AynRand revises her • July 1996 Vol. 9, No.6 premIses

~ ..•...... o· . 00 o iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii1iiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii •I'- --:t,------...;t ...... f'. "Liberty o/thought is a mockery ifliberty o/speech and action is denied. "-Sidney Holmes ======o The editors ofLiberty invite you to attend The 1996 Liberty Editors' Conference Libertis editors, contributors, and readers will meet near Seattle over Labor Day weekend to light the flame ofliberty. The result will be intellectually stimulating and tremendously fun. And you're invited!

The 1996 Liberty Editors' Conference will bring together the Liberty '96 world's leading libertarian writers, theorists, journalists, econ­ omists, and historians, plus scientists, entrepreneurs, and The future offreedom & futurists: David Friedman, Robert Higgs, John Hospers, tyranny. Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, R.W. Bradford, Douglas Limiting the state for fun Casey, Bill Kauffman, Randal O'Toole, Scott Reid, Loren & profit. Lomasky, Brian Doherty ... and those are just our confirmed Defying regulation's speakers. Additional editors, contributors, and special guests death grip. will be announced as they confirm. The acceleration of Past attendees will attest to the pleasures in store - the history. repartee, the information, the argument, the camaraderie; the food, drink, and friendly faces. A Liberty Editors' Conference The revolt against is a convivial adventure for activists and intellectuals. Join us! bureaucracy. The economy shifts gears. Special Feature: Government goes The Meaning ofAyn Rand obsolete? Workshops, lectures, The '96 conference will include a special session explor­ seminars, parties ... ing the art, life, philosophy, and significance ofAyn ..- more intellectual fun Rand. Confirmed participants include Rand's biogra­ than you thought pher Barbara Branden, philosopher Lester Hunt, lead­ possible! ing Rand interpreter Chris Sciabarra, and Rand's phi­ Join Libertjs editors losopher-friend John Hospers. And they'll be joined by and writers - and your several surprise guests with even more insights to offer! fellow readers - and celebrate the future! The 1996 Liberty Editors' Conference will be held in Tacoma, Washington, from August 30 .s~ '. , I want to attend the 1996 Liberty Editors' • through September 2, 1996. The conference price in­ .. ------tgn me up. Conference in Tacoma over Lab~r Day.. cludes meals, lectures, seminars, workshops, and eve­ weekend. I enclose my payment In full. I Please send me information on hotel accommodations. ning parties. I o My check for $225.00 is enclosed. Apply today. We'll send you information on o I'm a student, so here's $150 and a copy of my student I.D. hotel accommodations, travel arrangements, schedul­ I I Charge my 0 Visa 0 Mastercard Expires: _ ing, etc. Only a limited number ofreaders can at­ tend, so make your plans now. This will be one vaca­ I Signature _ I tion you won't forget! Account# _ To reserve your participation, send in the coupon Name: _ to the right. I I Address: _ Special Student Rate: Full-time students may City, State, Zip: _ attend at a special rate of$150. Include a photocopy I I ofcurrent student identification. L ------Liberty, P.O. Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA98368 ..- July 1996 Inside Liberty Volume 9, Number 6

4 Letters Your missives, should we choose to accept them. 7 Reflections Liberty's editors deflate overblown rhetoric, puncture inflated reputations, and pop populist pretensions. Plus: Ben Bolch and Harold Lyons on the halon ban. (It's a gas.) 15 Medianotes Critiquing the monochrome cadenza. Features 17 Reign of Terror The new "anti-terrorism" bill won't stop terrorism, say David Kopel and Joseph Olson. But it will take a bite out of the Bill of Rights. 25 Sexual Abuse in Wenatchee Something evil lurks in a small town in central Washington. Kathryn Lyon investigates. 36 Work Will Make You Freel Crime doesn't pay, and, says Jesse Walker, neither does prison labor. 39 Calamity Ira David Boaz profiles the policy wonk from hell. 41 Ron Brown, R.I.P. Nathan Crow desanctifies our latest secular saint. 43 Half a Century at the Battlements R. W. Bradford celebrates the Foundation for Economic Education. Michael Peters has reservations. 47 White Man's Ghost Dance Bob Black offers some common sense about common law. 49 Millenarianism Redux Comets, earthquakes, rumors of war, and old-fashioned foolin' around. Frank Fox tells all. Reviews 51 The Fourth Estate and the Secret State The national security state has turned media watchdogs into CIA lapdogs. Ted Galen Carpenter explains. 53 The Novel Takes on the World First Hollywood, then Coca-Cola, now the novel. Stephen Cox explores the benign imperialism of Western literature. 54 We the Revising R. W. Bradford presents an introduction to Objectivist revisionism. 55 Poisonous Environmentalism John A. Bad~en and Douglas Noonan dis­ pose of the latest in recycled eco-hysteria. 57 A Youthful Work by a Promising Author Herbert Spencer reviews himself. 60 A Very Brady Irony Matt Asher discovers a groovy new irony. 62 The Novel Livesl Timothy Virkkala finds that the death of the novel has been greatly exaggerated. 63 Booknotes on cults, quotes, quacks, and quiddities. 66 Filmnotes on criminal stupidity, an American primitive, and a nosy British director's seven-year itch. / c-e~ 59 Classified Advertisements- Commercial speech, constitutionally protected. 69 Notes on Contributors Brief encounters. 70 Terra Incognita Immediate action must be taken. July 1996

most ruthless and cunning will rise to [ Letters ] the top of the state, and such people are unwilling to say, "Oh, sorry," and go home when faced with McElroy's The State vs. the State Rand had plenty of reasons to invent insubordination. Regarding R.W. Bradford's "A mis­ the story: the anecdote, after all, To retain their power, however, they packed court" (May 1996), I'm not so presents her in a very favorable light, often must give us the option of voting sure the Supreme Court's decision was as brilliant, fearless, etc. But I wasn't them and their state into oblivion. The X bad. Federalism is an important struc­ saying that she had no motives that doesn't necessarily say, "I support the turallimit on government. I oppose the could have been served by the exam state." It can also say, "Hasta la vista, federal government - including the story; I was saying that she had none baby!" judicial branch - superseding state that could be served by inventing a Richard D. Fuerle laws, even ones that violate the consti­ connection with Lossky. Lying about Grand Island, N.Y. tutional rights of citizens. So even if the him would not have advanced the One Vote for Voting Michigan law violates natural rights, point of the myth - if such it were ­ If voting for Bill Clinton means you we ought not empower the Supreme at all, and it requires an explanation. If must share responsibility for his official Court to overturn it. the story is false, why would she plug acts (and I believe it does), then surely N. Stephan Kinsella in the name of a completely obscure fig­ financing his acts by paying taxes must Philadelphia, Penn. ure from whom she never took a also mean you share responsibility. This Exhuming the Pony's Corpse course, given that there were presuma­ is why I'm voting for Harry Browne. Okay, I realize that someone is bly other philosophy professors whose If I do not want to participate in the liable to say, "Put away your whip, the names would be much easier to remem­ state's abuse of individual liberty, then I pony is dead!" But I can't resist making ber because she really did take courses must not pay the taxes that are used to a couple more comments on R.W. from them? enslave the citizenry. If I do not pay the Bradford's comments ("The Truth and Lester H. Hunt taxes, I will surely go to jail or worse. Ayn-Rand," May 1996) on my com­ Madison, Wise. Since I do not want to go to jail, I will ments ("In Search of Rand's Roots," Bradford responds: I appreciate Prof. pay my taxes. If I would still like to end March 1996) on Chris Sciabarra's book. Hunt's response, which raises several the tyranny of the state, what choices do (1) Bradford says I mischaracterized interesting issues. At this point, I I have left? Mostly unpleasant ones. The his position when I said he claims that would simply observe that there state allows me one course of action that Rand was "simply lying" about her remains a vast difference between how usually goes unpunished: voting. So I encounter with Lossky. His actual posi­ I characterized what Rand did and find a man whom I believe to be a man tion, he says, is that she was inventing "simply lying." Though I granted the of honor and vote for him. myths about herself to make a philo­ possibility that she "took a course" By doing so, I have not legitimized sophical or personal point. Actually, from Lossky, I considered it unlikely. the election. I have added to the per­ this is what I thought Bradford was say­ But I did stipulate she may have heard centage of people who voted against the ing, but such inventions are examples a guest lecture by him. As to why she continuing tyranny of the state. Every of what I call lies. They are a sort of lie would plug Lossky into her story, I four years, the government is reminded that poets and other artists are prone to think the answer is obvious: he was that 1% of the population does not con­ indulge in. I don't want to get into the convenient, added a touch of verisimili­ done its power. I wish Ms. McElroy philosophical issue of whether this real­ tude, and (Rand surely thought) was would answer two questions: What ly is the right thing to call them, but I sufficiently obscure that the myth she choices do we have other than voting? and would like to point out that the burden promulgated would never be found out How does one oppose voting on moral of proof that rests on someone who - as indeed it wasn't for more than grounds yet continue to finance the state by says that this is what Rand was doing is three decades. paying the taxes that fund the BATF, IRS, the same as the burden shouldered by The Wit and Wisdom of and DEA? someone who says Rand is a liar. Arnold Schwarzenegger Allyn Uptain (2) Bradford points out that, con­ Chipley, FI. trary to what he takes me to be saying, While I admire Wendy McElroy's clear writing and consistent adherence Survivor on the Road & ~ to her anarchist principles, when she I feel a reply to John Semmens' accu­ concludes that WWII is preferable to sation (Letters, May 1996) that my Letters Policy putting an X on a piece of paper ("Why approach to driving is cavalier and that We invite readers to comment on articles I Would Not Vote Against Hitler," May I have disavowed responsibility for my that have appeared in the pages of Liberty. 1996), there must be an error some­ driving mistakes is absolutely We reserve the right to edit for length and where. Ignoring the state won't make it necessary. clarity. All letters are assumed to be intend­ disappear - it will only reveal its true I drive a motorcycle to work almost ed for publication unless otherwise stated. Succinct, typewritten letters are preferred. nature as an overt criminal enterprise every day, and take my vacations on a Please include your phone number so that maintained by violence. A kind of natu­ motorcycle. I feel the full brunt of we can verify your identity. ral selection dictates that those who are responsibility for every mistake made, " Voila logic!" -~ J. 0' ROURKE

