The Final Days of

May 1998 Vol. 11, No.5 $4.00 "Bill Clinton

o. .•. 1211Ijj;ili~f0E1j&11J82ilif(";;t81TIIH24·ITl~18t211*lillJili£]rl8tj1fJl8iliit£iTd0j8j8~itTB2t&08tlt;Elijiliflli;12·i®8tllii§£Di£1Giffin 0...... o .. 00 . o . !il- --~- -- f'o------...... f'o~~------....------...... "It is seldom that Liberty ofany kind is lost all at once." -David Hume LIBERTARIANS When you've had enough of majority rule ...

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FNF, incorporated in 1993, is an IRS 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt educational foundation. another road lies wide open before us. May 1998 Inside Liberty Volume 11, Number 5

4 Letters To subscribe to Liberty does not mean to subscribe to everything in its pages. 9 Reflections The ladies and gentlemen on Liberty's masthead head off the onslaught of the pollsters, slough off the lightweights of the media, put off till tomorrow the asteroids of today, and turn on our own kind. 19 Clinton's Follies Liberty's editors review this famous comedian's farewell performance. Features 28 The DEA Wishes Me a Nice Day The War on Drugs continues, even against the wishes of the California voters, as Peter McWilliams discovered, when those nice chaps at the DEA broke down his door. 33 Freedom and Madness Thomas S. Szasz examines psychiatry's peculiar institution. 37 The Temptation of Bill Gates Brien Bartels wonders whether Microsoft will give in to the temptations of power. 38 Free Speech for Software Writers Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw argue Microsoft should stand behind the First Amendment. 42 The Empire Strikes Out Alan Bock suggests the citizens of the"Adolescent Empire" should put away their childish things. 45 How the EPA Made us Rich Washington D.C. is not known for its cuisine, but some regulators sure know how to cook the books. Ben Bolch and Bradford Pendley sample the exotic bureaucratic fare. 4 7 The Pontiff's Polemic James M. Vinoski explains why the Vicar of Christ comforts Castro and condemns markets. Reviews 49 The Fading Myth of JFK R.W. Bradford wonders how the world would have been different ifJack Kennedy had not, on that fateful day in 1963, grabbed one of his sexual playmates and injured his back ... 53 Fool Britannia Martin Quoile examines a "pro-liberty" novel and finds a nationalist attack on freedom. 56 A Public History of the Campaigns That Failed Truth may be the first casualty of war, writes Mark Brady, but liberty is the second. 58 Simplicity Rules Richard Epstein makes a powerful case that complex societies need simple laws. John Hospers cautions against oversimplification. 61 The Closing of the Japanese Mind Americans complain about Japan's barriers against foreign intellectuals, but as Michael J. Oakes shows, those barriers hurt the Japanese far more than Americans. 64 Making Sense of a Life The trouble with the Oscar-nominated documentary about Ayn Rand, explains R. W. Bradford, is that it doesn't even try to tell the truth. 65 The Number of The Best Richard Kostelanetz finds that a catalog listing his books may be at least 50 percent accurate. 67 Science Fiction Fandom Strikes Back Victor Koman, Rex F. May, Michael Grossberg, and Victoria Varga explain what's wrong with what Martin Morse Wooster had to say about libertarian science fiction. 70 Notes on Contributors Who we are and what we do. tion of events, but that sure sounds like (~======L ======~J more than an injunction against disrupt­ e======tt======e======r s ing class. Cops Against Gun Control ate amount of outrage suggests that It's a shame that Rushton's experi­ ence fighting censorship didn't instill in Harry Browne's apparent belief that there is something else about this evi­ him a respect for the free speech of most police officers favor gun control dence that is disturbing to the left. I sus­ others. ("Unequal protection for the Law," pect that it is because the evidence Jesse Walker March) is probably the result of the exonerates capitalism. After all, if, under Washington, D.C. press's proclivity to report surveys of capitalism, whites go to the top even chiefs of police - many of whom are though blacks are their equals, then cap­ Rushton responds: Good grief! Since political hack appointees - rather than italism condones racism, and is there­ when does free speech include the right rank-and-file officers. fore evil. On the other hand, if whites to make threats of physical violence, but In a 1993 poll of 10,614 police offi­ rise due to superior inborn ability, capi­ not the right to threaten a libel suit? Is cers, the Atlanta Journal reported that 90 talism can't be faulted for this. there no difference at all between the percent of respondents believe that citi­ Richard Fuerle threat to free speech posed by criminal zens have the right to defend them­ Grand Island, N.Y. prosecution and that posed by libel laws? selves with guns, and that 96 percent Freedom Is for Everyone believe that gun ownership should not I'll grant that my views are offensive Freedom of expression should and odd, to some people, anyway, be against the law. belong to everyone, even those whose though what's offensive and odd to me Yes, we've all seen rows and rows of views are offensive, wrong, or - in the is that conducting research on race dif­ uniformed police officers standing on case of J. Philippe Rushton - both. I'm ferences in exactly the same fashion as the steps of some capital building in pleased that he has fended off those my previous work in social psychology support of anti-gun legislation. But the who would restrict his academic free­ has resulted in my becoming a pariah, press fails to report that these officers dom, and I certainly understand that in my life threatened, my property are often required to attend these media printing his account of his troubles, destroyed, criminal charges leveled affairs regardless of their own views. Liberty is not endorsing his odd views. I against me, and my livelihood Gerald T. Lang look forward to future discussions of threatened. Newman, Ga. this theme - perhaps an article by But I will not grant my views are Hidden Agenda fringe Afrocentrist Leonard Jeffries, who wrong. If Walker had offered so much J. Philippe Rushton's article ("The many conservatives think should be dis­ as a scintilla of a hint as to why he New Enemies of Evolutionary Science," missed from his academic post for the thinks they're wrong, I'd be happy to March) was fascinating, reminiscent of "crime" of espousing ideas as offensive respond. But it is difficult to respond to Galileo's problems with the Church. It as, and even more absurd than, pure denunciation. is tempting to argue that Widespread Rushton's. As to whether he will find an article vehemence against an idea is itself evi­ Unfortunately, Rushton's commit­ in some future Liberty by Leonard dence for the validity of the idea, else it ment to free speech doesn't seem to Jeffries, I cannot speak for Liberty'S edi­ would not be necessary to suppress it. extend very far. By his own account, he tors, but I suspect that if Jeffries's peer­ Certainly the would-be censors must used the threat of a libel suit to silence reviewed scientific research led to crimi­ themselves suspect that the idea is true, his critics at the Toronto Star. Evidently, nal charges, threats of violence, etc, for otherwise they would Simply mar­ it's all right for Rushton to compare his Liberty would be hospitable to his shal the evidence against it. foes to the Inquisition, but not for his views. Another interesting question is why foes to compare him to the Nazis. I sup­ Government Works, Sometimes so many white people are outraged by pose it's just a matter of whose hyper­ Harry Browne flatly states "there is the suggestion that they may have a bole is being gored. nothing government does well" slightly higher average intelligence than Later, Rushton became unhappy e'Bennettudes," March). If doing well blacks. Strange, isn't it, that the insult is when, in order to get to class, he had "to means doing better than the competi­ their suggested average superiority to run a gauntlet of demonstrators shout­ tion (which is a more rational measure blacks, not their suggested average infe­ ing protests and threats." So, he contin­ than some arbitrary standard), I can riority to orientals? One can see that, if ues, he had the university "warn the offer two areas of government they prize values such as equality and demonstrators that further action would excellence. racial harmony, they may find this evi­ lead to suspension and legal action." I'm First, government can field an army dence disturbing, but the disproportion- dependent here on Rushton's descrip- like no other association of people can.

We invite readers to comment on articles that have appeared in the pages of Libert)'. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity. All letters are assumed to be intended for publication unless otherwise stated. Succinct, typewrit­ ten letters are preferred. Please include your phone number so that we can verify your identity. Send letters to: Liberty, P.O. Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368. Or email us([email protected]) from our pages on the World Wide Web, at http://www.LibertySoft.comlliberty/ May 1998

The U.S. flag is a powerful symbol to including a government program that worth his tuition was refunded in full. those who marched under it. Contrary was an alloyed evil? HadI beencon­ As a result, Galambos not only took a to the libertarian fantasy of peaceful iso­ sulted at its outset, I hope thatI would financial risk but more importantly he lationism, the Pax Americana that the have opposed the space program- butI risked his name and reputation on his world now enjoys is directly rooted in mustbow to honesty and admit that the courses that were highly intellectual in our militarism. Earth 1998 requires an miniaturizationwhose marketit so but­ content. Certainly Galambos's policies international policeman. tressed hasbeenvery useful to me. were unusual but they were utterly con­ Second, government can undertake Eric Sanders sistent with the man's message. investments that are beyond the event Sterling Heights, Mich. In Galambos's words, "He stands horizon of the private capital markets. Open Secret for FREEDOM, then, who respects property absolutely and works for the Historical examples include the Post I was pleased to find Harry establishment of a society in which all Office and the interstate highway sys­ Browne's "Freedom's Unknown Guru" tem. This is the modern justification for (November 1997). Starting in 1965, I property is fully under the control of government, and we should encode it took the first of many of Galambos's the owner." Freedom may well be one as the 28th Amendment, in anticipation more than 100 courses offered through of the world's best kept secrets. of the day we return to a constitutional The Free Enterprise Institute and his However, Galambos was not one who republic. It is also a sore point that subsidiary companies. (I also took tried to keep it so. divides us "science fiction" libertarians Harry Browne's course "Economics of Edward T. Marshall Los Alamitos, Calif. from the myopic and essentially conser­ Success" in February 1966.) vative political junkie types. My patronage ofGalambos's Free Number One In the next century, we are going to Enterprise Institute was strictly a fee for I am baffled by this attack on crack open the space frontier by work­ service proposition. There was no move­ Llewellyn Rockwell ("For Mises' Sake," ing from the hundreds of billions of tax ment to join or a program to follow to January). When the media used por­ money already invested and hundreds enjoy the voyages of discovery he con­ tions of an incomplete film of the arrest of billions yet to come. Don't see any ducted on the whole wide world in of Rodney King to whip up hysteria value in that? Come back in a few hun­ which politics is a minusculebut patho­ which led to the tragic L.A. riots, who dred years. logical part. For me, itwas an intellectual dared tell the truth about what really Even wilder is the age of microbiol­ leap into the 25th century- the ideas happened? Only Rockwell, and a court ogy we are entering on the strength of were so magnificent. Further, I enjoyed a of law vindicated him. Llewellyn large government investments like the pleasantbutintense personal relation­ Rockwell is the number one libertarian Human Genome Project. Our under­ ship withhim up to the time he was inca­ thinker in America. standing of the details of the workings pacitated and to the daybefore he died. Robert Hauser of our bodies is going to mature far Admittedly, I never taught any Glen Ridge, N.J. beyond its present level, and, many bil­ courses under the auspices of The Free III-Endowed lions of tax dollars down the road, dis­ Enterprise Institute, as did Mr. Browne, Richard Kostelanetz's reflection eases like cancer and aging will fall. so my experience with Galambos was ("Thickness: left, right, and libertarian," Our political philosophy should be on a different basis and it was wholly March) is both silly and irrelevant. The one that carries us into the best possible refreshing. Many others of my acquain­ convoluted discussion of the abolition future. We go just as wrong by forbid­ tance shared the same experience. of the NEA and NEH as alignment with ding government participation in areas I take issue with Mr. Browne on sev­ America's opponents is silly. The com­ where it excels as we do by glomming eral of his representations, two in par­ parison with the Department of Defense bureaucrats onto problems best solved ticular: "But first he made them agree budget is irrelevant. The fundamental privately. never to tell anyone about his ideas" fact is that it is wrong for the govern­ Tom Jaquish and "He required every student enter­ ment to take money from me to endow Tucson, Ariz. ing one of his courses to sign a contract something that offends me. Lunar Payoff agreeing not to divulge any of his Grant Hansen In "Bennetudes," Harry Browne course ideas without permission ..." Philadelphia, Penn. responds to William Bennett's eulogistic Sadly, Mr. Browne misinformed his statementthe federal government readers with those statements. The truth Why Government Is Evil, "landed a man on the moon" with "I is, all of Galambos's courses were a Clarification doubt that William Bennett knows how offered with an unapologetic proprie­ Harry Browne's attempt in "Saving much that cost orinwhatpractical way it tary notice which enthusiastically Capitalism" (March) is a prime example enhanced society." Frankly, I'dbe sur­ encouraged use of the ideas as long as of the libertarian movement's lack of prised to learn many other people did. primary credit (acknowledgment) was moral philosophy. He proclaims that The technological fallout from thateffort given. And it was voluntarily accepted libertarians "side with individual lib­ benefits me every day, in the PC and by the enrollees! erty and personal responsibility - not peripheralequipmentI use for access to Further, Browne failed to mention the force of government - on all issues the Internet- not to mention, quite pos­ that Galambos offered his courses with at all times," because "libertarians ... sibly, the Net itself- and inthe pocket a 100 percent tuition refund guarantee. know that government doesn't work." computer that contains mostof my life's In brief, if an enrollee did not agree he This is a sorry excuse for a defense useful data. Was Mr. Browne covertly received his time's worth and money's of capitalism. The defense of capitalism Liberty 5 May 1998 does not lie in the fact that "government (each organism has a mouth, for Artiodactyla is the one that includes doesn't work," a vague progressive­ instance) but that is all. bovines. style soundbite void of meaning. Also, inform Baden and Noonan Regarding my experience in Capitalism is the only proper social sys­ that Yellowstone National Park is not Yellowstone, I live just north of the Park tem because it is the only moral social an "overgrazed theme park," something and have visited it at least ten times per system. It is moral because it is based they would know if they based their year for the past 30 years. My visits on the recognition of the individual's opinion on experience from being there, include several trips with ecologists and right to his own life, derived from rather than on the spurious attacks of wildlife biologists and a bike trip of 160 man's nature as a rational being. national park detractors. The grasslands miles at 10 mph. Humans cannot survive without the use of the intermountain west and the prair­ Some ofMr. Stekel's other observa­ of, or reliance on reason, for they do not ies of the Mississippi and Missouri tions are correct (e.g., Yellowstone had possess animal instincts. The negation River valley evolved under the grazing few bison, Indians killed hugenumbers of man's ability to reason, and thus the pressure of millions of large herbivores. of animals) butare irrelevant to anything negation of man's life as a rational Penning animals, as we do with cattle, that Noonan and I wrote in our article. being, is physical force. Thus, a govern­ or concentrating ever-increasing num­ Science Without Subsidy ment that initiates physical force of any bers of cattle around salt-licks, for Ross Overbeek's review of Terence kind against an individual is immoral, example, are much more important Kealey's The Economic Laws ofScientific because this violates an individual's issues than the effect of dwindling num­ Research ("The Invisible Hand and Pure right to his own life. Such a government bers of bison and elk in our national Research," March) demonstrates, does not simply "not work." It is anti­ parks. Bison are "slaughtered" in through the unfortunate examples life. It is evil. Yellowstone because they are migratory Overbeek chooses, the very thought For quite some time I did not under­ animals that want to leave the Park. processes Kealey excoriates in his book. stand why the Objectivists were so vig­ Ranchers on the border of the Park Government-funded big science has its orously opposed to the libertarians, but don't want them to leave, for reasons of own agenda, and it isn't always the dis­ now, older and wiser at 19, I clearly their own, and Park managers have covery of new facts and ideas. understand why. been forced to accede to their neigh­ Overbeek, an outstanding writer for sci­ James Markey bors' wishes. When the bison try to Santa Cruz, Calif. ence and liberty, may have been handi­ "escape," they are gunned down by the capped by his own connections to big Datum Erratum very people who wish for the animals science at Argonne National Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw to be confined. Pretty neat, huh? No Laboratories, and has not applied his ("Lies, Damn Lies, and the Census government conspiracy there. own fertile imagination and excellent Bureau," March) erroneously report Historically, Yellowstone didn't sup­ scholarship to thinking creatively about that David Murray of the Statistical port a particularly large population of the problems Kealey approaches in his Assessment Service works for SAS, the bison; certainly not as many as the Park book. Overbeek's review of the book is statistical software giant. must now support. But with human overall quite positive, and the book The Statistical Assessment Service is impact in former bison habitat so preva­ indeed contains flaws, but the nits he a small Washington, D.C.-based non­ lent, what's the poor animal to do? picks are not among them. profit research organization that looks Would Baden and Noonan care to have Overbeek's examples - high-energy at the way that science and statistics are a herd of bison grazing in America's physics, Euclid, the Internet - are conveyed by the media. The SAS corn belt? Or in their own back yard? results produced by and attributed to Institute, based in Carey, North Hardly. the largess of the state. Kealey's likely Carolina, is the world's largest privately While the role of predators like response would be: Who can say that held software company. It took in $653 wolves and mountain lions cannot be the results might not have been pro­ million in total revenue in 1996. The disputed, their action is highly over duced in a different way, or that the two organizations have nothing to do rated by journalists who ignore the fact same scientists might have solved dif­ with each other. that aboriginal humans also preyed ferent but equally important purely sci­ Pearson and Shaw contend that upon the large herds of North entific problems if they had been "SAS is not political." While that is true, American herbivores which so typify working in a different environment? Murray of the Statistical Assessment modern impressions of the "wild west." High-energy physics, which Service comments frequently on politi­ If Baden and Noonan wish to use eco­ Overbeek no doubt understands much cal matters. logical examples to advance their own better than I, is basically the focusing of Jesse Malkin agenda, it is suggested that they enroll a lot of energy into a very small place. Seattle,Wash. in a few college-level introductory The amount of energy focused is very Grazing for a Fight biology courses to enable them to large at the nuclear level, but laughably Please inform John Baden and understand the concepts of which they small at the human scale; fractions of a Douglas Noonan, authors of "The write. microjoule, the energy involved in Predatory Bureau" (March), that bison Peter Stekel dropping a grain of sand to the floor. are bovines and not ungulates. Seattle, Wash. We are told that gigantic accelerators Grouping bison with deer and elk is like Baden responds: An ungulate is any the size of a Texas county are needed to grouping humans with deer and elk; hoofed, herbivorous quadruped. There focus this energy, and measurement there may be superficial similarities are four orders of ungulates. instruments the size of a building are 6 Liberty May 1998 needed to look at the results, to be inter­ on pleasing his patron, Elements would I don't blame Kealey, not a computerist, preted by another building full of post­ be even more readable and geometry for letting that subject pass by. doctoral physicists. These are the solu­ would be a more popular subject. Kealey did write some fascinating tions arrived at when a national budget The attribution of "the Internet" to things about the Babbage Difference is applied, but no one has proven that government funding is like attributing Engine - Babbage spent huge sums, these are the only ways to accomplish the invention of the automobile to the designed badly, and managed the pro­ the task. The basic physics of event pro­ builders of the interstate highway sys­ ject incompetently, resulting in failure. duction and observation hasn't changed tem. People paid by the government Later researchers actually built similar much since the hand-sized accelerator have contributed a lot to the develop­ mechanical calculators, and showed of Lawrence; perhaps it is time to choke ment of the current incarnation of the that functional difference engines could off that approach entirely and see what Internet, but so have private companies, have been constructed with the technol­ the experimentalists come up with next. private academics, and hobbyists. ogy of Babbage's times at a fraction of Private funding would be an effective Without ARPAnet and CERN's HTTP the cost. They also discovered the way to redirect the field. (hyper text transfer protocol), the machines to be useless. Yet Babbage is Euclid's Elements are no doubt use­ Internet would be different, but would trumpeted as a founder of modern ful, but are mostly a restatement of ear­ it be worse? What would have devel­ computer science, when his work was lier work, a theme Kealey repeats often oped instead? Hard to say, but some­ at best an expensive sideshow. If in his book. Euclid was a teacher, not a thing would have. Some of us have been government science is good at any­ researcher. The origins of the ideas interconnected with semi-private com­ thing, it is in mis-attributing credit for Euclid repeats are lost in time, and are puter networks since the 70s (uucp, use­ accomplishment to its own puffed-up not proven results of government fund­ net, fidonet) and the introduction of the lackeys. ing, though Euclid's teaching position government version of the Internet has Kealey nowhere says that govern­ was. Yes, Euclid was vexed by a student made many things better and many ment expenditure can't result in good that didn't value knowledge for its own things worse. Who knows how things science. It does. What he does say is that sake, but enough students did to pre­ would have turned out if fidonet, say, private funding results in better science serve Euclid's work after the govern­ evolved naturally without the subsi­ and more science, and that includes pure ment that funded him vanished. dized competition of the Internet? The theoretical science. Sometimes industry­ Perhaps if Euclid had focused more study of Internet "might have beens" funded theoretical science looks an effort on pleasing his students, and less would make a whole book in itself, and awful lot like applied science, but that is only because an industrial environment exploits the theoretical ever so much faster. This is good, and nothing to be ashamed of. Let us never confuse free inquiry with dilettantism. Perhaps, if an outstanding scientist like Overbeek developed in a more pri­ vate environment, I would now be play­ ing with my Overbeek Photoprogrammable Ribosome (manu­ factured by his multi-billion dollar bio­ computer company, Nanosoft) instead of writing this letter. It saddens me that I have missed so many wonderful scien­ tific developments because great minds are insufficiently exposed to the syn­ ergy of creativity with economic pro­ ductivity. If only one great mind learns this from Kealey's book, my intellectual world will be richer. Keith Lofstrom Beaverton, are. An Editorial Suggestion Unless you take a stand on this for­ eign trade (NAFTA, GATT, etc.) which borderlines on treason, I'll not be a part of anything. Lose the ball-bearing or tex­ tile business and the wheels of industry don't roll and you have holes in your pants at your Chinese buddies' whims. William B. Walthen Fort Worth, Texas

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I Address I ------:I City State__Zip _ I : Cato Institute· 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W • Washington, D.C. 20001 :L Please mail or fax to: 202-842-3490 _ The people's business - The latest wisdom, reflected on the evidence behind it: twelve takers of courtesy of Larry King: "Since public officials are paid by us, Accutane who committed suicide between 1989 and the we are entitled to answers to prevailing questions, as long as present, and about the same number of people who claimed they have nothing to do with national security./I In other that they experienced depression when they took Accutane words, you have a right to all of the details about trivial mat­ but not when they didn't. ters such as whom Bill Clinton is screwing, but if it relates to I don't know how many people reflected on how something important such as matters of war and peace, then depressed and confused teenagers with acne normally are. you should just sit down and shut up. -CS I don't know how many people calculated the relation­ ship between 8 million and two dozen. Statecraft 98 - Highlights of the March 3 Senate But I do know that this is the pressure point. If only a few committee hearing on competition in the computer industry, grieving parents decide to sue the manufacturers of Accutane featuring Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and other industry for driving their kids to suicide, if only a few TV stations leaders: decide to air the complaints of fresh-complexioned but psy­ Scott McNealy, President and CEO of Sun Microsystems, chologically scarred "victims," if only a few alert congress­ a competitor of Microsoft, called Gates "the most dangerous men decide to decry the FDA's laxity of regulation, the United industrialist of our age." States may succeed in retaining one of its miracle drugs. I cer­ Sen. Teddy Kennedy asked Gates if that was just "sour tainly hope so; and I hope that if this drug is threatened, the apples" [sic]. battle to save it will be waged in earnest. -SC Sen. Strom Thurmond did not understand the answers to the questions that he read to Gates. But, then, he didn't The unintended consequences of lce understand the questions either. -SLR dancing - I've never cared much for the Winter Undefending the defendable - Conservatives Olympics, which strike me as a dull celebration of national­ tell us that Ronald Reagan won the Cold War partly by refus­ ism staged to attract female viewers to television. I didn't ing to back down on the Strategic Defense Initiative. Despite watch a minute of the games just past. But I did hear them the forceful demands of Premier Gorbachev, Democratic pol­ discussed on television networks too poor to buy rights to iticians, and American journalists, Reagan held fast to the the games themselves. idea that America should have a defense against incoming During the final week of the games, I witnessed a round­ missiles. table discussion of what the news commentators like to call We're fortunate that he was so resolute. Thanks to him, "the Iraq crisis." All participants agreed that it would have to we are fully protected against any rogue state that wants to wait until the Winter Olympics were over, apparently intimidate America by threatening us, we're fully protected because its television ratings would suffer if it got in such a against any accidental missile launched from Russia, China, schedule conflict. or anywhere else, and we're fully protected against someone You know what happened next. As the Winter Olympics like Saddam Hussein firing rockets full of germs or toxic wound down, some UN negotiator got some sort of conces­ chemicals at the U.S. sion from the madman Saddam, and Clinton reluctantly had Thank goodness we have that missile defense Ronald to give up on this particular attempt to draw attention away Reagan fought so hard to build. from his legal problems. What's that you say? The missile defense was never Which means, I guess, that the Winter Olympics are good built? for something after all. -RWB Oh, never mind. -HB Polling the strings - In the February 16 issue of A clear case - Accutane is the only drug that really The New Republic, Jonathan Chait revived the 1994 canard: works on a serious case of acne. It was first marketed in the uWhen it came to health care, for example, people distrusted United States in 1982, when it was an instant success. 'The Clinton Plan.' Yet when pollsters described the plan Millions of people - 8 million, according to the Wall Street without linking it to Clinton, large majorities approved." Journal- have used Accutane. How in the world could anyone"describe" the Clinton plan. On February 26, Accutane passed into the danger zone Imagine this: a man finishes a phone conversation as his from which some useful products never emerge. On that wife enters the room: date, prominent news agencies spread the word: Accutane She: Who called? might be ... dangerous! Prompted by the FDA, the manufac­ He: Some poll taker. He asked me if I supported the turer of Accutane agreed to issue stronger warnings about Clinton health plan and I said "no." But then he read a 1,368­ possible side effects. The issue was depression, depression page health-care plan to me and I really like that one! that might result in ... suicide! She: I wondered why you were on the phone for 36 hours I don't know how many people who heard that news straight. Liberty 9 May 1998

More likely, the pollster asked, "Would you approve of a resulting from sex stereotypes." Under this rationale, federal plan that provided health insurance for you and everyone courts have already recognized that such stereotyping can be else, no matter what your existing medical problems, prob­ evidence of hostile environment sexual harassment. ably costing a lower premium than you pay now, with no The second hypothetical case involves an older law part­ chance to lose the coverage no matter how stupidly you live ner, a stern taskmaster, yet one with antiquated notions of your life, and with the absolute freedom to choose your own chivalry. He's used to heaping abuse upon younger asso­ doctor, hospital, nurse, bed, and waiting-room magazines?" ciates, but considers it improper to yell at ladies. Richard Needless to say, there would be no mention of the fines Roe, hypothetical plaintiff number two, is an associate at the or prison sentences contained in the bill. firm, on the receiving end of many of the partner's tirades. The surprising thing is that as many as 40 percent of the His supervisor's epithet-laden outbursts make work unpleas­ people turned down the Clinton plan when it was ant and interfere with Roe's ability to do his job. Thanks to "described" to them. an earlier Court decision, Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., Roe If you asked people whether they'd prefer a job that paid need not be emotionally scarred by his experience: "so long twice as much as they get now, working only half the hours as the environment would reasonably be perceived and is and with double the fringe benefits, you could then report perceived as hostile or abusive, there is no need for it also to that "90 percent of the American people are dissatisfied with be psychologically injurious." Nor does the harassment have their present jobs." But you wouldn't have learned anything to be explicitly sexual in nature, so long as "members of one about life in the workplace. sex are exposed to disadvantageous terms or conditions of Unless we can actually see the questions asked, poll employment to which members of the other sex are not results tell us very little. -HB exposed." Doe and Roe would stand a fair chance of prevailing. Query - If a woman threatens her boss with a sexual­ More importantly, each case would almost certainly go to harassment suit unless he gives her a raise, is that sexual trial, imposing considerable costs on the employers. By their harassment harassment? -SLR very nature, sexual harassment claims demand an expensive, case-by-case inquiry into whether a given work environment Mandating civility - Sexual harassment law is offensive or hostile enough to unreasonably interfere with took another great leap forward on March 4, thanks to Oncale an individual's work performance. Scalia almost admits as v. Sundowner, the Supreme Court decision allowing claims much in Oncale: "The real social impact of workplace behav­ for same-sex sexual harassment. The Court's unanimous ior often depends on a constellation of surrounding circum­ opinion was drafted, surprisingly enough, by archconserva­ stances ... which are not fully captured by a simple tive Justice Scalia. More surprising than Scalia's authorship, recitation of the words used or the physical acts performed." though, was his dismissal of the contention that Title VII is Well, that should be a real comfort to employers seeking to becoming "a general civility code for the American stay out of court. workplace." In rejecting the argument that hostile environment claims In the twelve years since the Supreme Court decided to are turning Title VII into a workplace civility code, Scalia allow hostile work environment claims, employment dis­ appears to assume that employers' incentives are limited to crimination law has reshaped the American workplace. The proscribing behavior that would result in a judgment against threat of liability has led many employers to adopt manda­ them. But employer incentives are much broader than that; tory sensitivity training and behavior codes. The Court's in order to minimize litigation costs, they need to proscribe decision in Oncale will provide further incentives for employ­ behavior that might create a triable claim. Thus, Scalia's ers to codify civility. statement that "Title VII does not prohibit all verbal or physi­ In Oncale, Scalia reassures the reader that employers will cal harassment in the workplace," is accurate, but incom­ not be liable for "simple teasing or roughhousing between plete. Employers who want to minimize liability will members of the same sex." But this is by no means clear. prohibit such behavior. And they'll do so through the adop­ Consider two hypothetical cases. tion of civility codes. In the first, we have John Doe, a timid, somewhat effemi­ Indeed, this is exactly what the experts advise. Writing in nate young man working a factory job. His the American Journal of Trial Advocacy, one co-workers are a rough bunch who have not commentator notes that "isolated comments heard the Good News about male sensitivity Liberty's Editors do not constitute actionable harassment, in the '90s. Their treatment of our hypotheti­ Reflect [but] employers should not test the defini­ cal plaintiff falls far short of the criminal tions of isolated and pervasive." Another, abuse apparently suffered by Joseph Oncale; BB Brien Bartels RWB R.W. Bradford writing in the Defense Counsel Journal, but it includes regular use of verbal epithets HB Harry Browne advises "mandatory education and training impugning his manhood. Should Doe choose SHC S.H. Chambers for all employees" aimed at proscribing, to sue, he'll have a plausible case, one helped SC Stephen Cox among other things, "continued or repeated immeasurably by some useful Supreme RN Robert H. Nelson sexual jokes [and] language" and "graphic Court dicta on sex stereotyping: "In forbid­ RR Ralph Raico SLR Sheldon L. Richman verbal commentary about an individual's ding employers to discriminate against indi­ JSS Jane S. Shaw body." As UCLA law professor Eugene viduals because of their sex, Congress FLS Fred L. Smith, Jr. Volokh has noted, some commentators go intended to strike at the entire spectrum of CS Clark Stooksbury further, invoking a "not in front of Mom" disparate treatment of men and women TWV Timothy Virkkala standard for proper behavior in the work- 10 Liberty May 1998 place. Volokh quotes New Jersey employment lawyer Nancy Constitution states that "The powers not delegated to the Smith: "the standard [for sexual harassment] is not that mys­ United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the terious. Don't say anything you wouldn't say to your States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the peo­ mother." ple." Where does it say in the Constitution that the power to Of course, any civilized person should be appalled by the regulate drunken driving is federal? So how can the federal abuse allegedly suffered by Joseph Oncale. But Oncale has government make the states subservient to its commands in remedies available through criminal and tort law - his tor­ this matter? Why do the magistrates not squelch these mentors should be in jail and his employers should pay unconstitutional mandates? through the nose for ignoring his reports of assault. The very The courts have gone along with the transparent ruse real danger is that, having opened the door for victims like that the states are acting voluntarily. The Senate did not, for­ Oncale, the Court will not be able to close it to plaintiffs like mally, mandate a uniform national standard for drunken­ Doe and Roe. Sexual harassment law began by striking at ness. Rather the legislation passed by the Senate would sadistic abuse, but it has morphed into something very like a deprive each state of 5 percent of its federal highway money federal cause of action for negligent infliction of emotional if the state failed to follow the federal dictate. distress. Apparently, extortion when practiced by a private indi­ In enacting Title VII, Congress never intended to man­ vidual is illegal. When the federal government holds a gun to date a desexualized, worry-free working environment for a state treasury, the state government is complying "volun­ every American. But as Justice Cardozo noted years ago, a tarily." These are the depths to which legal reasoning has legal principle tends to expand to the limits of its logic. descended, all in the name of rationalizing a federal govern­ When men's insensitivity toward other men becomes action­ ment take-over. able, the principle of nondiscrimination may have traduced It used to be that federal trampling on state sovereignty even those boundaries. -guest reflection by Gene Healy was justified by the necessity of the"scientific management" of American society. Government plans, it was argued, could Here's too U, jenerashun X- On January 28, only be implemented with centeralized coordination at the Al Gore told students at the University of Illinois that, thanks federal level. to the blessings of the Clinton-Gore administration, "Your But today there are new grounds for federal imperialism. generation is the best educated generation, the best prepared There is an extraordinary wave of Puritanism sweeping over generation ever in the history of the United States of American society today. Sometimes, as in the case of envi­ America." The situation seems almost perfect. I suppose the ronmentalism or the war on drugs, it is mostly secular. Other only way it could be improved would be if the students times, as in the case of pornography, secular and traditional could read. -HB Puritans can join forces. This helps to explain why Republicans, for all their talk of devolution, are often worse Drunk with power - As of this writing, the than Democrats when it comes to promoting new ideas for Senate has just passed legislation to set a single national stan­ destroying any vestiges of American federalism. -RN dard for drunken driving. Every state would be required to set the threshold point for being drunk at a blood alcohol 2028: a space iliad - On March 12, the San Diego content of 0.08 percent. More than ten states already follow Union-Tribune ran this banner headline: "2028: EARTH'S this standard, but most define drunkenness at 0.10 percent DATE WITH DOOM?" blood alcohol content. The House of Representatives likely I performed a very quick calculation, based on genetic will follow the Senate's action. data, of my chances of being around in 2028, and decided to Not content with this assault on the 10th Amendment, read the article. the Senate also voted to require each state to ban the posses­ According to Malcolm W. Browne of the New York Times sion of open containers of alcoholic beverages in a moving News Service (and they certainly ought to know), scientists, vehicle. At present 22 states have no such law. The Senate or a scientist, had calculated that an asteroid first located last did refuse to enact a proposal to ban drive-through sales of alcoholic beverages. Amazingly enough, even this draconian imposition of federal power over a traditional state and local matter only failed by a vote of 56 to 43. The states as a separate level of government have simply ceased to exist. They are all now part of one seamless central­ ized system. The federal government has no hesitation in imposing national power and nationally uniform require­ ments in areas that are more appropriate for a village council. Of course, much of the blame for all this falls on the states themselves. They have been spineless in defending their con­ stitutionally prescribed role. They've allowed themselves to become too dependent on federal money, which has become a great narcotic, eroding their willingness to stand up for any rights of their own. "Well, if you're going to get all common-sensical, there's no point The courts offer no help. The 10th Amendment to the in our discussing this further!" Liberty 11 May 1998

