories, and literature. to see one because lithe president and the attain it. But he also hates empire and Congress together or the president by loves civilization, and praises its loveli himself or the Supreme Court on its own ness in his wide-ranging enthusiasms Coordinated by very special power trip can do virtually Waco Remembrance anything that they want to do as a result and joyous and witty expressions of of a series of usurpations of powers that admiration for so many things. One Phone: 703-323-7484 have been taking place since the Second comes away from Vidal enriched and Fax: 703-323-6246 Constitution of 1793." energized and inspired - to read the Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 author he has been discussing, to pon moves with such grace that Buckley a class of I'Ipoor" people. Furthermore, der his interpretations, to learn more wouldn't even know what hit him. I've non-productive and disruptive mem about his topic. His book is rich in read every word of every issue of the bers of society were generally dealt achievement and implication. National Review since fall of 1986, but with at a subsocietallevel, by their ex One comes away from Buckley any.attempts to brainwash me into a tended family or clan. mostly bored. In a duel of sensibilities thoughtless disdain for Vidal didn't Szasz takes a praxeological view of and how they are expressed, Vidal work. a the origin of the problem: There are three ways a person can Cruel Compassion: Psychiatric Control ofSociety's Unwanted, by obtain the necessities of life: (1) As a dependent, receiving food and shel Thomas Szasz. John Wiley & Sons, 1994, 264 + ix pp., $19.95. ter from donors (parents, family, church, state); (2) as a producer, pro viding for his own needs; or (3) as a predator, using force or the threat of force to rob others of the goods and services he needs and wants. A per son who does not want to be, or can Out Of the Asylum not be, a producer, must become a dependent or a predator or perish. Anything that discourages or pre vents peaceful market relations among productive adults - regard have disappeared down the memory less of whether it is due to biological, R. W. Bradford cultural, economic/\ or political fac hole forever. tors - thus encourages dependency I had no idea, for example, that dur or predation or both. The fact that Thomas Szasz will forever be asso ing the first part of this century epilep both are adaptive - that both para ciated with the phrase I'Ithe myth of tics were routinely imprisoned in the sitism and crime "pay" - accounts mental· illness." Indeed, many people United States. This was justified on the for the increased frequency of both consider his critique of mental.illness grounds that during an epileptic sei behavior patterns during times of so and the incarceration that typically fol zure, the victim is liable to commit hor cial upheaval and among members of lows that diagnosis to be virtually rible acts of violence. This theory was the underclass. Szasz's only interest. There is just concocted without a shred of evidence Psychiatry was developed to deal enough truth to this view to give it by Sir Henry Maudsley, a prominent with unwanted, noncriminal depen plausibility. Szasz has spent most of British psychiatrist, and was readily ac dents: diagnose them as mentally ill his life on a lonely crusade against psy cepted as an excuse for hustling epilep and lock them up someplace where chiatric imprisonment. And psychiatric tics off to IIcolonies," where they were they don't bother us. Szasz is opposed imprisonment is a theme he returns to imprisoned for life. This replaced the to this practice. When it comes to the again and again. earlier theory that a person who suffers question of how to deal with society's Of course, there is far more to Szasz an epileptic fit is. possessed by demons unwanted, Szasz is an absolutist. He than his critique of psychiatric impris and should be imprisoned for life. Peo believes they should be allowed to get onment, but even when he returns to ple were willing to accept Maudsley's their own way unless and until they this theme his writing is fresh and ex theory simply because it is unpleasant commit a crime, at which time they to witness an epileptic fit and trouble citing. Szasz is both a brilliant polemi should be treated exactly like any other some to take care of relatives who suffer cist and a resourceful historian. This criminal: latter characteristic serves him particu from epilepsy. larly well, since so much of the history Szasz's discussion of children is of If civil commitment were abolished, of psychiatry is deliberately obscured particular interest to libertarians: as usu mental hospitals as we know them by its apologists. He is also an accom al, his analysis is fresh, vigorous, and would disappear. Regardless of their psychiatric diagnosis, persons who challenging. As in so many other cases, plished epigrammist: it is difficult for break the law would have to be ac me as a reviewer to pass up the oppor whether you agree with him or not, he cused of a crime, tried,and, if found, tunity to quote him extensively. has the power of shaking your own guilty, punished in the criminal jus Hislatest book, Cruel Compassion, is thinking to its roots. tice system; whereas persons inno a case in point. It begins with a survey His discussions of the poor, debtors, cent of crime would have to be left of the types of people that have been and the homeless are also insightful. He unmolested by the legal and psychi incarcerated for reasons other than argues, for example, that these are char atic systems. Only then would men crime: the poor, those in debt, epilep acteristically modern problems, dating tal illness be