"A "A senous• splendid blueprint collection for change." of -GEORGE E WILL infonned analyses ... mustreading." "A futuristic -MILTON FRIEDMAN • • VISion ••• chartsnelV l\.:Pa.l·tall:iglll :tl)I" the 2lsl (:~.:~:III·~II:I'·~t territory for "Bristles the decades with .:~tI:II(~tll~'. . •. ahead." 1~)~.vicll:kN"z 'n'ldliA:lwl....II.,.(·;r'••·.~· .: uncomfortable -Gov. WILLIAM E WELD ideas." -PETE DU PONT "Provocative new "Shouldbe ideas ... a road the principal map for our "Facts, compass new president." reason, for -Gov. L. DOUGLAS WILDER clear-eyed policymakers and and " Should be read disinterested public servants." andre-read analysis ... -MALCOLM s. FORBES, JR. by every member voila logic!" of Congress." -~J. O'ROURKE -JACK KEl\1P

THE CATO INSTITUTE'S PRIMER FOR THE '90s! 404 pp.l$25.95 cloth/$15.95 paper Available at bookstores or call toll-free 1-800-767-1241 INSTJIT'UTE (noon-9:00 p.m. Eastern time, Monday-Friday) 1000 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001 • (202) 842-0200 Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 and there have been a few. who happens to be half Jewish and a Randal O'Toole may not have read any As far as John's subtle thought that Roman Catholic." account that mentioned the influence of only the poor would repudiate their To enlighten Mr. Sanders and, per­ third parties on the close election personal responsibility, the one person haps, other readers, there is no such results, but I sure heard Rush Limbaugh who ran me down and left the scene thing as being "halfJewish" and Roman raving about that factor the next day dropped a trail of Mercedes parts. Why Catholic. A person who accepts any oth­ ("Spoiler alert," May 1996). I wrote to did he (she) do it? The same reason the er faith than Judaism is not Jewish, tell him the same thing I'll tell you. insurance company wouldn't pay ­ regardless of his parentage. A person If Republicans would give libertari­ because they can get away with it. What who identifies himself (or herself) as ans someone worth voting for, rather did the cops do? "Hell, kid, with 2,500 "half Jewish" is also in error. One is than trying to scare them into voting hit and runs already this year, what do either a Jew, i.e., born of a Jewish moth­ against the Democrat, they'd vote you expect us to do?" er or converted according to Halacha, or Republican. I was in Oregon over So, John, where you may see restitu­ one is not a Jew. If one's father is Christmas, and saw Smith's commer­ tion after an altercation, I see only man­ Jewish, but one's mother is not, one is cials. Lousy! All they did was call datory driving fees - insurance, regis­ not a Jew. Wyden a tax-and-spend liberal, and tration, licensing, and emission fees ­ Therefore, Mr. Sanders, your one even did so while attacking him for which, when all is said and done, leave Catholic friend is not a Jew in any sense voting to cut Medicare! Wyden's com­ me alone responsible for my own survi­ of the word. He may correctly claim mercials were also attack ads, but at val on the road. descent from Jews, but he himself, hav­ least they were internally consistent. Harold E. Shull ing accepted Jesus, has lost his But neither were worth voting for, so Phoenix, Ariz. Jewishness, which, if the "half" was his third parties cast their protest votes. I submit that it is the function of Jew/Not a Jew father, he did not have in the first place. minor parties to act as "spoilers" when Franklin Sanders (Letters, May 1996) Charlotte Levin the major party candidates are both hoped to demonstrate his lack of anti­ Espanola, N.M. lousy. This forces the major parties to Semitism by citing his co-author, Larry It's My Party and take minor parties into account when Abraham: "I've written a lot of contro­ I'll Spoil If I Want To choosing their candidates, especially versial things about the Establishment, After Ron Wyden beat Gordon after they lose a few close elections. even a book ... with Larry Abraham, Smith in Oregon's U.s. Senate race, continued on page 46 OFFSHORE FINANCIAl. PRIVACY • Credit Card &Check Clearing • Offshore Bank Accounts • Offshore Corporations • Offshore Trusts • VISA®Debit Cards • Investment Banking • Brokerage Services • Currency Diversification ...And Much More! For More Information Contact: LIBERTARIAN CORPORATE SERVICES Trent Business Center • Canal Street Long Eaton, NOnS. NG104GA, England Ph: 011-44-115-946-1545 Fax: 011-44-115-946-1676 I vote for a beehive - Given her belief in collec­ backed down. tive decision-making, it was charming to read that when an Last year I was on a panel that was asked to make long­ Internet website was created to display Hillary Clinton's vari­ term predictions about the 1996 presidential election. "The ous hairstyles and ask visitors to vote for their preference, Republicans will win," I said, "unless they nominate Bob Clinton told a journalist, "Certainly, I'm very keen on the Dole. He's the only Republican who Clinton can beat. democratic process." A fair trade: the Department of Health Unfortunately, I think they'll nominate him." and Human Services will tell us all how to rear our children, I am sorry to say that it now looks like my prediction was a but we get to vote on the first lady's hairstyle. -DB good one. (It's times like this that I'm glad Harry Browne is running for president.) Still, I don't see this as an unmitigated Innocence restored - A recent newspaper report disaster. Dole is a compromiser from way back. Newt carried the headline, "Oregon congressman's ex-wife says he Gingrich wasn't off by much when he characterized Dole as chronically told lies." Fortunately, the story explained that "the tax collector for the welfare state." In the unlikely event Rep. Wes Cooley, Republican of Oregon, and his ex-wife had that Dole is elected president, the GOP congress will grow been embroiled in a bitter divorce proceeding, and the former even more spineless, following the lead of Compromiser-in­ Mrs. Cooley is now involved in defending herself against alle­ Chief Dole. My hope is that the GOP will retain control of gations that she illegally collected veteran's benefits. I was Congress so it can finish the job of proving Bill Clinton a crook. immensely relieved to learn the messy details casting doubt A couple of months ago, I wrote an article on Bill and on the ex-wife's claims. After all, the very idea of a congress­ Hillary for this magazine, entitled "The Road to the Big man who chronically lies - well, it shatters one's faith. -RH House." But I don't really think either will end up in jail. If Dole captures the presidency, I think he'll feel obliged to par­ The cruelest month - Upon signing the "anti­ don Clinton once the evidence reaches the point where crimi­ terrorism" bill, President Clinton proclaimed that "America nal conviction is likely. If he doesn't, the GOP will seem will never sQrrender to terrorism." Please note that the presi­ hypocritical: after all, Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon. If Clinton dent, ever the politician, waited until nine days after April 15 is re-elected, I think Gore will pardon him once he's forced to before so describing the taxpaying public. - TWV resign. Either way, we'll be rid of Clinton. Of course, the fate of the Clintons isn't terribly important. Faintheart - When a new class of Republicans won They're just a couple of crooked politicians, not much differ­ Congress in 1994, it looked like some sort of sanity was at last ent from any others. What's really important is whether gov­ returning to American government. The new Republicans ran ernment is going to continue to get bigger and bigger, to have onhard promises of no more "politics as usual," calling for real more and more power over our lives, to take a bigger and spendingcuts, real tax reductions, and a real balancedbudget. bigger chunk of our earnings. The chairman of the House Budget Committee, John Well, no one ever lost any money betting that a politician Kasich, touted a huge list of government bureaucracies to be would actually cut spending. Why? Because no one is dumb gutted, including four entire cabinet departments. The final enough to make the bet. -CAA deal, he said, was "the most significant amount of savings since World War II." But when pressed by reporters to name Panic at 40,000 feet - It has been widely some programs that were actually cut, he managed to come reported that a faulty O-ring caused the incineration of seven up with only one: a tick eradication program in Puerto Rico. astronauts in the January 28, 1986 Challenger disaster. What Worse still, the GOP surrendered completely on the issue is not well-known is the conclusion reached by the U.S. of entitlements, failing even to cut back increases in Medicare Geological Survey's Malcolm Ross: the explosion would not spending. The much touted "Freedom to Farm" bill, widely have occurred if NASA hadn't replaced another ring out of portrayed as an end to farm subsidies, actually increases them an unwarranted fear of asbestos-based putty. Since the asbes­ for the next seven years. Then the bill expires and we return tos in the putty had virtually no chance of harming anyone, to the old system. The much ballyhooed line-item veto the episode illustrates how the quest for safety, when it enacted by Congress gave the president the option to veto ignores trade-offs, can have terrible consequences. parts of appropriations bills - provided they are not entitle­ We may now be on the verge of more fiery disasters, ments and provided Congress doesn't exempt an appropria­ thanks to unwarranted fears of one of the most effective of tion from the line-item veto. In other words, the line-item fire extinguishers, halon chemicals. veto does nothing to help get spending under control. Because of the speed at which they work, and because I'm not going to spell out all the gruesome details here. It they are non-toxic, halons are commonly used in closed areas was surrender, pure and simple. Bill Clinton outmaneuvered where fire could kill very rapidly - airplanes, ships, armored Congress and manipulated the media, and the Republicans military vehicles, and the like. If you are ever involved in an Liberty 7 Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 airplane crash, you had better hope that the Halon 1211 and deliberately understated the pre-election popularity figures 1301 fire extinguisher systems are in good operating order. for a right-wing party in order to hurt that party's chances for For fire control, halons have many advantages over water success. The anti-immigration Republicans won over 90/0 of and carbon dioxide. They are electrically