December (but how quickly they mature!) was "likely to ning of that very March 12 on which the world awoke to find approach to within barely 30,000 miles of the center of the itself condemned to a fiery death, Reuters reported that "an Earth." That's pretty close, I thought. But a miss is as good as asteroid that is headed toward Earth is not going to hit us 30,000 miles. after all ... It will miss the planet by 600,000 miles." Reading further down the page, I was relieved to dis­ Whew! That was a close one. -SC cover that other scientists, or a scientist, believe, or believes, perhaps on the basis of the same calculations, that 1997 XF11 Of "The" I Sing - What's wrong with the follow­ (for that is the asteroid's lovely name) may "come scarcely ing sentence? closer than the moon" - about 250,000 miles from the center More than any other country, United States is producing the of the earth, and quite an improvement on 30,000. gases that cause global warming. But here was the really bad thing. Scientists, or a scientist, If you said, "Nothing," sorry. If you said that the state­ seemed to be predicting that we wouldn't have conclusive ment is based on the false premise that global warming evidence of 1997 XF11's intentions until we had the chance to exists, you were probably right, but that's not what I'm after. reobserve it during later appearances in our neighborhood, If you said that "the" has been dropped from "the United which wouldn't come until 2000 and 2002. States," you have a keen eye. And you know what that means, or you would if you Increasingly, this truncated version of our country's remembered the standard "scientific" guff of the past few name is being used by radio and television announcers, years about asteroids and meteors and the hazards they pose which leads to the pressing question: Why is "the" being to our planet. As the Times News Service put it: dropped from "the United States"? "The impact of an asteroid one mile in diameter [1997 Is it that it's fashionable to leave out the word "the"? XF11's reputed size] would have devastating global effects, Let's try: "Direct result of burning fossil fuels in United including tidal waves, continent-size [sic] fires and an erup­ States is warming of atmosphere." Mmmm. Sounds like tion of dust that could cause global cooling and long-term Tonto with a degree in environmental studies. disruption of agriculture." Maybe the idea is to give the country a corporate image. Well, that should put the vice president's mind at rest You know, competent and efficient, like United Airlines or about the danger of global warming. United Technologies. Well, I don't think it works. If "United But of course it wouldn't. It would merely ignite who States" were a corporation, the headquarters would have to knows how many devastating years of global propaganda, be in Bombay. Listen: "I am telling you, United States is hav­ emanating from all the usual sources, about the Coming ing the lion's share of blame for the global warming." See Danger and how to prevent it and how can we possibly what I mean? decide who should be saved and how we must try to save Or maybe leaving out "the" is just the start and we're the citizens of the Third World rather than the citizens of the edging toward the fifties-futuristic version: Unitedstates. Or First World (which may be a good idea, for all I know) and perhaps in our ever-accelerating world we'll condense and how asteroids have hit us regularly in the past so we know blend the name the way Uniroyal, Unilever and Unisys have that they're bound to hit us regularly in the future (which is done: Unistates. Too Orwellian for me. a silly idea, because every asteroid that hit us in the past, if it Is it being dropped because that's how the British say it? did, is one less asteroid that is around to hit us in the future) Remember when Americans pronounced "harassment" with and how the last really big one took out all the dinosaurs the stress on the second syllable? Here's what happened: (which is such a baseless and ridiculous idea that I'm actu­ when gender politics heated up, those who talk into micro­ ally embarrassed to include it in this list) and how our abuse phones for a living decided to adopt the British version, of the environment is probably what caused all these dino­ which stresses the first syllable, for an understandable, if not saur things to happen in the first place and how everybody good, reason. Dear Microphone People: I understood the ought therefore to get busy and worship Nature. deal on "harassment," but could you please tell me why Something was surely going to hit us, and if it wasn't an Americans should mimic Brits when referring to the United asteroid it was a tremendous ball of crap. States of America? Because we're Anglophiles? Is that it? The future seemed plainly foretold by the quoted OK, then maybe we should go the full monty and call our­ remarks of yet another scientist, who wanted to call attention selves United Kingdoms of America. Has a nice ring to it, to the"good side" of 1997 XF11. "During the Cold War," he don't you think? said, "I used to hope that one of these hazardous asteroids Or could it be part of a grand conspiracy? I mean, in the would be spotted and that the discovery would unite name, "the United States," you've got your article, followed America and the Soviet Union in a common effort to save the by a mere adjective, while "States" is the majestic noun. The world. Even now, we might see this Asteroid 1997 XF11 name itself declares the primacy of the states. Maybe some drawing people together." powerful cabal decided to make it a compound noun to After I read that, I recalculated my genetic odds and fig­ weaken the Tenth Amendment. To blur the heritage of feder­ ured that, damn!, I was likely to have to listen to stuff like alism. To render the name amorphous: "We the People of that for a long, long time. United States, in order to reduce greenhouse gases ..."I But by now you know the wonderful news, the news that wonder. arrived, from all unlikely places, NASA - just the boys I Or could it be that dropping "the" is simply a way to was expecting to profit most from the asteroid's allure. (My shorten the name? To save valuable time? To make it a little respect for government has now taken a quantum leap.) And easier to say? If so, there is a better solution: drop "United." the news came faster than a speeding asteroid. On the eve- Millions of expatriate Americans do so already: Expat A: 12 Liberty May 1998

"Where did you go?" Expat B: "The States." So short, so Any drive can be faulted for being too strong or too weak quick, so easy to say. Besides, what's so "united" about in relation to both its function and to other passions. A per­ Montana and Massachusetts? son not acquisitive enough is apt to live a life of want and pov­ During World War II, G.L's would flush out spies with erty; a person too acquisitive will shunt aside other activities, questions about home. Imagine: "Where are you from, sol­ "impoverishing" himself of the love of his fellow man, or his dier?" "United States." Bang. -SHC appreciation of beauty, or any number of other very human activities. And a person who eschews rationality in his acqui­ Final insult - Life is replete with examples of the sitions is not likely to gain what he wants despite strong harvest of misery some men must reap. Consider this lead desire (Stossel trenchantly handled this latter problem in a sentence from the January 27, 1998, Wall Street Journal: "The quick, practical, nonphilosophical way). Navy was ordered by a federal judge to keep Timothy R. The trick is to strike a balance between excess and lack, to McVeigh on duty while the court considers his dismissal for find the appropriate point of moderation and develop a speaking of his homosexuality in a pseudonymous America sense of proportion. That is what virtue is all about. Of Online profile." course, people don't talk much about virtue and vice any Think for a moment about this man's predicament. First, more, not in this age of mental health and political obliga­ to be a homosexual. Second, to be identified as a homosexual tion. When not focusing on greed as an economic or social while serving in the Navy. Third, to have the same name as a problem to be solved somehow by legislation or litigation, condemned terrorist. And fourth, to be a subscriber to AOL. people diagnose the greedy as "sick" and propose a twelve­ -BB step program. But neither social nor medical obsessions seem much help giving our imbalanced culture a sense of How long OK, make that six deadly sins - poise. does it take for a simple idea to permeate society? I hazard Though Stossel's program may have helped get rid of one that most viewers of John Stossel's February 3rd ABC Special too-common error, neither he nor his libertarian heavy­ on Greed were surprised by what they heard and saw, though hitters transcended the political realm. surely everyone of its arguments was centuries old. Over and Perhaps Stossel can work on this in another ABC Special. over Stossel carefully explained the truth about exchange in a -TWV market economy: that both parties gain. These gains from trade make some people rich -"filthy rich" - and the rest of 2001: a spaced odyssey - I just received in the us better off. There was nothing here that Thomas Jefferson, mail another scary report about all the computers shutting for instance, didn't know from helping translate Destutt de down on January 1, 2000. It included the following state­ Tracy's Treatise on Political Economy in 1817. ment, "... not one bank in the entire civilized world has offi­ This is not to say anything against Stossel's show, which cially stated that it - and its interconnected web of was, as propaganda for liberty goes, very good. Using clever operations - is Y2K compliant" - meaning that no bank juxtaposition, the talking heads of libertarians David Kelley claims its computers can handle dates of January 2000 or and Walter Williams, and very selective interviews with both later. By coincidence, I just received from my bank a new the rich and the not-sa-rich, Stossel ably argued against the ATM card that expires in January 2001. Tomorrow, my wife common contention that rich people are "too greedy" and and I are going to drive down to see the ruins of the bank­ that they somehow make the rest of us worse off. since the building must have blown up when the computer Far and away the best part of the show was the eye­ tried to handle a 21st century date. -HB opening account of a for-profit lifeguard operation that bested the Red Cross. Stossel suggested - and David Kelley Y2K2 - Since I editorialized in this magazine explicitly argued - that those most successful at seeking (November 1997, page 7) that the "Computer 2000 problem" profits in the market do more good than even the most hon­ ored philanthropists of the age (cut to a scene of Mother Teresa walking the streets of Calcutta). It is a sign of the times, however, that the charge of greed is seen primarily as a social issue. But this was not always so. To the ancients, and to the Christians who followed them, greed was a defect of character. The defect could be seen even when there were benefits to others. Though Stossel asked "but what is greed?" nowhere in his show did anyone bother to look the word up. Philosopher David Kelley, apparently still under the spell of Ayn Rand, did not at any moment strike an Aristotelian note. Though Rand's favorite philosopher Aristotle did not discuss greed as such, my dictionary lists as its antonyms some of the virtues and vices to be found in his Nichomachean ~~~~Ii:'r~ - Ethics: liberal, munificent, prodigal, wasteful. But an ~; Aristotelian definition is easy to come by; indeed, I needed to r~ 1iJ7:mr Ld/(j/f tVAt1£ IN mil1/, t-/4p II1?(/ij' go no further than my trusty college dictionary: Greed is the 11I~(jtltff, Iftip fftl(4LLY ort'ftrrlP ;If! ~rLE FtJlt., excess of acquisitiveness. AflVr fd!\1Y jE;f1((. Liberty 13 May 1998 was real but greatly overblown, I have received messages fraction of the supposed cost, in a fraction of the supposed from people who say I shouldn't discuss areas outside my time required, and using one or more of the dozens of new sphere of knowledge. Often they refer me to some "expert" computer programs the market has provided to help make - who usually is a computer consultant looking for business the conversion. or a newsletter writer whose scary report I've already read. Yes, there's a problem. But companies in the free market Just for the record, I bought my first computer in 1975, are handling it - just as they continually handle all sorts of and for the next 14 years I wrote all the programs I used, problems. including a word-processing program. In 1989 I began using But that's not good enough for the scaremongers, the pol­ a Personal Computer, allowing me to rely on programs writ­ iticians, or the regulators. They would prefer that govern­ ten by people who are far, far better at it than I am. ment impose regulations on all companies - making them However, I still customize programs like Word or Excel by fill out endless reports to prove that they're acting in their writing dozens of automated routines, and so I haven't for­ own self-interest, and making them deal with the problem in gotten the logic involved in programming. the single way the bureaucrats will prescribe. That, of course, The scary reports, on the other hand, are written by peo­ will make it impossible to use any better solutions that might ple whose assumptions demonstrate an unfamiliarity with evolve as the conversions proceed. how computer programs work. This unfamiliarity makes Government agencies are the only entities that aren't them easy prey for a computer consultant drumming up likely to be ready by 2000. And as 1999 proceeds, if it business by making a plausible case that the computer sys­ appears that private companies (such as banks) are vulnera­ tems of banks, airlines, and water companies are too old, ble to the government's inability to fix its own computers, I obsolete, and complicated to be updated fairly easily. The expect the companies to find ways of insulating themselves report writer readily accepts the story because he's been from the government's inefficiency. seeking a new crisis to replace the one he's been promoting So the worst possible scenario probably is that the IRS the past few years - the crisis that was going to drive the won't be able to accept your tax payment in 2000 and since gold price up to $2,000 by now. your credit card and your bank will still be fully functional, If any of these people ever came across a genuine crisis, you'll be forced to spend your tax money on yourself they would be in the same unfortunate position as the little instead. -HB boy who cried "Wolf!" too many times. But the worst ignorance is displayed when someone tries Higher standard - It appears that some Liberty to convince you that corporations are dragging their feet editors do not like the Weekly Standard. However, I am one instead of updating their programs. A friend recently who does, for a couple of reasons. informed me that Securities & Exchange Commission chair­ First, while the Standard's ideology is muddled, it is the man Arthur Leavitt testified before Congress that the SEC first magazine to provide regular, enthusiastic, and reliable "has whipped the New York Stock Exchange and other criticism of the politics of the Left in Washington. That exchanges into line on the Year 2000 problem and feels very makes it a refreshing alternative to The New Republic. confident there will be no service interruptions." And a Second, the Republicans need all the help they can get. recent report, written by three computer consultants, offered Third, the Standard has some great writers, among them the following recommendation regarding telephone compa­ Joseph Epstein, David Frum, and David Brooks. Ah, yes, nies: "The State Public Utility Commission (PUC) should ini­ David Brooks. In the January issue of Liberty he was criti­ tiate a proceeding to assess the year 2000 readiness of all cized for his "smug and pretentious stupidity." Evidently, local exchange carriers and long distance providers. The pro­ Brooks had an early encounter with libertarian thought, ceeding should determine if each utility has conducted a became disillusioned with it, and has been searching ever year 2000 risk assessment, developed a corrective action since for a philosophy he is comfortable with. This does not plan, and established a date to become year-2000-ready." endear him to those who kept the faith, and his attraction to According to this view of the world, companies would Teddy Roosevelt does suggest that political philosophy is gladly face financial ruin rather than take care of their com­ not his strong suit. But he does have a strong suit: cultural puter problems. Obviously, the people running the stock commentary. exchanges have no motivation to keep their enterprises from Nearly a decade ago, while a writer for the Wall Street collapsing. And the utilities and other companies have no Journal, Brooks captured the press's eagerness to sensational­ desire to solve their own problems; they would willingly let ize environmental matters. In "Journalists and Others for the phones stop working and go out of business - rather Saving the Planet," he quoted Time science editor Charles than make their computers operate properly. Only if regula­ Alexander as saying "I would freely admit that on this issue tors browbeat them will they do something in their own self­ [environmentalism] we have crossed the boundary from interest. news reporting to advocacy." The quote became famous in Thank goodness for the far-sighted politicians who have some circles. once again saved us -like the rooster crowing to make the More recently, he spotted another cultural trend, "latte sun rise. Who says government doesn't work? towns." Brooks doesn't take credit for the term, by the way, Meanwhile back in the real world, companies are han­ but last September he described the phenomenon so accu­ dling the conversion quickly and efficiently. If you have any rately that I predict it will become part of our conventional doubts, just read the trade publications (such as Information vocabulary. LaUe towns are small cities such as Burlington, Week) in which data processing managers provide case histo­ Vt., Northampton, Mass., and Boulder, Colo., to which liber­ ries of companies cleaning up their computer systems at a als, tired of the big cities, are flocking. They are "upscale lib- 14 Liberty LibertysFuture. • • and Your Future! Liber~ s most tecent conference featuted these II II ' The Economy ofthe Twenty-First Century • forward-Ioo 'ng talks and panels - provocative and Sparks fly when world-famous commodity spec­ entertaining! ulators Victor Niederhoffer and Jim Rogers join investment advisors Douglas Casey and Harry Are We Winning the War ofIdeas? • Times have changed, Browne, economists David Friedman and and liberty is no longer a notion that embarrasses the intelli­ Leland Yeager, and Bill Bradford on a voyage gentsia or is honored by voters and politicians only in the into the fascinating future! (audio: Al05; video: breach. Liberty publisher Bill Bradford, Harry Browne, VI05) Sandy Shaw, David Friedman, and Timothy Virkkala explore what this change means for the future offreedom. Investment Advice: Bonanza or BS? • Do (audio: A301; video: V301) investment advisors have anything to offer, or are their newsletters just expensive hot air? 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Also, Ross. - / f', I ;I/~ cal miracle and hangs on till the end ofhis second term - he Overbeek explaIns what breakthrough discover- ,»/' ~ ~ will, writes Bill Bradford, be the last Democrat elected to the ies in the life sciences will mean to us in the --=- ~£~;;.,-; , -- Presidency for a very long time - perhaps ever. This book, with future - and what they should mean to us right now. essays and exposes by Liberty's editors and contributors Stephen (audio: A307; video: V307) Cox, Leon T. Hadar, Randal O'Toole, Douglas Casey, Victor Niederhoffer and many others, is in its second printing: a must All audiotapes, just $6.95 each; videos $19.95 each. read! (192 pp., softcover, $14.95) ,

Please send me the tapes and books I've indicated below. name _ _I want the following tapes for $6.95/audio or $19.95/video. I address _ I I city, state, zip _ I ------to order by Visa or Mastercard: I_ Victor Niederhoffer's The Education ofa Speculator ($26.95): __ :_ R.W. Bradford's The Last Democrat ($14.95): __ account # expires _ I 0 I enclose my check (payable to Liberty) shipping & handling: $3.00 signature phone _ I C Charge my: 0 VISA 0 MasterCard (see form at right) total: __ IL ,Sendto: Liberty, Dept. L65, 1018 Water St., # 201, Port Townsend, WA 98368 ~ May 1998 eral communities, often in magnificent natural settings, often expanding. We still have a ways to go before we achieve university-based." He explains: "You know you're in a Latte World Peace: One Evil Empire is gone - hurrah! Now let's Town when you can hop right off a bike path, browse in a get rid of the other. -CS used bookstore ... and drink coffee at a place with a punnish name that must have the word 'Grounds' in it ...." The emperor and the Jews - For readers who I wouldn't knock David Brooks. He has a lot to offer, and aren't yet wearied of the Hapsburg wars raging in these so does the Standard. -JSS pages, here is my reply to the letter by Karol Boudreaux in the last issue. (1) Yes, I was aware of Karl Lueger. Wouldn't it Deeee-fense! - The 1998 federal budget, approved by be odd if I'd undertaken to discuss anti-Semitism in old the Republican Congress and the Democratic President, Austria and had never heard of him? (2) In writing that I included a new practice field for the Carolina Panthers foot­ admire the Hapsburgs for the way they treated the Jews com­ ball team. Does that come under the Commerce Clause of the pared with what came after, I could not have meant that the Constitution? Or did the founders mistakenly write "the com­ Hapsburg treatment was just short of genocide. That would mon defense" when they meant to say "zone defense"? -HB be laughable. (3) The sole evidence Mrs. Boudreaux proffers for Hapsburg mistreatment of the Jews is that the Emperor, Peace nixed - Perhaps college professors should be Francis Joseph, though initially refusing to do so, finally con­ expected to be sensitive to left-wing shenanigans. Academics firmed Lueger as mayor of Vienna. In fact, he did so after exist in an environment that is like a hothouse for growing Lueger had been elected four times with increasing majori­ pinkos. But I think that Steve Cox's comments on the peace movement ("Peace, peace, but there is no peace," March) are ties. As Carl Schorske notes, in Fin-de-Siecle Vienna, "the off target. He is tortured by visions of unreconstructed peace imperial veto could not be sustained in an age of mass poli­ activists bemoaning the threat of nuclear war. But where are tics." (4) Lueger, though violent in word (but should the they? Where I live, you can't toss a string of love-beads Emperor have censored his anti-Semitic outbursts, or those in without hitting a VW Microbus, and I hang out with some the gutter press?), conducted no "low-level reign of terror." peace-movement types. I have never heard any mention of During his term of office, the city government discriminated nuclear war, Dr. Spock or the Soviet Union. True I never against Jewish businesses in various ways, yet Jews contin­ heard any cheers at the demise of the USSR either, but I only ued to stream into Vienna from the provinces. (5) Most moved to Port Townsend two years after the collapse of the important: the very reason for the desperate anti-Semitism of Soviet Union. The only commentator that I have seen lately Austrian gentiles was the spectacular success of the Jews, in who raised the specter of nuclear holocaust is Kathleen business, the arts and sciences, and the press. This occurred Bailey, who wrote an article warning that the U.S. should under the rule of law established by Francis Joseph, who not "de-alert" its nuclear weapons because a threat of cherished "his" Jews. After all, they were the one people in nuclear attack from politically unstable Russia still exists. the old empire who gave him no grief over nationalist striv­ Bailey is an ex-Reagan administration official whose warn­ ings of their own, and, moreover, they constituted a ing was published on the editorial page of the Wall Street Germanizing element wherever they lived (e. g., Kafka in Journal. Prague). How to explain the fact that we are still living off I cannot agree with Cox's statement that "their [the peace the intellectual achievements of Austro-Hungarian Jewry if activists] opponents usually conceded the sincerity of their the Jews had not enjoyed freedom of opportunity under the motives." Leaf through some old National Reviews or Hapsburgs? Aside from these few points, I find that Mrs. American Spectators and you will see that the 1980s right­ Boudreaux's objections very well taken. -RR wingers (I was one of them) thought that the peace movement was made up of a Julian Simon, R.I.P. - Julian q~ Simon was the first - and for many years roughly equal number of ComSymps and ~ Useful Idiots. just about the only - academic to chal- Cox quotes Dr. Benjamin Spock as say­ .8 ~ / lmenegnets ththeatmmodaerk~ ndeo-Mdahlthusiankargu- -_...:.Jo.- __-n.\!_ n In an er wor s are ing that "I don't see the slightest indication ,rr------{~A that we've gotten any closer to peace than ~tr \~(' failures. In his own life, Julian had many we were before." I don't know the context y;r \: //'/ bouts with despair, but he never doubted of the quote, but it doesn't sound so ridicu­ I~k{),~).\,.:_\/~\~./\/~ /,.~ "r/-v.."\;,.A"." . fulthatsuccessthe human- lifeexperimentis the ultimateis a wonder-experi- lous to me. Nuclear war is not imminent ence, a rapturous opportunity for the (nor is it impossible), but the U.S. still individual to interact with a challenging maintains a Cold War "defense" budget, and beautiful world. His earliest efforts the Army "School of the Americas" (train­ ~/.J' Jl (\ I ~ \ dealt with the over-population arguments ing ground for thugs like Manuel Noriega I I... ,bv ~ \\ I /' I of the doomsayer crowd (as he dubbed and Roberto D'Aubuisson) is still in opera- f [' (""' them). He argued that though babies con- tion, thousands of American troops are ) Ii' t ,N 1 sume more than they produce - invest- deployed around the globe, U.S. saber- . I ment costs are always incurred before rattling threatens to involve us in another -1/ } investment benefits - but most people Middle East war, and NATO (whose raiso~/ leave the world a better place than they d'etre expired with the Soviet Union) is found it. His arguments were often utili- 16 Liberty ,TRYFREEDOM DAKL~ ~ ~ the most uncompromising, hardest-hiDing, libertarian journal Future of Freedom Foundation Future of Freedom Foundation Special Event in the world. of the ,, The Future ofFreedom Foundation 1S doing good " Vienna coffee club work and is having an impact. featuring - Milton Friedman Walter E. Willial11s (libertarian substitute host for Rush Limbaugh) Ron Paul 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm Walter Williams Wednesday 1988 LP presidential candidate, and panelists July 1,1998 current member of Congress 6:15 pm - 8:00 pm reception "With uncommon discipline and uncompromising devotion Omni Shoreham Hotel to principle, FFF is at the 2500 Calvert Street N.W. forefront of the freedom movement." Washington, D.C. 20008 David F. Nolan and panelists founding member, Libertarian Party

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I~-..-E------~-­~or reservation or subscription Information contar.t The Future of Freedom Foundation. 't [&J Please send me the FREE OFFER. We Don .I 0 Please reserve _ spaces for me at $25 each for the VCC Special Event, July 1. Compromise. 0 My check for $18 for a 1-year subscription to Freedom Daily (12 issues) is enclosed. iiIIiiiIiIilll I Or: THE FUTURE OF 0 Charge to my VISA/MasterCard FREEDOM FOUNDATION Name 11350 Random Hills Road, Suite 800 I Address Fairfax, VA 22030 City State Zip Phone: (703) 934-6101-Fax: (703) 352-8678 I E-mail: [email protected] Credit Card Account # 1...;Expiration Date _ -----Signature ---- Mily 1998 tarian in detail, but profoundly aesthetic and moral in struc­ led to a major article outlining his work in the New York ture. Every human life, Julian insisted, was a unique creative Times Magazine. Powerful ideas - even when presented to experience. How dare we judge that some lives are not small audiences in obscure locations - sometimes do have worth living? consequences. Julian took an unusual route to the academy. He had Julian was eclectic. He joined with that other renaissance begun his professional life as a direct marketer and advertis­ man that we've recently lost, Aaron Wildavsky, to challenge ing specialist, and entered academia after he realized that the biodiversity enthusiasts on one eco-catastrophe theme writing might be more readily pursued in that world. (Had after another. The diversity of Julian's interests was some­ he realized the hostility his views would encounter, the will­ thing his critics (always favorable toward diversity in other ingness to suppress non-PC opinions, he might have taken guises) could never forgive. What right did a former ad man another course). He selected population studies as his area of have to expose the fallacies of the eco-catastrophists? academic focus because he felt population posed some of Many social conservatives condemn population "control" mankind's most significant problems. programs: the "Sterilize the Little Brown People of the Over-population, at that time, seemed the problem of Earth" polices of the UN, Planned Parenthood, Zero Western civilization. Each person, it was commonly Population Growth and others. Similarly, many economic observed, consumed resources, required space, reduced the conservatives target the Lester Brown "We're running out of prospects of others of winning any specific social reward. If everything" Worldwatch crowd. Julian addressed both human beings' blind biological urges were left unchecked, it approaches, emphasizing the similarity of the biases and was argued, resources would soon be exhausted by over­ errors behind each of these wings of the Malthusian move­ population. How might we avoid the Malthusian dilemma of ment. It is wrong to view mankind as a plague on this Earth; a world filled to the brim with masses of malnourished, mis­ it is also wrong to view poverty as a virtue. Julian's work erable and hopeless people? For a while, Julian accepted the linked the libertarian and religious arguments and moved conventional wisdom; but unlike his more ideological breth­ both groups toward an effective alliance. Such an alliance ren, he began to collect data and noted that the facts did not promises to become a major threat to the hegemony of support the situation. He concluded that Malthus was wacko environmental intellectuals. Julian was a critical inte­ wrong. grating force toward the realization of such a union ­ His books The Ultimate Resource, The Resourceful Earth, something his enemies could never forgive. Population Matters, and The Ultimate Resource 2 all dealt As a fighter within academia, Julian understood, earlier strong blows to the Malthusianism of both the left and the and more painfully than most, the Left's efforts to stifle dis­ right. As Arthur Herman observed in The Idea of Decline in sent. He experienced what has now become obvious to us all: Western History, there are two parallel schools of pessimism the attempt by the Left to close off intellectual debate by dis­ in the West: the Historic Pessimists (largely conservatives) crediting all non-establishment views. Only his persistence and the Cultural Pessimists (largely left-liberal). The Historic and brilliance forced his views into the debate. Julian recog­ Pessimists - Joseph Schumpeter, Oswald Spengler, Allan nized that the intellectual battleground is not level, and that Bloom, Robert Bork - argue that Western civilization (for efforts to discredit our views will be widespread and vicious, various reasons) contains within itself the seeds of its own but that the battle for truth is one that must be waged with destruction. The Cultural Pessimists - Al Gore and Paul intelligence and vigor. The world can only become a darker Ehrlich, for example - pretty much accept that analysis but place if we cease to light again and again the flame of truth. go further in believing that collapse will be a good thing. Julian had an almost eschatological faith: regardless of Julian rejected both pessimisms. He placed less weight on the evils that man (especially man operating through the the bountifulness of the Earth than he did on mankind, as coercive instruments of government) might embrace, man­ The Ultimate Resource makes clear. Had God placed man on kind's positive spirit, he believed, would still triumph. Elitist the moon after the Fall, Julian would have seen, I'm sure, prejudices and political power might deflect, censor, hinder, nothing but successful terraforming projects ahead. The hamstring, restrict - but mankind would ultimately prevail. Garden of Eden, bereft of its most creative and aesthetic spe­ This faith rested in part, it seems to me, on what he didn't cies, would soon fall behind the Gardens that man would pay much attention to. He spent little time discussing the soon establish in space. institutions and social arrangements that enabled humans to My interactions with Julian were not frequent but they thrive, to truly be the "ultimate resource." Rather, he seemed were always stimulating. At an Earth Day Alternative to take these institutions - all too rare both historically and Conference some years ago - on a day when the geographically - for granted. He never addressed the con­ Malthusians turned out by the thousands and we had our cern that absent the institutions of freedom, mankind might four score or so - Julian was our star speaker. Julian remain in chains, the Malthusian tragedy might indeed announced that, while he had always hoped that intellectual occur. error accounted for the policies of the environmental estab­ As time goes by, I've come to think that perhaps Julian lishment, he could no longer excuse their policy activism. was right. He realized, of course, that progress more or less Solemnly, he announced that he now felt compelled to state depends upon the existing institutional framework. He fully that he believed these people were enemies of humanity. understood that oppressive institutions, well, oppress. But Julian did not like conflict and was not adept at the vicious he was firmly convinced that mankind would surmount the rhetorical debates typical of the political world. But his per­ limits of the present institutions, that the Iron Curtains that sistence and courage made him impossible to ignore, impos­ restrict mankind.would be forced open by man's unconquer- sible to sweep aside. Julian's talk at that Earth Day occasion able spirit. continued on page 44 18 Liberty Presidential Watch Clinton's Follies

For more than five years, Bill Clinton has stood at the center of the American political stage, delighting millions with his zany improvisations. In mid-January, a new act in this long-running comedy began. Liberty's editors offer mixed reviews of Clinton's latest routine.