destigmatized and tics, children, and the homeless. Cruel back only to the birth of modern capital psychiatrists resemble regular physi Compassion teems· with fascinating, ism. Before the Industrial Revolution, cians whose practice is limited to sometimes horrifying information that, everyone except a tiny elite lived in vir treating voluntary patients. were it not for Szasz, would probably tual poverty, so there was no concept of His argument is brilliant and con- Liberty 63 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 vincing. Plainly, people who have com at least on some level. Consider the ap and lies on the ground screaming mitted no crimes ought not be incarcer propriate responses to the following sit obscenities. ated. But what about the crazy person uations, all with the same damage According to this school of libertari who commits a crime? What about the incurred: anism, all three cases should be treated individual who clearly has no control The accident: While turning around the same. The ·fact that one was acci over himself? Should he be treated as his car after backing out of his drive dental, one predatory, and one lunatic an ordinary criminal? way, your neighbor accidentally backs makes no difference. I understand the I see two problems with such a poli into the side of your car, which is appeal of this thinking: it certainly cy. In a fundamental sense, the "crazy" parked in the street. makes the judicial process efficient by criminal seems quite different from the The vandal: The neighbor kid, angry providing an easy-to-apply universal "ordinary" criminal. The criminal is at you, decides to teach you a lesson by standard. But does it really make punished for doing wrong. The raving driving his car into the side of yours, sense? I am not convinced. lunatic, however unpleasant he may be which is parked on the street. This question is beyond the scope to be around and whatever damage he The lunatic: A neighbor goes nuts, of Cruel Compassion. But it is typical of causes, is not aware that he is doing hops into his car, and goes on a lunatic the questions that Szasz stimulates one wrong, and therefore ought not be pun journey, smashing into cars, trees, and to think about. Cruel Compassion is a ished in the same way as the predatory other objects, one of which is your car. powerful therapy for focusing one's criminal. In addition, incarceration He eventually tires of this, exits his car, thinking. 0 places a heavy financial burden on those who pay for it; institutionaliza GoingNative, bySteveWright.Farrar, Strauss& Giroux,1994,305pp.,$22.00. tion, whether in prison, orphanage, or asylum, costs about the same as attend ing Harvard. And what about the criminal luna tic? When I was a child, a family moved into our neighborhood whose nine-year-old boy was a problem. He habitually engaged in vandalism, as Road Yuppie sault, and theft. Because of his extreme youth, treating him as a criminal seemed inappropriate. Yet he was a one-boy crime wave. What should be done? By Szasz's theory, as I under own lives.' ... Wright'S immersive orgy stand it, the only two alternatives are to Phil Leggiere in the here and horrible tracks a subur treat him as a criminal (i.e., send him to ban family man's flight from himself prison) or leave him in the bosom of his It's rare and encouraging to see an across a dense and dangerous American family. Neither seems like a very rea ambitious young writer's work receiv simulacrum undreamt of even by sonable course. Prison for so young a ing the kind of hyper-enthusiastic cele Baudrillard." person seems unjust. But leaving him bration that Steve Wright's Going Na The skeptic's instinct is to think that in his family seems unjust to them and tive has, from sources both near the if a rare talent· is indeed involved here, to their neighbors, victims all. center of contemporary literary hip it's more likely a talent for literary poli The Szaszian response seems to be dom Gacket blurbs from Toni Morrison tics than for literature. Suspicions aside, in the tradition of libertarian thinking and Don DeLillo) and further left. Rare, however, Going Native does confirm that treats only the exogenous effects of encouraging, and ... suspicious. Suspi Steve Wright as a genuinely accom interpersonal harm. Legal theorists cious, because the raves have been so plished prose stylist. No contemporary such as Randy Barnett have long breathlessly and conspicuously vacu writer I've read conveys our technolo argued that punishment for a crime ous in their celebration of Wright's gy- and media-saturated domestic envi should be limited to restitution: one experimentalism. ronments like Wright, whose sense of should not consider the motivation of Consider, for instance, this com detail recalls that of the best super the perpetrator. Robert LeFevre went ment from the Voice Literary Supple realist painting: "It's late Friday in late even further: he argued that when a ment: "In his amazing third novel, summer in Wakefield Estates, where the person tried to repel aggression he Wright stares long and hard at the dim shadows are long and the light is per must limit his defense to the same ener delirium confronting us. He broadcasts fect and the sky a photographer's fanta gy as the assault. Thus you can block an English as electrically intoxicating sy of absolute blue typically apprehend the punch of an aggressor, but if you as a mescaline Slurpee. Identity is a ed only on film, too blue to be arching punch back, you too become an fluid yet foul thing in Going Native in inhuman grandeur over this engi aggressor. whose loosely linked scenarios reveal neered community of pastel houses and The problem with this thinking, it that, however hard. we try