nonconductive, light the vote in the southern state of Baden-Wurttemberg, the in weight, harmless to human beings, tasteless, odorless, and same figure the Allensbach Institute found in its pre-election colorless, and they leave no residue. In airplanes, where high polls. But it had chosen to publish instead the figure of less levels of carbon dioxide would have disastrous health effects than 5% Republican support, which would have been under and water is impractical because of weight, halons are the minimum for winning seats in the state parliament. indispensable. Renate Koecher, co-head of the Institute, has defended the The Montreal Protocol, an international environmental decision to falsify the polling results, stating that the real fig­ agreement that took effect January 1, 1994, banned halons, on ures might have created a bandwagon effect for the the grounds that their continued manufacture could deplete Republicans. -RR the stratospheric ozone layer. The United Nations Halon Technical Options Committee has refused to exempt halon Pitchfork Pat and Hardscrabble Bob - manufacture for aircraft use, arguing that existing stores are Patrick J. Buchanan has failed to gain the Republican nomina­ sufficient for the time being and that unnamed viable replace­ tion, but he has succeeded in setting an ugly political tone. ments will be available in the future. But it has proved very The economy is growing, unemployment is less than 6%, and difficult to find a replacement. The 3M Company has sug­ real personal consumption is up more than 14% since the gested using a class of chemicals called perfluorocarbons, but recession. Yet Buchanan has fanned the resentment of eco­ these chemicals are opposed by environmental groups such nomically anxious groups, goading them to class warfare. He as the World Resources Institute, which believes they may speaks of layoffs as caused by "corporate executioners" and cause global warming. Olin Aerospace is also experimenting declares, "The peasants are coming with pitchforks." Bill with a replacement, but it has yet to be proven practical in Clinton and Bob Dole dignify Buchanan's rhetoric by taking it human-occupied space. seriously and pandering to the same prejudices. Nor, apparently, did it occur to the U.N. Committee that A hundred years ago, populist economics was at the cen­ the price of halon would skyrocket as stocks become depleted, ter of another presidential contest, when Republican William and that at least part of this inflation would be passed on to the McKinley opposed Democrat William Jennings Bryan. In airline passenger. Halon gas that cost $7-$10 per pound in those days, when lavish farm subsidies were only a gleam in 1985 is expected to cost $80-$100 per pound by 2000. the farmers' eyes, they really did wield pitchforks. A populist One would think that chemicals of obvious value would rabble-rouser, the one-eyed South Carolina senator Benjamin be banned only if they posed a clear and present danger to R. Tillman, became known as "Pitchfork Ben" after he called the environment. The complaint against halons is that they President Grover Cleveland "an old bag of beef" and said he are bromine compounds, and bromine is reputed to be more was "going to Washington with a pitchfork and prod him in efficient than chlorine in destroying stratospheric ozone. But his old fat ribs." - the concentration of bromine in the stratosphere is at the The populists.had formed a new party - as Buchanan nearly undetectable level of about 0.02 parts per billion, and hints he might - the People's (Populist) Party. James B. halon in aircraft extinguisher systems is rarely released any­ Weaver, their presidential candidate in 1892, got more than a way. In short, the ban appears to be an expensive exercise in million votes - about 8% of the total. In 1896: the Populists hysterical overkill. endorsed Bryan, the "Boy Orator of the Platte," whose Cross This assessment is strengthened when one realizes that a of Gold speech at the Democratic convention became a clas­ far more ubiquitous source of bromine is methyl bromide. sic. The nineteenth-century populists, like their present-day The scientific consensus is that only about a r------, counterparts, raged against big corporations, third of the world's methyl bromide is man­ especially banks and railroads. They favored made; the rest is natural in origin. The ocean, Liberty's Editors many new government interventions in eco­ in fact, is supersaturated with it. Reflect nomic life, including an inflationary "sub­ The American people are paying a high treasury" scheme to subsidize farmers. price for failing to realize that there are costs CAA Chester Alan Arthur DB David Boaz After Bryan lost in 1896, populism to regulation and that sometimes these costs RWB R.W. Bradford declined. But it never died, and it flamed up are higher than the benefits we are supposed SC Stephen Cox episodically in hard times. People with eco­ to receive in exchange. Let us hope that it NC Nathan Crow nomic worries remained vulnerable to politi­ does not take a disastrous aircraft fire to cor­ BD Brian Doherty cians casting blame on big corporations and rect the dangerous course we are following. RH Robert Higgs the rich. Populism tends toward xenophobia -Guest reflection by Ben Bolch and Harold Lyons BK Bill Kauffman and nativism. In the 1890s many populists LEL Loren E. Lomasky thought the machinations of Jewish interna­ Polls invade Germany - And RO'T Randal O'Toole tional bankers explained the plight of frontier RR you thought political correctness was bad Ralph Raico farmers. Today Buchanan evokes similar CS Clark Stooksbury over here? The Financial Times reports that the TWV Timothy Virkkala suspicions and makes jokes about shooting leading polling organization in Germany, the JW Jesse Walker Jose. Allensbach Institute, has admitted that it Dole, a preeminent Washington insider, 8 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 feels obligated to play along. He began a recent speech, "My restrictions demanded by bureaucrats jealous of competition. father was a grain-elevator operator. He wore his overalls to The Seattle Public Library is a case in point. Despite the work every day for 42 years, and he was proud of it." The fact that the entire place could be staffed almost entirely by politician who rakes in millions from corporate and interest­ volunteers (I know -I used to work in its Volunteer Services group PACs reminded the voters, "I grew up hardscrabble, Department), it pays some of the highest salaries in the know what it means to be at the bottom of the ladder nation to a staff that is often grumpy or unavailable. Salaries, economically." indeed, are so high that a few years ago there was no money Clinton, of course, is no stranger to flogging the rich, who, left to buy books. according to his 1992 attempt at humor, "get the gold mine" The primary reason the library's branches are not filled to while"the middle class gets the shaft." On the president's left the rafters with eager volunteer workers is that the union will flank, House minority leader Richard Gephardt aims to make not allow them to perform any task currently performed by a the elections a referendum on income security, touting new credentialed master/mistress of Library Science. Having government mandates for job training, portable pensions and mastered the profession through costly and arduous months health insurance, higher minimum wages, and other exten­ of graduate training, the library's illuminati are understanda­ sions of the welfare state. How does this strategy square with bly reluctant to admit that amateurs of the art could do what the president's recognition that "the era of big government is they do. over"? It doesn't, but Clinton will not be deterred by mere The great, secret scandal here is that many would-be vol­ inconsistency. unteers actually have the required M.L.S. degree. Well­ In a dynamic economy, some people always have to make meaning housewives who simply want to keep a hand in, difficult adjustments. The only way to prevent such adjust­ they are kept out by mean-spirited union leaders, with the ments is to lock the economy into a fixed configuration that help of politicians who consider the library a useful straw­ would soon condemn everyone to economic retrogression. man to drag out during budget debates. The flux of hiring and firing, hardly a new phenomenon, is Maybe it's time someone called their bluff. -NC not the true source of the economic difficulties many people have experienced, or feared, in recent years. Born-again libertarian? - Ralph Reed, execu­ Instead of lecturing business on "corporate responsibil­ tive director '-of the Christian Coalition, said in a speech dis­ ity," the president should set the government's own house in tributed by Hillsdale College that America is held together by order, because the true source of the economic malaise is the "a vision of a society based on two fundamental beliefs. The government, specifically the relentless growth of taxation and first belief is that all men, created equal in the eyes of God regulation. In 1990 the federal government grabbed $1,031 with certain inalienable rights, are free to pursue the longings billion in revenues. Last year it took $1,351 billion, an increase of their heart. The second belief is that the sole purpose of of 31% (15% after adjustment for inflation). If that $320 billion government is to protect those rights." It would be hard to of extra federal revenue had not been taken last year, it express the libertarian credo better. Dr. Reed isn't dumb, so would have left every man, woman, and child in America he knows the longings of men's hearts vary widely. Some with more than $1,200 extra, or almost $5,000 for a family of men's hearts long for wide-open spaces, others for densely four. crowded cities. Some long for Jesus, some for Mohammed, Simultaneously, additional costly federal regulation, such others for Reason. Some long for a pot of tea, others for a pot as the Americans with Disabilities Act, new environmental of coffee, others just for the pot. Some men's hearts, indeed, requirements, and new FDA labelling rules, sapped resources long for the hearts of other men. It's good to know that, what­ that might otherwise have been devoted to increasing pro­ ever moral objections Dr. Reed may have to some longings, ductivity and raising incomes. Populists misperceive the real problem. It's not corporate layoffs, not Japanese imports, not NAFTA and Jose. It's a gov­ ernment that won't keep its hands off the economy and won't allow us to keep the income we earn. -RH