"The libertarian position is that the president's sex life is The Scandal About Nothing none of your business." "I think you are wrong," I respond. "There is no libertar­ Douglas Casey ian position on Bill Clinton's sex life - except that if he uses the government to force women to have sex with. him or to Clinton is truly the Teflon president. He stumbles from reward those who do or punish those who refuse, we think one scandal to another, and the American people seem to it's wrong." love him, judging by his approval ratings. I couldn't care less Libertarianism is a belief about the use of force in society. what he has going with the White House interns. Nor do I Some libertarians believe that physical force is justified only make a big deal out of the fact he and Vernon Jordan obvi­ if used in defense. Others believe that retaliatory force is ously counseled Monica to lie; lying is the very fabric of poli­ sometimes justified. Some even believe that under certain cir­ tics, for God's sake. And Clinton is the most skilled, cumstances, initiatory force is justified. All agree that force in practiced, and enthusiastic liar who's ever occupied the Oval general is bad and that it ought to be minimized. Office, including pathological prevaricators like Franklin So my friend was on the right track. A person's sex life is Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. his own business, whether he is a sovereign individual, a pri­ The real scandal, in my opinion, is that of the coverup of vate citizen or the president of the United States. Up to a Vince Foster's strange death, distinguished by about 75 still point - the point at which this sex life begins to involve the unexplained anomalies, which has vanished from people's use of force or fraud. consciousness. As have the strange circumstances surround­ Of course, there are contract aspects. If a person has con­ ing the death of Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown. And the tracted to limit his sexual activity to a single person, perhaps score of suspicious deaths in Mena, Arkansas, during via a marriage contract, then he should not have sexual activ­ Clinton's governorship. Americans only seem capable of ity outside that contract. But this is a matter between him maintaining interest in the type of thing you'd expect to see and the person with whom he has a contract. If he fails to on Jerry Springer. keep up his end of the bargain, the other party is entitled to sue, of course, at which point the state (or other contract enforcement agency) becomes involved. Initiation Rights Quite plainly, whatever contract exists between Bill and Hillary Clinton does not prohibit adultery, or at least, if such R. W. Bradford a clause was included, Hillary has agreed to its suspension. We know this because Clinton has committed adultery in a It's 9:30 p.m. and the phone rings. I pick it up, and a voice rather indiscreet fashion during virtually his entire married demands. "What's the libertarian stand on Bill Clinton's sex life. life?" It is one of Liberty's editors. Figuring this to be a rhetor­ On the other hand, at least two of the allegations made ical question and having more curiosity about his thinking against Bill Clinton suggest that he initiated the use of force than lust to dazzle him with my own, I say, "I don't know. to get sex. I refer to the complaints of Paula Jones and What do you think?" "It's none of your business," he says. Kathleen Willey. (The case of Willey is a little bit dicey Liberty 19 May 1998 because she was lffiwilling to testify about Clinton's sexual uncontestably. assault of her until compelled by a court to do so.) And sev­ Some of the president's defenders have argued that it is eral other allegations relating to Bill Clinton's sex life involve morally permissible to lie when legally compelled to testify his rewarding his sexual partners with government jobs or about matters that are not the business of those asking the promotions. This is illegal, as it ought to be - not because question. This argument, proposed by Bill Maher of ABC's people should not be able to enter into meretricious relation­ Politically Incorrect, has a libertarian ring to it. If, for example, ships, but because the president was in effect paying people a criminal sticks a gun to a homeowner's head and asks him for sex with other people's money. And other allegations where he has stashed the family silverware, the owner is relating to the First Family Man's extramarital activity under no moral or legal obligation to tell him the truth, involve another form of fraud: lying while under oath and though he may have a practical reason to do so (Le. notmake suborning others to lie. the home invader angry). This last is potentially the most serious for Clinton Should courts be able to compel testimony? Some liber­ becauseit appears to be one activity that he has engaged in tarians argue that this is never appropriate, since it invari­ that (a) is plainly illegal; and (b) can be proven ably involves threatened force. I do not find the matter so cut and dried. Suppose that you and another person witness a murder. The "The torehIS · passed·"to a new generation ... police accuse you of the - John F..Kennedy murder and you are put on trial. Suppose further that the other person refuses to ~EY IfOBffY j -S~ELL testify about what he saw. MY 1'Jfw Should he have to, under 'R£CE?1I6N' ISf. threat of force? Or should he be able to refuse if he wants to, even if only on a whim? I think he ought to be compelled to testify. I'm willing to countenance this initiation of force because it seems to me that the rel­ atively small inconven­ ience to the witness so MR. r,(fNNf'PY S-IR J greatly outweighs the 1M! HI ('" (MfAN fHf huge inconvenience to the person accused falsely of A'R.KfW5A5 "RHODf5 ~lHo~A murder (namely, his life). The matter is a bit 15 HERr murkier in a civil case. But only, I think, a bit murkier. Suppose that you and another person witness a young man toss a rock through a store window. The store owner sues you for damages. Should the other person be able to refuse to testify unless you reward him? Or for any other reason, even on a whim? Of course, the ques­ tions posed to the presi­ dent by Paula Jones's attorneys were a bit more complicated than these examples. Jones accused him of assaulting her, which involves initiating force. But the questions in May 1998 response to which Clinton lied were not about this assault. who has ever listened to Sidney Blumenthal will be tempted They were about his behavior with other female government to share Starr's intense feelings about the man. employees. The reason for this is that the law considers other But according to Starr's new edict in regard to lies, I will behavior of an individual accused of a tort to be relevant in not be protected by the First Amendment if I call some news­ determining whether he committed it. Personally, I don't paper and confide that: think this is good law. But whether the president ought to I am a goat. have to obey is another matter. Sidney Blumenthal is a great American. President Clinton is a moral leader. That gal Streisand really knows how to sing. The Power of the Counterintuitive Lies like these need a lot more protection than the truth ever did, and I thought that the First Amendment gave them Stephen Cox that protection. Guess I was wrong. I am also surprised and befuddled by a legal theory When I was six years old, my father startled me by asking that's popular among Clintonians. This is the idea that cer­ if I thought he could write his name with his eyes closed. I tain people are constitutionally protected (whether they're denied that he could, whereupon he chuckled softly, stuck a liars or not) simply because they are, indeed, certain people. piece of paper into his borrowed Remington, shut his eyes, and typed his name. Journalists, for example, are said to be protected simply by I can't remember why he had that typewriter sitting on being journalists. If somebody tells you or me that he's com­ the card table next to the kitchen door. Maybe he was mitted a crime, we can be hauled into court to repeat what engaged in some desperately official correspondence with he said to us. But once we become journalists, people whose the IRS. I just remember the miracle of seeing someone type job it is to divulge information, we can't be forced to divulge his name with his eyes closed. How could that happen? it; we're journalists, after all. That's the theory, and I say it's Impossible to understand. counterintuitive. A little later, I discovered something even more astonish­ Equally counterintuitive to stupid me is another ingly counterintuitive. The source was again my father. A Clintonian idea, which really seems to be catching on - the new bank was opening downtown, and I asked him how idea that any person who guards, protects, or counsels the much we would have to pay to keep our money there. president has legal immunity, just because he is a guard, "Nothing," he said. "A bank pays you to let it keep your protector, or counselor of the president. This theory is sup­ money." Then he laid out the complete theory of capital and posed to rest on a sound business principle: How can the interest, or as much of it as he thought a six-year old could president conduct business ("the people's business") if he comprehend. I discovered still more reason for astonishment has to worry about some guy in his office being called as a in the idea that banks keep your money by letting other peo­ witness to any crimes that the president may commit? ple use it. How indeed? Obviously, the manager of the local Sav-On Well, if that was the truth, I could accept it, however could make a lot more money, and get himself a lot more job strange it sounded. But as years went by, I encountered security, if he didn't have to worry about any accountants, many people, even grown-up people, who could not come to check-out clerks, or security guards testifying to any thefts, any kind of terms with counterintuitive ideas. Most could frauds, or murders he might commit. The only thing that I not imagine how economic progress can result from "blind," can't understand is why Sav-On and the White House unregulated markets - so they denied it does. Few could should be governed by different legal principles. accept the fact that a seller and a buyer can profit from the And speaking of principles, I'm still struggling to under­ same transaction. Some remained permanently at the age-six stand how the Clintonians have managed to sell the threshold of astonishment. I remember listening while a young intellectual confidently advanced a complex theory of y~ global capitalist exploitation, then concluded in sincere and If II1I1J('t H£ E':(( /!1( ANI) 1#r'" 111£ 1 hopeless puzzlement. "There's only one thing I can't under­ mt ({(Rt'r I WA.NN4 ])0 W()N-r1j( AIrL{ stand," she said. "Why are there banks?" )(1(v'/(( l£f1lr,/ r/)I'1((i-l/A/t ~ 'P!{Ol'tC.f I can sympathize with her. I am no longer puzzled by the ~!J()rtll1 '! /LLrtAL/ Itt H~~ ,.vft. mysteries of banks, but I have other counterintuitives to III{6,fL fo PluH worry about. Mine are chiefly political. Lately, I've been liIfPl. .~ attacked by a whole litter of them, bred by the kennels of A. (VVtll[[ .. _I/~ Clinton and Starr. ~ \'-- To me, it is amazingly counterintuitive that Kenneth / ~ Starr, who is, as they say, Judge Starr, a man who has been to "7 0 law school, can go around saying that "the First Amendment () is interested in the truth," as opposed to "misinformation and distorted information"; i.e., "lies." Of course, I understand Starr's purpose. He wants to put a stick in the spokes of people like Sidney Blumenthal, Clinton's house "journalist," who is believed by Starr to be spreading lies about his investigation of Clinton. Anybody Liberty 21 May 1998

American public on two different versions of the hallowed defended the president in these days of travail? So far, the principle of minding your own business. Version no. 1: I only incumbent politician I've seen defend the president is have no right to mind Mr. Clinton's business. Version no. 2: John Conyers, who represents a poverty-stricken "inner city" Mr. Clinton has every right to mind my business. Now, I'm district in Detroit, perhaps the safest congressional district in perfectly willing to "stay out of the president's bedroom." the country. The real lesson of Watergate is: when your Nothing would give me greater pleasure. I'm very happy to party's president is going down, don't defend him, or you admit that "the president's sex life is his own concern." But may suffer the fate of the Republicans who stoutly defended why, I ask, can't the president stay out of everybody else's Nixon in 1973 and then found themselves unemployed after bedroom, office, smoking room, classroom, minivan, and the 1974 election. cranium? How will Clinton reward Conyers? Watch for a new This President and his friends, who are suddenly so appropriation for spending in his district, or a judicial robustly in favor of the sanctity of the private sphere, are appointment for a Conyers' buddy. the same people who have spent virtually all their time lec­ turing the American public about the evils of smoking, drinking, unbuckled seatbelts, unplanned families, unman­ America in the Balance aged health care, unrecycled trash, unbounced midnight basketballs, and unreconstructed moral attitudes of all R. W. Bradford kinds, meanwhile scheming to tax, regulate, eliminate, or otherwise interfere with all of the above, as much as As a person who loves liberty and loves America, I hope humanly possible. And they get away with it. If you believe that President Clinton is neither indicted nor impeached for the opinion polls, most Americans seem to accept the prem­ perjury, suborning perjury, using government funds to ise that they are fair game for the president, but he is not secure and pay for his sexual activity, or any of the various fair game for them. fraudulent activities that have characterized his public This is a whopping counterintuitive. In my efforts to career. Yes, he's almost certainly guilty of a hundred felo­ understand it, I have come up with only one explanation, nies. If I were to judge the matter solely on his innocence or and it is still more whopping in its counterintuitiveness. The guilt of the charges involved, I'd have to say indict, impeach, explanation is: The American people regard their president convict. as a god. They regard Bill Clinton as a deity. It's a staggering But there are other considerations. Clinton has been a far thought, I know. Yet, according to every published indica­ better president than Al Gore is liable to be. Gore is a com­ tion of the people's views, they are prepared to forgive Bill mitted ideologue, committed to having government control Clinton anything because they have found that he possesses every aspect of human life, to conserve "global resources" the miraculous power to bestow prosperity. and protect against "environmental degradation." With the Incredible, but true. In America, there are millions of peo­ advantages of incumbency, he's very likely to be re-elected ple who go to work every morning and create wealth, which in 2000; and, if he took over the presidency after January 20, the president, his wife, and his political allies then tax and 1999, he would likely be re-elected in 2004. (If he takes office spend; millions of people who know that the president con­ before that date, he'd be prohibited by the 22nd Amendment trols neither the stock market, nor the weather, nor the price to the Constitution from seeking re-election in 2004.) Even of tea in China, nor their own attempts to make a profit. Yet Gerry Ford was nearly re-elected after Nixon resigned, and these same millions of people remain convinced that the he had two disadvantages compared to Gore. He pardoned president is responsible for their prosperity! And - again, if the man he succeeded, thereby looking very much like some­ published reports are true - they believe that this divinity one in complicity. Gore is unlikely to make the same mis­ must be kept in office, so he can continue to reward them take. And Ford was actually stupider than Gore, though not with a prosperity that they have not, by their own efforts, by much. earned. Incidentally, I think Clinton has also been a better presi­ How shall we view this fantastic superstition, this shock­ dent than his Republican opponents would have been. While ing lie that the public tells itself? his agenda has had some awful stuff in it - socialized medi­ I recur to my father's stock of counterintuitives. I recall cine comes to mind - relatively little of it has been enacted the day when he told me something that I am only now into law. And he's been much less inclined to involve the beginning to understand. I don't remember what subject he United States in witless foreign wars than was his predeces­ was talking about, but he happened to say, "You cannot sor. In only four years in office, George Bush invaded two cheat an honest man." different countries, Panama and Iraq. Clinton has rattled his saber once or twice. But so far, no invasions. And he has been less rigorous in expanding governmental intrusion peo­ The Lesson of Watergate ple's private lives than his Republican opponents would likely be. In addition, with the GOP in control of both houses Chester Alan Arthur of Congress, can you imagine what mischief a Republican president might have wrought? Television is teeming with hired "consultants" to the Of course, there's another aspect to this question. Clinton Democratic Party or to Bill Clinton who enthusiastically is a man with absolutely no respect for the truth, a man will­ defend Clinton against the mounting evidence of his perjury, ing to allow his wife to steal from the government for the subornation of perjury, etc. But what elected officials have good of their family, a man motivated almost entirely by lust 22 Liberty May 1998 for power. Simple justice calls for him to be thrown from be ready to orally stimulate his distinguishing characteris­ office and into the hoosegow. tics. Sufferers typically react to the offer of treatment by But I don't buy that theory. At least, I find it difficult to pathetic denials, and by proclaiming that a vast, hate­ apply that theory consistently. If we were to impeach, con­ inspired conspiracy is responsible for all their troubles." vict, or force the resignation of every president who lied, The report mentions that sufferers often lead double stole, and defrauded, just about every president since lives, a practice induced by a syndrome known as multiple rhetorical disorder. Clinshaftski concocted elaborate schemes Washington would have left office involuntarily. This pros­ for a Soviet-style health care system, expounded at turgid pect has its charms, I'll admit. But it wouldn't be very length in the hitherto anonymous Unabanger Manifesto, while practical. at times he would adroitly work into the conversation disarming remarks like "The Era of Big Government is Sorry About That, Chief Over." The Unabanger's outrages at first appeared senseless, but Stephen Cox letters from the Unabanger instructed the major media that he would cease his serial acts of terror if the media would Journalist David Brock apologized to President Clinton reproduce his lengthy Unabanger Manifesto. Apparently, for writing the investigative artIcle that began Clinton's legal then, his game was extortion for fanatical ideological ends, troubles with Paula Jones. but although the media complied with his demands, psycho­ Reports of Brock's apology quote him as saying, "I wasn't pathological profilers shrewdly voiced their doubts that the hot for this story in the interest of good government or succession of mysterious attacks would halt. serious journalism. I wanted to pop you right between the liThe publication of his turgid ramblings will only feed eyes .... I've asked myself over and over: What the hell was his vanity and self-advertising compulsion, leading to more I doing investigating your private life in the first place?" outrages" predicted one FBI analyst. And so it proved, with Oh, please. Why not ask yourself what difference your the Unabanger ultimately claiming daily air time for his intentions make, or why serious accusations against a public statements of bitter alienation from a heartless, irresponsible figure should not be investigated? society in which people are permitted to make their own Brock reportedly goes so far as to wish he hadn't men­ foolish decisions. Despite the media's attempts to appease tioned the name "Paula." He says that in his "ransacking of the unknown terrorist, there was never any knowing where [Clinton's] personal life there was an open political agenda at the elusive Unabanger would strike next. work ... which must have colored [his] judgment at least on The report concludes that although mentally ill, the margins." At this point, Brock should ask himself Clinshaftski is fully capable of understanding the nature of whether suppression of names, even in the interest of politi­ the charges against him. A rudimentary ability to reason and cal harmony and niceness, might also constitute a political plan ahead are exhibited in Clinshaftski's actions. He invari­ agenda. ably selected defenseless underlings for his victims, and after Finally, he might ask himself what credibility, either as a each incident employed hand-picked intermediaries to bribe, intimidate, and smear them. journalist or as a deep, deep thinker, he can possibly gain by The plea bargain was made possible by a delicate legal this grandstanding act of contrition. instrument, known technically to scholars of jurisprudence as a squalid back-room deal, and involving the intervention Unabanger of President Gore, who agreed to pardon Clinshaftski, pro­ vided the president could do so in time to recuperate from David Ramsay Steele this unpopular action before his re-election bid. President Gore commented: "Clinshaftski is the real vic­ William J. "Slick Willy" Clinshaftski finally acknowl­ tim here and deserves our compassion. Compulsive eroto­ edged today that he is the notorious Unabanger. Months of mania is literally an illness, exactly like diabetes or cancer of legal argument came to an end when Clinshaftski concluded the colon. Five thousand leading scientists recently signed a a plea bargain in which the lonely eccentric admitted that he report affirming the undisputed truth that compulsive eroto- was responsible for the Unabanger's solitary 20-year cam­ paign of anti-social terror. The deal followed an agreement by lawyers that ~f Po~f ISH f[VE' AN!1if[1f A~d()f HrLLA Ktf Clinshaftski is legally competent to stand trial, though suf­ 1H(f( flORfff ~~11£1\ fering from several serious illnesses, including compulsive 1HE 1~Jnpf"'/ induced-fellatio disorder, ego-dysfunctional erotomania, / and megalomaniac amnesia praecox, the last characterized by an increasingly strident denial of one's political impotence. "Clinshaftski presents all the classic symptoms," says a SOD-page psychiatric report made available to the court this week. "- grandiose delusions that he knows best how other people should run their family and business lives, and in particular that anyone and everyone he meets should always 23 May 1998 mania is caused by the terrifying climate changes resulting back out in the real world, they want to impeach the from industry's brutal rape of our fragile planet. I vividly impeachers. recall watching my dear sister dying painfully from this debilitating disease." A window into the Unabanger's thinking was opened The Ethos of Intergenerational Sex this week by revelation of his interactions with the psychiat­ ric examiner, Dr. Molly Johnstone. Dr. Johnstone related that Timothy Virkkala while undergoing questioning for a diagnostic profile, As the Monica Lewinsky story broke, and Americans Clinshaftski abruptly dropped his pants and insisted that Dr. once again sniggered over their president's libidinous pro­ Johnstone orally stimulate his distinguishing characteristics. clivities, another story made the headlines, in that "other When Dr. Johnstone refused and informed Clinshaftski that Washington," the state. A dishonored schoolteacher in the the incident had been videotaped and would be mentioned Seattle area was caught breaking her parole by being in the in her report, Clinshaftski replied that the alleged incident presence of her one-time student and sometime lover, a 14­ had never occurred, that nothing improper would be cap­ year-old ... young man. For several nights in a row, local tured on the tape, that the video camera was unreliable, that newscasts would begin with one of these scandals and segue Dr. Johnstone was a frustrated, lonely female with a murky into the other. And I would listen, then hit the mute button past and a hyperactive imagination, that Dr. Johnstone was on the TV set, trying to decipher America's moral code. part of a vast right-wing conspiracy, that Dr. Johnstone As Clinton's approval rating soared past the watershed hoped to make money by publishing a sensational book, that number 69, it became apparent to me that we live in a post­ the videotaping exceeded the scope of Dr. Johnstone's inves­ Christian society. But the nation's indignation over this trou­ tigation, that videotaping prisoners was a practice which bled woman, obviously obsessively in love with a rather sent shivers down one's spine, recalling the worst excesses of mature "boy" - who not surprisingly reciprocated her love Stalin's Russia or Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, that and lust - seemed to betoken no small amount of moral cen­ Clinshaftski was absolutely dying to talk candidly about the sure. Is its source Christian morality? I doubt it. Almost no incident but his lawyers had insisted that he wait until the one who talked about this unfortunate tale mentioned the full details of all these sorry allegations were available, that woman's abandoned husband and children. Adultery was Dr. Johnstone knew Clinshaftski's reputation and had for­ rarely brought up. Few tsk-tsked the evils of fornication. No, given him before she came to see him and therefore had vir­ all that seemed to matter was the stark legal dividing line at tually invited Clinshaftski's behavior, that no one cared the"age of consent" - and, among those more interested in whether the incident had happened and Clinshaftski had to contract, the breach of faith involved in seducing a student. get back to work on his next Manifesto, that the voluminous But every time I heard a newscaster speak of the lad in psychiatric report was an appalling waste of the taxpayers' question as a "victim," I marvelled at the conceit. He was money, that Mrs.Clinshaftski would categorically state that physically adult, and, given the circumstances, his emotional she had complete confidence in Mr. Clinshaftski, that if the alleged incident appeared in the report, Dr. Johnstone would childishness seemed unlikely. He was undoubtedly a victim have her legs broken, and that Dr. Johnstone could expect to first by statute, then by public prosecution of his lover. be found in a public park with a bullet in her head and a gun Maybe this is inevitable in any decent society (you've got to lying half a mile away, cunningly contriving the obvious draw a line somewhere), but it is hard not to see the taboo appearance of suicide. drawn between him and a willing older partner as a desper­ ate invocation of sentimentality, of an imperialism expand­ ing childhood into youth. (Somehow I missed any mention Un impeachable of the lad's parents in all this talk - surely a crucial element in the story; I gather that parental oversight of a child's mat­ Brien Bartels uration is no longer that big a deal, anymore. I am told that at least one reporter did interview his mother, who con­ Bill Clinton's jig is not up. His apologists have deflected firmed that the lad was, yup, pretty mature for his age.) fire from the real offense - obstruction of justice - and The modern age's sentimentalization of childhood is turned the media's attention on the "vast right-wing smear often preposterous. I guess in this case it is not wholly nuts, campaign" that lies behind the attacks on the president. No though it still seems problematic. The breach of faith other smears (Whitewater, foreign campaign contributions, involved in a teacher seducing a student is surely worth the web of deception surrounding the Vince Foster case, and some legal action; her firing was no doubt justified. But I all past adulteries) have stuck to the president. And have a hard time consigning this woman to the modern-day Americans don't want this one to stick either. They want the equivalent of hell. She has her own hell. Obsessed with a lad press to leave President Clinton alone, so he can continue to young enough to be her son, she forsook family, career ... do his job of fighting inflation, keeping unemployment low, everything, for this obsession. Her story seems right out of protecting their investments in the stock market, dictating ancient mythology - or perhaps tragedy - another awful the yield curve of the bond market, controlling the weather, reminder of the blinding, maddening power of Eros and (he's distracted for one moment, and Boom! EI Nino!) and all Venus, of irrational flames leaping up into our tidy world of those things that Americans expect a president to be able to mown lawns, coffee breaks, and the PTA. do. Clinton's continuing sexual saga, on the other hand, is Bob Barr of Georgia might be talking impeachment. But merely comic. This president, who will go down in history as 24 Liberty May 1998 the first president in history to "go down," is not besot by dicted that Clinton would become a new Woodrow Wilson, love, but by lust. He obviously manages his emotional life a moralist interventionist, an idealist statesman who would quite well: he may"feel our pain," but not too much. In any try to make the world safe for democracy. What we are get­ case, this veneer of empathy apparently plays well with his ting instead, I explained, is "a Warren Harding, a pragmatic "conquests." Clinton is an exceptional salesman, and this neo-isolationist, a corrupt politician who wants to make the applies not only to the buying and selling of votes and pat­ world safe for business - kind of a global Arkansas." And I ronage, but to the commerce of sex. And, evidently, this com­ concluded my article by arguing that the continuing reign of merce is usually barter, thus satisfying the letter, if not the "Hilarious Hillary and Horny Bill" in the White House spirit, of today's ideology of romantic love. would help erode the credibility of the presidency and The comedy's farcical elements are truly precious: Bill weaken the power of the political class. Now, did you read Clinton's teen-age casuistry regarding oral sex ("it's not all of that in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The really sex") adds an endearing, boyish quality to what might New Republic or The Economist? Well, did you? otherwise be easily seen as examples of coldly calculating I rest my case. And I thank you for your kind applause. "sexual predation." The long parade of willing sexual part­ ners keeps growing and growing, and each little detail elicits Little Ventured, Nothing Gained titters from the average American, not scorn or censure. (The sheer number of people willing to defend even his most R. W. Bradford unsuave Packwood-like gropings and assaults, as testified by Kathleen Willey, is as amazing as anything else in this still­ In some circles the runup in the polls that the president unfolding story.) has enjoyed as the uglier aspects of his criminal behavior Clinton's dishonesty disturbs Americans most, but I have became more widely known is puzzling. So was his easy re­ a hard time getting worked up about that. Clinton's dishon­ election in 1996, at a time when most Americans were well esty was palpable from day one of his first presidential cam­ aware that the president is, well, ethically-challenged. The paign. Americans, like so many high-school virgins, looked reason for this support, the pollsters tell us, is that the econ­ the other way and elected the guy to the highest office in the omy is doing swell. land. Ifthey now feel screwed, I don't really see how they can Incumbent presidents have lost only three of the past 20 blame the guy who did it to them. In love and politics, "Yes, elections, and in each case the economy was a major factor. In but ..." still means "Yes." If Clinton is actually booted out of 1932, Americans ousted Republican Herbert Hoover as the office for his sexual practices and attendant indiscretions, the nation suffered from its greatest depression. In 1980, America joke would be on America itself as much as on Clinton. was again in recession and Ronald Reagan said, "Ask your­ I suspect that deep down, most Americans feel this. self, are you better off today than you were four years ago?" Hence Clinton's continued popularity, and the unlikelihood There was recession again in 1992, and the famous sign on the of his impeachment and removal from office. wall of the Clinton campaign headquarters read "It's the That would be, well, too Christian a thing to do. economy, stupid." In 1996, Clinton boasted that as chief exec­ utive, he had lowered unemployment, boosted stock prices and profits, and nearly balanced the budget. You Heard It Here First The obvious implications of this cause despair for some advocates of free markets. Most Americans believe that Leon T. Hadar whoever is president is responsible for their personal pros­ perity. They seem to think of the u.s. economy as a gigantic It is quite common for daily newspapers and weekly corporation with the president at its helm. How can we ever magazines to publish occasionally a "You Read It Here First" hope to restore a free economy if most of our fellow citizens column, in which the publication brags about the fact that it believe anything this dumb? Why can't people realize that had predicted this or that development and that its analysis the American economy is not a single, centrally-controlled of national and world events proved to be correct. Well, if enterprise, but the complex unplanned interplay of millions the Big Boys do it, I don't see any reason why Liberty and this of producers and consumers? faithful contributor shouldn't show off a little bit. Indeed, in the midst of the Lewinsky Affair and the con­ SQ\lCA\(' tinuing Donorgate scandal and following President Clinton's ~QvCAK decision not to follow the advice of Washington's Happy saVE 4 A( Warriors and show our concern to the Iraqi people by bomb­ ing them to death ("We love you, therefore we kill you"), I recalled an article, "Hail to the Wimp" (Liberty, November \ 1994), several years before the world would learn about the Riady and Lewinsky families or about the threat of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Isolationism, I wrote, is alive and well in our beloved post-Cold War America, adding: "And who knows it better. than that infamous draft dodger, the wimp himself, Bill 'Don't Get Killed, Get a Blow Job' Clinton?" When it comes to foreign policy, this president is just my kind of guy. I also noted many pundits had pre- May 1998

I am not among those upset. There is another way to private investigators on every president. If a conservative explain these phenomena. Republican holds office, he could give the cash to The Nation I suspect most Americans believe that politicians have instead of the Spectator. Of course, we cannot expect every relatively little to do with their prosperity, or much else in investigation to strike such a rich vein of corruption as the their lives. How they vote or view the president is a very Spectator found in Arkansas. But chances are we'd find out a small matter to them. After all, virtually no elections are lot more about the backgrounds of our presidents and quite decided by their personal vote and what they tell pollsters possibly a lot of them would have to resign. Even if a presi­ matters even less. And the consequences of having candidate dent is as pure as the driven snow (fat chance!) no real harm A in office rather than candidate B are neither obvious nor, would come of such an investigation, and if it distracted him in most cases, significant. So why invest much time in decid­ from doing his business (i.e. invading other countries, draft­ ing how to vote or what to tell pollsters? That vote is of so lit­ ing mischievous legislation, raising taxes), all the better. tle actual value to most Americans that they don't bother to As far as I'm concerned, if these charges are true, it doesn't cast it at all if the weather is bad on election day. And about mean that Richard Scaife is some rightwing crackpot conspir­ half of those who qualify to vote don't turn out even when ing against the president. He is a benefactor to all Americans, the weather is good. a true patriot. Let a million Scaifes bloom! Americans' personal prosperity, on the other hand, is of great concern to them. So why not support the incumbent when times are good and oppose him when times are bad? Talking "Head" All their lives, Americans have heard incumbents take credit when times are prosperous, and challengers blame incum­ RexF. May bents when times are bad. Whether they believe this or not, they know their own vote is of insignificant value. So it's By the time this sees print, Slick Willy may be deposed, quite sensible to cast it on the basis of their own prosperity: if divorced, and desolated, or he may have been declared the politicians are right, their vote may help bring prosper­ President for Life and Holy Roman Emperor. But be that as it ity. If the politicians are wrong, they've wasted an asset that may, I witnessed something unexpected during the first ten is worth almost nothing. days of Schmuckgate. The talking heads. were embarrassed. They were first of all forced by circumstances to discuss the possibility that their idol had feet of clay. That's bad enough, iViva Richard Scaife! but they were also forced to talk about semen-stained dresses and fellatio on the air while looking at each other. They resented Chester Alan Arthur it. They were pissed off at Willy for making them do it. Not that all this will make them honest, but it certainly has led Apologists for the president have charged that an obscure many of them to yearn for Al Gore. It's much easier on Pennsylvania zillionaire, Richard Mellon Scaife, has bank­ Eleanor Clift to talk about corruptJaps than corrupted JAPs. rolled an effort by The American Spectator to get dirt on President Clinton. According to these reports, Scaife gives the Spectator $600,000 a year, which the Spectator uses to investi­ "Tailgate" and the America-Haters gate the president. This is a terrible thing, Clinton's hirelings moan. Why should anyone be subject to such scrutiny? Richard Kostelanetz I refuse to join this chorus. In fact, I wish that some obscure millionaire would give $600,000 per year to sic lawyers and Nothing recently illustrates the decline of America, the sheer trashiness, more than Tailgate, as the scandal­ licking American press has come to call it. In late January, it was discovered that a young woman who had worked at the White House had a crush on the president, which is scarcely surprising or objectionable, and may have had some kind of modest sexual relations with him. The "evi­ dence" for this last charge includes copies of books he inscribed to her, such as Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (which was illiterately portrayed as hetero porn) and her chatty telephone calls to another White House employee known for devious behavior - an aspiring tape­ recording book-author beholden to a New York "literary agent"previously close to Richard Nixon. The intellectual status of such second-hand girl-gossip is "hearsay" - no more, no less - especially if the source, the former White House intern, seems boastfully "boy-crazy" and "dis­ -:;;I"'~~ turbed," to put it mildly. (It's hearsay to me until I can ~7'm-!ll! hear it.) Obviously, if the object of all this innuendo­ upon-innuendo was not the President of the United >0, !"v'tN1VALL1 We 60/1I1(cP OF ~/f. rrAl\R States, nobody would have cared for more than two sec- fill w/12H HtlI{ 1'A"(lIt[. 7 continued on page 69 26 Liberty Libert Live!

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Do Short-Sighted Corporate Decision-Makers Screw I name I the Future? • Collectivists claim free markets destroy address _ society and the environment, because companies only think on a quarter-to-quarter basis. Economist Richard I city, state, zip 1 Stroup takes on this charge. (audio: AI45; video: VI45) 1 account # expires --- 1 Why Not Hang 'em All? • Everyone's talking about 1 signature phone 1 crime and punishment, but few ever take an economist's Call (800) 854-6991- or send to: Liberty, Dept. L65, 1018 Water Street, Suite 201, Port Townsend, WA 98368 .I ------L. ------Memoir The DEA Wishes Me a Nice Day by Peter MeWilliams

If you've got cancer you can smoke marijuana in California, but that won't stop your house from being invaded.