to escape big friendly trees." seems to me, is that intentions do count, ourselves, we remain 'Guests in our Wright also excels at satiric replica- 64 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 tion of contemporary language, often to licenses (scruffy hitchhikers, teenage Business School startling effect: "From her bag she runaways, serial killers, religious cult Students, Graduates, and pulled fat handfuls of typewritten ists, coke dealers, outcasts, desperados Nascent Entrepreneurs paper to hold before her like a shield, - the psychopathic unconscious of damp tattered sections of a pirated Kerouac's sentimental Americana), manuscript copy of that hot new novel Jones reappears and disappears in vari Learn at with cool attitude, Wittgenstein's Jock ous guises. Circumstantially but never strap, a dimly imagined tale of one definitively identified by the reader as vague young man's desperately vague a mass murderer on the loose, Jones is quest for something or other, composed involved in shifting relationships with IILibertyl1 a panoply of characters who similarly Are you interested in putting your emerge and disappear. business education or experience to The road narrative's con To give Wright his due, some of use by working for an entrepreneurial ventions are knowingly dis these characters are among the most organization? Why not consider gain torted, as though Dashiell memorable in current literature. Perry ing management experience at Foyle, a film school dropout who de Liberty? velops his own cinema verite from his Hammett had written "The Liberty offers full-time, paid Grapes ofWrath. " flophouse hotel room, where he films internships at all times of the year to prostitutes and their tricks. Drake and __iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii__iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii_iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii_ business school graduates and under Amanda, a Hollywood actress and her graduates. aspiring screenwriter husband, who Liberty is growing; why not grow in freeze dried europrose so devoid of travel to Borneo for a ritual initiation with us? nutrients even tears couldn't vivify it. and are near-perfect conduits for satir Six figure option to Pogo Pictures. Ber izing the baby-boom search for the pri For infonnation, write: nardo Scungilli slated to direct. Friends mal. Jones' encounters with hitchhikers R. W. Bradford, Publisher of Amanda's at GAM thought she and local sheriffs probe layers of gro Liberty would be 'perfect' for the part of ear tesquerie beneath the surfaces of Mid P.O. Box 1181 nest young English professor who dle American Gothic with effects that Port Townsend, WA 98368 serves as ventriloquist's dummy for the recall such films as Badlands and Blue author's startlingly conventional views Velvet. on any number of trendy topics. She Throughout these slow-paced, bi ~he also attends to our hero's less lofty CWaco CWhitewash zarre episodes, Wright adroitly manip needs. She's hip, she's urban, she gives By Jack DeVault, Major, USAF, (Ret.) ulates American literary mythologies; good ideological head." the road narrative's conventions are Atlast! Acredibleeyewitness The fashionably elliptical, hyper knowingly distorted, as though accountofthe trial ofthe Branch nair anti-detective novel Wright ends Davidians. The truth about the up with, however, is overripe with quo Dashiell Hammett had written The tations from every crossed strain of Grapes of Wrath. Starting from the sim federal atrocities and the cover gothic in contemporary writing, from ple premise of domestic upper-middle up. The government's own Jim Thompson to John Hawkes to Pat class ennui, restlessness, and dread witnesses tell how the raid was rick McGrath. For all its glossy grotes the kind that used to drive John Cheev planned and executed. Discover querie and sure mannerism, Going Na er's executive martini-drinkers to sneak why those twenty-sevenchildren tive lacks the dramatic tensions and around skinny-dipping in their neigh didn'tcomeoutofthefrre. Decide psychological intensities that might dis bors' pools in the middle of the night foryourselfifthe law was violated tinguish it from its sources. Wright cuts'n'mixes whole 3yllabi of under color of law. The novel's main character - or, "intertextualities." This bookalsoincludesmany rather, anti-character, since Wright is What Wright seems to be aiming for legal and evidentiary documents fairly insistent in his deconstruction of is a narrative equivalent of the positive including the "911 "call for help, unified characters - is named, tenta acoherence that the poets grouped around the "Language School" have the illegal juryquestionnaire, the tively, Wylie Jones. Jones, a bored yup juryforeman's letterto thejudge, pie, disappears during an upscale sub made fashionable in poetry. Clark urban barbecue he hosts with his wife, Coolidge and others have reproduced the judge's sentencing fmdings hitting the road in the time-honored the surfaces of ostensibly traditional which were contrary to thejury's, fashion of the man with the seven-year poetic forms only to undermine the the cruel sentences, the prisoners itch going out for the proverbial pack conventional bases of syntax and mean present addresses, and more. of cigarettes. Through a sequence of ing, replacing them with unpredictable 348 pages; $16.95 plus $3.05 loosely related episodes, connected pri new patterns based on sound, rhythm, for postage and handling: marily by their similarly macabre at diction, and connotation. In a similar mospheres and recurring character way, Wright scrambles the traditional Rescue Press types with different names and driver's novelistic "syntax" of character, plot, 8048 