The scandal of our libraries - Whenever municipalities' allegedly "tight" budgets are threatened by some petty 2% reduction in the next scheduled tax increase, the few services that most people agree have real value ­ police, fire, library, recreation - are immediately trotted out and threatened with bloody amputation. Behind-the-scenes bureaus and local pork are left unmentioned simply because their imminent reduction would provoke no response from an unappreciative public. Although it is probably not worth trying to explain this pattern to the gullible donkeys who elected Bill Clinton, libertarians might at least try pointing out that the majority of such institutions could be staffed largely, if not entirely, by volunteers - not in a misty anar­ "Senator, how do you answer critics who charge that you've lost chist utopia, but right now. That they are not is often due to your once vaunted ability to respond with artful equivocation?" Liberty 9 Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 as a good Jeffersonian he is committed to defending all men's ployed is the next best thing to socialism. rights to pursue happiness in their own way. -DB The initiative was defeated, but a bill based on a similar idea was recently passed by the Minnesota legislature. Now Falsified memory syndrome - Apologists for the idea seems to be to make such firms pay all of their the Clintons have a new line: investigation of wrongdoing by employees this customized minimum wage (or more), as part the First Couple is a waste of money. Its most colorful pro­ of a nationwide effort by economically illiterate lefties to raise moter is James Carville, whose applause line is that the the minimum wage on the local rather than the federal level. Whitewater investigation has now "cost more than the inves­ Fortunately, Governor Arne Carlson has vetoed the bill. I tigation of the bombing of the World Trade Center." guess it was either that or repeal the laws of economics. -NC Of course, he doesn't mention that the bombers were ama­ teurs who left a trail of evidence that even a cretin could fol­ Occam's hammer - Pretty much all economists low, while the Clintons are two Yale-trained attorneys have long agreed that one effect of raising the minimum perpetrating complex white-collar crimes, covering their wage is to reduce employment. Their logic is ridiculously tracks using all the sophisticated tricks that they and their simple. If you raise the price of something, less of it will be coterie of even more high-powered shysters can muster. sold. On March 21, Hillary Clinton responded in writing to a Some economists, mostly libertarian ones, have some­ series of Congressional questions about the "Travelgate" times been alarmist on the issue, claiming that an increase in mess. Here is a box score of her answers (Wall Street Journal, minimum wage will dramatically increase unemployment. April 9): When the law goes into effect and unemployment figures "I do not recall" /"1 cannot recall" 21 don't rise dramatically, minimum wage advocates are quick "I do not believe" 9 to point out that the economists were wrong. After the last "I have no knowledge" / "I have no first-hand increase, a hack economist did a "study" that concluded that knowledge"/ "I have no personal knowledge" 7 the increase had no effect on employment levels, even at jobs "I simply don't know" /"1 don't know"/ where the minimum wage is the prevailing wage. He arrived "I do not know how"/ "I do not know what" 5 at this conclusion, I recall, by telephoning a bunch of fast food "It is possible"/ "It is quite possible that I had"/ businesses and asking whoever answered the phone whether "It is possible that I may have" 4 anyone had been laid off lately. Needless to say, this study "I believe" 3 was flawed. "I may have spoken" 3 One reason that increases in the statutory minimum wage "I have no specific recollection" 2 "I may have expressed the view" 2 don't always notably increase unemployment much is that "I cannot identify" 2 sometimes the minimum wage is substantially below the pre­ "I do not know for certain" 1 vailing wage. In many places, even fast food joints pay more "It is hard to remember" 1 than the $5.25 hourly rate the Democrats propose, let alone "I have tried to state ... such recollection as I have" 1 the current minimum wage of $4.25. Not surprisingly, the "It is ... difficult now to distinguish" 1 new minimum won't affect employment much in those mar­ "I believe I became aware" 1 kets. Indeed, I doubt the higher minimum wage will have "I do not remember precisely" 1 much effect on national employment numbers. The most dra­ "I have a vague recollection" 1 matic effect will be found in places where market wages are "I am not aware" 1 lowest, Le., in areas beset by poverty. Happily for politicians, "He may have mentioned" 1 few such areas have high voter turnouts and fewer still are In all, some 67 lapses of memory about a series of events hotbeds of the sort of clear thinking that would enable the that occurred less than three years earlier. law's victims to understand the source of their problems. Plainly, we are dealing with people a lot slipperier than I wonder what I would think if some economist did a the Arabs who rented a truck under their own names to good empirical study that discovered an increase in mini­ house the World Trade·Center bomb. Faced with the com­ mum wage diminished unemployment. Would this invali­ plexities of the various felonies and misdemeanors in which date the thinking of economists? the Clintons are implicated and with stonewalling by the First The empiricist in me says yes. But upon reflection, I'm not Couple at every turn, the cost of investigation is bound to so sure. We all agree that smashing one's thumb while ham­ mount up - though nowhere near the $60 million that was mering nails is an injury. Suppose that someone did a good looted from the federal treasury by the Madison Guaranty empirical study, examining the health records of 100,000 vic­ fraud alone. -eAA tims of smashed thumb syndrome, and that, say, five years later the 100,000 thumb-smashees were on average healthier A kinder, gentler pink stip - The progressive than a control group of 100,000 not-smashees. Would I there­ folks at The Nation have been plugging a St. Paul, Minnesota fore conclude that maybe my smashed thumb was not really initiative that would require businesses receiving "more than an injury at all? Would I go out and smash my thumb? -RWB $25,000 in city assistance ... to pay workers with a family of four above the poverty level, Le., $7.21 an hour [sic]." I can't Where 'Freemen will stand - So what is going think of a better way to make sure such businesses don't hire on out there in Montana? people with a family of four. In The Nation's "progressive" The FBI's standoff with the Freemen is fascinating, as all worldview, providing incentives to keep parents unem- such standoffs are; frightening, since we know how similar 10 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 showdowns have ended; annoying, because it doesn't fit into level in years - so low that supermarkets advertise ground the standard script for which past events have prepared us. beef for 79ft per pound and sirloin steak for $2.49 per pound. The feds have surrounded a small group of anti-government You might think that a reduction in the price of such a widely activists who just want to be left alone - right? Well, no. consumed commodity would please the president. But no. Ralph Clark, owner of the Freemen's secessionist farm, may His reaction to the lower price of beef was the same as his rail against the tax-sucking powers that be, but he and his reaction to the higher price of gasoline: intervene in the mar­ partners have slurped down $676,082 in other people's-taxes ketplace, this time by ordering the immediate purchase of $50 over the last decade. They may want to be left alone, but they million of beef for the federal school lunch program. He also aren't willing to pay others that courtesy: they've harassed eased restrictions on grazing on environmentally sensitive and defrauded individuals and companies across the country. federal grasslands, a move that presumably will cut costs for And the G-men seem more restrained than usual this time beef producers and counteract the increased federal beef pur­ around, though it may just look that way by comparison to chases' effect on prices. their last couple of fiascos. The common denominator of all these seemingly inconsis­ I've been in danger recently of getting pigeonholed as a tent actions, of course, is that they are designed to buy votes. "pro-militia" writer, simply because I've felt it my duty to Gasoline consumers will be pleased that Clinton is acting to criticize, in as many venues as possible, the ongoing demoni­ ease the price of the gas they buy, and beef producers will be zation of the new populists. Groups like the Freemen are a pleased that he is acting to raise the price of the beef they sell helpful reminder that there's more to this movement than while cutting their production costs. semi-libertarian dissidents enjoying their First and Second Thank goodness all this hasn't been left to the free Amendment rights. Militia members range from anti­ market! -RWB corporate leftists in Maine to anti-Semitic rightists in Idaho to Jewish libertarians in California. Any social phenomenon as Warm over the Cold War - The 1996 April decentralized as this is going to attract its share of crooks and Fools' issue of The Weekly Standard devoted a special section creeps, and the nutty legal mumbo-jumbo popular among the to that favorite subject of conservatives: anti-Communism. Its militiamen has drawn the cons in like flies. The New Left of centerpiece was Paul Johnson's review of Not Without Honor, the '60s collapsed under the weight of Maoist cults, Castroite a history of the American anti-Communist movement. terrorists, occultist snake-oil salesmen, and budding Johnson affects a world-weary tone and states that "there is Democratic Party pols. Thanks to folks like the Freemen, the an almost irresistible urge to close this depressing chapter in militias may similarly dissipate with only a little help from human history and turn to better things." But we shan't, of the government. course - "we need to understand why so many were taken Or the feds might do something really stupid, like charge in for so long." Or so Johnson would have us think. into a certain Montana farm with their guns a-blazin'. Then The real reason for reliving this history is that conserva­ all bets will be off. -JW tives have long treated Communism as the stepchild that laid the golden egg. The "twilight struggle" to put Communism Progress - It's easy, in the midst of an electoral con­ on the "ash heap of history" unified the Right for a genera­ flict between Bob Dole and Bill Clinton, to wonder if any tion, and it is difficult to let go of such a powerful symbol. political progress is being made in America. And so conservatives have adopted a strategy of denial. But don't despair! When the price of gas shot up in April, National Review still furrows its editorial brow over the future the politicians began competing with one another to offer of "the West," Jesse Helms tries to make war on Cuba, con­ proposals for reducing gas taxes. Some even began to squab­ gressional Republicans increase the already bloated war bud­ ble about whether or not they personally bore any guilt for get, and the newborn Weekly Standard has a special issue on raising taxes in the past. anti-Communism. Compare this good conduct with politicians' behavior Johnson devotes much space to anti-anti-Communists during past "crises," and you'll notice the wonderful absence of proposals for price controls and rationing. Even the consis­ tently entertaining Eleanor Clift opined on a recent McLaughlin Group that higher prices might make people use less gas, thereby aiding her favorite goal of "conservation." I think that's what she meant; it's sometimes hard to tell with her. If so, it demonstrates that a glimmer of economic knowl­ edge is beginning to penetrate the post-New Deal·fog. -sc