On December 17, 1997, I was working in my living room-office on my computer next to a fire - sort of high-tech meets Abe Lincoln. It was not yet dawn, and I had been working most of the night. Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat" begins, "It's four in the morning, the end of December." It's a special time of night and a special time of year. The rest of the world has gone quite mad with Christmas, and I am left a look at Prelude Press here in L.A.?" alone to get some work done. Whatever the reason, I was in handcuffs, and the nine A hard pounding on the door accompanied by shouts of DEA agents and at least one IRS Special Agent put on rubber "Police! Open Up!" broke the silence, broke my reverie, and gloves and systematically went through every piece of paper nearly broke down the door. I opened the door wearing stan­ in my house. (Were the rubber gloves because I have AIDS, dard writer's attire, a bathrobe, and was immediately hand­ or are they just careful about leaving fingerprints?) cuffed. I was taken outside while Drug Enforcement I should point out, as I promised them I would, that I was Administration (DEA) agents ran through my house, guns never "roughed up." The DEA agents were, at all times, polite, drawn, commando-style. They were looking, I suppose, for if not overtly friendly. During the three hours of their search, the notorious, well-armed, highly trained Medical Marijuana the DEA agents asked me tentative, curious questions about Militia. To the DEA, I am the Godfather of the Medicine my books, as though we had just met at an autographing Cartel. Finding nothing, they took me back into my home, party. They admired my artwork, as though they were guests I informed me I was not under arrest, and ordered me - still had invited into my home. They called me by my first name, in handcuffs - to sit down. I was merely being "restrained," although I am old enough to be the father of any of them. I was told, so the DEA could "eltforce the search warrant." A DEA Special Agent (not just one of those worker-bee However, no search warrant was immediately produced. agents) made it a point to tell me that the DEA has a reputa­ Over the next hour, one page after another of the warrant tion for busting into people's homes, physically abusing was placed on a table nearby. I was never told the reasons a them, and destroying property, all in the name of "reason­ federal judge thought it important enough to override the able search and seizure." This, he reminded me on more than Fourth Amendment of the Supreme Law of the Land and one occasion, was not taking place during this search and issue search warrants for my Los Angeles home of eleven seizure. I agreed, and promised to report that fact faithfully. I years, my new home (two doors away), and the offices of my have now done so. publishing company, Prelude Press, about a mile away. The reasons, I was told, were in an affidavit "under seal." Patriots In other words, I have no way of determining whether I suppose the DEA considers this a step up, and I sup­ this is a "reasonable" search and seizure. The DEA agents pose I agree, but it was eerie to see bright (for the most part), could have written the judge, "We've never seen the inside friendly, young people systematically attempting to destroy of a writer's house before and we'd like to have a look. Also, my life. I do not use the word "destroy" lightly. DEA agents those New York federal judges are very touchy about letting are trained to fight a war, the War on Drugs, and in that war us go into New York publishing houses, so can we also have I am the enemy - a fact I readily admit. The DEA, therefore, 28 Liberty May 1998 fights me with the only tools it has - going through my around, and that's how I got to be a sick guy, but that's home, arresting me, putting me in jail for the rest of my life, another story.) Most disturbing to the DEA, I would guess, asset-forfeiting everything I own, selling it, and using the was my strong criticism of it in a two-page ad I placed in the money to hire more DEA agents to fight the War on Drugs. December 1, 1997, Daily Variety. I denounced Administrator From these young people's point of view, invading my Constantine's threat to criminally investigate the creators of home is an act of patriotism. Murphy Brown for Murphy's fictional use of medical mari­ In a DEA agent's mind, because I have spoken out juana. Having made comments such as, "The DEA gives the against the War on Drugs, I'm not just an enemy, but a trai­ phrase J ambulance chasing' a whole new meaning," I'm sur­ tor. In 1993, I published Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: prised it took the DEA 17 days to find my house - but, then, The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country. In they are part of the government. this libertarian tome - endorsed by a diverse group includ­ ing Milton Friedman, Hugh Downs, Archbishop Tutu, and Confiscation Sting -I explored in some detail the War on Drugs' uncon­ About two weeks before my DEA Christmas visitation, stitutionality, racism, anti-free market basis, deception, the Medical Marijuana Magazine on-line announced it would wastefulness, destructiveness, and un-winnability. I see it as soon be posting portions of a book on medical marijuana that one of the darkest chapters in American history, and cer­ I've been working on, A Question of Compassion: An AIDS tainly the greatest evil in our country today. Cancer Patient Explores Medical Marijuana. My publishing My view is at odds, obviously, with the last line of DEA company announced that books would ship in January. This Administrator Thomas Constantine's 1995 essay, "The Cruel Hoax of Legalization": "Legalizing drugs is not a viable answer or a rational policy; it is surrender." According to Most of the drug warriors know that the Administrator Constantine, I and "many proponents of d~ug legalization," are "wealthy members of the elite who live in Drug War is another Vietnam. And they have the suburbs and have never seen the damage that drugs and no intention oflosing this war and becoming the violence have wrought on poor communities, and for whom homeless people so many Vietnam veterans have legalization is an abstract concept." An abstract concept. Like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. tragically become. Given my outspoken opposition to the Drug War, I shouldn't be surprised that the DEA wanted to search my home. The Drug War is another Vietnam. Most of the drug brings us back to my computer and the DEA agents' almost warriors know it, and they have no intention of losing this immediate interest in it. war and becoming the homeless people so many Vietnam My computer and its backup drives, which the DEA also veterans have tragically become. Smart drug warriors. So, to took, contained my entire creative output - most of it unpublished - for the nearly two years since my diagnosis. My central project has been the above-mentioned book and a It was eerie to see bright (jor the most part), filmed documentary with the same title. Being a fair, bal­ friendly, young people systematically attempt­ anced, objective view of medical marijuana in the United States, the book is scathingly critical of the DEA. ing to destroy my life. So they took the computer, backup copies of my com­ puter files, and most of my research materials on medical marijuana. William F. Buckley, Jr. said, "That is the equiva­ the DEA, I'm part of the nation's enemy. And I must admit, lent of entering The New York Times and walking away with by DEA standards, I have been pretty bad. the printing machinery." If I don't get my computer and files But when I got sick, I got even worse. back, it will take at least six months additional work to get In mid-March 1996 I was diagnosed with both AIDS and back to where I was, and redoing creative work is disheart­ cancer. (Beware the Ides of March, indeed.) I had not smoked ening at best. marijuana or used any other illicit drug for decades prior to Not only am I in shock from having been invaded and this (a decision I now regret). But since 1996 lowe my life to seeing my "children" kidnapped (writers have an odd habit modern medical science and to one ancient herb. of becoming attached to their creative output), but every And so I became an outspoken advocate for medical mar­ time I go for something - from a peanut butter cup to a ijuana. In 1996, before the passage of California Proposition magazine - it's not there. Something is there, but it's not 215 (the Medical Marijuana Act), I donated office space to a what was there 24 hours earlier. Everything reeks of nine dif­ cannabis club so it could sell marijuana to the sick. I also ferent fragrances - like the men's cologne department at started the Medical Marijuana Magazine on-line in February Macy's. My address books were also taken - not copied, 1997; testified in favor of medical marijuana before the taken. As you can imagine, all this is most disorienting, espe­ California Medical Examiners Board and the National cially for a born-again marijuana addict like me. Academy of Sciences; and appeared as a medical marijuana advocate in or on numerous media, including CNN, How the DEA Works MSNBC, The Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, United A few random observations: Press International, CBS Radio Network, and dozens more. • While rummaging through my publishing company, a For a sick guy, I've been around. (Actually, I've been DEA agent told the publishing staff, "You guys had better Liberty 29 May 1998 start looking for new jobs. If the DEA doesn't take this place Scenario Two: In July 1997, the DEA invaded the home of for marijuana, the IRS will. The government will own this a man named Todd McCormick, destroyed his marijuana place in six months." Such a statement does not just have a research plants (one of which had been alive since 1976), chilling effect on a publishing company; it is like putting an took his computer (which had notes for a book he is writ­ iceberg in front of the Titanic. ing), and has not yet returned it. Perhaps the DEA - caught • The DEA took a microcassette tape from the recorder in a blind, bureaucratic feeding frenzy - is just now, five next to my bed. On the tape I had dictated a letter to months later, getting around to investigating my connection President Clinton (dictating to President Clinton in bed as possible financier of Todd's "Medical Marijuana seemed appropriate), asking him to rise above politics and Mansion" or even - gasp! - that I grew some marijuana show his compassion by making medical marijuana availa­ for myself. This means that in order to justify the arrest of ble to the sick. I may never get to mail that letter now, but I Todd McCormick, a magnificent blunder, they are now com­ certainly hope the DEA agent who listens to it will transcribe ing after me, a magnificent blunder. it and send it to his or her boss's (Constantine) boss's (Reno) Whichever scenario is correct, if the DEA and IRS have boss (Clinton). their way I may spend the rest of my life in a federal prison, •I have precisely three porn magazines in my house, hid­ all expenses paid (and deaths from AIDS-related illnesses den deep away in my sock drawer. (Who has enough socks can be very expensive, indeed). Truth be told, prison doesn't to fill a whole drawer?) The magazines were removed from continued on page 32 their stash and placed on top of random objects before pho­ tographing them. A jury, looking at these photographs, would think I have pornography all over the place. Frankly, I Answering the Unanswerable don't mind if a jury thinks this, because my view of pornog­ raphy agrees completely with that of Oscar Levant: ''It In his essay "The Cruel Hoax of Legalization," DEA helps." Administrator Thomas Constantine throws down the gaunt­ • When the DEA agents found a collection of Playboys at let: "Let's ask proponents some of the hard questions that the offices of Prelude Press (the Playboy Forum is, in fact, arise from their simplistic proposal." All right, let's. one of the best anti-prohibition information sources around), Here, then, in order, are the withering questions I am told (as I was not there) that three of the male DEA Administrator Constantine dares us, the "legalizers," to agents spent a great deal of time testosteronistically pawing answer. I shall venture where wise men have already tread through and making typically sexist comments about por­ and submit myself to the Administrator's withering scrutiny. tions of the magazine that have nothing to do with drugs­ "Would we legalize all drugs - cocaine, heroin, and LSD, as but that are obviously addictive nonetheless. well as marijuana?" • An invasion of nine people into the world of someone Yes. with a suppressed immune system is risky at best. DEA "Who could obtain these drugs - only adults?" agents come into contact with criminals and other DEA As with cigarettes and alcohol, sale would be restricted to agents from all sorts of international places with all sorts of adults, but we can't pretend children will have any less diseases. Some of these diseases don't infect their young fed­ access to drugs when they are legal than they do today when eral bodies, but the agents pass them along. I think of certain they are not. We can hope only that if we tell kids the truth strains of tuberculosis, deadly to people with AIDS and ram­ about drugs - all dr\lgs - they will listen when we advise pant in certain quarters - quarters where I make it a point them not to take any drugs, except medicines, until their ner­ not to go, but quarters in which the DEA seems to thrive. vous systems are fully developed. As with driving a car, vot­ Since my diagnosis, I have lived the life of a near hermit, ing, or not having to learn anymore, some pleasures are especially during flu season, which is now. Thundering into reserved for adults. Those young people who do not follow my sterile home surrounded by the clean air of Laurel this sound advice will at least have access to the information Canyon is the equivalent of germ warfare. At least two of the necessary to distinguish between drugs that are the least agents were sniffling or coughing. Six of them handled me in harmful (marijuana) and those that are the most harmful some way. I kept flashing back to the U.S. Cavalry passing (inhaling airplane glue, PCP and, long-term, tobacco) and out smallpox-infested blankets to shivering Native experiment accordingly. Americans. Have these people no sense of the struggle AIDS "Who would distribute these drugs - private companies, doc­ sufferers have in fighting even ordinary illnesses, and the tors or the government?" lengths some of us go to avoid unnecessary exposure to Oh, not the government, please. Did you ever try to buy a infection? (Naive American question, huh?) bottle of good wine in a state where alcohol is sold only in government-run stores? "Red wine is in the cooler over Prospects there, white wine is over here, and pink wines are in the Philosophically, or at least stoically, one could say all this middle." So, please, not the government. is part of my research into medical marijuana and those who Doctors should certainly be able to prescribe whatever oppose it - especially into those who oppose it. The prob­ medication they think patients need, but most drug use is lem is that I'm not sure what I've learned. Two scenarios sur­ recreational and educational, not medicinal. face, each more frightening than the other. That leaves - hooray! - "private companies." Yes, free Scenario One: The DEA, angered by my criticism and fear­ enterprise, capitalism, the open market will take care of man­ ful of more, decided to intimidate me - and to have a free ufacture and distribution, create new jobs, and remove the peek at my book in the bargain. criminal element almost overnight. We could expect private concluded on page 32 30 Liberty What's wrong with libertarianism...... And how to fix it

"An exciting corner in the marketplace of competing ideas...stimulating and provocative." - Israel M. Kirzner It looks like the era of big government isn't over after all. Politicians who favor new government programs and higher minimum wages are as popular as ever. Nor have libertarian ideas made real progress in the universities. Why? In this special issue of CRITICAL REVIEW, libertarian philosophy is put through a complete overhaul and tune-up. Every major version oflibertarianism-self­ ownership, Objectivism, Aristotelianism, and free­ market economics-is subjected to rigorous scrutiny, and the evolution of modern libertarianism is examined to see why it has not fulfilled its potential. A must-read for anyone who takes libertarianism seriously. Also available: a new special issue devoted to FA. Hayek.

Single issues $10. I-year (4-issue) subscriptions: $29 U.S., $35 foreign, $15 students with copy of ID; add $15 for foreign air mail. Check/m.o./Visa or MC no. and expo date to CRITICAL REVIEW, ~O. Box 10, Dept. 5M, Newtown, CT 0647°; fax (203) 270-8105; email [email protected]; www.sevenbridgespress.com May 1998 particularly frighten me. All I plan to do the rest of my life is about as quietly into that good night as Timothy Leary did. create things - write, mostly. I've been everywhere I want Still, as a naive American, this concern is far from my mind.) to go. It's my time of life for didactic pontificating. It is a If the DEA intends to come after me as the financier of phase writers go through immediately preceded by channel Todd McCormick's medical marijuana empire, the DEA surfing and immediately followed by channel surfing. Or knows full well I took credit for that immediately after hemlock. Todd's arrest - which made a lie of the DEA's claim that If the DEA has seized my computer to silence me, it has Todd purchased his "mansion" with "drug money." Yes, I failed, as I hope this article illustrates. The DEA's next gave him enough money to rent the ugliest house in Bel-Air oppressive move, then, would be to arrest me. and, being Todd McCormick, he grew marijuana there. The (Some have cautioned me about assassination, which I money I gave him was anadvance for a book on cultivating find difficult to comprehend - but then I thought my book marijuana. was so safe I didn't even have a backup in a Public Storage Todd cannot use medical marijuana as a condition of his locker somewhere. I should, I suppose, state that I am not in bail-release. He is drug-tested twice weekly. He cannot go to any way suicidal about this - or anything else, for that mat­ Amsterdam where he could legally find relief from the pain ter. So if I should die before the DEA wakes and they claim of cancer. Todd now faces life imprisonment - a ten-year my death was a suicide, don't you believe it. I plan to go mandatory minimum - and a $4 million fine, for cultivating concluded on page 46 Questions About Drugs ... firms to compete to provide the safest drugs - as well as the determined by the laws of supply and demand. (As Director least expensive. Best of all, it won't cost the taxpayers a cent. Constantine is obviously not a reading man, perhaps some­ In fact, the drug companies will even pay taxes. This may not one should send him a Videotape of Milton Friedman's PBS be a comfortable thought to Administrator Constantine ­ series Free to Choose. Label it IIAdvanced Drug Intervention who uses "libertarian" and "open society" as pejoratives, the Techniques," just to make sure he watches it.) way Senator McCarthy used "communist" - but capitalism "And when the legalizers answer all these questions, ask them is the economic system we fought a 40-year Cold War to this: ... II maintain, so why not use it? Oh, boy, the $SO-billion, 700,000-prisoner question. Give "Should the inner city be the central distribution point, or me a moment to compose myself. All right, Administrator should we have drug supermarkets in Scarsdale, Chevy Chase, and Constantine, shoot. No, wait, I mean give me the question. the Main Line?" " ... Can we set up a pilot legalization program on your What a fascinating plan to rejuvenate the inner cities! block?" Since the War on Drugs turned ghettos into war zones and Oh, absolutely! I'll make a fortune just selling roadmaps death traps, why not let the inner cities profit from the influx to my neighborhood. In fact, I'll finance the whole endeavor. of entrepreneurial money that is sure to follow legalization? Give me a government-guaranteed monopoly on legal drug Turn every Enterprise Zone into a Legal Drug Zone. The sales for, say, the next five years. Consider it your "pilot pro­ trouble with this plan, of course, is that it would require a gram." I'll let you know how it works out. government program, which means things will only get Alas, it is painfully evident that Administrator worse. Constantine, having spent a lifetime in governmental Enough government meddling. Legalize drugs and let bureaucracy, simply does not understand there is no need the free market determine where the drug supermarkets will for a "pilot legalization program" - any more than we be, just as it determines the location of bars, liquor stores, needed a "pilot let-women-vote program" in 1920 or a "pilot and pharmacies. make-akohol-Iegal-again program" in 1933. The government "How much are we willing to pay to address the costs of needs only to get out of the way and let the free market take increased drug use? " it from there. The Administrator just doesn't get it, does he? The costs Thus endeth Administrator Constantine's series of ques­ of "increased drug use" - should there be any increased tions no "legalizer" could possibly endure. As none of my drug use, and should there be any costs involved with this answers are in any way new, one must wonder if the increased use - would be borne by the individual users, Administrator has ever read any of these answers before. In who would no longer be paying outrageously inflated drug this country alone, they go back to Thomas Jefferson (" A prices and who would get to keep the taxes normally col­ wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from lected and wasted on the $50-billion-a-year War on Drugs. injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regu­ "HC?w will we deal with the black market that will surely be late their own pursuits of industry and improvement"), created to satisfy the need for cheaper, purer drugs?" didn't miss Lincoln ("A prohibition law strikes a blow at the No, no, Administrator Constantine, it's called a "free very principles upon which our government was founded"), market" - not a "black market." A black market is what we and even touched George Bush when William Bennett have now because you and your Special Agents have driven a wasn't around ("You cannot federalize morality"). much-demanded commodity underground. Legalization will (I plan to stage Othello someday with George Bush as create a free market again, where drugs will be pure, dosages Othello, William Bennett as Iago, and drugs as Desdemona.) known, strengths uniform, and prices very reasonable, as -Peter McWilliams 32 Liberty Essa}'

Freedom and Madness by Thomas s. Szasz

To commit violent and unjust acts, it is not enough for a government to have the will or even the power; the habits, ideas, and passions of the time must lend themselves to their committal. -Alexis de Tocqueville

Psychiatric slavery -.that i.sl confining individuals in madhouses - began in the sev­ enteenth century, grew In the eIghteenth, and became an accepted social custom in the nineteenth century. Becaus~ th~ ~r~ctice entai~s depriving individuals innocent of lawbreaking of liberty, it requires appropriate moral and legal JustifIcation. The hIstory of psychiatry - especially in its relation to law - is largely the story of changing justifications for psychiatric incarceration. The met­ mental compulsion exemplify the reign of force."2 When amorphosis of one criterion for commitment into another is Voltaire exclaimed, "Ecrazez l'infarne!" he was using the word typically called "psychiatric reform." It is nothing of the l'infarne to refer to the power of the Church to torture and kind. The bottom line of the psychiatric balance sheet is kill, not to its power to misinform or mislead. fixed: Individuals deemed insane are incarcerated because The potency of power as force, symbolized by the gun, they are "mentally ill and dangerous to themselves and/or rests on the ability to injure or kill the Other; whereas the others."* For more than forty years, I have maintained that potency of power as influence rests on the ability to gratify psychiatric reforms are exercises in prettifying plantations. the Other's desires. The individual who depends on another Slaver~ cannot be reformed, it can only be abolished. So long person for the satisfaction of his needs - or whose needs/ as the Idea of mental illness imparts legitimacy to the exer­ desires can be aroused by another - experiences the Other cise of psychiatric power, psychiatric slavery cannot be as having power over him. Such is the power of the mother abolished. over her infant, of the doctor over his patient, of Circe over Power is the ability to compel obedience. Its sources are Ulysses. In proportion as we master or surmount our force from above, and dependency from below. By force I desires, we liberate ourselves from this source of mean the legal and/or physical ability to deprive another domination. person of life, liberty, or property. By dependency I mean the The main source of psychiatric power is coercive domina­ desire or need for others as protectors or providers. t IINature," observed Samuel Johnson, "has given women so tion, exemplified by the imposition of an ostensibly diagnos­ much power that the law has very wisely given them little." 1 tic or therapeutic intervention on a subject against his will. The sexual power (domination) women wield (over men Its other source is dependency, exemplified by individuals who desire them) is here cleverly contrasted with their legal defining themselves as unable to control their own behavior and seeking psychiatric controls. Involuntary psychiatric powerlessness (a subservience imposed on them by men). To distinguish between coercive and non-coercive means of securing obedience, we must distinguish between force .. In this essay, I limit myself to a critique of the civil commitment and persuasion, violence and authority. Alfred North of persons not charged with crimes. I consider the insanity defense and o~her (ab)us:s of coercive psychiatry in several of my other books espe­ Whitehead put it thus: "[T]he intercourse between individu­ Cially Law, Llberty, and Psychiatry; Psychiatric Justice; and Insanity: The als and between social groups takes one of these two forms, Idea and Its Consequences. ~orce and persuasion. Commerce is the great example of . t The sph~res of legitimacy for power and dependency, respec­ Intercourse by way of persuasion. War, slavery, and govern- tively, are defIned by law, custom, and tradition. Liberty 33 May 1998 interventions rest on force, voluntary psychiatric relations on present period of history. Man woke up, discovered that dependency. Equating them is as absurd as equating rape which he always knew, that happiness is dependent upon 4 with consensual sex.* 3 health, and began to kill for therapeutic reasons. When a person suffers - from disease, oppression, or Among these therapeutic reasons, the treatment of men­ want - he naturally seeks the assistance of persons who tal illness occupies a unique place. have the knowledge, skill, or power to help him or on whom he projects such attributes. In ancient times, priests ­ We Withhold These Truths believed to possess the ability to intercede with gods - were In the modern West, slavery qua slavery is of course as the premier holders of power. For a long time, curing souls, dead as the proverbial dodo. Reviewing a book about healing bodies, and relieving social-economic difficulties Jefferson, Brent Staples declares: "Slavery and the were all regarded as priestly roles, utilizing both coercive Declaration of Independence can in no way be reconciled.... and cooperative interventions. Only in the last few centuries The natural rights section of the Declaration - the most have the roles of priest, physician, and politician become dif­ famous words in American history - reflected the belief that ferentiated, as Religion, Medicine, and Politics - each insti­ personal freedom was guaranteed by God Himself."s tution allotted its "proper" sphere of influence, each Alas, if only it were that simple. The words "freedom­ slavery," like the words "right-wrong," are by definition antithetical. Hence, asserting that they cannot be reconciled is a pleonasm. But it is a pleonasm only in principle. In The history of psychiatry the story of chang­ practice it is a temptation - a challenge to people's ingenu­ ing justifications for psychiatric incarceration. ity to reconcile irreconcilables - to which many yearn to The metamorphosis of one criterion for commit­ yield. All that is needed to accomplish the task is hypocrisy and demagoguery: Would-be dominators can then "dis­ ment into another is typically called "psychiatric cover" that the persons they seek to enslave are child-like, reform." the victims of one or another calamity from which they need to be protected. This formula explains why chattel slavery and the Declaration of Independence could coexist struggling to enlarge its scope and power over the others. for nearly a century; why racial and gender slavery and the Moreover, only in the West has the power of the priest been Declaration of Independence could coexist well into the reduced to the same level as the power of the people, that is, twentieth century; and why psychiatric slavery and the to the opportunity to persuade willing listeners. The separation of Church and State - that is, withdraw­ ing from religious authorities and organizations the legal While most mental patients are now housed authority to use force and denying them funds extracted by force (taxes)t - represents a sharp break in the history of in buildings not called "hospitals," they are still mankind. Although paying lip service to an Almighty, the deprived of liberty, typically by court-ordered American Constitution is, in effect, a declaration of the prin­ "outpatient commitment" and "drug treat­ ciple that only agents of the state can exercise power legiti­ mately, and that the sole source of the government's ment," euphemisms that disguise their true legitimacy is the "happiness of the people," insured by secur­ status more· effectively than· ever. ing "the consent of the governed." Gradually, other western states have adopted this outlook. The Argentinean poet and novelist Adolfo Bioy Casares satirized the resulting "happi­ ness" thus: Declaration of Independence can now coexist in perfect harmony. Well then, maybe it would be worth mentioning the three periods of history. When man believed that happiness was Although modern governments repudiate slavery as the dependent upon God, he killed for religious reasons. When grossest violation of "universal human rights," they continue man believed that happiness was dependent upon the form to exert far-reaching controls over personal conduct, typi­ of government, he killed for political reasons. After dreams cally justifying coercive paternalism as the protection ofvictims that were too long, true nightmares ... we arrived at the from themselves. Today, the mental patient does not lose his liberty because the state deprives him of it; he loses it * Some psychiatric critics - opposing the use of psychiatric drugs, because the state declares him to be the beneficiary of a new electric shock treatment, or psychotherapy - advocate the legal prohi­ "constitutional right." In O'Connor v. Donaldson, the justices bition of one or another method or relationship, on the ground that of the Supreme Court discovered such a new right, hereto­

people need the protection of the state from the IIexploitation" intrinsic fore hidden in the Constitution. They declared: "[A] State to the practices of psychiatrists and psychotherapists. However, coer­ cannot constitutionally confine [in a mental hospital] without cive protection from psychiatric treatment is just as patronizing and more a nondangerous individual ..."[sic] 6 Psychiatrists lost inimical to dignity-and-liberty as coercive protection from psychiatric no time dubbing this "[something] more" the "mental illness. It t Many Americans erroneously believe that this condition obtains patient's right to treatment." is important to emphasize in all modern democracies. In Britain there is no formal separation of that the "treatment" the court had in mind was, by defini­ church and state. In Germany and Switzerland, religious bodies tion, involuntary: It applied only to involuntary mental receive monies collected by the state. patients. continued on page 36 34 Liberty I feel your pain...

•You're discouraged with the lack of interest Libertarian Eric Szuter has put aside his career in me­ in LIBERTY & libertarianism chanical engineering to found • You've spent time and money to promote Sunrise Communications, a publishing company dedi­ LIBERTY with little results cated to promoting a better • You can't even get your brother-in-law understanding of the science and technologies of human interested freedom and societal liberty. ([email protected]) Been there, done that -

Trying to interest others in the ideals of FREEDOM and LIBERTY Many, if not most, of us libertarians, endlessly study and analyze can be frustrating. For a long while, I didn't have much success. political economy issues down to the last minutia. We watch coercion­ Eventually, I came to the unhappy conclusion that I must be doing based government programs rumble down the runway with four something fundamentally wrong. Since behavior is based onbeliefs, flat tires, huffing and puffing, engines backfiring and leaking oil ­ I suspected that something must be wrong with my worldview. we are not surprised that they won't fly - but does this advance us one iota toward greater FREEDOM and LIBERTY? No way! After many years of soul searching and studying FREEDOM and LIBERTY with this in mind, I finally discovered what was wrong For a moment, imagine you are back in the year 1900 looking at one with my worldview and corrected it. My improved worldview, of the many airplanes that was not capable of flight. You wouldn't helped me improve my behavior. I am now getting results where spend a lifetime studying every detail of a machine that is known before, I got none. You too can change your whole outlook on life ­ not to work? You might learn a few important things, but to establish you canbe happier, you canbe more productive, have more personal sustained and controlled flight you need to go far beyond that ­ power, save time and money, and be constructively adding to the like the Wright Brothers did! measure of human freedom and societal liberty - and be bringing people into a deeper appreciation of LIBERTY, all at the same time! In the same way, if you're tired of not having enough people with whom to share your love of FREEDOM and LIBERTY, you must For starters, study my adjust your worldview. I can help. You can get started quickly by studying my Special Reports A, B, & C and my book The Return of eSpecial Report A: The Bridge to Liberty - Design Common Sense. Once your worldview is adjusted, you will be able to Parameters ($10.00, Sunrise Communications) focus your productive efforts more effectively. Plus you'll be able to better position yourself to profit from the important transition we eSpecial Report B: Good-bye Political Money, Hello Liberty havejustnow begun - a shift to a world with a much greater degree ($10.00, Sunrise Communications), and of human freedom and societal liberty.

eSpecial Report C: Libertarian Anthropologist Uncovers Vast Best of all, once you get my book The Return ofCommon Sense under New Field ofBusiness ($10.00, Sunrise Communications) your belt, you'll be able to efficiently funnel people into a deeper appreciation of LIBERTY. You will find The Return of Common Sense plus my book The Return of Common Sense ($14.95, Sunrise to be an unparalleled tool for getting people off the street and into a Communications). Begin to promote FREEDOM and LIBERTY as LIBERTY-friendly mindset. It's great to be free in the sense of Harry effectively and as strongly as you love it. Why not profit from an Browne's How I Found Freedom in An Unfree World, but it's even improved worldview? Why not profit from your love ofFREEDOM sweeter if you have many others to enjoy your FREEDOM with­ and LIBERTY? And why not bring more people to an enlightened the more the merrier! view of these critically important concepts all at the same time? Act now! Save 33 % !

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Who was Kenneth Donaldson and how did he become public to serving the needs of the denominated patient. entangled with the psychiatric system? Briefly, he was an The catastrophic implications of these ideas have not yet unemployed and unwanted guest in his father's house. begun to dawn on American lawmakers, much less on the When Donaldson refused to remove himself, his father American people. The "new Nero," C. S. Lewis warned, turned to the psychiatric system to remove him. Thus did "will approach us with the silky manners of a doctor." 11 Kenneth Donaldson become a "guest" of the psychiatric Today, almost a quarter of a century after the hospital system, officially called a "patient." Ensconced \ Donaldson decision, the Supreme Court is in his new home, Donaldson refused "treatment": , considering whether a terminally ill patient He insisted that he was not mentally ill and ~ ~} , has a constitutional right to physician­ claimed he was a Christian Scientist. ~ ~ tI assisted suicide. Never mind that the term Notwithstanding the internally contradictory "terminally ill" is dangerously elastic; that sui- character of Donaldson's subsequent complaint - () cide is illegal, prohibited by the mental health that his psychiatrists failed to treat his illness - the law of everyone of the fifty states; or that Supreme Court accepted the case, presumably as an because suicide is illegal, it cannot be opportunity to reinforce the legitimacy of psychiatric "assisted," it can only be "accompliced." slavery. To be sure, the "complaint" was not really These are but minor roadblocks retarding our Donaldson's: The real protagonists were his handlers, triumphant march toward the full realization self-anointed reformers of mental health policy, who of the Therapeutic State. "Even if the treat­ fabricated an absurdly hypocritical strategy to advance ment is painful, even if it is life-long, even if it their own misguided agenda. Donaldson was merely is fatal, that" - mocked Lewis - "will be their foil. only a regrettable accident; the inten­ Why did the Donaldson case arouse so much tion was purely therapeutic."12 professional and popular interest? Partly because it reopened in the context of the new Chattel Therapy psychopharmacological treatment of mental illness Psychiatric slavery rests on civil - the question of what constitutes proper ground for commitment and the insanity civil commitment; and partly because Donaldson's defense. Each intervention is a para­ malpractice suit reached the Supreme Court. Today, digm of the perversion of power. If the the case is an arcanum in the history of psychiatric person called "patient" breaks no law, reform. The issues it raised are, however, of he has a right to liberty. And if he continuing interest and importance. breaks the law, he ought to be adjudi­ Although the long-term confinement of cated and punished in the criminal jus- mental patients in buildings called "mental tice system. It is as simple as that. hospitals" - as Donaldson had been con­ Nevertheless, so long as conventional fined - is no longer fashionable, this does wisdom decrees that the mental patient not mean that the uses of coercive psychia­ must be protected from himself, that try have .diminished. On the contrary. society must be protected from the men­ While most mental patients are now housed in buildings not tal patient, and that both tasks rightfully belong to a psychia- called "hospitals," they are still deprived of liberty, typically try wielding powers appropriate to the performance of these by court-ordered "outpatient commitment" and "drug treat­ dues, psychiatric power will remain unreformable. ment," euphemisms that disguise their true status more Some people do threaten society: they commit crimes ­ effectively than ever? Since the Donaldson ruling, psychia­ that is, acts that deprive others of life, liberty, or property. trists routinely invoke claims such as that patients' "rejection Society needs protection from such aggressors. What does of treatment is itself a symptom of their illness";8 that the psychiatry contribute to their management? Civil commit­ "cause [of the 'revolving door syndrome'] may be the result ment, inculpating the innocent, and the insanity defense, of efforts to protect patients' civil rights - sometimes at the exculpating the guilty. Both interventions authenticate as cost of their 'treatment rights' ";9 and that a "180-day outpa­ "real" the socially useful fictions of mental illness and psy­ tient commitment" policy should be widely adopted because chiatric expertise. Both create and confirm the illusion that a person who "is suffering from a severe mental disorder ... we are coping wisely and well with vexing social problems, lacks the capacity to make an informed decision concerning when in fact we are obfuscating and aggravating them. his need for treatment."l0 Psychiatric power thus corrupts not only the psychiatrists The importance of the Donaldson ruling lay in the fact who wield it and the patients who are subjected to it, but the that it ratified psychiatry's latest medical and therapeutic community that supports it as well. As Orwell's nightmarish pretensions. By recognizing the administration of psychoac­ vision of Nineteen Eighty-Four nears its climax, O'Brien tive drugs to mental patients as bona fide medical treatment, explains the functional anatomy of power to Winston thus: the Supreme Court once again lent the weight of its authority [N]o one seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. to literalizing the metaphors of mental illness and mental Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a treatment. In addition, by defining involuntary psychiatric dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes interventions - epitomized by involuntary drugging - as the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The bona fide medical treatments, the court redefined involun­ object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is tary_ psychiatric interventions from serving the needs of the concluded on page 48 36 Liberty ~eculation The Temptation of Bill Gates by Brien Bartels

The Devil who demands to be obeyed offers rewards, too.