Midcrown, #11 San Antonio, TX 78218 Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 and setting. But while the best poems Going Native would be quite enough to able tips on how to set up your key of writers like Coolidge gain strength celebrate. But a writer with Wright's and how to distribute it to others. A from the linguistic evasiveness of their keen intelligence and evident gift for tricky issue in public key cryptography jagged-edged juxtapositions, Wright's prose promises more. Going Native, is providing assurance that a given free-floating signifiers of noir conven however it packages its stylized aca public key really belongs to the person tions and highway motifs, while demic neo-formalism, is still just that: it claims to belong to; Stallings discuss smooth, are .ultimately too mechanical package. And that is something our es features of PGP that make this easier lymanipulated to come to life. era, rotten with cynically nostalgic iro to do, and explains the role of key From a writer of less obvious talent, ny, already has plenty of. 0 servers. The book also covers one of the Protect Your Privacy: A Guide for PGP Users, by William Stallings, trickiest issues: how to get PCP. The Prentice Hall PTR, 1994, 302 pp., $19.95. program is available for free; however, the u.S. government classifies strong encryption programs as "munitions," bars their exportation without a li cense, and claims that unrestricted posting of a program on the Internet Pretty Great Privacy constitutes "exporting" it. For this rea son, few sites carry the program, and they make you jump through hoops in at least a token effort to guard against downloading by foreign users. There is card number to a mail-order house or to also a commercial version, called Gary McGath discuss a plan to smuggle in Cuban ref ugees, it can be important to shield a A computer book reviewed in Liber message from others. And mail on the ty? Of course - when it's about soft Internet is definitely not secure; a mes The U.S. government clas ware that will help you protect your sage may pass through any number of sifies encryption programs as Fourth Amendment rights, when the computers on its way to the target. Umunitions," bars their expor head of the FBI wants to outlaw that Second, PCP allows you to show kind of software, and when the author that you are who you claim to be and tation without a license, and of the program is being threatened with that your message hasn't been tam claims that posting a program federal prosecution. pered with. The program lets you ap on the Internet constitutes The book in question is William pend to a message your "signature," Stallings' Protect Your Privacy: A Guide which is based on the contents of the Uexporting" it. for PGP Users. PGP stands for "Pretty message and your key. If someone else Good Privacy," Phil Zimmermann's tries to fake a message or alter the con excessively modest title for a program tents of your signed message without Viacrypt PGP, which is likewise re that encrypts messages so that only the knowing your private key, the signa stricted against exportation. intended recipient can decipher them. ture won't match. A message can be Stallings doesn't mention Phil It is the most widely used encryption signed without being encrypted. Zimmermann's legal defense fund, software for personal messages on the PGP uses what is called "public/ which allows users to reimburse his Internet. Stallings' book is not about the private key encryption." When you set efforts while resisting the govern political and legal battles behind PCP, yourself up, you create two coordinated ment's war on encryption. This fund is interesting as that subject is; rather, it's keys of up to 1024 bits each: a public mentioned in the documentation that a how-to guide for users. key, which you let the Stallings explains the key ideas world know about, and a behind PGP at a level most computer private key, which you literate readers won't have trouble fol guard with your life. Oth lowing. He covers public/private key ers will use your public cryptography, digital signatures, and key to encrypt messages to key generation and verification. The you; only your private key DOS and Macintosh versions of PCP allows them to be decrypt are covered in detail. ed. You use the private What does PGP do for you? Two key to send messages, and things. First, it allows you to send mes readers can use your pub sages over an unsecured channel with lic key to verify the out leaving them vulnerable to snoop signature. ers. Whether you want to send a credit The book offers valu- "Nothing, of course - what's new with you?" 66 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 comes with PGP; while the situation The classification of encryption as puts the lie to that pigeonhole. This is a may have changed by the time this arti munitions has at least a grain of truth book about doing your own thing, in the cle is printed, I urge everyone who uses to it: just as being armed allows you to best sense of that once popular, now PCP to give to it if it is still active. If Bill defend your home, encryption software long-discarded cliche. May it last an Clinton, Louis Freeh, and the NSA face allows you to defend your private com other 27 years. -Jesse Walker no determined opposition, they will al munications. Stallings' book is a valu low us only to use encryption they can able guide to using this weapon The Critic, Clothed - For me break at will, such as the Clipper chip. effectively. 