Oil? Where's the beef? - The international price of oil has risen for a variety of reasons, and so has the price of gasoline at the pump. Politicians have responded in their pre­ dictable, idiotic ways. Republicans call for cutting the tax on gas; Bill Clinton orders the sale of twelve billion barrels of stockpiled oil to drive prices down. Ilr Meanwhile, the price of another key consumer good is "Your client is on trial for overtime parking - referring to her falling sharply. Wholesale prices of beef are at their lowest as a 'freedom fighter" is a bit much." Liberty 11 Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 who were constantly getting in the way of the intellectual Well, not because God would have it so. Not because it Cold War: "They judged the occasional excesses of anti­ would make mom and dad feel better. (Does "Madonna" communism as a greater menace to the freedom of the world have a mom and dad?) Not because it would make a better than communism." I suppose Johnson is right that the sins of video. Joe McCarthy have been overblown: efforts to silence oppo­ No, it's because "the research ... is unambiguous." nents with smears and innuendo occur far too often to single Marriage, researchers tell us, does wondrous things for men, him out as the worst of the worst. And I agree that it is "taming" them and forcing them to hold a job. (Marriage to a incredible that anyone could be taken in by such an evil sys­ woman is, of course, irrelevant to this argument, but never tem as Communism. But Johnson, in turn, minimizes the evils mind.) Society is depending on Madonna to do her part! of anti-Communism. Here is the new American creed in all its cheapness. According to Johnson, the CIA was run by "old-fashioned Morality means subservience to the social patterns that, statis­ WASPs who simply wanted to preserve American institu­ ticians say, are correlated with good things (good things tions and frustrate the schemes of America's totalitarian ene­ being the things that middle-aged people want). The research mies." He scoffs at the suggestion that it was the "moral is unambiguous equals the Bible tells me so. equivalent" of the KGB. He may be correct in that regard, but All of this, of course, is both wrong (social science he weakens his case by neglecting to mention Guatemala, research is never "unambiguous") and vacuous. If "the Chile, Iran, or anyplace else where the locals might feel differ­ research" informed us that, say, the marriage of two women ently about the CIA's values. Johnson ignores any facet of was bad for the kids (which, by the way, isn't true), Alter recent history that might call the glory of the anti-Communist would not accept a hetero obligation. He even admits that crusade into question. That means no mention of the more Madonna's own divagation from the commands of "the than 100,000 American soldiers who died "containing" research" may be acceptable, for Madonna is rich. Such lib­ Communism in Korea and Vietnam, or of the foreign leaders erty is impermissible, however, to "the disadvantaged," for assassinated and governments toppled. (He does spare us the whom departure from this particular regression analysis may be the "killer correlation." And so, if she will not marry, embarrassing spectacle of reliving America's victory over Madonna ought at least to preach marriage to her lumpen socialism in Grenada.) admirers. Hypocrisy is the least she can do for the New Communism is a malignant philosophy whose adherents Morality. have murdered millions. But anti-Communism has also led to Thus does the '60s generation - undoubtedly the most a great many deaths, and the victims of Pinochet, Somoza, and annoying group of people in the history of the planet - rein­ Nixon would probably not be comforted to know that they vent in its weak-kneed, intellectually stunted way the moral perished for a cause that The Weekly Standard finds noble.--eS imperatives of bygone days. They've had their fun; but now that baldness, impotence, and teenage offspring afflict them, Our Lady of the Bad Example - In a recent fun must cease. Because they are tired and read The Atlantic column, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter prevails upon the song­ Monthly, there will be no more cakes and ale. God is not stress "Madonna" to marry. Madonna is with child. Yet she Christ or Buddha, Marx or Maslow. God is a correlation. To has rejected marriage. A year with Sean Penn, it seems, was which fantasies one can only reply, with Madonna, "Papa, enough to curdle not just the boy but the institution. don't preach." -NC Alter is broad-minded. If she can't stick it with her per­ sonal trainer/semen donor Carlos Leon, or any male, then, he Endangered candidates - Recenfly, two candi­ advises, marry a woman. Just get married. Why? dates were running for national office in environmentally conscious Oregon. In a debate, they were asked how they felt about the conflict between endangered species and jobs. The more-libertarian candidate answered, "Saving endangered species is important. But people are important too. We have to protect jobs and local communities." Wrong answer, especially in a state like Oregon, whose mostly urban workers don't feel threatened by endangered species. The candidate lost by a hair. Here is what he should have said: "I want to save endangered species as much as anyone. But the" Endangered Species Act is failing to save species. Complying with the law costs rural landowners huge amounts of money and costs rural workers many jobs. But more species are still going extinct than are recovering. What we need is a new Endangered Species Act that gives land­ owners incentives to protect habitat and creates jobs rather than destroys them. Such a law will save far more species and cost taxpayers far less money than the existing failure." This might not have made the difference in the election. But if libertarian candidates can take a consistently positive 12 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 stand on environmental issues - "We want to save the envi­ hire history majors to teach history, physics majors to teach ronment, and carrots will save it better than sticks" - they physics, etc. Or, even more shockingly, they might search for won't be perceived as being anti-environment. That could intelligent and motivated teachers irrespective of their aca­ make the difference for many. -RO'T demic credentials. Three: Allow families to opt out of schools that are beset It takes a voucher - The Cato Institute's Stephen by textbooks and boredom. Why not start immediately by Moore, opining in the Washington Times, pegs President offering parents who are forced to send their kids to a public Clinton as "another 'education president'" and comments school where a child has been bored with an execrable "Social that "our children simply can't afford many more of them." Studies" text, or been forced to read Catcher in the Rye, a grant Clinton is a tool of the education establishment, Moore to pull their kids out from under the cloud of tedium? argues, because he just wants to "throw money at the prob­ I know what you're thinking: my ideas may have unin­ lem." Better to abolish the Department of Education - or, tended bad side effects. (Bad side effects I don't intend. barring that, to ... throw money at the problem. Moore sug­ However, any good side effects I do intend.) You may be gests three different voucher plans he thinks might move us right, but my proposals have about as much chance of pass­ in the right direction. One: "$2,000 grants to the parents of ing as Moore's, and they'd do at least as much good. -es five million school-aged children ... with the lowest incomes first." Two: "Establish pilot grant programs in the 100 worst­ Mr. Paul goes to Washington - Former performing public school districts in America and give $3,000 Libertarian Party presidential nominee (and occasional con­ education grants to the parents of kids trapped in those tributor to Liberty) Ron Paul moved one step closer to a return schools." Three: "Allow families to opt out of schools that are to Congress when he easily defeated GOP incumbent Greg beset with guns and violence. Why not start immediately by Laughlin in an April 9 primary runoff. offering parents who are forced to send their kids where a In capturing a whopping 54 % of the vote against child has been injured with a gun, or where there is a well­ Democrat-turned-Republican Laughlin, Paul has almost cer­ founded fear of violence, a grant to pull their kids out from tainly ended the practice of party-switching by incumbent under the cloud of terror?" congresspeople attracted to the GOP by the prospect of easy All of these proposals would undermine the indepen­ electoral victories. Whether this is good or bad for the GOP dence of any private school that accepts vouchers. All would remains to be seen. The converts had increased the size of the create millions more constituents for the Department of GOP majority in both the House and Senate, but at the Education, making it that much harder to kill. All would, like expense of diluting the GOP's ideological vigor by adding any other government program, tend to grow inexorably. The middle-of-the-road pragmatists like Laughlin. third proposal would have the unintentional effect of One thing is certain: the Republican establishment wants shipping violent students into better schools, which then to keep the flow of turncoats to their party. Party leadership might not stay "better" for long. closed ranks behind Laughlin, who enjoyed support from Moore is right about one thing: killing the Department of Texas Governor Jeb Bush (son of George), both Texas sena­ Education is a good idea that is unlikely to happen soon. So, tors (Gramm and Hutchinson), and Speaker of the House in the interest of being constructive, I have come up with my Newt Gingrich. own ideas as to how to better spend this money. When Paul's primary campaign began, it looked like its One: Give grants to the five million or so politicians, pun­ winner would be a shoo-in for election in November. Not dits, and pointy-heads who keep going on about "our chil­ only was the district comfortably Republican, but 1996 dren," to be redeemed at the nearest federal prison or mental seemed like a good year for Republicans. As Bill Clinton's home so that we can be free from their incessant prattling. popularity has soared, however, the outlook has changed. A Two: Establish pilot grant programs at the 100 best uni­ relatively attractive Democrat has grabbed the chance to versities in the country. In the tradition of agricultural subsi­ oppose Paul, and most observers now rate the race a tossup. dies, these schools' education departments would be paid not (At least one, PBS' Mark Shields, predicts Paul will lose.) to award degrees. This would encourage school districts to But I wouldn't bet any money against Paul, who has proved himself an effective candidate with the ability (thanks to direct-mail maven Lew Rockwell) to raise substantial sums of campaign funds. -eAA