For those with a mind for history, the current anti-trust case against Microsoft might recall the contest between Bukharin and the Stalinist prosecutors in Moscow, 1937. Those with a literary bent might imagine ominous parallels with certain scenes in Atlas Shrugged. The war on Microsoft appeals to the mythos of the individual versus the state, the Nietzschean idea of the strong shackled by the weak, and the simple dichotomy of Good Businessmen and Evil browser. It was an attempt to keep Microsoft from forcing Regulators. Whether it is perceived as ending in triumph or the PC manufacturers who license Windows 95 to carry tragedy, the press releases, books, list servers and conven­ Microsoft applications and exclude other companies' prod­ tions of the nation's individualists will be permeated with ucts. In October 1997, the Justice Department, goaded by the pathos of the struggle. Microsoft's competitors Netscape and Sun Microsystems, What we admire in Microsoft may turn out to be its great­ sought to pin a contempt finding, and a mind-boggling mil­ est weakness. It is the nature of entrepreneurs, like Bill Gates, lion-dollar-a-day fine, on Microsoft for violating that consent to put their self-interest first. Government, in its benevo­ decree. Microsoft triggered this action by bundling its inter­ lence, puts many temptations before the entrepreneur. The net browser, Internet Explorer, with Windows 95, and Small Business Administration administers all sorts of loans requiring PC manufacturers to display the browser's icon on to ... well, to small businesses, while loftier departments their product's desktops. A federal judge blocked this prac­ support commodity prices for agribusiness and provide an tice with a preliminary injunction, but declined to fine the array of subsidies for practically everyone else. The govern­ company. In response, Microsoft offered the manufacturers ment has the power to crush a business's competition neutered versions of Windows that, quite justifiably, none of through protectionism and regulation. And regulators can them would touch. Microsoft had followed the letter of the entice entrepreneurs to cooperate in the regulation of their injunction, it was said, but not the spirit. industries; this is not always detrimental to them personally What the government got "was classicMicrosoft," wrote or professionally. So, if the trust-busters decide that they Tim Steinert-Threlkeld in Interactive Week Online, "a prag­ must ensure "fairness" and "level playing fields" in the elec­ matic settlement that really lets it go on doing what it tronic frontier, will Gates struggle on in the free-market path intended to do all along." and continue his role in the computer revolution? Or will he The PC makers preferred to continue licensing the soft­ lead the personal computer into a Babylonian captivity of ware that had been foisted on them, with the controversial regulation and stagnation? . Explorer icon perched happily on the desktop. That, and the The substance of the match between Microsoft and the fact that Microsoft included the browser software free with Department of Justice is this: In 1994, the Justice's Antitrust the operating system, while chief competitor Netscape division got Microsoft to agree to a consent decree which, charged computer manufacturers for its browser, made among other things, "forbade Microsoft from leveraging its Microsoft's "victims" unwilling to change the status quo. near-monopoly in Windows to benefit its other products," Again, the DOJ called for a contempt citation and fine. applications like its Excel spreadsheet or Explorer internet So on January 22, Microsoft agreed to cooperate more Liberty 37 May 1998 fully with the federal judge who holds its fate, agreeing to plea. They could surrender the right to integrate software. distribute Windows without an Explorer icon. Or, in dire straits, they could actually become a midwife for On April 21, Microsoft will again stand tall before The regulation of the computer industry. Microsoft would be Man, this time seeking to reverse the injuction against bun­ reduced to the status of a publicly managed utility, the dling. The corporation's lawyers, having apologized for their Windows monopoly intact but managed for the public good. former "disrespectful, belligerent and difficult" attitudes Gotterdiimerung for Bill Gates, but for his competitors and (that is, acting like good capitalist heroes), will try to pave critics too. That's also pragmatism. the way for the release of Windows 98, which will include a Microsoft would not be the first market leader to be fully integrated browser. That product is outside the consent seduced by the Dark Side. Consider the railroads. By the decree's purview, but not necessarily immune to govern­ 1880s, two decades of amazing growth and competition had ment scrutiny. given America the most extensive rail network in the world. Picture Microsoft's decision tree for a moment, from the But that competition and growth made life precarious for perspective of the now-besieged brain trust. The company the railroad owners; their fates were like that of Netscape seems to have abandoned their aggressive, almost contemp­ and Sun today: work and invest for years and see your tuous defense of their prerogatives. There are two possible lunch eaten by bigger, better-positioned competitors from above, and nibbled by smaller upstarts from below. When the efforts of Populists, Grangers, farmers and manufactur­ ers managed to get legislation authorizing freight price reg­ The observers, mostly untutored pundits, who ulation in the late 1880s, the railroad magnates did not attack Microsoft's "monopoly" point out the appeal to natural law to defend their right to make an hon­ mischief that Microsoft might do. est profit for the vital transportation services they were pro­ viding. They did not try to educate the howling mobs and the magistrates of the positive social consequences of the railroads' consensual activity. They didn't talk about Adam outcomes of a deferential strategy. The judge, charmed by Smith or William Graham Sumner. Instead they acquiesced their new respectful attitude, could reverse the injunction. to the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission, That would incite the anti-trust authorities to take more dras­ which set rates for freight where once competition and frag­ tic action. Or the judge, still smarting from the "defamatory" ile cartels had pursued equilibrium. And the Interstate and "trivial" defense gambits of the old Microsoft strategy, Commerce Commission was made up of ... the railroad could issue a permanent injuction. And then the Microsoft men who were to have their predatory profit-seeking brain trust would perceive that they are more vulnerable to instincts beaten into respectful submission. They did not their enemies. Not merely "in the Bull's eye," as Sen. Ted require much convincing to see that their self-interest might Kennedy said at the Senate hearing Mar. 3, but at ground be better served by the government's protective hand than zero of an anti-monopoly action. by the fickle invisible hand. So the industry's major players For a clue as to what might be feeding this paranoia, con­ insulated themselves from change, and the railroads stag­ sider the man whom the government retained as a consul­ nated. Rates were high, competition low, and entry tant, David Boies. Although he worked for IBM during the restricted. And the customers were materially worse off computer giant's 13-year prosecution under the Sherman than before the regulation. Act, Boies should be remembered for his last star turn for the Microsoft, with its will to survive, sure of its right not government. As a partner at Cravath, Swaine, & Moore, he merely to compete but to dominate the market, might extend helped the government loot $1.1 billion in civil penalties its pragmatism and cooperativeness to the full regulation from Drexel Burnham Lambert and the other investment and rationalization of the computer software market. banks during the post-Michael Milken pogrom on Wall Regulation is something that Sun Microsystem's CEO Scott Street. The firm took $17 million or so in compensation. NcNealy has said "would be a disaster for everyone." Given Today, Boies is letting himself go at half his $550 an hour fee. a few years to think it over, the Microsoft brain trust might He will lead the government's legal team if litigation is not see why it would be so disastrous. called for. He is just the sort of attorney to hire to send a grim message to a defendant. History, Opportunity, Motive Surely, the heroic Mr. Gates would not, could not be so Survive! nefarious as to collaborate with the forces that want to stifle Countless professional thinkers have commented on the competition and trample the consumer's right of free choice. Microsoft will to power, the urge to win and the paranoia Let's examine that in an orderly way. Well, why not? The that starts in the fevered brain of William Gates III and pene­ antitrust division's powers provide the opportunity for trates, undiminished in intensity, the whole organization. Microsoft to effect a mammoth reorganization of the com­ Microsoft's stock value is commensurate with the will of the puter industry. The motive is survival. What is the suspect's organization to survive. Faced with huge civil fines, the pos­ history? sible break-up of the company in anti-trust proceedings, pos­ Let's start with the founders of Microsoft. The devotion sible regulation of the industry if Congress decides to of Bill Gates and Paul Allen to the pristine market is far from "solve" the problem courts and lawyers won't, and a market clear. Gates provided both his money and, on one occasion, position that some advanced thinkers believe it will not his commanding telegenic persona (a possible exaggeration) occupy much longer, Microsoft faces the temptation to cop a to support initiatives for gun control, and to stop initiatives 38 Liberty May 1998 for tax limitation and school choice in Washington state. Microsoft spent $1.1 million on lobbying in 1996, an invest­ The evidence against Paul Allen is even more solid. In ment they surely mean to recoup. 1997, Allen sought the help of the public in Usaving" the So. We know that Microsoft is capable of collaboration. Seattle Seahawks, a football team which he wanted to pur­ They have the history. They have the opportunity. But why chase. To save U our team," it was not only necessary to pay should Microsoft play the game with the regulators when owner Ken Behring to go back to L.A., but to build a new sta­ they hold all the cards in the free market? What about the dium for the team. The new stadium would cost far more monopoly on the operating system? than its effect on revenue would justify, so Allen went to the state legislature asking for a gift of a few hundred million Monopoly Myths dollars to finance it. The legislature obliged, but gave the The monopoly on the operating system that Microsoft public the right to stop the huge subsidy by public referen­ "forces" everyone to use originates in the license agreement dum. The first referendum - held only in King County, between the company and IBM in 1981. It created a standard whose taxpayers would foot the bill - failed to support the for the industry, an open architecture in which the corporate stadium by a substantial margin. The legislature obliged clients of the first PCs could add a mix of software that was again, this time with a measure to put the tax burden on all suited to their unique operations. Microsoft DOS and later Washington taxpayers. Allen financed a lavish advertising campaign, and the measure survived the referendum. The personal decisions of the two founders of Microsoft seem to suggest that they find little problem with cooperat­ Bill Gates provided both his money and his ing with the agents of coercion, if it serves a positive end. But commanding telegenic persona (a possible exag­ that's an opinion that they share with 80 percent of the pri­ vate citizens of the United States. What about Microsoft's geration) to support gun control and to fight tax strategy for survival in a state-run world? limitation and school choice in Washington Microsoft had no significant presence in Washington, D.C., state. until its run-in with the DOJ in 1994. Since then, it opened a virtual subsidiary on the banks of the Potomac. A move ofself­ defense, obviously, excusable on the ground that the govern­ ment aggressed upon them and may again. And the entire Microsoft Windows became the lingua franca for the commer­ industry has become more active. Congresspeople used to cial world's computer revolution. It was not a pure monop­ complain about the paucity of contributions from high-tech oly. IBM and other companies introduced competing firms. Maybe their complaints registered. Political donations operating systems; and Apple's Macintosh operating system increased 52 percentbetween1992 and 1996. continued to hold a significant market share. But Microsoft became quite proactive after that. In fact, Some economists pointed out that the Microsoft standard their subsidiary became a profit center. was a benign monopoly, since it increased opportunity for As always, Microsoft hired from the honor roll. Among smaller companies to make applications for the existing other, lesser names, Microsoft retained Grover Norquist, operating system architecture. As Gates himself pointed out, chief of Americans for Tax Reform, to influence the the open architecture allowed myriad other producers to Republican majority in Congress. There is a type of code that invest in and innovate on the IBM/Microsoft system, result­ ing in much more investment than the hardware and soft­ ware giants could have devoted by themselves. And innovation flourished. The urge to win and paranoia starts in the The revenue from operating system sales amounts to fevered brain of William Gates III and pene­ only small part of total software sales. The rest of the indus­ trates, undiminished in intensity, the whole try's cash flow comes from applications, and some of organization. Microsoft's applications have fallen flat. Oracle was able to steal market share in the database segment. Microsoft's prod­ uct line for the Macintosh was viewed by Mac users as evi­ dence of actual malfeasance. A recent review of improved he was expert in writing that not even the geniuses at Microsoft Office for Macintosh software was headlined Microsoft could hack: tax code. Norquist was one of many uMicrosoft repents!" (MacWorld, February 1998) The lobbyists who helped install the Software Export Equity Act reviewer's take was that the Microsoft engineers who wrote into Tax Bill 97 via an interface with the House Ways and the original version did not actually study the Mac environ­ Means committee - a move that will save Microsoft hun­ ment, an inept way to conquer a new market. dreds of millions over the next ten years. Since then, And despite the hype about Microsoft tactics in the Norquist has used his influence with Republicans to prevent browser war, as of the end of 1997, Netscape Navigator still restrictions on immigration that might harm Microsoft's abil­ held a larger market share. And the proprietary browser of ity to hire talent from overseas, and to educate lawmakers on internet service provider America On-Line has the largest the software encryption front. This last might be construed market share of all. Meanwhile, IBM has recovered from its as concern for the privacy of Americans, but was played in funk to become, in Gates's opinion, Microsoft's most power­ Washington as a move to preserve the competitiveness of ful competitor. Although IBM is perfectly happy to install software products Made in the U.s.A. By one accounting, and service Windows NT networks, its Lotus Notes, a Liberty 39 May 1998 collaborative software for communicating on local networks, Microsoft's own internal communications, is Java. is ahead of Microsoft Exchange. And IBM is investing heav­ ily in Java, the language developed by Sun Microsystems Java'ed to Death that supposedly has Bill's boxers in a bunch. According to a Microsoft memorandum, Java could be The observers, mostly untutored pundits, who attack the key to "a virtual operating system. Windows will Microsoft's "monopoly" point out the mischief that Microsoft become devalued, replaceable." Java could be the new lingua might do, such as unilaterally changing its operating system cyberia that destroys that necessity for the One Big Operating to shut out the small software producers. Or they quail about System. There might not be a pressing need for an industry the one thing they think they know about monopolists: mon­ standard. And that would dissolve Microsoft dominance. opolists jack up prices and "force" people to buy. The Today, Microsoft and most other industry leaders down­ Windows licensing aggreement has an aspect of this in its play the utility of Java-flavored network computers that IBM mandatory nature, but where is the monopoly pricing? Gates and Sun are investing in. Possibly, it is a similar mind set was giving his browser software away. And in general software that caused IBM to stick to production of mainframes while prices have fallen constantly despite his "monopoly." the Bill Gates's and the Andy Groves's of the 1970s saw that The Economics 101 answer is that monopolies fail, either microprocessors and PCs would mean the end of the main­ due to changes in the competitive environment or due to frame era. technological breakthroughs. To say that Microsoft's "mon­ But those external threats are limited. As the critics of opoly" on operating systems may fall is not to say that sud­ Microsoft and the critics of Gates point out, all of them could denly, consumers and PC manufacturers are going to be co-opted, bought out, or made irrelevant by Microsoft's demand more of O/S 2 Warp. The threat, as described in anticipated countermeasures.

A First Amendment Issue, Not a Mere Antitrust Case

Microsoft is now in a legal battle with the United States nail to prevent the spread of strong encryption and, there­ Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Justice fore, real privacy and untaxable commerce in cyberspace. Department (not a very accurate name) over whether the (The fact that an internet columnist broke the Monica company is engaging in anti-competitive practices and Lewinsky story might be another reason why the attempting to monopolize the Internet browser software Administration would like to gain some control over the market by bundling its Internet Explorer browser with its Net.) This FTC investigation, harassment, and lawsuit may Windows operating system. Microsoft is in an administrative also have something to do with generous fundraising activi­ law court in which the Federal Trade Commission is judge, ties for Democratic National Committee by certain of jury, and executioner. Microsoft's competitors. Perhaps this suit is also intended as But the Microsoft case is being tried under the wrong a message that you, too, should donate a few million dollars law. This is a First Amendment issue in which the to Al Gore and the Democratic National Committee in 1998. Constitution, the law, and the facts are strongly on Microsoft's side, and the case should therefore be in the Is a Browser a Newspaper~ Federal District Court of Washington, D.C. on First The editor of a newspaper decides what information he Amendment issues and on its way to the U.S. Supreme wants and tells his reporters to go out, search for it, and Court, not in an FTC administrative law court. The FTC bring it back in written and graphic form. A person using a cannot alienate First Amendment rights with a consent browser is doing the same thing. The editor then searches decree! through the reports for the information he wants, edits it, Microsoft no doubt has exceptionally talented anti-trust and displays it on a glass screen or prints it on paper. Again, lawyers who are earning their fees. Unfortunately, these law­ a browser does the same thing. The. editor - the browser yers are unlikely to have sufficient expertise in First user - may want to publish it on the Net, which he can do Amendment jurisprudence to realize that it places very strin­ with the browser by transmitting the information via elec­ gent restrictions on how the FTC can limit the actions of tronic mail. Your free Internet Explorer and the Net allow someone who is giving away cyberspace newspapers and everyone to publish information for the whole world and at printing presses - often called web browsers. vastly lower cost than any hundred-ton cast iron printing It is extremely important that Microsoft begin fighting press ever built. As Judge Dalzell of the Washington, D.C. with the right legal defense: their browser - the cyberspace District Court concluded, in declaring the "indecent commu­ equivalent of a newspaper - is both speech and press pro­ nications" section of the Comrnunication Decency Act of tected by the First Amendment. It is particularly important 1996 unconstitutional, that the Internet - as "the most par­ because the real reason the federal government is pursuing ticipatory form of mass speech yet developed," is entitled to this issue is not really because of a supposed anticompetitive "the highest protection from governmental intrusion." The effect of Microsoft's Internet browser; it is because the feds U.S. Supreme Court included this quote of Judge Dalzell's in want a consent decree that will allow them to block upholding the decision of the three-judge panel by 9-0. (Reno Microsoft's announced plans to integrate strong public key et al. v. ACLU et al., U.S. Supreme Court, 96-511, decided encryption into Windows 98, its integrated operating sys­ June 26, 1997.) tem/browser. The federal government will fight tooth and Microsoft's Internet Explorer is not a spreadsheet, not a 40 Liberty May 1998

A more oblique but more dangerous threat materialized The disaster that Sun's McNealy speaks of, regulation, is recently at a different federal court, overshadowed by the not yet an explicit threat. But even the worst case scenario, a anti-trust case. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a commission charged with setting standards and prices to Ninth Circuit court decision against Microsoft in the case of ensure level playing fields, has enough potential benficiaries Microsoft v. Vizcaino. Microsoft was attempting to uphold a to make to politically attractive. For the politicians who cur­ contract clause under which freelance employees would give rently hold the anti-trust division's chains, software industry up the right to purchase stock. When the IRS ruled the free­ regulation is a bold initiative at a time when the marginal lancers weren't freelancers at all, the quasi-contractors imme­ cost of new programs is high in terms of political capital. The diately sued for the right to Microsoft employee stock public might initially perceive the stabilization of the industy benefits. At stake was not merely a measly few shares of dis­ counted stock. The real risk was that Microsoft would ruin its reputation as a good place to work, and thus its attractive­ Microsoft had no significant presence in ness to the pool of genius coders. The Microsoft mystique, and the Microsoft compensation plan, is, as one observer put Washington, D.C., until its run-in with the DOl it, "its single biggest competitive advantage." in 1994. Since then, it opened a virtual subsidi­ ary on the banks ofthe Potomac. Microsoft Tempted by. the Devil Sooner or later, Bill Gates's empire will totter, either because of an error in judging the competition, or because of Microsoft's loss of vitality. At that point, the temptations the way they initially perceived health care reform: a simple offered by government's privileges and protections will be way to achieve fairness while lowering costs to the consu­ most keenly felt. mer. And besides that, the slowing of innovation under regu­ lation might be attractive to Americans tired of buying upgraded software every six months. For the "capitalist rob­ ber barons," regulation offers the chance to leave their "mere item of commerce" which can be regulated in inter­ "dirty" commercial enterprises and enter the pristine realm state commerce under the Constitution's Commerce Clause. of public service as advisors and experts. Innovation will It is speech. It is the press. It is peaceable assembly. And as become, in part, contingent on politics. Investment in new the First Amendment says, "congress shall make no law ... and better computing systems would likely grind to a snail's abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right pace, perhaps even a halt, since the"official" operating sys­ of the people peaceably to assemble ..." tem, Windows, licensed by the software commis~ion, must The Justice Department is likely to argue that the less continue as the standard. From this beginning po~ht it is but stringent "commercial speech doctrine" standards of court a short step to midnight raids by armed enforcers searching review of the government's regulatory powers apply (See for unlicensed software. Rubin v. Coors Brewing Co., U.S. Supreme Court (1995) and This is not a scenario that today's neo-liberals in the DOJ Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island, U.s. Supreme Court (1996)), like to talk about. Instead they stick with platitudes of level but since millions of browser users are not just engaging in playing fields and the encouragement of innovation. Anti­ interstate commerce, but are indeed engaging in political trust chief Joel Klein has composed whole rhapsodies on these speech (perhaps to the displeasure of some in the federal themes; read his quotes in the papers every time his team government), you should argue that the most protective tightens the screws on Microsoft. They are selling the "bene­ political speech standards apply. The feds have no fits" of regulation. But protection and privilege result from the Constitutional authority to stop you from giving away news­ most timid injunctions and the most Stalinist nightmares. And papers and printing presses. In fact, the First Amendment that is the temptation that blurs the line we'd like to maintain prohibits such interference. between our Good Businessmen and Evil Regulators. There is a lot more at stake in the Microsoft case than When the government remains in its proper bounds, you're hearing from the FTC, the Justice Department, the leaving the consumers and producers free to achieve their media, and even from Microsoft's lawyers: everyone's free­ objectives by the customs of the markets, innovation is dom of speech (not just Bill Gates's and Microsoft's) is at "encouraged" by the desire of entrepreneurs to succeed. risk. That desire, sometimes called greed, sometimes feared The first step to protect both your freedom and ours is to because of its power, has constantly uplifted society. For file for a stay in the Federal District Court for the District of thousands of years people have lived by that desire to Columbia to hold the antitrust issues until the First improve their circumstances through success in commerce. Amendment issues are decided - an argument that is likely Adam Smith observed it. Hayek and Mises dignified it. to go all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court, but will be very Generations of entrepreneurs, beginning with the well worth your time, effort, and money in the long run. International Business Machines and continuing with Sun Perhaps a century from now, Bill Gates will be remembered and Oracle and Microsoft today, have proven its efficacy as the man who saved freedom in cyberspace with a land­ with the computer revolution. mark First Amendment decision in the year 2000, rather than Will Bill Gates eschew further collaboration, even if it as the systems programmer who wrote MS-DOS back in the means more harassment? Even with the knowledge that early '80s and became a billionaire. what he has worked to build may be swept away by the tem­ -Durk Pearson & Sandy Shaw pestuous market? It is a finely balanced contest. 0 Liberty 41 Observation The Empire Strikes Out by Alan W. Bock

Global cop? Sole remaining super-power? No, empire.

Now that the cold war is over and the era of the "sole superpower" struggles to be born, it is possible to talk about empire without having the discussion dominated by Leninist understandings and shibboleths. More people have less interest than in times' past in concealing the fact that America is an empire; they are now apt even to debate the pros and cons of maintaining or expanding it. It is hardly novel, of course, for various paleos, conserva­ the mature soldier and civil administrator in his forties. The tive and libertarian, to bewail the growth of an American French thought the rational ideals needed to rule others empire and to call it by its proper name. But to find frank wisely could be acquired more through education than expe­ discussion of an American empire in places closer to the rience, thus treasured people of action in their thirties. The belly of the beast is refreshing and, I hope, a harbinger of Nazis and Soviets valued courage, strength and loyalty things to come. Last summer The National Interest, published amounting to blind obedience, typically found in twenty­ by Irving Kristol and edited by the former Australian diplo­ somethings. mat Owen Harries, printed a fascinating piece by James The modern American empire that grew during and after Kurth, who teaches political science at Swarthmore and is World War II, Kurth says, was founded by unusually mature associated with the American Enterprise Institute, called and experienced Europhiles - the Marshall-Acheson­ "The Adolescent Empire." The reference was to the Kennan "wise men" who were "present at the creation," and American empire in its current manifestation, and what Mr. flexed America's hegemonic muscles during a period when Kurth viewed as its dim prospects for continuing Europe was also run by mature conservatives like Adenauer, domination. Churchill and DeGaulle. In its present manifestation, how­ Drawing on European perceptions, which have always ever, "while the peace component based upon military pro­ viewed the United States more as an imperial power than as tection is becoming more ambiguous and the prosperity the idealistic republic we naive Yanks prefer to see, he com­ component based upon open economies is becoming more pared the American version of empire to past recent empires dubious, the 'soft power' component of popular entertain­ in terms of "the empire's particular vision of politics, econom­ ment based upon global media is becoming more pervasive." ics, culture, and ultimately of such fundamentals as human And American culture's ideal type is the popular entertainer nature and the meaning of life itself. These together comprise or sports star. "In short, the ideal human type of the its imperial idea." Thus the Hapsburg Empire was built American imperial idea is the adolescent." And "in the end around a Roman Catholic vision, the British Empire around a - in its erratics, its entertainments, and its emptiness - an Protestant and commercial ideal, the French Empire around adolescent empire will be no empire at all." the ideal of the Rational Nation-State, and so forth. He didn't go so far as to note the appropriateness of the Key to Kurth's imperial morphology was the "ideal Adolescent Empire being presidented by the Perpetual­ human type" each empire promoted and valued. The Adolescent-in-Chief, but I don't mind. Hapsburg's ideal honored experience and mature judgment, The neo-imperialists (they've been neo-everything-else, found in men-of-the-world in their fifties. The British valued so why not?) at the Weekly Standard found all this alarming 42 Liberty May 1998 enough to devote a recent article to the dread phenomenon tence to fix those problems even if they had the resources of resurgent isolationism on the right, citing Kurth along they think they need. Whether this arises from legendary with the Buchananites for insufficient zeal for the world­ American insularity and self-absorption or from a sophisti­ cleansing reformist potential of a Sole Remaining cated understanding of just how deep and particular are the Superpower in the right guiding hands - or even in bedrag­ roots of many of the world's conflicts, how unlikely they are gled Clintonian hands so long as the right people are viewed to yield to well-meaning but bumbling outside intervention, as real players in the imperial city. there's a solid if not always self-conscious bias against And, in a sense the Weekly Standardites' fears were not American imperialism. groundless: budding oppositionist heresies from quarters Indeed, the builders of the American empire studiously both predictable and surprising botched the build-up to Bill avoided that word, as aware as the next person of the and AI's Excellent Adventure in what could have been a splendid little make-believe war against the Evil Saddam. At first it seemed that only foreigners opposed the idea of Most Americans outside a relatively tight cir­ a first strike against the Saddam, but that foreign opposition cle offoreign-policy professionals (and academ­ seems to have legitimized latent questions among Americans. And, sure enough, the first time lieutenants of ics who study them and media that cover them) the imperial expeditionary force, Madeline Albright, William have no desire at all for this country to be an Cohen, and Sandy Berger, placed themselves in contact with imperial power. some actual American citizens - at a "Town Meeting" staged in Columbus, Ohio, for CNN - they were hooted off the stage. country's roots in rebellion against empire and devotion to Even more damaging than the delightfully noisome heck­ some variant of the founding myths of individualism and lers were the reasonably searching and informed questions democratic zeal. Woodrow Wilson built the foundations of asked by more outwardly polite members of the audience ­ empire on a rhetoric of anti-colonialism, FDR expanded it much better questions, not so incidentally, than are asked by through a crusade against fascism, and the cold warriors media professionals at most Washington news conferences expanded it further on the need to cooperate to contain the - to which the top national security officials in the govern­ historically unprecedented threat of communist imperialism. ment had no coherent answers. Indeed, the meandering bab­ With that threat removed, today's imperial advocates have ble of the Curly-Moe-Larry troika in Columbus did more to to speak in the language of spreading the blessings of undermine the usual unquestioning support by Americans democracy and free markets, crusading for universal politi­ for a president's foreign designs than either the hecklers or cal and spiritual values and protecting the innocent victims. Boris Yeltsin. The erosion of what had been expected to be As the emotional dust from February's drumbeat for war automatic support was more important in the decision to clears, however, more Americans may find time to grapple accept the results of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's with a disturbing fact that marks the proposed bombing of mission to the Beast of Baghdad than anything contained in Baghdad as a quintessentially imperial enterprise. At no time the meaningless piece of paper he brought back. during the propaganda build-up did anybody wonder very Does this nascent popular opposition to lofting bombers publicly if there shouldn't be at least a pretext other than over Baghdad indicate a widespread recognition of and defiance of U.N. inspectors, so it could at least be billed as a opposition to the imperial ambitions of our titular leaders? response to aggression. George Bush's Iraq adventure fol­ Probably not. At least as many of the doubters in Columbus lowed an actual Iraqi invasion of a neighboring country. The - and elsewhere if my unscientific soundings mean anticipated Clintonite bombing would have been a clear case anything - were probably of the Saddam-needs-his-butt­ of unprovoked - except in the most abstract of senses ­ kicked-but-Clinton-ain't-the-guy-to-do-it school as of the aggression by the United States of America, the land of the it's-none-of-our-business school. But even hawks of that free. brand will not provide a reliable constituency for future Administration spinmeisters didn't even bother to try to imperial adventures. The American desire for quick, decisive make a case or construct a scenario in which the American military encounters rather than long struggles, the almost bombing could be viewed as an essentially defensive universal demand that an "exit strategy" be in place before a response to aggressive behavior. Saddam displeased us by commitment is made, have been noted often enough to defying the U.N. (never mind that the U.N. itself wasn't par­ sound cliched, but this cliche seems to hold some truth. ticularly upset), and the sole remaining superpower has cer­ The truth is that most Americans outside a relatively tain responsibilities and prerogatives in the world it tight circle of foreign-policy professionals (and academics dominates. That includes, apparently, first strikes or unpro­ who study them and media that cover them) have no desire voked aggression against countries we find unsettling or at all for this country to be an imperial power. We can get annoying. whipped up over thugs like Saddam or by media coverage Now those who have fancied themselves our masters of famine or civil war for a while, but most Americans are have more than once eagerly desired to get the United States much less eager to try to fix all those problems than are our involved in war and have maneuvered shamelessly to make sole-superpower deep thinkers. Furthermore, most it happen. Until now, however, they have had the decency, Americans have little confidence that those running foreign the respect for the ideals and myths the country cherishes policy institutions have the knowledge, expertise or compe- about itself, to arrange for the wars to be initiated or Liberty 43 May 1998 expanded by some aggressive act by another country, even a Americans might be pushed to consider whether they really phony one like Tonkin Gulf in Vietnam. Until now, want their country to be the policeman, or even the sheriff Americans have preferred to believe they only responded to (presumably a more limited role) of the world on the taxpay­ aggression, that they weren't the type of country to initiate it. ers' dime. An increasing acknowledgment that the United An idealistic protector of recognized national rights and States has become an imperial power, despite our history sovereignty mig~t not initiate aggression, but an imperial and ideals, could cause more Americans to consider foreign power that believed it had a mission to protect stability and policy issues in the context of imperial ambition or over­ put down disturbances might well consider the kind of puni­ stretchrather then viewing them as ad hoc, isolated crises. If tive strike the compassionate Clintonites had in mind for they do, perhaps Americans will find ways to let their lead­ Iraq. ers know that they want no part of being an empire or run­ If this way of viewing the incident gains credence, more ning the world. 0

Reflections, continued from page 18

Julian saw his work and (may I suggest) the work of vibrancy of many public interest and trade groups. But not Heritage, Cato, Liberty, Reason, CEI, and the other voices for all. The private value of the CEI newletter or the Cato bene­ economic and individual liberty, as the instruments to bring factor summit seem too low to justify existing levels of sup­ about those institutional changes, those critical reforms port for classical liberal efforts. Like most economists, Olson which would further liberate the human spirit. Mankind ­ placed too little weight on ideology, on the theological value Julian Simon's ultimate resource - would create and develop of public interest organizations. Still, this work did act as a the institutions of freedom necessary to liberate more and nice empirical antidote to the belief that any market failure more of man's creative powers, allowing more and more of argument justified an expanding government. us to contribute more to a more prosperous and fulfilling The Rise and Decline ofNations focused on the tendency of future, to enjoy even more the full rapture of life. Each of us the political process to be captured by special interest would playa part in that liberating effort - and that would groups, parasitic forces that weaken society. This broad pub­ ensure julian's "beautiful resource future." lic choice criticism of western democracies made major Julian's work is a strong argument in favor of this thesis. inroads into the academic world, weakening statism, the He did not survive to the end of this war. His ideas have not dominant secular religion. yet prevailed against the Doomsday Class. Others have to For my tastes, Olson was too eager for intellectual continue this battle. But Julian did it first and he did it most approval to ever break ranks with the intellectual establish­ completely. His work will continue to influence this debate ment. He liked to think he was a real scientist and he was and it will ultimately prevail. uncomfortable with arguments that economists might be Still, he will be missed profoundly. The minority of intel­ driven by ideology (by religious beliefs in effect) just like lectuals who speak for the individual is much weaker in his other interest groups. Unlike Julian Simon, Olson also con­ absence. -FLS stantly sought recognition from mainstream economists (and often succeeded, although his greatest successes were prob­ Mancur Olson and Yale Brozen, R.I.P. ­ ably with other disciplines). Like many closet libertarians, Two other individuals, both academics, both challenging ele­ Olson viewed recognition from fellow intellectuals as impor­ ments of the modern statist ideology, died in the last few tant validation, as evidence that his views were respected. days - Mancur Olson and Yale Brozen. Olson was an honest Julian Simon's standard was truth - a harder metric, but scholar whose works - The Logic ofCollective Action and The one that I find more agreeable. Even so, Olson was one of the Rise and Decline of Nations - contributed to a better under­ few in the academy to question even tentatively the pessi­ standing of the potential of a world of spontaneous order mistic forces dominant today. and the threats to that order. Yale Brozen, a leading Chicago school economist, worked The Logic of Collective Action addressed the logical para­ most deeply in the field of antitrust regulation. It was his dox spun by the Chicago school economists - public goods, work Concentration, Mergers and Public Policy that took the it was asserted, would not be produced adequately because libertarian critiques of antitrust into the academic main­ each person would benefit whether or not they themselves stream. Antitrust policy almost always (he was still in the had contributed to the production of that good and therefore academy, we should note) involves an effort by some busi­ all would be free riders. Yet, Olson observed, the world was ness firm to suppress his more consumer-friendly competi­ well populated with charity groups, trade associations, envi­ tor. Brozen's work, along with Robert Bork's The Antitrust ronmental and old age groups that shouldn't exist, according Paradox, did-much to temper and seemingly de-fang this to Chicago theory. How could this be? Olson's explanation most anti-competitive interventionist policy. The recent was that such organizations combined private and public rebirth of antitrust, in the form of assaults on Microsoft, goods in packages - the American Association of Retired Lockheed, MCI and others, indicates just how great is the Persons, for example, would offer older people lower insu­ need for more such scholars. Intellectual wars are never won rance or travel rates (a private good) but then use the profits - the battle lines merely move forward or back. Brozen from that transaction to advance the specific policy agenda played a key role in seeing that for a while, economic free­ believed right by the AARP leadership, a public good (or dom advanced on one front. It was a worthwhile accom­ bad). This explanation undoubtedly accounts for much of the plishment. -FLS 44 Liberty Debunking How the EPA Says It Makes Us Rich by Ben Bolch & Bradford Pendley

The strange alchemy of environmentalism turns losses into profits, red ink into black, and lead into gold.