0 Noam Chomsky was shock therapy. When I first read him, my views were still vaguely in accord with the main stream, Republican-oriented Right. Chomsky forced me to confront incon Booknotes sistencies in my views, specifically on the subject of war and peace. The dom inant strand of modern American More Hayekian Than Thou With this individualist credo, the right-wing thinking holds war to be a The idea that government has a specific finest publication to emerge from the sacrament. At one time this religion end dominates most of Western politi American counterculture was launch seemed to have something to do with cal philosophy. Libertarian thought, of ed. Over a quarter-century later, The Communism, but recent interventions course, is no exception. One philoso Millennium Whole Earth Catalog (edit in Panama and the Persian Gulf pher who bucks this tradition is Mi ed by Howard Rheingold, Harper San seemed to be fought for their own sake, chael Oakeshott, whose Rationalism in Francisco, 1994, 384 pp., $29.95) moves irrespective of the ostensible reasons. Politics and Other Essays (Liberty the Whole Earth operation into the When it comes to foreign policy, the Press, 1991, 558 pp., $24.00 he, $7.50 sc) mid-'90s, with information on every Democrats - supposedly dominated is both an excellent introduction to his thing from gardening to desktop film by McCovernite peaceniks - have in thought and his most readable work. making to grassroots politics. They the last few years become the "me too" Oakeshott argues that tacit knowl even review Liberty. party. They want just a slightly smaller edge - knowledge that can be ex The media, ever anxious to squeeze military and want to show a tad more pressed only in action and not in princi the counterculture into the narrow con restraint than the Republicans. ples, but is nonetheless necessary for fines of 25-year-old boomer fashion, Remember: before the Gulf War, the human life - is legitimate knowledge. don't know how to deal with the "doves" held the peace-loving, non From this, he attacks teleological views Catalog, an institution more in tune interventionist position of wanting to of the state, and presents a defense of with the best American traditions starve the Iraqis a little while longer be freedom that provides a welcome cor Geffersonian democracy, Thoreauvian fore we began bombing. rective to the hubristic malarky of most anarchy, Samuel Clemens snaking up Bill Clinton has been true to form in such efforts. He not only comes off as the Mississippi} than most of what the recent weeks, with his public state more Hayekian than thou, but more hippies were rebelling against. For that ments that Pentagon spending should Hayekian than Hayek. reason, it is usually stereotyped perhaps be increased after all. That is -Michael Levine even by its media admirers - as a why it is a pleasure to see Chomsky "back to the land" sourcebook, despite examine the foreign policy of the last Access to Tools - The first Whole the pages it devotes to punk zines, few years in his latest book, World Earth Catalog appeared 27 years ago. On pirate radio, the Internet, and other Orders, Old and New (Columbia Uni the first page was this message from postmodern matters. versity Press, 1994,311 pp., $24.95). the founder and editor, Stewart Brand: A quick glance through the Catalog Chomsky sets the tone with a brief We are as gods and might as well get good at it. So far remotely done pow er and glory - as via government, big business, formal education, church - has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of inti mate, personal power is developing .. ".:. :::::::;:)::.':.. ,:': :. - the power of individuals to con duct their own education, find their own inspiration, shape their own en vironment, and share the adventure ""%I' f~;~" !r;~~~~'~i~ !E;;;~;:~2:E{;~:;,;"Lj\:,:'j':;::\:;::,:::E:,};' ;;:1;'Li:';;i';S with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the Whole Earth Catalog. Ilw:li~II:~I·III:lill\\I:i!ii:ill:~illlll::!llllll1i.1:l::ii!I!!ill:i"iil::II~I\;II.III~~I·i·liiiii·:llii.\\.1IIIlll.III::.:iiili:·:I.lil:·lllll~;II~i:~i!ll~I~~l~;!llilll~~I\~~"liiil1il·I!.!lli:\:I;il,;~i~~ "~j;, Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 overview of the Gulf War and Clinton's was greatly cheered by the results, the surdity, lost on most of the media, that 1993 retaliation for the alleged Iraqi plot press reported. 'I feel quite good about the administration's justification for the to assassinate former President Bush. what transpired and I think the attack was based on Article 51 of the Remember how Clinton "stood tall" American people should feel good U.N. Charter, which allows for self against "Iraqi aggression"? Chomsky about it,' the deeply religious president defense against armed attack only treats Clinton's behavior with the ap said on his way to church the next day" when the necessity is "instant, over propriate level of sarcasm: "Clinton (p. 17). Chomsky also points out the ab- whelming, and leaving no moment for deliberation" (17). Chomsky scorns critics who believe American foreign policy is simply mis guided or wrongheaded. He ridicules several critics at the"outer limits of tol erable dissidence" who saw our efforts in the Vietnam war as an II'error' based on misunderstanding and naivete'" Classified Advertising is available for 50¢ per word, with a ten-word minimum. 