The fascist Enlightenment? - John Gray is a name that will be familiar to libertarian academics, and to others in the movement as well. He is an Oxford don who, at the start of his career, wrote studies of F.A. Hayek, Herbert Spencer, and others from a classical liberal, virtually libertar­ ian, point of view. Over the years Gray has mutated a num­ ber of times, to the point where he is now, as The Economist puts it, Britain's "most prolific and certainly most agitated anti-Enlightenment thinker." Agitated is the right word "You know those 'smart' bombs we deployed, General? They (hysterical might be better), since it is hard to find anything went AWOL." like a sustained argument in the articles and reviews Gray Liberty 13 Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 keeps grinding out for the London press, and, increasingly, and, most of all, indifference.... [I]n order for democracy to for American magazines as well. One thing is clear: he thinks survive, it is essential that we exercise our privilege and our that the chief product of the Enlightenment, "atomistic" responsibility to participate in the government." liberalism - a.k.a. libertarianism - is an unmitigated So there. That'll give you some concepts to chew on for a disaster. while. I don't want to blame the contest winner. I haven't A typical example of Gray's effusions was a piece in the seen the whole of her essay. Maybe the rest of it would make New York Times Book Review (February 25), discussing a new John Locke blush with envy. Instead of blaming her, I'll work on the history of European fascism from 1914 to 1945. blame Mr. Denlea. I'll blame him and all the other corporate This is one of those hack reviews where you can tell the executives whose idea of defending America's freedom, the writer knows nothing about the subject that he didn't gather freedom that allows them to enrich themselves, consists of from the book itself. Amazingly, there is no mention of Lenin, making their political communications as inane as they possi­ the Comintern, or the Leninist Italian Socialist Party of post­ bly can make them. World War I, although these provided the perceived threat But who cares, you say, about what comes out in some without which Mussolini and his gang would have remained miserable public-relations copy? We get junk like this in our curiosities of the Italian political scene. But, while silent on mailbox every day! the origins of fascism, our ignorant Oxford don jumps at the Well, that's just my point. -SC chance to denounce the major present-day threat to "stable democratic institutions" - the assault on the welfare state by Gas attack - Supplies are tight, demand is up, and the spiritual descendants "of libertarian doctrinaires like the prices at the pump ratchet upward, ever upward. In the bad philosopher Herbert Spencer and the conservative journalist old days, some vote-seeking congressmen would find them­ Albert Jay Nock." selves a stump from which to declare their deep concern for "There is a cruel paradox," Gray finds, "in the truth that constituents (though the locution "feel your pain" is, I the chief danger to liberal democracy now should come not believe, of recent coinage) and demand an investigation of from fascism but from the rebirth of a primitive form of liber­ the culprits responsible for raising prices. alism." Sadly, we can expect to see more rubbish of this sort, But now we have a new Congress, a Republican Congress. since it is so much to the taste of papers like the Times ­ They have sworn to forgo the blunt tools of political control especially when it comes with an Oxford imprimatur. -RR in areas of our personal and economic life in which govern­ ment simply has no legitimate role. So here we have a splen­ Insuring banality - Forgive me, Mr. Denlea; I'm didly clear test case of the impact the Republican Revolution about to make fun of you. And please don't cancel my has made on our body politic. Will the sons and daughters of insurance. Gingrich hold true to their proclaimed ideals, or will they Leo E. Denlea, Jr., is chairman and chief executive officer instead succumb to the temptation to pander during an elec­ of the Farmers Group, Inc. Because I have Farmers insurance, tion year? I receive, free of any charge, their public relations magazine, Well, in the immortal words of Emily Litella, "Never Friendly Exchange. As such things go, it isn't too bad. mind." -LEL In the latest issue, Mr. Denlea's column, bravely entitled "One Point of View," takes up the question of why we are Unkindest cuts - American borders are most open "Lucky to Be Americans." Mr. Denlea's thesis, if there is one, to refugees from countries designated "politically repres­ is that his readers should show their appreciation for America sive." But it takes a lot of repression for a nation to be so by "actively participat[ing] in our nation's future." A grand labeled. And the officials who cook up policy and judge spe­ phrase - but as Mr. Denlea uses it, "our nation's future" cial cases are often amazingly ignorant. seems to be synonymous with nothing more than, well, vot­ Consider Donald Ferlise, an American immigration judge. ing. There is also some talk of "worthwhile civic volunteer A year ago, Ferlise judged the case of Fauziya Kasinga, a 19­ projects." Pretty controversial stuff. year-old woman from Togo. Kasinga explained that she was No more precise idea emerges when Mr. Denlea thinks fleeing her homeland to avoid "female circumcision." Her about just why it is that we are fortunate to be Americans in father, who had protected her and her sisters from this the first place. Mr. Denlea says that America has "initiative, African and Arab practice, had recently died. Her aunt had community, partnership, sharing and trust." I suppose that taken over the household and arranged for Kasinga to be no other country has such bold and lovely things. But married into a polygamous family, which entailed subjecting America also has "people [!], millions of citizens who care her to the gruesome operation. In 1994, Ms. Kasinga fled deeply about their freedom and its preservation." This free­ Togo for America and (she thought) freedom. Indeed, when dom can be preserved by "participat[ion] in our democratic she stepped off the plane, she asked for political asylum. This, system." It's as simple as that. alas, was a mistake. Canada recognizes female genital mutila­ But wait! Maybe some further exploration of these deep tion as grounds for granting asylum, not the U.S. The INS political ideas would be helpful. In case it would be, Mr. grabbed her and she has spent over two years in prison, Denlea quotes at some length from the winning entry in his under somewhat brutal conditions. company's essay contest on "The Meaning of Democracy." Kasinga's plea did not impress Judge Ferlise. He found The winning employee wrote, "In my lifetime, democracy has her story, the Washington Post reports, "inconceivable, non­ been threatened by the Cold War [note, not by communism, sensical and irrational." Deeming her more likely paranoid but by the Cold War], internal conflicts, political corruption than persecuted, the judge ruled for her to be deported back 14 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 to the dark continent of stone knives and patriarchal tyranny. complete excision of the clitoris and external genitalia to par­ You might have expected Judge Ferlise to be a little better tial operations. It seems likely that the practice originated in informed, or at least to do a little research before making his Ancient Egypt, then spread through the Levant and much of ruling. I first learned of "female circumcision" as a teenager, the ancient "civilized" world a long time ago, with a variety when I read Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. Accepting of bizarre excuses being given for the practice. Mohammed, the term at face value, I wondered, first, what it possibly progressive humanitarian that he was, advised that only a could mean, and then what the big deal was - after allJ: male part of the clitoris be removed. circumcision was a common practice in ancient Egypt, Of course, when Ferlise was growing up, Americans did became a self-defining custom of the Israelites, and is not speak of such things. Today, there is considerably more common in America today. It took me a while to find out talk about the subject. Novelist Alice Walker, for one, has what was going on, but I persisted. (My trusty Encyclopedia been crusading against the practice for some time. Feminists Britannica was not as trusty on this subject as I'd hoped.) have been protesting female (not male) genital mutilation for "Circumcision," I discovered, is something of a misnomer: we years. Yet none of this talk seems to have reached a certain are not talking foreskins here. Or at least not usually ­ judge's ears. "female circumcision" is a range of genital mutilations, from continued on page 68