In an attempt to justify the Clean Air Act and its amendments, the EPA has released what may be its most ludicrous piece of self-aggrandizement to date: liThe Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act." Among other findings, this study asserts that I/[t]he total monetized benefits of the Clean Air Act realized during the period from 1970 to 1990 range from 5.6 to 49.4 trillion dollars, with a central estimate of 22.2 trillion. By comparison, the value of the direct compliance expendi­ In both cases the study assumes a direct causal relationship tures over the same period equals approximately 0.5 trillion between soot and morbidity/mortality. Yet for fine particu­ dollars." When we recall that the people of the United States late matter, the study admits that 19 of 21 members of spent less than $4 trillion on personal consumption expendi­ EPA's own Scientific Advisory Committee believe that no tures in 1990, this estimate that the Clean Air Act alone could causal mechanism has ever clearly been established. command a net value of more than a decade of 1990 con­ Furthermore, although numerous epidemiological studies sumption makes one wonder why we bothered to work at all have investigated whether a link between particulate matter - more environmental regulation could have made us all exposure and mortality exists, the entire particulate matter richer yet. mortality analysis is based on a single 1995 study by Pope, Who is responsible for these great benefits? The EPA et al. begins its explanation with a self-serving whopper: there In the area of lead removal, the twists, turns and statisti­ would have been no progress in pollution abatement with­ cal sophistry leave one reeling. There is a causal path alleged out the Clean Air Act. Indeed, things would have gotten so to have been identified that winds its way from lead emis­ bad that 60 metropolitan areas would have had total sus­ sions (mostly from automobiles) to IQ reduction, to a reduc­ pended particulate matter higher than Moscow's. Doomsday tion in lifetime earnings and to increased education costs. As predictions such as these are the stock and trade of the EPA, in the rest of this study, statistically significant and insignifi­ which is happy to ignore such minor matters as the entire cant results are mixed together with great nonchalance and history of energy production, where markets moved (with­ with ad hoc justifications that would make a sophomore sta­ out the EPA) away from dirty and unsafe fuels toward clean tistics student blush., At long last, after slugging one's way and safe ones (wood to coal to natural gas). It gives no credit through a statistical swamp where estimates of one study are to the massive and continuing cleanup efforts of industry plugged into another, we are told that the loss of a single prior to the Act, to progress which preceded the Clean Air point of IQ is worth $3,000. Presumably, if everyone in the Act in states such as California, and to contributions by local United States lost one point of IQ (a reduction well below the governments and non-profit organizations. As usual we are error of measurement of that number) we would amass a told that our gratitude for this largess should go to the large stack of IQ some 270 million units high and worth $810 Federal Government. billion. And what are the benefits? Here the study notes that the And who receives these benefits? The EPA's assumptions two greatest benefits of the Clean Air Act are in the areas of here are laughable. Let us grant for the sake of argument that lead removal and the reduction of particulate matter (soot). soot reduction extends life. Whose life? It turns out that the Liberty 45 May 1998 clearest evidence is that the greatest impact is on the elderly held by other Clinton Administration agencies. According to and the sick whose life expectancy has already been short­ the EPA, these agencies objected to (1) the assumed event to ened from causes unrelated to soot. Should we not adjust the which air would have deteriorated in the absence of the Act, benefits of soot reduction by use of a life-years-Iost calcula­ (2) the methods used to estimate premature death, (3) the tion in order to account for these and other age-related mat­ methods used to value health risks, (4) the methods used to ters? No, says the EPA, it would be tantamount to value non-health related risks. In short, like us, these other suggesting discrimination against the old and the sick. agencies object to the entire study. Instead, the EPA uses what it calls the "value of a statistical If one insists on studies of this kind, at least they could be life." Consider the EPA's explanation of this novel done by agencies that are independent of the EPA. For exam­ calculation: ple, the widely cited study of T.O. Tengs, et al. (Risk Analysis, ... [S]uppose that a given reduction of pollution confers on vol. 15, no. 3) shows that the EPA causes median expendi­ each exposed individual a decrease in mortal risk of 1/ tures (direct and indirect) of $7,600,000 per life-year 100,000. Then among 100,000 such individuals, one fewer extended. This sum compares with a mandated $23,000 per individual can be expected to die prematurely. If each indi­ life-year extended by the Federal Aviation Administration. vidual's WTP [willingness to pay] for that risk reduction is Clearly, the Tengs methodology would have left the Clean $50, then the implied value of a statistical premature death Air Act looking as cost ineffective as it really is. avoided is $50 x 100,000=$5 million. "The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act" represents But how is one to know whether one falls into the in microcosm the depths to which science can sink because exposed group? Convincing the prospective customer that of political pressure. Under court order, and with great he is at hazard is the hardest sell of all for the casualty insu­ urgency to justify past regulations, these people produce, rance agent. And for how long will the decrease in risk last if with taxpayer dollars, a report that is nonsense. Of some one pays $50 -one minute, one day, fifty years? And what credit to them is that they say, in effect, time and again: does willingness to pay mean? Does it mean that one actu­ "What we are doing is nonsense, but we are going to do it ally pays this sum, or that one only indicates a willingness to anyway. Court order, you know." In the 19th century, peo­ pay this sum? It turns out that the EPA means the laUer. But pIe used to call this sort of thing an enormity. Now, thanks there is a difference, you know - it's called the market test. to Section 812 of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, we This study is so bad that peer review approval was with- can expect such an evaluation every two years. 0

McWilliams, "The DEA Wishes Me a Nice Day," continued from page 32

medical marijuana, which is specifically War on Drugs is a war fought by permitted under the California decent Americans against other decent Compassionate Use Act of 1996. Americans, and that these people The DEA, at the federal level, and rifling through my belongings really California Attorney General Dan are America's best - bright young f1Vhat really'" Lundgren (with Governor Pete Wilson people willing to die for their country h~~Rened smiling his approval from on high) in covert action. It takes a special kind I at I should have opposed Proposition 215 of person for that, and every Republic in court. In court they had the right ­ must have a generous number of them I Waco? and the responsibility, if they truly in order to survive. believed it a bad law - to challenge the But instead of our best and our Oscar Nominee I law and ask a judge to stay its enact­ brightest being trained to hunt down Best Documentary ment. They did not. Instead, the DEA is terrorist bombs or child abductors ­ ~ 1997 fighting its War on Drugs in the sick­ to mention but two useful examples ­ I rooms of Todd, me, and countless our misguided government is using all others. that talent to harass and arrest Blacks, Our government is not well. Hispanics, the poor, and the sick - the casualties in the War on Drugs, the What Our Patriots Are Doing ones who, to quote Leonard Cohen Today again, "sank beneath your wisdom like As I write this, I feel myself in mor­ a stone." It is the heart of the evil of a I "T;i~;~f~~b~~" tal combat with a gnarly monster. Then prohibition law in a free country. I remember the human faces of the After all, picking on someone with Available Now! Video-136 min. kind people who tried to make me AIDS and cancer is a little redundant, $24.95 postpaid comfortable with small talk as they don't you think? went through my belongings as neatly On the way out, one of the DEA as they knew how. agents said, "Have a nice day." It reminds me, painfully, that the I believe the comment was sincere. 0 I !f\ISSEZ FAIRE BCIDKS _.D.ept. WLB 46 Liberty I.. Encyclical

The Pontiff's Polemic by James M. Vinoski

The Vicar of Christ comforts Castro and condemns markets.

In the Mass culminating his visit to Cuba in January, Pope John Paul II spoke out forcefully against capitalism. His remarks offered undeserved comfort to dictator Fidel Castro and undermined his previous calls for the establishment of political freedoms for the citizens of Cuba. They also showed that the pontiff, despite his long history of crusading against communism and its destruction of human dignity and lib­ erty, suffers from a woeful lack of understanding of the dif­ constitute a living proof that the problem of economic calcu­ ferences between free-market capitalism and its collectivist lation is indeed intractable when man tries consciously to opposite. solve it.) That the pope instead attacks it as an evil under­ John Paul condemned "the resurgence of a certain capi­ scores his lack of understanding of basic economic talist neoliberalism, which subordinates the human person to principles. blind market forces and conditions the development of peo­ And what could John Paul possibly have meant when he ple on those forces." Now, this neoliberalism he denounced opined that capitalism "conditions the development of peo­ was not the technocratic welfare-state liberalism that Michael ple on those [market] forces"? If he believes that money is Kinsley and James Fallows and Gary Hart preached a decade the only source of fulfillment in a capitalist economy, he's ago. It is the European term for a revived, somewhat simply wrong. Though some citizens may "worship the dol­ watered-down classical liberalism, which in America we lar," many others eschew monetary gain and creature com­ might think of as moderate libertarianism. The pope, in pre­ forts. In between, of course, are millions who strike their fixing "market forces" with the word "blind," follows the own balance between material wealth and other: pursuits: current fashion in neoliberal bashing. But is there anything family, friends, hobbies, charity, and yes, religion. substantive here? Just how "blind" are market forces? If the pontiff is instead decrying the role of money in edu­ For over two centuries economists have shown how cation and training or in the individual's overall opportuni­ responsive markets are to human desires and abilities. As neo­ ties, then it can only be agreed that market forces indeed liberal prophet F.A. Hayek put it in his essay, "The Use of play their part in these areas. But what's the complaint? That Knowledge in Society," the market order is a "marvel." monetary calculation is a bother? Or perhaps John Paul is Indeed, Hayek was "convinced that if it were the result of attacking the market as a source of alienation from what he deliberate human design, and if the people guided by the sees as the "true business" of mankind - but that's the stuff price changes understood that their decisions have signifi­ of religion, not of economics. If we mix the two, and try to cance far beyond their immediate aim, this mechanism "fix" economics - even with the best-intended religious would have been acclaimed as one of the greatest triumphs intervention - we wind up with totalitarianism, the very of the human mind." evil John Paul castigated in Castro's Cuba. I would think any person of faith who was also knowl­ More troubling still are the words John Paul uttered in edgeable of the way free markets function would credit God his very next breath: "Hence, at times, unsustainable eco­ for the creation of this natural system, a system of solving nomic programs are imposed on nations as a condition for what would otherwise be a hopelessly intractable problem further assistance. In the international community, we thus for mankind. (The many experiments in central planning see a small number of countries growing exceedingly rich at Liberty 47 May 1998 the cost of the increasing impoverishment of a great number lack of economic liberty. Alternately, were the presence of of other countries; as a result, the wealthy grow ever wealth­ natural resources the sole arbiter of a nation's wealth, Russia ier, while the poor grow ever poorer." The first sentence is would be the richest country on earth. Instead, Russia totters clearly a swipe at the conditions set for the bailout of the with no immediate promise for turnaround. Asian economies now suffering from economic meltdown. A Or maybe the pope has bought into the idea that the rich diversity of opinion exists on these matters; certainly anyone nations "exploit" the low-paid laborers of impoverished believing in the efficiency of free markets can find a great countries. But this is fallacy. If the manual labors of a techno­ deal to disagree with in the substance of those bailout agree­ logically backward country can compete with the industrial ments, if not with the whole concept of such bailouts in gen­ efficiency of a nation like the United States, Americans bene­ eral. Still, the pope's apparent preference for offering vast fit by having more of their earnings to apply to other needs, and more capital and labor to apply to economic endeavors at which they are more efficient. And the low-paid laborers What dictator will heed John Paul's call to benefit by having a job, where there would otherwise likely be none. Wealth is created for both nations, and we are all change his ruthless stripes when he can more the better off for it. easily blame his problems on exploitation by the Regardless of the source of his ill-conceived notions of "rich? " wealth, the pope's errors here are the most serious. For such a clear contradiction as this gives comfort not only to Castro, but to any despotic regime the Catholic Church ostensibly sums to ailing nations without substantive reform require­ wants to see changed. Instead of clearly communicating that ments tied to those funds is unsettling. the poverty of a nation is the result of poor governance, the But it is the pope's zero-sum picture of the wealth of pope has signaled that it is instead caused by American and nations that is the most disturbing. This notion contradicts European hegemony. What dictator will heed John Paul's the pope's basic ideology. If John Paul truly believes that the call to change his ruthless stripes when he can more easily wealthy nations become so at the expense of the impover­ blame his problems on exploitation by the "rich?" ished, how can he possibly recommend democracy as a Pope John Paul II has long been a hero in the fight model for the personal liberties he so desires? For it is cer­ against the failed socialist and communist experiments the tainly the democratic nations that are the richest. world over. His influence in Poland helped win that subju­ Why would John Paul believe this caricature of wealth gated people their freedom after decades under the Soviet creation? Union's oppressive shadow. Even so, his comments in Perhaps he's fallen prey to the idea that limited natural Revolution Plaza indicate that His Holiness fails to under­ resources are the basic source of a nation's wealth. If so, he stand that capitalism provides the freedom he beseeches ignores the examples of the Asian economies, which built Castro - and so many others - to grant to the long­ tremendous wealth despite a dearth of natural resources. suffering people under totalitarian control. A mere handful That they are faltering is not an indictment of the sources of of remarks have gravely damaged his case. We should all that wealth creation, but instead a result of poor government hope (and the religious among us should pray) that he will decisions in banking and the directing of industry; in short, a reconsider such poorly reasoned opinions. 0

Szasz, "Freedom and Madness," continued from page 36

torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to 7. See Szasz, Thomas, Cruel Compassion: Psychiatric Control ofSociety's understand me?13 Unwanted (New York: Wiley, 1994). The empire of psychiatric slavery is more than three hun­ 8. Commitment legislation may emphasize patient rights at expense dred years old and grows daily more all-encompassing. But of treatment, Clinical Psychiatry News, 6: 2 (November), 1978. we have not yet begun to acknowledge its existence, much 9. Rubinstein, Jon, The revolving door syndrome pits civil rights less to understand its role in our society. 0 against treatment "rights," Legal Aspects ofMedical Practice, 6: 47-49 (May),1978. Notes: 10. Outpatient commitment works, deserves funding, APA testifies, 3: 4 (September 1), 1995. 1. Johnson, S., quoted in, Auden, W. H. and Kronenberger, 1., eds., Psychiatric News, The Viking Book ofAphorisms: A Personal Selection (New York: Dorset 11. Lewis, C. S., "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment," Res Press, 1981), p. 172. Judicatae (Melbourne University, Melbourne, Australia), 6: 229, 2. Whitehead, A. N., Adventures ofIdeas [1933] (New York: Free Press, 1953; quoted in, Szasz, T. S., The Theology of Medicine: The Political­ 1961), p. 83. Philosophical Foundations ofMedical Ethics (Syracuse: Syracuse 3. Szasz, T. S., "The psychiatric will," American Psychologist, 37: 762­ University Press, 1988), p. 130. 770-ijuly), 1982. 12. Ibid. 4. Bioy Casares, A., "Plans for an escape to Carmelo," New York 13. Orwell, G., Nineteen Eighty-Four (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1949), Review ofBooks, April 10, 1986, p. 7. p.266. 5. Staples, Brent, "The Master of Monticello," New York Times Book Review, March 23, 1997, p. 7. 6. Szasz, T.S... Psychiatric Slavery (Syracuse University Press, 1998), p. This essay is excerpted from the preface to Syracuse University Press's 79, emphasis added. new edition of Psychiatric Slavery, 1998. Reprinted with permission. 48 Liberty The Dark Side ofCamelot by Seymour M. Hersh. Little, Brown & Co., long as the immensely popular 1997, x + 498 pages. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was presi­ dent. Roosevelt was aware of Kennedy's powerlust, and thwarted it. Kennedy's opposition to World War II and what appeared to be his sympathy for Hitler put an end to his political career, but not to his political ambi­ tions. If he couldn't be president, his The Fading sons could. Joe Kennedy's legend-building of Jack began when Jack was still at Harvard. Joe got one of Jack's term MythofJFK papers published as a book and then, in Jack's words, "saw to" it that it "sold like hotcakes." (This feat was repeated in 1956, when Joe bought thousands of copies of Profiles in Courage, a book in Vietnam? Would he have attempted ghost-written for JFK by a team of writ­ R.W. Bradford another invasion of Cuba? Would he ers and scholars, headed by Theodore have confronted the Soviet Union with Sorensen, and organized a successful campaign for the Pulitzer Prize.) Suppose that on that fateful day in nuclear weapons? Would he have pur­ sued a vast increase in welfare spend­ Joe intervened again in 1943, after September 1963, President John F. Jack had botched a PT-boat mission, Kennedy had not grabbed one of his ing? Would he have pushed for further civil rights legislation? getting his boat rammed and sunk, sexual partners while frolicking pool­ with the loss of two men. In the after­ side during a West Coast campaign Speculation about how the world would have been different had math of the disaster, Jack acted bravely, trip. Then he wouldn't have hurt his though not necessarily wisely. Joe got back, and his physician wouldn't have Oswald's bullet failed to kill him is par­ ticularly interesting because there is a his friend, Undersecretary of the Navy had him wear, in addition to his regu­ James Forrestal, to intervene to assure lar back brace, a contraption holding huge difference between the legend and reality of John F. Kennedy. Jack a medal instead of a reprimand. him stiff from groin to shoulder. And Shortly thereafter, Kennedy friend John when the first bullet fired by Lee The crafting of the legend of John F. Harvey Oswald pierced his neck while Kennedy began nearly 20 years before he rode in an open car in Dallas two he was elected president. His father, months later, he'd have slumped for­ Joseph P. Kennedy, possessed both lilt's not what you are that ward. And the second bullet Oswald indescribable wealth and an infinite fired at him - the bullet that killed him lust for power. But it was not his counts," Joe Kennedy explain­ - would have missed. wealth and powerlust alone that set ed to his offspring, "but what him aside from other political aspir­ Just how would our lives have been ants: it was his experience as a stock people think you are. " different over the past 35 years, if manipulator and Hollywood producer. Kennedy had survived that assassina­ For it was as a stock market operator tion attempt? and Hollywood mogul that he learned Hersey wrote an article for the New Of course, the course of human how to manipulate the press to create Yorker portraying Jack as a hero. Joe events is far too complex - not to men­ potent public images. "It's not what later pressured Reader's Digest to pub­ tion chaotic - to allow us to answer you are that counts," Joe Kennedy lish a condensed version of the article. counterfactual historic questions in a explained to his offspring, "but what Still later, Joe arranged for a highly flat­ definitive fashion. But that doesn't people think you are." tering feature film of the episode, with mean that speculation about such ques­ During the 1930s, he pursued his Jack himself picking Cliff Robertson as tions isn't instructive and thought­ own ambition to be America's first its star. provoking. And besides, let's face it: Catholic president. As an Irish Catholic, By the late 19505, young John F. this sort of inquiry is also a lot of fun. he was, of course, a Democrat, so he Kennedy was treated by the public Would JFK have escalated the war could not openly pursue his goal so more like a movie star than a politician. Liberty 49 May 1998

"Why is it that when his picture is on president, JFK was portrayed as an of two other heads of state (Rafael the cover of Life or Redbook that they extremely hard worker; in fact, he was Trujillo, who was killed in 1963, and sell a record number of copies?" Joe rather lazy, spending hours each day in Fidel Castro, who survived JFK's plots). Kennedy crowed to a writer in 1959. sexual horseplay with two staffers in Like Mao Tse Tung, he suffered from "You advertise the fact that he will be the White House swimming pool. An venereal disease, a fact he never dis­ at a dinner and you will break all article in Life magazine falsely claimed closed to his hundreds of sex partners. records for attendance. He will draw he read 1200 words per minute, and a He was willing to take great risks in his more people to a fund-raising dinner nation-wide speed-reading craze was sex life. His sex partners included the than Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart and born. He was portrayeq. as a devoted wives of diplomats, an East German anyone else you can name." The public family man, when in fact he was what woman who had been a member of var­ relations efforts continued throughout today would be called a sexual preda­ ious Communist Party organizations, Kennedy's presidency. It continues to tor, an executive whose staff regularly college students, actresses, and the mis­ this day. procured prostitutes for him. tress of one of the most powerful fig­ Joe Kennedy and his lavishly In The Dark Side ofCamelot, Seymour ures in organized crime, as well as financed public relations experts micro- Hersh explores JFK's life, focusing on common prostitutes, of course. those aspects that diverged most egre­ Some critics have dismissed Dark giously from his carefully constructed Side as mere sensationalism because it JFK was capable of great legend, and paying particular attention divulges details of Kennedy's sex life. to the impact of his peculiar personality But Hersh's account of Kennedy's sex personal kindness, but he also on his political and policy decisions. It life is a relatively small portion of the participated in the cold-blooded is in no sense a systematic biography: book. And it is very relevant to his murder of an old friend (Ngo after briefly considering the careers of record as president, on two counts. Kennedy's father and grandfather and First, it is quite plausible that a man Dinh Diem, president of South discussing a JFK wartime romance who thrives on taking sexual risks may Vietnam) and plotted the dutifully recorded by the FBI, Hersh also be inclined also to take great mili­ skips ahead to Kennedy's attempt to tary risks - and Kennedy was assassinations of two other get the 1956 vice presidential nod. heads ofstate. There's hardly a word about his elec­ tion to the House (in 1946) or the Senate (in 1952) or even his military There's never been another managed Jack Kennedy's public image experiences. president like Jack Kennedy: until the day in 1961 when Joe was Hersh is a reporter, not a biogra­ never a president who was felled by a stroke. Of course, all politi­ pher, and he has both the strengths and cians seek to portray themselves in a weaknesses of a reporter. While Dark more like a movie star than a favorable light. But the public relations Side lacks the scope of a biography, it politician, never a president campaign on JFK's behalf was much illuminates important and hitherto whose character and behavior more successful than any before or unknown details of Kennedy's career. since. His father's money and expertise Like any good reporter, Hersh was were so at odds with the pub­ were only part of his relative advan­ determined to get his story and to get it lie's perception. tage. He also benefited from the fact right, and toward this end, he followed that the press was far less sophisticated up thousands of leads, talking to hun­ and more easily fooled in his day than dreds of people who knew Kennedy or subsequently. Today, the best way for a had first-hand knowledge about his obsessed with the Cold War. Secondly, reporter to get ahead is to break major career. one of Kennedy's paramours was a go­ stories; in Kennedy's day, reporters But the purpose of biography is to between with the Mafia, transporting prospered by currying the favor of help its reader understand its subject bags of cash from Kennedy to the mob politicians. and his place in history, and Dark Side and arranging for joint Mafia-CIA Compare the experiences of, say, contributes mightily toward this goal. meetings to plot the assassination of Bob Woodward and Theodore H. Hersh discovered lots of new informa­ Fidel Castro. White. In the 1970s, Woodward made tion, complementing the portrait of A few days before the 1962 congres­ his reputation and career by breaking Kennedy that emerges from biogra­ sional elections, JFK learned that the important stories about Watergate. In phies. And his accounts of certain epi­ Russians were secretly establishing the 1960s, Theodore White made his sodes in JFK's career are far more missile bases in Cuba, only 90 miles reputation (and won his own Pulitzer detailed than those found elsewhere. from the U.S. Kennedy responded by Prize) with his account of Kennedy's The portrait of Kennedy that mobilizing the U.s. for war with the presidential campaign, an account emerges is decidedly unpretty. The pri­ Soviets and giving the Russians an ulti­ White himself later admitted lacked vate JFK was capable of great personal matum: remove the missiles or face objectivity because of his loyalty and kindness, but he also participated in the nuclear war. After several extremely affection for Kennedy. cold-blooded murder of an old friend tense days, the Russians agreed to To say that the imagemakers were (Ngo Dinh Diem, president of South remove the missiles. "We're eyeball to successful is an understatement. As Vietnam) and plotted the assassinations eyeball," Secretary of State Dean Rusk 50 Liberty said in a phrase that has come to sum­ marize the resolution of the crisis, "and I think the other guy just blinked." That's the official story. But, Hersh explains, it's not what actually happened. Soviet Premier Khrushchev, who had bested Kennedy in several other personal confrontations, refused to back down, so Kennedy suggested a compromise: he'd agree that the U.S. would remove its missiles from Turkey. The U.S. concession would be kept secret because JFK had always cam­ paigned as a saber-rattling militant anti-Communist. His biggest campaign theme was that the Republicans had allowed the Soviets to gain the upper hand militarily and would not commit the U.S. sufficiently to the defense of Quemoy and Matsu, two tiny islets in the Formosa strait that were occupied by Taiwan (or "Free China," as Kennedy preferred to call it). Backing down would have strengthened the hands of the Republicans in the upcom­ ing presidential election - not to men­ tion the 1968 election campaign of JFK's Look to www.ij.org younger brother Bobby. This made the Kennedys vulnerable to Soviet People once turned to the ACLU when government violated their blackmail: rights. But no longer. As that group fights to create a "right" to For the next fourteen years, there­ welfare, to preserve racial preferences, and to kill school choice, fore, the men running the Soviet people increasingly seek a principled alternative that will protect Union ... would have the means individual liberty, not expand government. That alternative is the to publicly devastate the Kennedys Institute for Justice by putting lie to their inspiring vic­ tory in the missile crisis. The presi­ dent and his brother were true If you support individual liberty, free-market existentialists at that moment, bar­ solutions and limited government, gaining their way out of an imme­ look to the Institute for Justice. diate crisis by putting their future credibility in the hands of Soviet leadership. The Institute for Justice is America's premier libertarian law firm. The The Russians weren't the only ones Wall Street Journal calls IJ and our clients "the new civil rights for whom Kennedy made himself vul­ activists." We are in courts of law and the court of public opinion nerable to blackmail. Hersh makes a nationwide litigating on behalf of individuals whose most basic rights convincing case that J. Edgar Hoover of are denied by the State. the FBI used his extensive files on Kennedy's mob connections and sexual The Institute for Justice is what a civil liberties law firm should be. antics to force Kennedy to re-appoint Isn't it time you took a look at an organization that's in court on Hoover to his position. (Hoover's files behalf ofyour rights? on JFK dated back to the early 1940s, when the FBI kept him under surveil­ lance for possible use against his father.) Hersh also solves the mystery of why JFK chose Lyndon Johnson as his IJ running mate. On the surface it was an Institute for Justice extremely strange choice. During the 1717 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Suite 200 Washington, DC 20006 campaign, LBJ had, in Bobby Phone: (202) 955-1300 Fax: (202) 955-1329 Kennedy's words, "compared my www.ij.org father to the Nazis and [Johnson sup­ legend) believe that he might have porters] John Connally and India started a nuclear war, and it's easy to How to Edwards lied in saying my brother is see why they think so. Kennedy hated dying of Addison's disease." Kennedy communism, believed (correctly) that Subscribe arrived at the Democratic national con­ Soviet Premier Khrushchev had repeat­ vention with a deal already made: Sen. edly gotten the better of him in negotia­ Stuart Symington of Missouri would be tions, felt a strong need to "stand up" to his running mate. It made sense politi­ to Russia, loved winning, hated losing, cally: Kennedy needed a liberal to bal­ gloried in revenge, and took tremen­ II ance his ticket and he certainly didn't dous risks in his personal life. But I LibertYJ need a Southerner. LBJ wasn't even on have my doubts: JFK did all these Kennedy's list of second choices. things, but his major personal motive But then, without warning, was the acquisition and wielding of Liberty takes individual Kennedy chose LBJ. The sudden and political power. When he went "eyeball freedom seriously ... and shocking turnabout has never been to eyeball" with the Russians, it was he explained in a coherent way, though who blinked, making a key concession the status quo with more many different and contradictory to the Soviets in order to increase his than one grain of salt! accounts have been offered. chances of retaining the presidency in Once again, according to Hersh, the 1964 election. Every issue of Liberty brings Kennedy succumbed to blackmail. In What about Vietnam? Would he you news you can't miss, support of this rather startling hypothe­ have escalated the "police action" the opinions you won't find sis, Hersh cites the testimony of Hy way LBJ did? This is a tougher call. The anywhere else, and the best Raskin, a close advisor to JFK. Raskin Vietnam War was his idea, undertaken libertarian writing in the world. confirmed that Kennedy had decided to demonstrate to Khrushchev that he on Symington when he met with LBJ wasn't a wimp who could be intimi­ You won't want to and House Speaker Sam Rayburn on dated by the Russian premier. But he miss a single issue! the morning of his nomination. The was also very sensitive to public opin­ two Texans "made an offer he could ion, and a case can be made that he'd not refuse." Kennedy explained his have de-escalated once the war turned Act Today! about-face: "You know we had never unpopular. But I doubt it. By the time Liberty offers you the best in considered Lyndon, but I was left with opinion turned against the war, the individualist thinking and writ­ no choice. He and Sam Rayburn made U.S. was deeply committed, and it's ing. So don't hesitate. You have it damn clear to me that Lyndon would difficult to see JFK pulling out and fac­ nothing to lose, and the fruits be the candidate. Those bastards were ing the charge that he was "soft on of Liberty to gain! trying to frame me. They threatened me communism." with problems and I don't need more What about the War on Poverty and ,Use the coupon below or call: problems." In his unpublished memoir, the Great Society? I don't think Raskin would only hint at the informa­ Kennedy ever would have started pro­ 1-800-854-6991 tion that Johnson had on Kennedy: grams like these. He was the scion of a "The substance of the revelation was so wealthy family, protected from the risk ~------., astonishing that if it had been revealed of poverty by a trust fund. More to the ' Please enter my subscrip- to me by anyone other than Jack or point, in private, he showed little sym­ I·S tion to Liberty immediately! I Ye Bob, I would have had trouble accept­ pathy for poor people, though of course o Six issues (One Full Year) $19.50 ing it." he sought their votes. He first sought 10 Twelve issues (Two Full Years) $39.00 I The Kennedys were not the sort of office as a conservative (like his father) I Add $5 per year for foreign SUbSCriptionSol people who took things like this lying and evolved toward a left-liberal posi­ down. They used their resources to dig tion as the electoral climate changed. up dirt on LBJ, which they leaked to While it's quite possible that incentives name I I Republicans in Congress. On the very within the Democratic Party would day JFK was assassinated, insurance have moved him toward such posi­ address I I broker Donald Reynolds, from whom tions, it is at least as possible that he'd Johnson had extorted "gifts," was testi­ pretty much ignore domestic policy city state zip I I fying to a congressional investigator. issues. I 0 I enclose my check (payable to Liberty) (The testimony - and the investigation What about civil rights? I suspect I - ended abruptly when a secretary o Charge my 0 VISA 0 MasterCard he'd have gone down this road very I burst into the room and told everyone slowly. One of his former lovers told I that the president had been shot.) Hersh that while Kennedy was capable I signature I How would the world be different if of "acts of personal kindness," he had a account # expires JFK had not died in Dallas on that day? "deeply ingrained ... acceptance of ine­ Many people familiar with Kennedy quality at every level - that women I Send to: Liberty, Dept. L64, I the man (as opposed to Kennedy the were not equal with men, that African- L.p.O.------_Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368... May 1998