100/0 discount for six or more insertions. Payment must accompany order. Please suggest (95). I don't much care for this ap classification. proach, though not because I attribute good motives to the likes of Robert Business/Employment Pocket copy Constitution: $3.95. Gerald Fitzge McNamara and George Bush. I don't rald, 2831 Acorn, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48302 care about their motives; their actions Discover the secrets of dual nationalityand ob 1003. have led to mass killings of people who tain ultimate privacy for yourself and your as Politically incorrect? Then you'll love our book sets. Learn how to avoid taxes, wars, currency catalog. Write National Vanguard Books, P.O. posed no threat to the United States, controls, and red tape. Also hundreds of other Box 330, Hillsboro, WV 24946. and that is sufficient reason to con explosive facts and insights are revealed to make Periodicals demn them. you richer and more powerful. Yes II' I would Chomsky's economic views are of like to receive a free brochure and privacy news Directory of Libertarian Periodicals,updated lat letter that reveals all! Write to Scope, Box no. est edition, lists around 150 titles, with addresses, ten wrongheaded, although he does 4168, 62 Murray Road, Waterlooville, U.K. P08 other information. All believed to be presently have one advantage over many of his 9JL. Tel: 44 705 592255. Fax: 44 705 591975. publishing. $3 postpaid, $4 overseas. Jim Stumm, fellow leftists: he recognizes that the Wanted: Historical research assistant. Ten hours Box 29LB, Hiler Branch, Buffalo, NY 14223. American corporate system rests on per month. Fax replies to (816) 741-5666. Dispatches from The Last Ditch. Anarcho state intervention, not laissez faire, a pessimists, post-neo-Objectivists, crypto-Cop point that he documents in meticulous Llteratore perheads, and other enemies of the permanent Don't understand trinitarianism? Christianity, regime opining monthly, from individualist and detail. Alas, he does not see this as an Crime Against Humanity by Arnold Gordon ex European-American perspectives, on the end of argument for free-market prescriptions poses the pagan origins of false Christianity, in civilization. Write for free issue. $15 for 4 issues; (though as an anarchist, he ought to op cluding Christmas, Easter, the fish symbol, the $42 for 12. WTM Enterprises, P.O. Box 224, Dept. pose most anti-market prescriptions as cross, church steeples, and more! Send $9.95 and LIB, Roanoke, IN 46783. Make checks payable to well). $2 postage and handling to 5 Star Publishing WTM Enterprises. I can live with Chomsky's faults, be Company, P.O. Box 1432, Galesburg, IL 61402 Individual will buy back issues of Cato Journal, 1432. Review ofAustrian Economics, Critical Review, Con cause in the current intellectual atmos Frustrated persuader? 27-page pamphlet makes tinuity, and American Historical Review. Contact phere, where the bounds of respectable the libertarian position inescapable! $3 each, or P.O. Box 1597, Dubuque, IA 52004-1597. opinion fall into the tiny ideological cre $2.50 each for 10+. Postage included. Maresca, Living Free newsletter, practical methods for in vice that separates The Wall Street BOO Flying Hills, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360. creasing personal freedom, for libertarians, sur Journal from the New York Times, it is Get economic revenge: The Secrets of Wealth. vivalists, anarchists, outlaws, since 1979. Lively, good to have as many critics as possible Over 250,000 sold. $24, delivered priority: Men unique. $12 for six issues, sample $2.00. Box 29 tor, 11401 N. Freeway, Ste. 223-L, Houston, TX LB, Hiler Branch, Buffalo, NY 14223. pointing out that not only the emperor, 77060. The only publication that takes libertarian ideas but those courtiers who pose as "inde Gold, Greenbacks, and the Constitution by seriously enough to debate them and test their pendent journalists," are devoid of even Richard Timberlake "explains clearly and lucid limits. In Critical Review, the best free-market a shred of clothing. -Clark Stooksbury ly why legal tender laws and central banking vi scholars in the world debate eminent writers of olate the plain language of the American Consti other persuasions in every social science. Forth The Mismeasure ofAnarchy tution" -Richard Wagner, chair, Department of coming and recent authors: James Buchanan, In the late 1980s, German journalist Economics, George Mason University. Send Harold Demsetz, Roger Garrison, Nathan Glazer, $4.95 + $2 shipping to Liberty Bookshelf, P.O. John Gray, Robert Higgs, Charles Kindleberger, Ulrike Heider came to the United States Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368. Israel Kirzner, Leszek Kolakowski, Donald to gather material for a book on mod In honor of one of the most beloved Libertari McCloskey, Charles Murray, Jan Narveson, Rich ern American anarchism. She spoke to ans, Karl Hess (Goldwater speechwriter), you ard Posner, Anna Schwartz, David Ramsay Sam Dolgoff, Noam Chomsky, Murray can obtain three articles that greatly influenced Steele, James Q. Wilson. Four 160 pp. issues/ Bookchin, Murray Rothbard, and other year. $15 students with copy of ID; nonstudents: the modem libertarian movement: "The Death anarchists of various ideological hues. of Politics," "The Lawless State," and The Play $29 U.S., $35 foreign, $50 foreign air. P.O. Box boy Interview. Package cost is $9 including post 25068, Dept. L, Chicago, IL 60625. The result was Anarchism: Left, Right, age. Mail to: Reliant Press, Box 41, Oakton, The Voluntaryist - sample copy for two first and Green (City Lights Books, 1994, 156 Virginia 22124. class stamps. Box 1275, Gramling, SC 29348. pp., $12.95). 68 Liberty Volume 8, Number 4