Snow job - A recent notice in USA Today announced a Microsoft's decision to hire Kinsley for a small fortune new political talking-heads show, Fox News Sunday. The host seemed a little rash. is former Bush speechwriter and current USA Today and I have no idea if this new magazine - dubbed Slate, and Detroit News columnist Tony Snow. Can you imagine any­ slated to debut in June - can make a go of it. Personally, I thing more useless than yet another "news and information" rarely return to a Web site frequently enough to make it program crammed full of conventional wisdom? Don't worthwhile to pay for the service (I have paid for nothing on worry: I didn't and won't be watching it (I felt dirty enough the Web, yet). But then, I am still new to the Internet. just reading about it in the "nation's newspaper"), so I can't Bill Gates' gargantuan Microsoft, however, is all for set­ give you any gory details. tling things. Like most near-monopolies, it frowns upon fluid­ The first episode's panelists, it was announced, included ity, and is trying to figure out ways to bring stability to two representatives of the respectable right: host Snow and cyberspace. I wish them the best, if only to encourage more Linda Chavez, a couple of ghosts from previous Republican computer-phobic people into the ranks of the cybernauts. administrations. On the "left" were Paul Begala, who is paid Michael Kinsley, a self-described "eclectic liberal with a liber­ to concoct flattering lies about Bill Clinton, and Al Hunt of tarian streak," might help entice such a mass entry into the The Wall Street Journal, who does it for free. What chance is Internet Interzone. And he may even attract the largest politi­ there that this crowd will ever come up with anything intelli­ cal phalanx on the Net, the libertarians. Perhaps to ensure gent or original to say about U.S. politics? this, he has hired libertarian journalist Jack Shafer (late of The most annoying part of the article is the statement that Washington's City Paper and San Francisco's Weekly) as dep­ the show is not going to be "geared to the Bart Simpson utyeditor. crowd." Said Snow: "We're not interested in that crowd If Slate fails, and breaks into pieces, Kinsley will have no because they're not interested in politics." Nonsense! The trouble returning to the Gutenberg dimension. But what Simpsons, for the uninitiated, is often very political; with wit would be left on the Net? Only the shards of thought, fact, mis­ and style, it regularly exposes America's political culture for tatement, and opinion that browsers of the Web have come to the fraud that it is. It has far more intelligent things to say love and hate and read and ignore: in a word, diversity. But a than any chat show. Maybe that is because Bart Simpson - a little more upscale -I hope. The Web still reeks of e-mail cartoon character, a ten-year-old boy who hasn't aged a min­ debates and Usenet banter; more traditional editorial ute in the last six years - is more real than Tony Snow will approaches couldn't hurt cyberspace culture one bit. - TWV ever be. -eS Tune in, turn on, and wait - Timothy Leary, Mr. Mike goes to cyberspace - When whom I profiled in the last Liberty, is an Internet enthusiast. I Microsoft hired super-journalist Michael Kinsley to edit an am a Net skeptic. At his suggestion, I recently checked out his "online" magazine, pretty much everybody was surprised. home page, which is set up as a virtual tour of Leary's home. Though a lot of magazines have what are called "Web pages" Having been in the real thing, I remain resolutely - that is, hypertext articles and pictures stored on computers unimpressed. and accessible from the subset of the Internet called the Doing the full graphics display took a stunningly long "World Wide Web" - and though there are even some Web­ time, and even without graphics, shifting from one area to only magazines, none of these are real profit-makers. So another took nearly two minutes. Despite this, the total text Liberty 15 Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 and information available seemed less than one would find in that "the country would be poorer were it not for," among ... well, in my article. Some great ideas turned out to be more other snoozefests, "The Newshour with Jim Lehrer and the prob­ interesting in their promise than their execution. There was a ing of the Sunday interviews shows" - the former sponsored daily diary of Leary's psychoactive chemical intake - with by the U.S. government, the others by Archer Daniels only two entries. His library was supposedly available for Midland and General Electric, subsidiaries thereof ­ browsing - but I couldn't connect to it. Jamieson shared the really good news: "Those seeking sub­ Sure, if all the information in Leary's library really were stance in such faraway places as Austin, Texas, can now sub­ accessible at a reasonable speed, that would be a fine thing. scribe to the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the And his henchmen seem to be working on it; it's even sup­ National Weekly Edition of the Washington Post." posed to be set up so that visitors can add their own writings. Shrewd analysis, Kathleen. People hate the media giants But even that wouldn't be anything more than a high-speed and their tyranny of the bland so what we should do is ... emulation of a bunch of books. Certain aspects would indeed shove the tyranny even farther down their throats! Yes, that's be different and special; one can't word-search a physical an inspiring vision of America's future: Al Hunt and Abe text. But even at its best, the Web is basically just a means to Rosenthal boring the good people of Austin and Anniston read a lot of words and watch bad-looking animation. We can and every burg from sea to shining sea. No matter where you already do both, and have been able to for years. This is sup­ roam or ramble - whether you're lost in the redwood forests posed to be an evolutionary leap over printing? or submerged in the Gulf Stream waters - David Broder will The average computer-owner already has access to more shadow you all your days. information and entertainment than he could ever hope to Information Age, please end. -BK cope with. Speed and breadth of choice are grand things ­ but Earth-shattering? I don't think so. -BD Front page woman - A report from an organiza­ tion funded by the Freedom Forum, itself a beneficiary of the The extreme center - In a farfetched attempt to Gannett Newspapers fortune, complains that women make rewrite the spectrum of Italian politics, Christopher Hitchens up 52% of the population but are the subject of only 15% of recently claimed that "Italy is the only country in Europe to front-page newspaper articles." A free press in a democracy have been governed exclusively by the right since the end of should reflect all its voices," says Nancy Woodhull of the Second World War" (The Nation, April 15, 1996). Freedom Forum. "The press needs to focus on this trend "Exclusively"? In 1983, Italy inaugurated a Socialist­ toward the invisibility of women and their concerns." dominated governing coalition, headed by the Socialist The day the study was reported, I checked four front Party's leader, Bettino Craxi. pages, and I have this advice for the ladies: commit more Hitchens' claim can be rendered plausible only by a radi­ murders, overthrow a government, get accused of sexual cal reinterpretation of the Italian political landscape, whereby harassment, and run for president. -DB the Communists occupy the center, the Socialists the "right," and the Christian Democrats the "far right," leaving the Red Sauce for geese, I but not ganders - The Brigades on the left. I'm not sure even Hitchens wants to take Clintonista perspective on Al D'Amato's Whitewater investi­ things that far. -NC gations - that witch-hunting Republicans are just angling for political advantage in an election year - is reminiscent of the Frown, you're on Candid Camera - Rush Reaganite line on the Iran-contra affair. If yo~ got all your Limbaugh and many other conservatives have made a great news from The American Spectator and National Review, you'd deal about Bill Clinton's "hypocrisy" during the funeral think the only 1980s scandal involving the National Security march of Ron Brown. Clinton was caught on camera laughing Council was the amount of money Lawrence Walsh spent - and then, when he noticed that he was being photo­ investigating it. graphed, immediately bowed his head and teared up. Rush Naturally, now that a Democrat is president, the Spectator repeatedly showed this clip on his late-night TV program, crowd is happy to investigate any ancillary Iran-contra naugh­ and went on and on about how this showed Clinton as the tiness that might damage the Democrats. So R. Emmett posturing phony he is, etc., etc. Tyrrell and company are willing to suggest that Clinton was The problem with Rush's tack is that Clinton did what privy to drug- and gun-smuggling through the tiny Arkansas any decent person would do: sober up when caught uncere­ town of Mena - and simultaneously ignore allegations that moniously forgetting his social role as mourner. There are a this smuggling was part of the contra resupply network. lot of reasons to believe that Clinton is basically insincere, If, a few years down the road, Democratic congressmen even a congenital liar. This is not one of them. Indeed, this is start raking Vice President Lamar Alexander over the coals one of those incidents that convince me that there is some­ for a Whitewater-style scam, don't be surprised to see the thing indecent about a lot of media coverage. Not to mention same folks who stuck up for Hillary suddenly call for an punditry. -TWV independent counsel to take on Lamar. -JW