Americans were not equal with white 1950s. Reporters ask tougher questions this Specular Press edition is, I believe, people, that Jews were not equal to and are more cynical about politicians. the first since the 1920s. In the interim, gentiles." Those attitudes were fairly Voters are wise to the public relations both author and book have been largely common among wealthy white males tricks that Joe Kennedy and his hire­ forgotten. This is a pity. Bramah's prim­ at that time, of course. And they're not lings used to make Jack Kennedy a itive, dystopian vision, hostile to social­ the sorts of views that would put him star. His presidency was brief and ism at a time when socialism's star was in the forefront pushing civil rights largely ineffective, but his impact on rising, inspired Nineteen Eighty-four, legislation. popular imagination enormous. George Orwell's later, more chilling There's never been another presi­ Seymour Hersh has helped fill in (but equally anti-socialist) speculation. dent like Jack Kennedy: never a presi­ the details, helped to give us a better (Snap is a kind of comic Newspeak). dent who was more like a movie star idea of the kind of man that John F. And Ayn Rand may have been influ­ than a politician, never a president Kennedy was. The Dark Side of Camelot enced by The Secret ofthe League. George whose character and behavior were so cannot replace Thomas Reeves's A Salt and John Galt have more in com­ at odds with the public's perception. Question of Character as the definitive mon than a similar sounding name. And there probably won't be. The Kennedy biography. But it is a fine Both are mysterious figures who have United States has changed since the companion. 0 abandoned previously conventional lives in disgust at the socialistic turn of events. Both have resolved to restore The Secret ofthe League, by Ernest Bramah. Specular Press, 1995 the status quo ante. And both advocate (1907), ix + 292 pages. boycott and non-cooperation as a means of unseating the incumbent regime. Moreover, in The Secret of the League as in Atlas Shrugged, there is an unstated assumption that the toppling of socialist administrations is so a priori moral an end that it justifies almost any Fool, Britannia means, even a sinister, elitist putsch that brings misery and worse to people too ordinary to excite the author's sympathy. Speculative fiction, like much his­ torical fiction, invariably says less Martin Quoile "Snap," a slang influenced by the inani­ ties of advertising, has begun to sup­ plant Standard English (and to rival London, England. A socialist profanity) as the principal mode of George Salt and John Galt Government has recently come to expression: "Feel chippy? Then champ have more in common than a power. Change is everywhere and none chip-chunks," that's Snap. (Chip­ similar sounding name. Both of it is for the better. After many years chunks, incidentally, are a new snack of uninterrupted rule, the Conservative food aimed at people too lazy to eat are mysterious figures who Party has been reduced to an ineffec­ and therefore similar to Isabella, a soap have abandoned previously tual rump so that, for all practical pur­ for people too lazy to wash). Is this conventional lives in disgust at poses, there is no longer any 1998? Surprisingly, not. It's 1918. Or, Parliamentary Opposition. Govern­ rather, it is a speculative vision of 1918 the socialistic turn ofevents. ment accountability has evaporated. first published in 1907; it is Ernest Cabinet ministers have come to occupy Bramah's The Secret ofthe League. what are essentially ceremonial posts The Secret of the League is a kind of about the time in which it is purport­ leaving the real decision-making to comic political speculation written edly set than it does about either the anonymous party strategists. Else­ from a right-wing perspective. It times in which it was written or the where, beyond Parliament, the state describes a socialist government moti­ concerns of the person who wrote it. operates through scowling, unpleasant vated by uncomplicated class hatred Nineteen Eighty-four is really a book officials. Police officers, for example, and of such bumbling incompetence about the totalitarian aspects of war­ now carry guns and are as disrespectful that eventually it provokes its own time and postwar Britain; Brave New towards the public as the public is (somewhat) violent overthrow. This lat­ World is really about the politics of a lei­ towards them. ter coup d'etat is the work of the Unity sure society; and Atlas Shrugged is really Falling standards have accompa­ League, a Tory conspiracy nominally about America post-New Deal. nied these changes. The press is tackily helmed by Sir John Hampden but actu­ Likewise, The Secret of the League is not sensationalist and full of misrepresenta­ ally organized and engineered by a about 1918 at all. It is really about 1906, tion whilst education has, under state shadowy character called George Salt. the year in which it was most probably control, become a business of rote Although The Secret ofthe League was written. Significantly, therefore, learning and general "dumbing down." originally published ninety years ago, Bramah's Unity League aims, not sim- Liberty 53 May 1998 ply to erase the period 1910-18 (i.e. the legal liability for commercial losses British surrender at Majuba Hill, not years during which the author ima­ incurred during a strike; and which leg­ Agincourt, Culloden or Waterloo. gines Britain governed by socialists), islated to have members of parliament Small wonder that this Government is but the past as far back as 1906. This paid salaries out of public funds eventually toppled by a tiny fraction of much is clear enough from the thereby opening the House of its own population. League's electoral slogan: "As in 1905." Commons to people other than those It is this military (or rather milita­ So what was special about 1906? with private incomes. All this, coupled rist) issue which is central to Bramah's Nineteen hundred and six was a with an expanding franchise, made argument. All else is secondary. Hence, bad year for the British Conservative Labour a more credible political force, although Specular Press is marketing one that might conceivably step out The Secret of the League as a "capitalist from behind the Liberal shadow and fiction," this is to my mind a lazy read­ One clear difference between win elections in its own right. And if ing of the book's actual message. Labour were to win elections in its own Bramah, no Mises, offers little in the the Conservative Bramah and, right many believed full-blown social­ way of knockdown arguments for capi­ say, Ayn Rand, is that ism could not be far behind. talism over socialism. The ideological Bramah's heroes are not, in the The Secret of the League plays on all position he upholds is essentially the main, achievers, people who of these fears. Set just twelve years on Tory Imperialism of Britain in the late from the Liberal "landslide," the nineteenth and early twentieth centu­ have succeeded in life through Liberal Party it describes has already ries which was, in turn, an extreme hard work or unique talent. fizzled out of political contention form of nationalism. Capitalism was whilst the Left, electorally uncatchable, quite incidental to this worldview. (By has split into "Moderate Labour" and 1900, the Conservative Party Bramah Party, much worse than 1997. It was the "Socialist" factions with the Socialists would have known had gone protec­ year when the Liberal Party (which by dominating the new Government. tionist and was advocating the oxymo­ that time retained only vestiges of its Central to its program is a lavish sys­ tonic "Empire Free Trade"). Bramah's classical liberal heritage) managed to tem of social welfare funded through main concern is not the harm that he get itself re-elected on a wave of anti­ punitive rates of taxation borne princi­ envisages a socialist government doing Conservative resentment. Backed by pally by the upper class. This "revolu­ to the market but the harm it will do the fledgling Labour movement and tionary finance" has "made the. rich the British nation-state. That harm is the Irish Parliamentary Party, the new well-to-do, the well-to-do just so-so, the not simply or even mainly economic. administration's majority was unassail­ struggling poor, and left the poor For Bramah, the nation and its relative able, its capacity to radicalize British where they were." standing in the world are everything; society relatively limitless. This new This is a sharp enough indictment the economic system, nothing in partic­ government thus threatened all of the of spendthrift welfare statism as any­ ular. Had he seen some nationalist certainties which had arisen over the one who lived in Britain in, say, the potential in socialism, he might have preceding ten years. Liberal anti­ 1970s could attest. But finance is not the written a very different kind of book, imperialism, for example, clashed with only thing Bramah imagines radical­ but it would have been no more a the Conservative aspiration of a ized by this woolly enlightenment. socialist fiction than is The Secret of the "Greater Britain" encompassing Foreign policy, too, has been changed League a capitalist fiction. Bramah, a Australasia, Canada, Southern Africa in line with the dictates of pacifism. In nationalist, wrote a nationalist fiction. and, a few dared hope, the United Bramah's 1918, disputes between It is my belief that, in writing this States. Similarly, Norman Angell's lib­ nation-states are not settled violently particular nationalist fiction, Bramah eral pacifist thesis "The Great Illusion" but, following Angell, are instead put had a particular national issue on his might, had it been taken up by govern­ to international arbitration which, of mind. It is an issue which was on a great ment, have jeopardized British naval course, never finds in Britain's favour. many minds in Britain in the early 1900s. supremacy and, thereby, Britain's abil­ At the same time, the scaling down of And it is most definitely not the volun- ity to set the terms of international the Royal Navy has left the relations. country militarily enfee­ But'it was the presence of Labour bled, no longer able to members in the Liberal entourage resort to gunboat diplo­ which probably aroused the greatest macy. In fact, its military immediate apprehension. With Labour position has become so par­ backing, the Liberals had become a lous that it is now more kind of social democratic party commit­ likely to be bullied than to ted to a series of socialistic reforms. bully. Fittingly, therefore a This was the government which laid new spirit of defeatism is the foundations for the British welfare abroad in government; the state; which enabled trade unions to Socialist defense minister collect a political fund for sponsoring has on the wall of his office parliamentary candidates and to evade a painting depicting the SHC.HAMBE..RS 54 Liberty May 1998 tary exchange of goods and services. critique of socialism qua socialism; he of Lords - made up of unelected peers Bramah never states explicitly what it is seems genuinely horrified at the pros­ and capable of striking down any piece that is on his mind but it is visible pect of some populist inversion of what of legislation, however popular or pro­ enough between the lines. It is he sees as the way things should rightly gressive it mightbe. Germany. By the early 1900s, Germany be (Le. that the aristocracy should rule All of this makes The Secret of the had become Britain's most obvious and the people in general should have League a reactionary book but I would rival in European power politics. It was little say in the matter). Hence, the oaf­ reject George Orwell's opinion that it is therefore increasingly accepted by pol­ ishness of the book's proletarians; they a gleeful advocacy of fascism. A British icy makers in London that an Anglo­ are beings clearly incapable of operat­ political movement governing on the German War was inevitable and that ing or even electing a government and principle "As in 1905" would have Britain would need to initiate it soon who are, it is at times implied, ignorant been fascist only in the sense that before the balance of power grew unfa­ of the practicalities of managing their almost any state can, with some imagi­ vorable. Every advantage must be max­ own lives. Even their adherence to nation, be described as "fascist." It imized. One such was Germany's socialism proves ultimately fickle; Salt would have been elitist, certainly, but it numerically powerful Marxist party, easily subverts it with an appeal to would not have been particularly early on identified by London as a more basic, nationalistic passions. restrictive or repressive. The British weakness which might undermine a It is, then, a society based on inher­ state in 1905 almost certainly regulated German war effort. (Future Foreign ited status - high for a few, low for most and scrutinized a great deal less of the Secretary Sir Edward Grey, writing - not classical liberalism, which The lives of ordinary British citizens than pseudonymously in 1901, called it "a Secret ofthe League advocates. The Unity the current British state and in a much powder magazine such as is to be League's slogan "As in 1905" implies a less sophisticated way. Moreover, found in no other country.") The Secret great deal more than might first appear. although Bramah makes the Unity ofthe League is based on an inversion of In particular, a thoroughly Conservative League nationalistic, he does not have this possibility. Bramah speculates that revision of political changes then in pros­ it offer the populist blend of national­ Britain itself, not Germany, might be pect. In Britain, in 1906, "As in 1905" ism and socialism that characterized undermined by socialism, and warns would have meant retaining an electoral Italian and German fascism and which that the United Kingdom has its own franchise restricted to property owners was also a characteristic of the British powder magazine equally ready to as well as a House of Commons largely state during both world wars and for explode. In this respect, The Secret ofthe composed of gentleman amateurs and a which Orwell was an enthusiastic sup­ League belongs with books like Erskine powerful second chamber - the House porter at the time of his comments on Childers's The Riddle of the Sands or William Le Queaux's The Invasion of 1910 ,both of which regale their readers Gover~.~~nt 10~i- with tall tales of a German takeover. It LibertTees is pre-war propaganda. www.Liber-Tees.com It is not just its Tory Imperialist Quality t-shirts with a pro-liberty theme l. What is government? agenda which makes The Secret of the u.s. Political History of the Twentieth Century Government is organized force. League a deeply Conservative text. One 2. How does it differ from other organizations? clear difference between the Evolution of the Nanny State Government can legally encroach on Conservative Bramah and, say, Ayn persons who have done no harm. Rand, is that Bramah's heroes are not, in the main, achievers, people who 3. What is the purpose of govemm.ent? have succeeded in life through hard Its purpose is to transfer wealth work or unique talent. Rather, they are to those with political pt:Jwer. aristocrats and near aristocrats 4. Why study government? (Hampden, a baronet, is the former; Know your enemy_ Salt, a retired senior naval officer, the Laissez-faire 16" Amendment New Deal Great Society Nanny State 5. How can we stop government encroachment? latter). But Bramah's villains are "work­ ~ Vote Libertarian. ing class." (The "middle class" scarcely Government takes care of us now -All cost was our Liberty appears in this simplistic, but very Item #Tl14 Item #Tl12 British, conceptualization.) Bramah's All t-shirts only $9.50 each We use 100% cotton Hanes BEEFY-Ts Custom designing Britain is thus not so much a capitalist Don'f$upport the We'll pay $$$ for your designs Sizes MED, LG, XL and XXL Two P~lrty System as a feudal society in which the serfs (XXL please add $1.50 per shirt) 1.------. have managed, temporarily, to take T-shirt colors: White and Natural @r@ iiiAmerica over. At the heart of the crisis the book Check out our website for more describes is not a government which designs or write for a free catalog has dabbled in unsound economics, but Suppart Lib~~tty Send check or m.o. to: a government which has tried to tam­ Vote t~bertarian Liber-Tees i;/{ Ii. Vote Libertarian per with an allegedly traditional order. P.O. Box 1330 This is no small part of Bramah's Redlands, CA 92373 Item #Tl17 Item #TI01 May 1998

The Secret ofthe League. The Costs otWar: America's Pyrrhic Victories. Edited with an Which brings me to book's central introduction by John V. Denson. Transaction, 1997, xviii + 450 pages. irony. As a forecast of the probable con­ sequences of the Liberal landslide of 1906, it is difficult to imagine a book get­ ting it more comprehensively wrong. In power, and contrary to Bramah's fears, the Liberals proved to be more nationa­ listic and belligerent then their A Public History ofthe Conservative predecessors. It was they, not the Tories, who moved Britain deci­ sively away from its previous isolation­ Campaigns That Failed ism and closer to France and Russia in a developing anti-German alliance. And it was under Liberal supervision that an extensive armaments program was for a classical liberal foreign policy that embarked upon during which private Mark Brady citizens, with tacit state encouragement, avoids foreign political entanglements, organized and lobbied both for con­ military intervention, and war. As John Denson, its editor, explains scription and still greater arms expendi­ As Randolph Bourne observed, in his introduction, the "costs of war" ture. The mass support for this Anglo­ "War is the health of the state." The go far beyond the horrific suffering on German arms race was such that it even truth of this adage has been demon­ the battlefield. They include the subse­ became the subject of popular songs. strated repeatedly since the Civil War, quent suffering that veterans endure, (When music hall audiences sang "We from the Spanish-American War often for the rest of their lives, and the want eight and we won't wait," they through two world wars, subsequent harmful long-term consequences for were referring to Dreadnought-class hot wars in Asia, and numerous other the economy and civilian society, espe­ battleships). interventions. Even for the victors the outcome of war has rarely been much cially the loss of liberty, that continue It was in this context that Britain's long after every participant in a partic­ initial social welfare legislation - pen­ like what they had originally envi­ sioned or hoped for. ular war has died. This point was well­ sions and compulsory health and Sadly, the classical liberal perspec­ illustrated in Clyde Wilson's "War, unemployment insurance - was intro­ tive on war and foreign policy gets Reconstruction, and the End of the Old duced, at least in part in imitation of short shrift these days. Far too many Republic," which shows that the Civil similar populist measures which had professed libertarians never mention War engendered a massive growth of been implemented in Germany. And the subject and are oblivious of its the size and, more importantly, the though there was an aristocratic revolt importance and relevance for achieving scope of government, which were only of sorts in 1909, it was no Unity League. a genuinely free society. Worse still, partially reversed in subsequent years. Peaceful and ultimately unsuccessful, it some self-proclaimed exponents of the Another fateful consequence was a pro­ was motivated by the objection of a free market defend U.S. war-making found and seemingly irreversible shift majority of Britain's landowners to the and celebrate American global in attitudes toward intervention, from extra taxes the Liberals' welfare/ hegemony. one of great suspicion to one of ambiva­ warfare state required. Later, more­ Although the Cato Institute to its lence and even support. over, the Liberal government sanc­ lasting credit came out against the Gulf Early chapters in the book include tioned Britain's entry to the First World War, sadly Reason magazine equivo­ Justin Raimondo's exploration of the War and saw to it that, on the home cated on the issue. And even among anti-interventionist tradition in front, collective patriotic fervor was those many libertarians whose gut reac­ American politics and Murray aroused whilst many individual liber­ tion is to oppose U.S. intervention Rothbard's lively and provocative ties were, at the same time, suppressed. abroad and demand massive cuts in defense of the proposition that there These things, I reckon, have more in military spending, there is a striking have been two - and only two - just common with fascism than anything a ignorance of both the historical record wars in American history: the government of nostalgic snobs and elit­ and the arguments behind the classical American Revolution and what he not ists could manage. liberal position. unreasonably calls the War for The Secret of the League is a propa­ The Costs of War: America's Pyrrhic Southern Independence. In his essay gandist work from a period in history Victories could go a long way toward Joseph Stromberg explains how the which could be doing with much closer remedying this problem. This hand­ Spanish-American War was an impor­ scrutiny than it has, of late, received. somely produced volume traces the his­ tant precursor of the U.S. involvement But it is no "capitalist fiction." In fact, tory of America's wars from the overseas that has characterized so its almost accidental advocacy of capi­ founding of the republic to the Allied much of American foreign policy in the talism, buried within a context of "victory" in 1945 and the postwar twentieth century. The book also nationalism does capitalism and its establishment of American world dom­ reprints an article by Murray Rothbard advocacy no favors whatsoever. 0 inance, providing intellectual support in which he argues convincingly in his 56 Liberty inimitable and trenchant style that Fussell, the celebrated author and vete­ World War I represented not the denial ran of Wodd War II, provides a short but rather the apotheosis of piece on how war impacts society. About Progressivism in American life. Amen. However, this is no substitute for read­ I must record my disappointment ing his excellent books on the subject, that the War of 1812 and the Mexican­ notably The Great War and Modern Your American War receive only passing ref­ Memory (1975) and Wartime: erence in this book. However, this is Understanding and Behavior in the Second not surprising as the contributors focus World War (1989). Subscription on U.S. expansion overseas and either Unfortunately, The Costs of War makes little mention of the Korean, ignore continental expansion or, in Q: When does my subscription expire? Raimondo's case, even applaud this Vietnam, and Gulf Wars and almost no A: Please look to the right ofyour development as necessary for the secur­ discussion of the Cold War, focusing instead on the historical record leading name on your mailing label. There ity of the American republic. In this you will find the number ofissues up to and including World War II, context I recommend Richard W. Van left in your subscription, followed Alstyne's The Rising American Empire rather than venturing beyond to a dis­ by the word "left," as in "3 LEFT." (1960), Frederick and Lois Bannister cussion of the very real "hot" wars in East Asia, the Cold War itself (which Q: I've moved. Where do I send my Merk's Manifest Destiny and Mission in change ofaddress information? American History: A Reinterpretation has had enormous consequences for America), and its aftermath, including A: Liberty, P.O. Box 1181, Port (1963), and Professors Morison, Merk, the Gulf War. Townsend, WA 98368. Please and Freidel's Dissent in Three American The penultimate chapter by the include your previous address (it's Wars (1970), a neglected but fascinating best to send us your label from your Austrian school economist Joseph book of essays. magazine) and telephone number. Salerno looks at how fiat money infla­ Ralph Raico's "Rethinking Allow us six weeks to receive and tion may be used to finance war in an process your address notification. Churchill" introduces a new audience effort to conceal from the public the full Q: I'm receiving duplicate copies; what to a fully updated version of the thor­ extent to which resources are being should I do? oughly revisionist analysis that he sequestrated by the state to fight the wrote over twenty years ago. Having A: Take a look at both mailing labels, war, and the necessary consequences of clip'em out and send'em to us. been born and raised in Britain after the such a policy. The final chapter by war at a time when there were two We'll make sure that you receive all another Austrian school economist, the issues you've paid for. institutions beyond criticism, namely Hans-Hermann Hoppe, is a characteris­ Winston Churchill and the National tically provocative essay in which he Q: I think you've charged my credit card incorrectly; what can I do? Health Service, I enormously enjoyed seeks to demonstrate that the legitima­ reading Raico's original article at the tion of democracy in the twentieth cen­ A: Call us at 800-854-6991 (during time it was published, and I encourage normal business hours on the West tury has led to much more terrible wars Coast). We'll take down your infor­ since the restraints that limited the mation and then try to solve your power of monarchs do not restrain the problem as soon as possible. The classical liberal perspec­ modern democratic state. Hoppe's interesting thesis is accompanied by an Q: Can I change my address on your toll-free number, too? tive on war and foreign policy uncharacteristically non-Austrian dia­ gram which I found needlessly A: No. Experience has taught us that gets short shrift these days. we service these things best when we abstruse and in any case is quite Worse still, some self­ get your address corrections in unnecessary. writing. proclaimed exponents of the Historically, except for the Vietnam free market defend war- conflict and arguably the War of 1812, Q: Can I communicate with your ful­ u.s. fillment department by email? making and celebrate U.S. participation in war has culmi­ nated in victory in the conventional A: Yes; send your communications and American global hegemony. sense that the enemy was defeated. It is queries to us at therefore not surprising that there has [email protected] always been a high level of public sup­ We'll try to get back to you as soon you to read this corrective to the port for this bloody record and a will­ as possible. received wisdom. ingness to trust the federal government Robert Higgs, author of Crisis and as it makes preparations for future The editorial offices can be reached at Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth wars. It would appear that publicly 360-379-0242. of American Government (1987), explains articulated doubts about u.s. interven­ Our sales and subscription fulfillment the crucial role that mass conscription tions abroad, which arose from U.s. fail­ office can be reached at 800-854-6991 has played in the huge expansion of the ure to prevent the North Vietnamese (foreign callers can call the editorial American state in the twentieth cen­ takeover of South Vietnam, have been offices, and they'll forward your calls to tury. Bill Kauffman surveys American largely silenced by the conspicuous suc­ the appropriate personnel). writers' opposition to war. And Paul cess of U.S. military prowess in the Gulf May 1998