Heider divides her book into three sections, each looking at a separate school of anarchist thought: anarcho syndicalism, IIeco-anarchism," and anarchocapitalism. This final section is Chester Alan Arthur is Liberty's politi Wendy McElroy is a fellow at the marred by the exclusion of several im cal correspondent. Independent Institute. portant figures (Karl Hess is mentioned "Baloo" is the secret identity of car Gary McGath is a writer in Hooksett, only in passing, while David Friedman toonist Rex F. May. New Hampshire. is completely ignored). Even worse, it is littered with offhand derogatory John Bergstrom hails from the Mid Gary North is editor of the Remnant comments: "The anarcho-capitalists west, but lives in California. Review. always serve to remind us of the intrin Tom Bethell is "Capitol Ideas" colum Ron Paul was the Libertarian Party's sic cruelty of profit-oriented market nist for The American Spectator. 1988 presidential candidate. society" (p. 139); "Anarcho-capitalism Durk Pearson is coauthor of Freedom represents the most extreme variety of R. W. Bradford is editor of Liberty. ofInformed Choice: The FDA vs the rediscovered laissez1aire ideologies. Douglas Casey is author of Crisis Nutrient Supplements. If the left does not succeed in stopping Investing for the Rest of the '90s. this trend, we will face a worldwide so Robert Prechter is coauthor of The Roy Cordato is Lundy Professor of cialand ecological disaster" (151). Elliot Wave Principle. Business Philosophy at Campbell She even suggests that libertarian University. John Pugsley is editor of John Pugsley's ism has its roots in authoritarianism Journal. and that classical liberalism is not so far Stephen Cox is Professor of Literature Mark Rembert is a writer in removed from Nazism: "It was slowly at the University of California at Tennessee. dawning on me what a friend of mine San Diego. had meant when he had predicted that Brian Doherty is an assistant editor of Sheldon Richman is author of my German accent would assure me Reason magazine. Separating School and State. great success with libertarians" (117). James S. Robbins is a foreign policy James Gill is Liberty's staff artist. Sometimes her effort to push anarcho analyst in Massachussetts. capitalism into a fascist mold becomes Bettina Bien Greaves is Resident Schol Jane S. Shaw is a senior associate of comic: while discussing Samuel ar at the Foundation for Economic the Political Economy Research Edward Konkin III, she goes out of her Education. Center in Bozeman, Montana. way to point out that Wisconsin, where E.K. Gregory has worked in medicine Konkin lived for a spell, has "a strong Sandy Shaw is coauthor of Freedom of more than ten years. German heritage" (119). Informed Choice: The FDA vs Nutri Heider compounds this silliness Robert Hessen is a historian affiliated ent Supplements. with numerous factual mistakes. Here's with the Hoover Institution. Robert Sirico, CSP is president of the a typical clunker: "After World War II, Robert Higgs is research director for Acton Institute for the Study of several arch-conservative adherents of the Independent Institute. Religion and Liberty. the Austrian School of Economics made a name for themselves in the U.S.; the Damon M. Hunzeker is a columnist for Mark Skousen is author of Economics on Trial. most famous of these was Rothbard's the Boise Times and Slick Times. former teacher, Ayn Rand" (109). Bill Kauffman is author of America Joseph Sobran is a syndicated colum Elsewhere, she describes Milton First! Its History, Culture, and nist and editor of Sobran's, a month Friedman as an Austrian economist, Politics (with a forward by Gore ly ne~sletter. Murray Rothbard as a founder of the Vidal), due out this spring. Aaron T. Steelman is publisher emeri Libertarian Party, and Liberty as the Phil Leggiere is a journalist and critic tus of The Michigan Review. official publication of that organization. in New Jersey. Perhaps surprisingly, Heider con Clark Stooksbury is assistant publisher of cludes this concatenation of misinfor David and Mary Lemke are Oregon Liberty. mation with a prescient observation. citizens. Jeffrey Tucker is editor of The Free Discussing the paleolibertarian Michael Levine is Liberty's circulation Market. paleoconservative marriage that manager. Timothy Virkkala is managing editor Rothbard was so key in orchestrating, of Liberty. Heider states, "Only the future will Leonard P. Liggio is President of the show whether Rothbard has bet on the Philadelphia Society and Executive Jesse Walker is assistant editor of Vice President of the Atlas right horse. I sincerely doubt, however, Liberty. Economic Research Foundation. that he will be able to convert the Leland B. Yeager is Ludwig von Mises paleoconservatives to anarchism." Tom Loughran is editorial assistant at Distinguished Professor of Econom -Aaron Steelman Liberty. ics at Auburn University. Liberty 69 Terril

Royal Oak, Mich. Hawaii Sophisticated logic of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, quoted by Unusual defense, reported by the Honolulu Star the Detroit Free Press: Bulletin: "That's exactly what the state of Michigan is. It's been An accused child molester argued that because prosecutors consecrated by Hitler. [Michigan Governor John] Engler is failed to establish he was not married to the 12-year-old boy he al- against abortion, so was Hitler. Engler's Catholic, so was Hitler. legedly molested, he should be acquitted. . Engler does what he wants despite the will of the people,so did Hitler. They're exactly the same, except one difference: Hitler Dubai was honest." More bad news from the front in the War on Drugs, reported in the GulfNews: San Francisco Teens in Dubai are smoking ants and sniffing the fumes they Interesting observation from James McSheehy of the emit when crushed. The practice has. become so popular -that a San Francisco Board of Supervisors, quoted in theBaltimore small packet of ants-now sells for up to $135. Sun: "Ladies, I have here some figures which -I _want you to take Kansas· City home in your heads, which I know to be concrete." Equal opportunity in action, described by the Detroit News: Regulators ordered a Kansas City bank to put a Braille keypad on an automatic teller machine ina drive-through lane.

Chechnya, Russia Remarkable military maneuver by the Russian Army, reported in The Economist: "The high command launched the ground assault on new year's eve. The next day, the generals were claiming to control the city, including the presidential palace. The day after that they trimmed: Turkey 'control,' it seemed, did not mean the palace had-been taken, just Unique job training program, described by the Detroit encircled. Another day on, and Russian troops were 'regrouping' Free Press: (i.e., retreating)." Sixteen Turkish dancing bears will enter a sanctuary this week designed to teach them to live on their own again. Officials in Dallas Istanbul said the bears would be taught skills like foraging Ross Perot proposes a new and different approach to the health care"crisis," from his op-ed piece "The Sensible Australia Approach to Health Care": Pollution taxes Down Under, as described by the "There is a rational way to improve health care to deliver care Detroit Free Press: to the uninsured-and keep costs in line: The Australian government is considering taxing animal flatu • Form a bipartisan team of Democrats and Republicans. lence as part of a proposal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by • Identify the parts of the health system that need to be im 20% by 2005. proved. • Bring in leading authorities to design the improvements. San Francisco • When this detailed plan has been completed, explain the sys Strange new respect for propertyrights, reported in tem carefully to the American people in plain language. Skip the the Ocala Star-Banner: propaganda." The Communist Party, U.S.A. is suing a breakaway group, the Committees ofCorrespondence, c~arging that they have abscond Washington, D.C. ed with its property. Spending priorities in Dan Quayle's branch of the Service,-as reported by Capital Ideas: Oakland County, Mich. The National Guard spent $600,000 in training funds to prac Judicial snag in the Wolverine State, reported by the tice the operation oflifting the Freedom Statue from the top of the Detroit Free Press: U.S. Capitol building and bringing it to Earth for renovation. A private firm later did the job for $60,000. "Assistant Prosecutor John Skrzynski said Wednesday that proving Gerard Carlin acted illegally has been difficult because of (Readers are invited to forward newsclippings or other items for the lack of laws to back up the charges." publication in Terra Incognita.) 70 Liberty Libertarian Classics! 1\vo individualist classics, newly reprinted, and the first Russian edition of a Russian America's classic novel ... plus the wit of Murray Rothbard The Foundations ofMorality, by Henry Hazlitt In this fascinating work, the late economist and journalist Henry Hazlitt brought the insights of economics to bear on the problems of that most vexing and vexed practical philosophy, ethics. Reprinted in an attractive edition by the Foundation for Economics and Education, this work is must reading for all those who are serious about freedom. The Foundations of Morality is readable, common-sensical, and very, very supportive of the ideas of personal freedom, individual responsibility, and government accountability. Another classic by the author of Economics in One Lesson. (398 pp.) $17.95 softcover

The God ofthe Machine, by Isabel We The Living, by Ayrl Paterson ...•. > ...•...... •.•..-. Rand In America's darkest, One of Russia's most illiberal hours - during World War II - this book greatest novelists can appeared: a highly original, masterful restatement of finally be read in her classical liberalism. So brilliant, it helped spur the nascent homeland. You can own libertarian movement. an autographed first In this new edition, with a thorough biographic and edition of this classic bibliographic introduction by Stephen Cox, you can see anti-totalitarian work! A why Paterson so impressed the libertarians of her day, book in Russian, for and how she influenced her sometime disciple, Ayn Russians - and for Western Rand. supporters of a free and This book not only presents a theory ofliberty, but a liberal East. grand theory of society. And grand it is - elegantly Translated into the written, path-breaking, and wise. An utterly original Russian from Rand's adopted contribution. (540 pp.) $21.95 softcover language, English, signed and by numbered by the translator, The Sociology ofthe Ayn Rand Cult, Dimitry Costygin. Murray N. Rothbard A genuine collector's item. A fascinating analysis of how and why Ayn Rand's "Inner $19.95 hardcover Circle" of friends and acolytes degenerated into a cult, leading to a degradation of individualism in both theory and practice. This provocative, now-classic discussion is sure to stimulate! Filled with provocative anecdotes and original analysis. (12 pp.) $4.00 monograph ~------ I Yes! Send me the books I have marked below. item amount I qty name I address I I I signature Shipping & Handling ($3.00 per address) I account # Total Enclosed I expires phone L. "Investment Biker is simply a more clever title for Travels With Am Rand" -The Boston Globe

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