War. According to the prevailing con­ between the past and the present and so collective (not individual) ownership. sensus among commentators across the take the story up to the present day. In John Rawls's system of justice, for political spectrum, this conflict has ena­ As with many collections of essays, example, people with fewer talents bled America to overcome the Vietnam the quality of the individual contribu­ should be made part-owners of people syndrome, or some such nonsense. tions varies considerably and certain with great talents, so as to achieve an Recent events where the United States themes and topics are not explored equality of opportunity among human threatened yet again to bomb Iraq in either at all or else as thoroughly as one beings. But some of these conditions order to "punish" Saddam Hussein for might wish. That said, the book con­ cannot be changed, or cannot be his refusal to accept American orders tains a number of well-written and changed without an enormous expen­ remind us once again of the continuing well-argued essays that address various diture of money and effort and in any relevance of the lessons that this book aspects of a crucially important but case we spare ourselves an enormous seeks to impart. Too bad then that the currently neglected subject for administrative burden if we renounce book does not make those connections libertarians. 0 any claim to the assets of others; this enables us to get on with the business of living, without attempting to deter­ Simple Rules in a Complex World, by Richard Epstein. Harvard mine how much a person of inferior University Press, 1995, 361 pages. mental or physical endowments is owed by others. 2. The rule of first possession. Some theorists have said that no one should be permitted to own anything apart from oneself: no one should own land, or houses, or furniture, or clothing. These things "belong to everybody." Simplicity Rules But in that case, shouldn't the permis­ sion of everyone be required before any of these things can be used? And this, of course, is impossible. Who is to say who, and under what circumstances, may till the land, occupy the house, wear the clothes? John Hospers 1. The principle ofself-ownership. Each Even the U.S.S.R. permitted people person, as John Locke said, has property to own clothing, books, and furniture; in his own body, over which no one but The application of general laws to himself has any dominion. Each person particular cases is a matter of great should be the sole determinant of what complexity. If one reads a book such as is done with his own body; another per­ The trouble with the police Philip Howard's The Death of Common son may assist in this only with the first power, says Epstein, is that it Sense, one fears for the future of not person's voluntary consent. only the business community but the This principle is, of course antitheti­ very quickly gets out ofhand. ordinary citizen, in the face of such con­ cal to any form of slavery. Indeed, the flicting interpretations of a law that one principle may seem too obvious to be has no idea whether one will succeed in questioned, but Epstein defends it in a what was not permitted was ownership one's ventures or be totally bankrupted pragmatic way. If one person can deter­ of land. Under what conditions then by some adverse legal judgment. And if mine the course of another person's may land be owned? If anybody could one reads a book such as James life, who is going to be that determiner, grab as he wished, and thereby be enti­ Bovard's Lost Rights, one soon feels and by what principle is that deter­ tled to keep it, there would be constant powerless against such an infinitely miner to be selected? Shall conquest war by those who were trying to take it detailed set of regulations that even \a decide the outcome? If life is a lottery from him. Thus we arrive at a principle specialist in the law cannot state with in which a roll of the dice decides who similar to Locke's: a person must earn confidence what the law really says. is to be on top, each person has a 50% land (as well as clothing and furniture) Nevertheless, says Richard Epstein chance of being master and 50% chance by his labor. Doesn't this restrict the in his Simple Rules, there is a set of prin­ of being slave. The chances of being a behavior of other persons, who might ciples, few in number and easy to slave are too great to provide any com­ desire to own the same piece of land? understand, which tells us what the fort: the chance of being a master is not Yes, says Epstein, the actions of a sec­ law ought to be. The entire corpus of worth the risk. It is far preferable to be ond claimant are limited by the actions the law, he contends, is subsumable certain of being a self-owner, even of the first one, who earned what he under six general principles, which though this involves a limitation on now possesses; the second one may should be the fans et origo of all legal one's power over others. Epstein calls have to settle elsewhere. This, however, decisions. Briefly stated, the six princi­ this the Principle of Autonomy. is a small price to pay for an immense ples are as follows: Some have held that there should benefit, security of possession. Only 58 Liberty May 1998 with security of possession can men be edly defective part or design, but only pharmacy is closed for the night, you strongly motivated to labor; moreover, with the "nut behind the wheel." Each may break in and steal the medication with this secure possession they can case should be judged on its own mer­ you need to save her life, provided you plan ahead and make gainful its. Sometimes there is negligence by reimburse and pay damages later. If a exchanges, impossible economic stabil­ both parties: the Coast Guard was neg­ man almost dead of thirst staggers up ity and the accumulation of wealth. ligent in failing to maintain a breakwa­ to you and begs for something to drink, 3. The principle ofcontract. "The basic ter light, but the captain was also you must not say "OK, I'll do it for a mechanism of contract," says Epstein, negligent in passing another ship dur­ million dollars" and hold out till per­ "is something very simple, powerful, ing a storm when he knew the light son is dead. There should be provision and universal. It essentially involves was not functioning. in the law for emergency cases such as your surrendering something that you Sometimes the criterion used is not this: it is more important to save a life value in exchange for something else negligence, which is often extremely than to lose some income. Epstein asks, that you value even more" (p. 72). Thus difficult to determine, but strict liability: Before the event, would you rather each party to an exchange gets what he by engaging in a certain kind of action, have the absolute right to exclude prefers, and there is a great increase in such as fumigating or handling under all circumstances, only to be overall well-being. excluded by others? Or would you In many voluntary exchanges rather be subject to the duty to admit between A and B, there are negative such cases of necessity, which might externalities to C, D, and so on. The "If we stick with the six save your life? exchange will affect others who did not basic principles," Epstein There is a caution, however: it is easy participate in it. C may in some cases writes, "the overall level of to keep expanding the concept of neces­ be worse off, e.g. if he did not get to sity. He brings out this danger with trade with A because B did so first. complexity will be reduced and examples: San Francisco was devastated Still, society in general is better off resources will be freed from the by the earthquake of 1906, but never because individuals have an opportu­ multitudinous legal tangles changed its property laws because of it. nity to enter into exchange with one New York City, by contrast, claiming a another. Similarly, the trade between A imposed on them by thousands massive housing shortage after WorId and B may negatively impact C and D ofboards, bureaus, regulations, War II, imposed a strict system of rent because it adds to air pollution, or the and contro Is. " controls. San Francisco had a viable spread of a disease, or the damming of housing market a month after the earth­ a stream which flows through B's field quake, whereas New York still has rent and prevents C from obtaining the controls fifty years after they were intro­ water. In such cases, however, another poisons, one is strictly liable for any duced in order (allegedly) to ease the principle comes into play: injury of damage, regardless of whether housing shortage. 4. Protection against aggression. The or not one was negligent. The plaintiff 6. Taking with compensation. This is basis law of tort is, if something is not would usually prefer it if the defendant the main subject of Epstein's excellent yours, keep off - no murder, rape, lar­ is held strictly liable ("liability without earlier book, Takings. The government ceny, trespass, no interference with vol­ fault"), but such a judgment may still be may take a piece of property, such as untaryexchange. unfair if the defendant was not negli­ your house and yard, to make space for It is not always clear, however, to gent. There is a continuing battle a freeway, but it must pay (as the what lengths a person may go to pro­ between negligence and strict liability Constitution specifies) "just compensa­ tect himself. Mayan innocent man try as criteria for settlement. tion" for all such takings. to escape the secret police by shooting, There is also an important distinc­ The government also exercises what even if this involves the probability of tion between harm and offense. To is called the police power. If A is about to killing innocent bystanders? May you harm someone is actionable, to merely attack B, B may disarm A without com­ protect your property with an electri­ offend someone is usually not. Still, it is pensating him for the loss of his fied fence, giving a strong shock to not clear that one has harmed someone weapon: the act of aggression triggers whoever touches it, however inno­ by sunbathing nude in one's back yard the right of self-defense. cently? And so on, for an endless array in sight of neighbors, or repeatedly The police power is now used far of possible situations. using foul language to them, although more broadly than this, however. It is The law requires that we take "rea­ most neighbors would find such used to prevent a farmer from using his sonable care." Failure to do so is negli­ actions offensive and would prefer own land, by declaring it a wetland, or gence, for which one can be made to them to be prohibited by law. alleging that there are members of pay damages. If you back your car out Thus far, we have a legal system endangered species there. It may even of the garage and hit a child, you are with strong and well-defined rights to fine or imprison the land-owner for presumed not to have taken reasonable persons and property, complete free­ dumping gravel or refuse on his own care - unless there was no way for the dom of exchange, and strong protection land. accident to be avoided by taking care. against the aggressive actions of others. The trouble with the police power, Car manufacturers are regularly sued But these are still not quite enough: says Epstein, is that it very quickly gets for improper design - but the accident 5. Limited privilege for cases of neces­ out of hand. A man may be prevented may had nothing to do with the alleg- sity. If your wife is deathly ill and the from building a house on an already- Liberty 59 May 1998 bought beachfront property, because your children. Are not parents ste­ such things, how are they to be decided neighbors complain, or because it wards, not owners, of their children, and what is the basis for such a deci­ blocks their view, or because the State supporting them and guarding them sion? Do the six principles tell us, or wants to get it free of price by confiscat­ against harm until they are of the age imply any conclusion about it? ing it under the RICO Act, and in no when they can care for themselves? 5. How far may the State go in such case is there compensation for the Clearly not everything goes - though restricting the use of someone's prop­ loss. The police power must be care­ it is far from clear what does: corporal erty? The Health Department closes a fully defined and drastically limited, he punishment? Incarceration in a dark restaurant because cockroaches have says, in order "to stem Leviathan." closet? Threats of dire punishment for been found there. Is this a justified Taxation is a "taking," but it is justi­ some minor infraction? activity? What if they closed it because fied, says Epstein, because "we can 2. There is also the problem of own­ the building had become dilapidated, never achieve unanimous consent about ership of animals, a subject on which or was too close to the sidewalk, or the funding of necessary public services, Epstein says nothing. Do you own your was painted a color that was not in e.g. national defense and maintenance of dog or cat? Is it any more permissible accord with the other buildings on the law and order." Nor can we attach a to torture them, or leave them to starve block? meter to people's skulls to measure the if you tire of them, than in the case of Mr. B builds a house in the hills benefit that each person receives from children? above Mr. A's house, though doing so is government expenditures. 3. There are countless unmentioned fraught with danger of mud slides when "If we stick with the six basic princi­ problems concerning ownership of the rains come. Should he build it and ples," he writes, "the overall level of land. If settlers from Europe displace then face lawsuit when the mud slides complexity will be reduced and native Americans, do the settlers now occur? Or may the city forcibly prevent resources will be freed from the multi­ own the land? If not, should it all be him from building it in the first place? tudinous legal tangles imposed on returned to the descendants of the dis­ May the city prevent a roofer from put­ them by thousands of boards, bureaus, placed Indians? (Did the Plains Indians ting a combustible roof on someone's regulations, and controls." Never­ treat it as property, since they did not house, or should the roofing material be settle there permanently but "squatted" theless, his approval of eminent applied and the neighbors be free to sue domain and emergency cases represent till they had used up the game and fish, if a fire results? May the State stop him and then moved on elsewhere? What - to some "pure" libertarians - a stra­ from engaging in forestry on his own constitutes ownership?) If Israelis tegic retreat from a strong libertarian land because there are redwood trees moved in where Palestinians had been, position which imposes obligations on there, or for some other reason? do the Israelis now own it? Or are they individuals only for wrongful conduct. 6. There are problems about the reg­ trespassing on land which is not theirs? ulation of labor. Can an employer, in Or do they own it because their ances­ Questions of Application the absence of a contract, fire any tors tilled that soil during Biblical It would be difficult to deny that worker he chooses to at any time? May times? If a piece of land has been taken these six principles - the first four, at he summarily dismiss him when the from others, then occupied and farmed the very least - are fundamental to a by the takers for several generations, employee is injured on the job, leaving legal system designed to respect the can they now be said to own it? him without benefits though he has rights of individuals. (Modern liberals An Oregon farmer discovers some worked for the company for thirty would say that the six are not enough Indian artifacts buried in his land. He years - as often happened in the 19th· - that the State is justified in engaging digs them up and claims them as his, century? If a mining company owns an in many more activities than these prin­ since they were found on the land he entire town, and there is no reasonable ciples would permit.) Unfortunately, owns. But native Americans claim the opportunity for workers to go else­ however, acquaintance with these prin­ relic since their ancestors made them where, may the owner reduce the ciples does not always tell us how they (mixed their labor with them). And an wages to starvation level and otherwise are to be applied to individual cases. I anthropological society wants them make life impossible for employees? shall mention here only a few of the placed in a museum, since only thus When a landlord raises the rent, and questions that came to mind while I can they be displayed for all to see the elderly and infirm tenant cannot was perusing Epstein's pages, where it ("don't they belong to everyone?"). pay, may he evict her for non-payment was not clear to me from what Epstein Can we say which of them is right? of rent, or must he keep her on for a said what he would have to say about 4. There are countless other prob­ specified period at reduced rent or no the practical application of the six lems about disposition of property. If rent if she has no family or relatives principles. Mr. and Mrs. Smith decide to separate, and is now an invalid? Does this consti­ 1. If one owns oneself, what about should she receive half his income tute "necessity" as in Rule # 5, and if so children? Parents surely do not own (including his property), including how far is the concept of necessity to be their children in the sense of being the what he owned before he knew her? extended? parents' property, i.e. having the right Should she receive not only part of his to use and disposal. If you own a cer­ income to date, but part of his projected A Sensible Libertarianism? tain book, you may mark it, scar it, income in the future, since she stood by I am not clear how Epstein would burn it, sell or give it to someone else him while he worked to earn it? If there handle these questions, along with - none of which you may do with is implicit contract between them about many others, based on the six princi- 60 Liberty May 1998 pIes. One thing seems clear, however: libertarians, he approves of certain min­ "internationalize" and become a "nor­ he does not attempt to limit the regula­ imal functions of the State: police, mal country." tive act of the State as many "orthodox" armed forces, courts. What we have in The source of Hall's frustration is libertarians would do. He believes in these pages is a nicely crafted legal institutional barriers traceable to cen­ limited regulation - restaurants and framework for what might be called"a tral government control. Foreign law­ aircraft companies cannot be expected sensible libertarianism" - sensible in yers, for example, are essentially to police themselves. He approves of spite of the fact that some important banned from practice in Japan. In 1986, eminent domain. (One must not be questions are not addressed: does legislation enabled Japan-based u.s. forced to move without just compensa­ South Carolina, for example, having law firms to assist Japanese companies tion - which is not the same as saying been admitted to the Union, have a (and their legal representatives) with that his consent to move is required). right to secede? We are not told; but investments, arbitrations and commer­ He believes, unlike many libertarians, what we are told is usually helpful in cial transactions in the U.s. The in patent and copyright. Most of all, he threading our way through the jungle, American lawyers are not permitted to does not question the legitimacy of the even if it is not always enough to ena­ provide reciprocal services for u.s. cli­ State: like Rand and unlike anarchist ble us to get out of it. 0 ents wishing to pursue business in Japan. While Japanese law firms can hire the services of U.S. lawyers, Cartels ofthe Mind: Japan's Intellectual Closed Shop, by Ivan P. Japanese bengoshi, the equivalent to Hall. W. W. Norton and Company, 1997, 208 pages. U.S. trial lawyers, are not allowed to practice their trade if they are employed full-time by a foreign firm. Recent updates to that 1986 legisla­ tion removed some minor restrictions The Closing of - foreign lawyers can now use the name of their U.S. firm on their busi­ ness cards - and spelled out "a pro­ gressive-sounding but virtually the Japanese Mind unworkable device known as 'joint enterprise'" which is supposed to give foreign lawyers greater access to the talents and specialized skills of the ben­ goshi. But this set up is little more than Michael Oakes Japanese society. His book describes a "space-sharing arrangement." The well how the central government in Japanese lawyers in the joint enterprise Tokyo supports "severe professional must have no connection with the for­ During my graduate school days, I restrictions placed upon foreign law­ eign home office. "Advice on Japanese took a class from Professor Michael yers, journalists, and academics work­ law and third-country legal matters Jensen, the resident god at the ing for the long term in Japan ­ remains the exclusive perogative of the University of Rochester Business restrictions that do not apply to their Japanese bengoshi in the joint venture, School. Jensen said of lot of good things Japanese counterparts active in the and Japanese litigation has to be han­ I soon forgot (which may explain why I West." For anyone involved in the dled outside the joint venture alto­ did not follow rnost of my classmates to Japan-analysis industry, it offers addi­ gether by the Japanese law firm." Wall Street). His definition of fair and tional ammunition in the continuing As a result, there are only about 45 unfair, however, stuck. battles to make Japan become what the foreign law firms in Tokyo, the largest Some students had objected that analysts think it should become. metropolitan area in the world and cap­ however rationally functioning the Cartels of the Mind suffers, however, ital city of the second largest national market for executive talent appeared to from Hall's over-reliance on descriptive economy. And only two tried the joint be, the results - huge compensation analysis and from an understandable enterprise arrangement. packages for CEOs of firms that are lay­ but uninformative attachment to Foreign journalists, fortunately, are ing off factory workers - were unfair. "unfair." What he describes is correct: actually allowed to write in Japan, Jensen asked us what fair and unfair Japan's legal, journalism and academic though their ability to work is severely really mean. After predictably sopho­ markets are largely closed to foreign curtailed by denying them access to moric responses from us, he wrote the participants. But he stops there and "kisha clubs." It is through these clubs two words on the board. Next to fair he simply frets that this is horribly unfair. that official, on-the-record press confer­ wrote, "I like it." Next to unfair, "1 It's unfair that Japan should be such an ences, as well as important off-the­ don't like it." economic force without allowing for­ record background sessions, are admin­ Jensen's dramatic display replayed eign intellectuals and researchers equal istered. Kisha club reporters generally in my head throughout Ivan P. Hall's access to its domestic idea network. It's share space with, and use desks, tele­ Cartels of the Mind: lapan's Intellectual unfair that Japan campaigns for a seat phones and other equipment provided Closed Shop. Hall clearly has a grasp on on the UN Security Council without by, the sources. (In practice, as Hall some very irritating elements of first delivering on its stated policy to points out, this very often means at tax- Liberty 61 May 1998 payer expense for the government min­ divided into two classes, neither of difficult for outsiders to become com­ istry and agency clubs). which is legally or in practice on par petitive. It's not so surprising that the The clubs are open to institutions with their Japanese colleagues (and barriers exist, but rather that they exist and organizations, rather than individ­ that's regardless of the foreigners' resi­ so blatantly and, until Hall's book any­ ual reporters. Only recently have a few dency status). Those classes are defined way, without attracting much attention. foreign news organization been admit­ by central government legislation. But Hall's descriptive analysis gets ted. In contrast, press conferences in the Long-term contracts for foreign profes­ him only so far. First, he fails to follow U.S. are open to anyone with press cre­ sors hardly exist. Recently, in fact, through on the cartel label. While for­ dentials, and individual sources are based on a directive from the Ministry eigners certainly face institutionalized available to the extent any journalist of Education (Monbusho), many older discrimination in Japan, these cartels chooses to pursue them. foreign instructors have been forced to also keep out other Japanese competi­ Japanese defend the club system by quit. The old ones are being replaced tors. A national qualifying exam for the arguing it helps move news more "effi­ by younger ones who "would be more bengoshi (trial lawyer) track, for exam­ ciently and fairly" compared to some of representative of contemporary ple, permits only about 700 students a American culture" as one Monbusho year to squeeze through. That trickle official told an American Embassy alone is enough to guarantee the legal representative. status quo a comfortable, stable system. It's not so surprlslng that Higher education best exemplifies Hall points out these numbers but then the barriers exist, but rather the insularity in Japan which frustrates gets back to the impact this has on U.S. that they exist so blatantly and many foreigners living here. In 1995, lawyers wanting more business in there were only 66 foreign tenured-type Japan. without attracting much professors in Japan's approximately The kisha clubs consist of the elite attention. 120 prestigious national universities news organizations. That keeps out for­ and research institutes. (The national eigners - but it also closes the door to universities enroll more than 40 percent a much larger group of Japanese jour­ of all college students). In contrast, Hall nalists who do not belong to the top the chaotic press conferences and counts 68 foreign professors, at or newspapers, TV stations or magazines. source-chasing in other countries. It above the associate rank, at a single also builds great trust between sources medium-sized U.S. university, George and club reporters, allowing each to Washington University. discuss sensitive matters without the The totals look no better. Whatever the lost opportu­ concern that comments could be mis­ Combining the two categories for 1995, nities to specific groups offor­ construed. The reporters "more than Japan's national universities employed make up in long-term insight whatever not quite 850 foreign instructors, almost eign professionals, the real they might be losing in ego-building all of those involved in language and costs of the cartels - the real exclusives splashed across tomorrow's area studies teaching. If the less prestig­ costs of Japan's insularity ­ front page." Foreigners don't fit into ious private and public universities fol­ this well, the argument continues. low suit, not a bad assumption given are borne by the Japanese Many often have poor language skills, Monbusho control, that might place themselves. usually cannot devote full-time efforts total foreign instructors at the univer­ at anyone kisha club, and "with their sity level in Japan at around 2,500. In free-wheeling, doggedly probing man­ 1996, Harvard University nearly ner, Western (and other Asian) news­ matched that number by itself. There In fact, Japan has a thriving journalism people cannot be trusted to maintain were more than 60,000 foreign instruc­ market, outside the elite circles, which club confidences." tors in the U.S. in 1996 - 5,300 from is often responsible for digging up When Toyota announced its first Japan alone. scandals or revealing corruption that Kentucky facility in 1985, U.S. reporters As with barriers against foreign the elite media had known about but were barred from the press conference. lawyers and journalists, the separate ignored. Hall mentions this, too, but The room was too small, officials said. faculty system to handle foreigners only in a passing description of the When All Nippon Airways announced seems discriminatory and xenophobic. overall system. At Japan's universities, it was purchasing an entire fleet of jets One official at a university involved in tenure protects the established academ­ from Airbus, European reporters were disputes with terminated foreign pro­ ics from professional competition, for­ excluded from the press conference. fessors explained their refusal to fill eign or Japanese. (They got the news, Hall said, from the permanent positions with foreign schol­ I doubt Hall would disagree with Japanese papers the next morning.) ars: "Why do we need to have foreign­ these effects the closed groups have on Only two foreign reporters managed to . ers teaching things that Japanese are other Japanese. But he nevertheless make it through restrictions to the press capable of handling?" gives the impression he's not opposed conference announcing Sony's pur­ These barriers clearly block oppor­ to cartels generally so much as he is chase of Columbia Pictures. tunities for foreign lawyers, journalists opposed to cartels that work especially Similar nonsense burdens higher and educators. They insulate insiders effectively against foreigners. education. Foreign instructors are from competition, or at least make it Second, Hall fails to make much of a 62 Liberty May 1998 case that these intellectual closed shops rarily, and then it protects only a fading ilar policies toward Japanese, as Hall have a wider impact on foreign interests. snapshot of the intended goal. The suggests. Yes, Japanese lack an official He argues that "the United States, by rigidity and narrow-minded attitudes it sense of reciprocity for the freedoms failing to push now for the dismantling nurtures have little value in a world their individuals and businesses enjoy of Japan's cartels of the mind, risks their where progress requires creativity, flex­ overseas. That's a particularly nasty eventual export to the rest of Asia in a ibility and adaptability. Japanese citi­ side of the country. (It's also an interest­ rolling emulation effect." The absence of zens are paying a heavy price for this ing counterweight to the pride Japanese an internationally integrated higher today. Their systems have become so take in their obsessively reciprocal gift­ education system in Japan "impedes a stale and rigid that they have begun to giving custom.) As foreign professors genuine two-way intellectual flow crack. were being dumped from their long­ between Japan and the rest of the world Worse, the insularity leaves the held jobs at national universities, their because the traffic at universities is pre­ Japanese without the references or Japanese colleagues - many of whom cisely in ideas," Hall says. Further, "this structural tools to affect systematic had ten or more years experience as imbalance in academic employment change. Like Third Republic France, as fully-accepted members of U.S. institu­ opportunities has had a subtle if largely described by Stanley Hoffmann, Japan tions - stood by silently and gave their unnoticed impact on political, trade and is a "stalemate" society with "plenty of foreign friends zero support. historical issues ... by giving Japan a brakes and not much of a motor." Banning Japanese reporters from stronger rhetorical footing in America In any case, the absence of opportu­ press conferences might prompt some than the U.S. enjoys inJapan." nities in Japan for certain American changes in the kisha club system. The impact has been unnoticed for (and other foreign) professionals is no Asking Japanese professors at u.s. good reason: there's not much of one. reason for U.S. professions to adopt sim- universities to step down from their Whatever the lost opportunities to spe­ cific groups of foreign professionals, the real costs of the cartels - the real costs of Japan's insularity - are borne by the Japanese themselves. At what price will the Amazingly, for Hall is a long time par­ ticipant in Japan discussions, he spends little time relating the existence of the gold standard return? closed shops to Japan's economic, polit­ ical and social troubles throughout this • Quality U.S., Latin American decade. Yet these deeply-rooted prob­ 1797 HalfEagle $5.00 Gold Choice Uncirculated and world rare coins for lems clearly stem from layers upon aggressive or conservative Price History layers of cartel-type structures, and portfolios. from an unmanageable system of now 1957 $700 fossilized central controls. 1967 $3,800 1977 $9,500 • Collection-building expert. Japanese citizens are worse off 1987 $30,000 because their choices in conflict resolu­ 1997 $137,500 • Buying, selling, trading. tion are limited; because in cozying up to sources and conforming the resulting 6278 North Federal Highway, #369, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33308 news to a kisha club communal stan­ Tom Pilitowski dard, the "elite" news organizations U.S. Toll Free: 1-800-524-6321 11" 1-954-979-2640 Fax: 1-954-979-2624 legitimize an unhealthy denial of bad things; because the absence of an open higher education system saddles the country with a pathetically un­ intellectual, and in places openly big­ oted, training ground for future business executives, bureaucrats, politi­ "Legal Tender? cians, and housewives. This is not a secret to the rest of Asia. Exporting Japan's cartels of the mind will be much tougher than exporting Toyotas sure, I'll take it ... but I prefer and Walkmans.

Closed systems don't work. Once, tm " several decades ago perhaps, it was e-gold possible to believe some might. But as everyone except North Korean leaders, Japanese bureaucrats, and Apple www.e-gold.com Computer executives now seem to have learned, insularity protects only tempo- May 1998 posts would horrify them, of course, just openness and equal opportunity, these The notion that conversations Rand as it would horrify -I hope - most measures signal that our principles are may have had with Peikoff had any­ Americans. But these are silly ways to simply tokens for game-playing thing to do with her starting to write is promote good ideas. Rather than whenever we think we are being treated simply wrong. Rand regarded herself a communicate important values of "unfairly." 0 philosopher long before she met Peikoff, though she postponed writing formal philosophical essays until she finished Ayn Rand: A Sense ofLife" written and directed by Michael Paxton. AG her novel Atlas Shrugged, a few years Media COrporation, Ltd. & Copasetic, Inc., 1997, 143 minutes. after she had met Peikoff. Her first work of philosophy, For the New Intellectual (1959), is made up mostly of passages from Atlas Shrugged, as well as her ear­ lier novels. During this period, Peikoff was very much a junior member of her Making Sense circle of admirers, a member whose relationship with Rand was that of stu­ dent to teacher. "His philosophical dis­ cussions with Ayn were usually his ofa Life admissions of his failure to understand essential aspects of Objectivism," recalls Barbara Branden. Rand's more serious philosophical discussions were with film does grudgingly admit that, as any­ Nathaniel and Barbara Branden and R. W. Bradford one would suspect, she was unhappy John Hospers, who, unlike the others, after her husband died in 1979, but it was an established academic philosopher. fails to mention that she suffered almost There is an awful lot to like about Equally hard to understand is the constant depression for the final 25 years Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, the documen­ documentary's treatment of the·person of her life. tary that was recently nominated for an who was Rand's closest associate, both Of course, Rand herself engaged in a Academy Award. Thanks to the cooper­ socially and intellectually, Nathaniel ation of the Ayn Rand Institute and the good deal of self-mythologizing, and Estate of Ayn Rand, its producer­ much of A Sense ofLife's portrayal of her director-writer Michael Paxton had is consistent with her self-made myth. access to Ayn Rand's photo album, her Thus Rand's long familiar story about manuscripts and letters, and the right to her brilliant confrontation with philoso­ Rand is depicted as not only quote from her writing. A parade of phy Prof. N.O. Lossky is repeated, the greatest philosopher and photos of young Rand laughing, posing despite the well-known recent research greatest novelist of all time, solemnly with her family in Russia, and of Chris Sciabarra which casts very seri­ trying to look glamorous or mysterious ous doubts on its truth. So is Rand's dra­ but also as an individual according to the Hollywood precepts of matic fib about Mussolini's suppression entirely consistent in her the day while narrator Sharon Gless of Noi Vivi, the unauthorized film ver­ thinking at every level, and reads from Rand's words - this may sion of her novel We The Living filmed in not be a recipe for a box office hit, but I Italy during World War II. (On this who, consequently, led a nearly like it a lot. issue, see Liberty, November 1988.) perfectly happy life. Unfortunately, thanks also to the It is easy to understand A Sense of cooperation of the Ayn Rand Institute Life's indulgence of Rand's ability to tell and the Estate of Ayn Rand, there's a lot a good story. But it is much harder to not to like as well. fathom its treatment of Rand's emer­ Branden. He was the emotional center The great flaw of A Sense ofLife is that gence as a philosopher. Here is how the of Rand's life from the day in 1950 when it is not committed to the truth, to show­ film claims Rand got her start in the she received an unusually impressive ing Rand the way she really was, in all field: fan letter from the 19-year-old, through her complexity. Instead, it is committed Through conversations with Leonard years of an intense sexual relationship to portraying Ayn Rand as Leonard Peikoff, Ayn saw that many of her and collaboration, until the day in 1968 Peikoff, Rand's heir, wants her por­ philosophical principles were not when, learning of his sexual infidelity, trayed, and to putting both of them in a self-evident to those around her. She she humiliated him in front of his glaringly, but ultimately uninterestingly, realized a more detailed elaboration friends and banished him from her life. favorable light. Thus Rand is depicted as of her philosophy was needed. Now In a documentary running approxi­ not only the greatest philosopher and that Howard Roark, Dagny Taggart, mately 143 minutes, Rand's relationship greatest novelist of all time, but also as and John Galt existed, she had with Nathaniel Branden gets a total of 3 an individual entirely consistent in her accomplished what she had set out to minutes and 30 seconds. For most of that thinking at every level. Consequently, do in fiction and was ready to begin time, Rand's final designated heir she led a nearly perfectly happy life. The writing in the field of philosophy. Leonard Peikoff speculates about how 64 Liberty May 1998

Rand's husband, Frank O'Connor, coped questions, an observation confirmed by the film was determined, ambitious, with his knowledge of his wife's sexual a great many others. "She commented brave, vulnerable, and smart - an relationship with the much younger on psychological problems of the ques­ attractive young woman who it's easy Branden - though somehow Peikoff tioners, and frequently discussed what to forget ever existed when one looks at fails to mention that Frank began an she saw as their motives," Joan the eviscerated portrayal that this film affair of his own at this time, with a liq­ Blumenthal observed. "That is what ter­ projects of her as the virtually faultless uor bottle - and explains what a rotten rified people." Greatest Philosopher of All Time. person Branden "was." (Peikoff speaks Had Paxton wanted to show how We can forgive Rand her self­ of Branden only in the past tense, as if he Rand responded to what she perceived mythology. She was a woman of great were dead, which, I suspect, Peikoff as a hostile question, he could have accomplishment - a first rate novelist wishes he were.) done so. When Rand appeared on the and philosopher - and of geniuses we Barbara Branden, Joan and Allan Phil Donahue television program, por­ can forgive much. But Leonard Peikoff Blumenthal, Henry and Erika Holzer, tions of which Paxton used in his film, a is not a man of great accomplishment, Bob Hessen, Edith Efron, John Hospers, woman made the mistake of saying that so what is forgivable or at least under­ and Alan Greenspan also played very she had formerly liked Rand's philoso­ standable in Rand is simply silly in important parts in Rand's life, but none phy but had "matured." "Do you want Peikoff. of whom are on speaking terms with to create an incident?" snapped Rand. Ayn Rand's story is fascinating. It's Peikoff today. None of them is even "Why come here and take advantage of too bad that Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life mentioned at all in the film, though one my show and of people who came here doesn't tell that story with fidelity to can occasionally spot them in photo­ to see me?" the truth. It is not biography; it is hagi­ graphs. The camera focuses again and The young Rand portrayed early in ography. 0 again on Leonard Peikoff and the others who surrounded her after Joan and Allan Blumenthal bowed out in 1978; The Reader's Catalog, edited by Geoffrey O'Brien. RC Publications, the film gives the distinct impression 1997, 1,654 pages, paperback. that they were Rand's only close asso­ ciates (aside from the pernicious Branden). Near the end of the film, Peikoff describes Rand's ability to answer ques­ The Number tions from students as that of a philo­ sophical and psychological genius: She not only answered the questions - she told you what errors you ofthe Best made that led you to that question, why you weren't able to answer it yourself, what confusions would arise in your mind tomorrow when you thought over her answers and Richard Kostelanetz Since The Reader's Catalog lacks not what the answers to those were and only running heads but running sub­ then what to read to consolidate your heads, you the reader (in whose name thinking even more clearly. So it was The second edition of mammoth The the book is piously titled), opening at like an entire course - it wasn't just Reader's Catalog comes several years random, has a helluva problem discov­ a yes or no answer. Every question after the first, and from the same peo­ ering where he is at. On pages 502-3, was a springboard to a total explora­ ple who gave us The New York Review of for instance, you can find in the middle tion of the issue and of the proper Books, whose address it shares. Billed as of the pages the categorical epithets of methods of thinking. "An Annotated Listing of the 40,000 "Non-Marxist Thought," "Non-violent An astute viewer might wonder why Best Books in Print, Chosen by a Politics," and "Conservatism," each of the film presents Peikoff's talking head Distinguished Group of Academics, which introduces a list of selected book explaining this when he could have Critics & Writers," it is meant to be a titles. What connects these seemingly shown footage of Rand responding to an Bible, or at least a bible, toward book fugitive categories, you ask? Well, turn actual questioner. Those who have wit­ purchasing, even providing a conven­ back several pages to page 498 and you nessed Rand's responses to questions ient order form in the back and, for can find in larger type the sub-head know why no such insightful and bril­ those more inclined to talk than write, "Political Thought" and then turn all liant responses were shown. It is true an 800 number. Given its origins, it is the way back to page 419 to find the that Rand sometimes offered genuine scarcely surprising to find that the section heading of "Social Studies," insights when answering questions, but Reader's Catalog recommends The First both of which account for these catego­ all to often she responded in an Anthology: Thirty Years of the New York ries on pages 502-3. extremely hostile fashion. As Nathaniel Review of Books with these words: "The Consider then what would certainly Branden observed, she "often became pre-eminent American journal of poli­ be obvious to any professional book angry" and "sometimes she could be ter­ tics and culture celebrates its 30th anni­ designer - that the space beside the rifying" to individuals who asked her versary...." Uh, huh. folios on pages 502-3 could read Liberty 65 May 1998

"Social Studies: Political Thought," giv­ running sub-heads) makes you wonder tos and, more often, David Levine's ing a context and thus more sense to whether this publisher and its editors -familiar author caricatures from the the sub-sub-heads. You wonder how read their own books. For some reason New York Review, which are shamelessly people, purportedly experienced at currently inexplicable (but probably recycled once again. Among the writers publishing and perhaps reading Books, illustrative when known), few listings recommended most often, to judge from could make such an amateur omission. mention a book's year of initial the 92-page, quadruple-columned My hunch is that this book was pro­ publication. index, are Ronald Barthes, Harold duced but not actually read, as happens Larger than most telephone directo­ Bloom, Mircea Eliade, Christopher too often in committee work nowadays, ries, The Reader's Catalog has nearly Ricks, Thomas Merton, Peter until it got to reviewers and users (you 2,000 pages, 8 inches by 11 inches on Matthiessen, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and me). The fact that the first edition thin paper, with triple columns of type with ten citations apiece. Figure them of this Catalog has running heads (and punctuated occasionally by author pho- apples out, if you can. If you regard the

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Learn at Richard Kostelanetz, continued from page 26

Liberty onds. Not even stud movie stars can get truth in fact - fiction is not reality here half as much publicity for purportedly or anywhere else.) The only honest groping groupies. response is an open mind that might Liberty Foundation, the publisher The first charge is that the president never be closed. The only true libertar­ of Liberty magazine, offers full­ had some kind of sex with the intern. ian position is None of Your Business, time, paid internships at all times He vehemently denied it. Without any especially if the inquisitor is a govern­ of the year. For more information, non-circumstantial evidence other than ment agent. contact: he-said and she-said, only those previ­ The second charge for those predis­ ously committed, only true-believers of posed to raising the ante is that, if the R.W. Bradford one stripe or another, can pretend to seduction happened, Clinton lied Liberty P.O. Box 1181 decide definitively for one or the other. under oath during sworn depositions Port Townsend, WA 98368 (It is not enough to "believe" that ambi­ about not having sex with anyone tious interns want to seduce their illus­ other than his wife. The second charge you may use email: trious bosses or that bosses inevitably necessarily acknowledges that the first [email protected] seduce interns. Because something hid­ is not a crime and thus tries opportu- den seems credible doesn't make it continued on next page Liberty 69 nistically to convict the president of something else. Consider, nonetheless, that while lying under oath is discredit­ able, perjury in a civil trial is nearly Chester Alan Arthur is Liberty's political writing. impossible to prosecute without, as correspondent. Peter McWilliams is a best-selling author here, any verifiable evidence. Though Brien Bartels is Liberty's assistant editor. and publisher, living at I'm still bitter about once losing a small John Bergstrom is a California cartoonist www.mcwilliams.com claims case because I didn't bring along and animator. Rex F. May is also known as the cartoon­ enough documents to expose an unex­ Alan W. Bock is a Senior Columnist at the ist "Baloo." pected lie, I also know that, if everyone Orange County Register and author of Robert H. Nelson is the author of Reaching committing perjury under oath were Ambush at Ruby Ridge. for Heaven on Earth and other books. prosecuted, the jails would explode Ben Bolch is the co-author of Apocalypse Michael Oakes is an American writer liv­ Not: Science, Economics and ing in Japan. from the incarceration of otherwise Environmentalism, and a Robert Durk Pearson is a research scientist, best­ law-abiding people (and there McCallum Distinguished Professor of selling author and rabble-rouser. wouldn't be enough taxpayers left to Economics at Rhodes College. Bradford Pendley is an Associate Professor support them all). Prison overpopula­ R.W. Bradford is editor of Liberty. of Chemistry at Rhodes College. tion would likewise result from Mark Brady is a program officer at the Martin Quoile is an Irish writer in foreign expanding the definition of statutory Institute for Humane Studies at George parts. rape to include seducers scoring young Mason University. Ralph Raico is professor of history at State people not under 18 or 16 but, instead, Harry Browne is the author of Why University College, Buffalo, New York. half the seducer's age. Government Doesn't Work. Sheldon L. Richman is editor of The The federal office of "independent Douglas Casey is editor of International Freeman. Speculator. counsel" has been flagrantly abused, as Jane Shaw is a journalist in Bozeman, a desultory investigation into a quar­ Scott Chamber's cartoons have been pub­ Montana. lished in National Review, among other ter-century-old failed real estate deal places. Sandy Shaw is a research scientist, best­ called Whitewater has focused instead selling author and rabble-rouser. Stephen Cox is Professor of Literature at on a woman less than 25 years old. The UC-San Diego and author of the intro­ Fred L. Smith, Jr., is president of the rationale for this spectacular jump is Competitive Enterprise Institute. duction to the Transaction edition of that Clinton's comments about the sec­ David Ramsay Steele is author of From Isabel Paterson's The God of the Machine. ond illustrate a "pattern of deception" Michael Grossberg is a journalist in Marx to Mises: Post-Capitalist Society and the Challenge ofEconomic Calculation. purportedly also present in his remarks Columbus, Ohio, and co-founder of the about the first. If you consider the Libertarian Futurist Society. Clark Stooksbury is assistant publisher of assumption that anyone fibbing about Leon T. Hadar is the author of Quagmire: Liberty. America in the Middle East. Thomas S. Szasz is a Professor of anything should ipso facto be Gene Healy is a student at the University Psychiatry Emeritus at the State considered a congenital liar you can of Chicago Law School. University of New York. comprehend the innocence or cunning John Hospers is the author of Human Victoria Varga is director of the stupidity behind this "logical" leap. I Conduct, Libertarianism, An Introduction Libertarian Futurist Society. can't be alone in knowing people who to Philosophical Analysis and other books. James M. Vinoski is a writer living in are scrupulous in their professional Victor Koman is the author of Solomon's Michigan. lives and dishonest in love, or vice Knife and other books. Timothy Virkkala is executive editor of versa. You wonder what some people Richard Kostelanetz has published many Liberty. expect to gain from pretending that books of art criticism, in addition to Martin Morse Wooster is an associate edi­ they must have been born yesterday. poetry, fiction, and experimental tor of The American Enterprise. A decade ago, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, by most meas­ ures a conservative, dissented from authorizing independent counsels on Coming in Liberty the persuasive grounds that they begin Libertarian Intellectuals as Traitors - Fred Smith explains why liber­ _not with the discovery of a crime, tarians are class-traitors in the war ofideas. which is the standard prompt for legal prosecution, but the suspicion of one The Future ofDigital Cash - J Orlin Grabbe predicts what's next for and thus a search, which is rightly char­ digital cash and what it means for privacy ... and the State. acterized as a "fishing expedition," The Voter Gambles - Pierre Lemieux figures the odds that you will rather than hauling in something that is vote, and figures out when this kind ofgambling is a sin. hooked. That is to say that independent counsels are empowered by the state to At the Altar ofEgo - Timothy Virkkala tries not to be cruel to Randian exceed the standard limits of govern­ egoists' attempt to be benevolent. ment investigating agencies, which isn't the same as a license to carry a Shero Worship - Bob Black tours the exotic world of feminist role models. gun. 0

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~AUGUST 23-28~ Leading international libertarians to meet in Berlin this August to advance world liberty. Plan to join us! Sight-seeing tours a bonus In November 1989 the world saw The third day will explore one ofthe In addition to the conference, the what not many expected to see in their tendencies visible in the development organizers will provide various guided lifetimes: The fall of the wall between of Western governments, namely the tours through Schinkel and Bauhaus, the East and West bloc - for many centralization of political power through Kaffeehauser and the Turkish years a grim symbol of the confron­ through allegedly "free-market" re- bazaars; through the splendid Tier- tation ofsuper-governments. forms. Major examples are so-called garten-park, and to Berlin's impres- Here in Berlin, where this tension "free-trade associations" like NAFTA sive art collections. You will see a had been most intense, the next ISIL and politico-economic "unions" like metropolis which is again becoming a World Libertarian Conference is being the European Union. Speakers will melting-pot ofdifferent cultures, lang- organized. address the possibilities of super uages, and nations, situated right at government - and super resistance. the crossroads of West and East. The host for this event is Liberale Akademie Berlin (LAB), a German Our last day will be dedicated to an Come and profit from stimulating libertarian think-tank, which promotes in-depth discussion of major instru- discussions and the unforgettable the ideals of private property and a ments and strategies for circumventing atmosphere of the German "city that life free from invasions ofproperty by government, for example, private never sleeps." money, the Internet, private supply of ~ others. It promotes these ideas by r------, organizing seminars and conferences, "public goods" etc. YES, I would like to attend Berlin '98. by publishing seminal works in the You will hear lectures from some of I understand that the basic registra- libertarian tradition, and by consult­ the most distinguished or controversial tion fee of $760US induces: ing. libertarian speakers like: • Accommodations in double room, in- cluding breakfasts for 5 days Introduction to the r:ir ~arbara Branden, author & asso- • City Sightseeing Tour Conference lineup clate o~ the late ,~yn Ran~. Her • Opening reception Rand bIography The PaSSIon of • Four-day conference, including lunch & will feature an assess­ The first day Ayn Rand" is being made into a dinner ment of the transformation process of movie and stage play this year. • Gala closing banquet the former European member-states of r:ir Hans-Hermann Hoppe Professor PAYMENT VIA: Money transfer to: LAB, the East block (COMECON). Speak­ . ' account #06 004 635 00 at Dresdner Bank ers will analyze the opportunities of EconomIcs, Las Vegas, Nevada, (Bank code 10080000) given with the fall of the Berlin wall USA E-Gold transfer* to LAB, account no. 100 and the forces of liberty and its r:ir Stefan Blankertz, Author, Pul- 232 at http://www.e-gold.com countervailing powers now at work. heim, Germany LJAmex LJMasterCard LJVisa - to LAB The second day (Executive Day) will r:ir Detmar Doering (Germany) North American checks or money or- feature Speakers from large and small r:ir Cristian Comanescu (Romania) ders: to ISIL ~~ at 836-B Southampton d~scuss · p.c. f H' Rd. #299, Benicia CA9451 0 enterprises who will the influ­ r:ir Ra Ipalco, h R rOlessor 0 IStOry, ence ofgovernment action on business Buffalo, New York, USA Name _ and the possibilities of free markets to r:ir Bertrand Lemennicier (France) Address _ bring about a free society. Another topic will be the dangers of business r:ir Christian Michel (Switzerland) r:ir Attila Csanyi, former Hungarian Liberale Akademie Berlin cooperation with government. Hohenzollerndamm 88a All the sessions of the day will be Freedom Fighter, will host a sym­ 14199 Berlin, Germany open for the public in order to reach posium of East-European represen­ Phone: +49.30.826 16 24 tatives. E-mail: [email protected] wider parts of the German business L Web: http://www.der-markt.com ~ community and interested individuals. r:ir Plus many more to be announced.

International Societyfor Individual Liberty, 836-B Southampton Rd. #299, Benicia CA 94510· Tel: (707) 746-8796 • E-mail: [email protected] * For information on paying by E-Gold check with the conference web site at http://www.der-markt.com