Shadow on the land - Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Sullivan's travels - The recent "resignation" of dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, performs Andrew Sullivan from The New Republic is an occasion for the well-compensated job of expressing the conventional wis­ sadness. I put quotation marks around "resignation" because, dom while having a vagina. She outdid herself in a recent despite Sullivan's testimony that he resigned to pursue other Newsweek forum on Americans and the media. After opining continued on page 35 16 Liberty Analysis

Bipartisan Reign of Terror by David B. Kopel and Joseph Olson

"All the horrors of the reign of terror were based only on solicitude for public tranquillity." -Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

The heinous bombing last year of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City has raised public fears of terrorism. As is common after sensational crimes, some people have used it as an excuse to call for a bigger federal government and a narrower Constitution. A few days after the anniversary of the bombing, President Clinton signed new "anti-terrorism" legislation into The battle over the terrorism bills and the risks of unleashing and law - legislation with profound showed the increasing clout of a new further militarizing the federal gov­ implications for the future of Bill of Rights alliance - one that has ernment. Americans' constitutional rights. been coalescing over the past several It is sometimes suggested that per­ The bill Clinton signed was a com­ years, but worked together now as sons who worry about the second promise between the broadly intru­ never before. The alliance cuts across type of terrorism are only a strange sive Senate bill and a less extreme the traditional political spectrum, fringe of American society. In fact, House version. (The Senate bill was including groups both "left" (the they are the majority. According to a itself the product of negotiations over American Civil Liberties Union, the November 1995 CNN-Time poll, 55% Clinton's original proposal and Sen. National Association of Criminal of Americans believe that "the federal Robert Dole's slightly narrower legis­ Defense Lawyers, the American government has become so large and lation.) The House Judiciary Friends Service Committee, the powerful it poses a threat to the Committee had quickly approved a Presbyterian Church) and "right" (the rights and freedoms of ordinary bill, proposed by Rep. Henry Hyde, National Rifle Association, the Eagle citizens." Repressive measures, far that was mostly the same as the Forum, Americans for Tax Reform, from reassuring the American public, Senate's. But the measure then ran Gun Owners of America). may intensify already widespread into strong opposition on the floor, fears. from a diverse coalition of Democratic Legal Suppression In the United States, there is a civil libertarians and Republicans of Terrorism long and sad history of interest skeptical of an expanded federal gov­ The word "terrorism" originated groups and government officials ernment. In March 1996, an amend­ in the French Revolution, when the inflating a few isolated incidents into ment sponsored by freshman Bob government instituted the Reign of a vast threat that requires an immedi­ Barr saved the bill by removing most Terror to execute political opponents, ate, repressive response. In 1798, of the provisions critics had found seize their property, and terrorize the President John Adams and the objectionable - but even with this rest of the population into submis­ Federalists who controlled Congress amendment, 177 legislators voted sion. In the debate over the new bill, were scandalized by the vicious cam­ against it. The final version of the bill two terrorist threats were invoked. paigns against them in the press. was created in April 1996, when a One side feared a vast militia conspir­ These scurrilous charges - for exam­ House-Senate conference committee acy of armed and paranoid "angry ple, the accusation that Adams had restored some but not all of the provi­ white men." The other side worried sent General Pinckney to England to sions the Barr Amendment had more about terrorism in the original procure a pair of young mistresses for removed. sense of the word - state terror - each of them, or that Adams was Liberty 17 Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

plotting to establish an American mon­ of the Department of Justice. The a terrorist threat that must be archy - illustrate that today's foolish Division was headed by J. Edgar suppressed. conspiracy theories are nothing new. Hoover and charged with gathering At the same time, French .officials information on radicals. Over the next There Is No Terrorism Crisis attempted to bribe American newspa­ year, 6,000 people were seized in the But is there a terrorist threat? pers into taking the French side in "Palmer Raids," many of them inno­ According to the State Department, their conflict with England and to criti­ cent of any crime and many of them international terrorist attacks are at cize President Adams' pro-England unconnected to radical politics. their lowest level in 23 years. In the policy. Suspects were often held in filthy jails United States in the last eleven years, In 1798, a furious Adams prevailed and beaten into false confessions. Even there have been only two international upon Congress to enact the Alien and people who came to visit these prison­ terrorist incidents. One was the World Sedition Acts. These hated laws ers were arrested, on the theory of Trade Center bombing. The other was allowed the extra-judicial deportation guilt by association. Palmer hoped to a trespassing incident at the Iranian of any legal resident alien the adminis­ use the hysteria he had helped create mission to the United Nations, in tration considered a security threat. as a stepping-stone to the Democratic which five critics of the Iranian regime Criticism of the president was termed presidential nomination, but he over­ took over the mission's offices and "sedition" and was banned. President played his hand. The major terrorist refused to leave. Adams' political opponents were per­ attack he predicted for May Day, 1920 As for domestic terrorism, there secuted for supposed disloyalty. was none in the United States in 1994; Rather than calming nor was any prevented the political waters, the Terrorist Incidents in the United States by police. In 1993, the FBI Alien and Sedition Acts classified eleven incidents provoked an angry back­ Actual Prevented Suspected as "terrorist." Nine took lash. The Kentucky and place in a single night in 1994 0 0 1 Virginia Resolutions Chicago when animal were enacted, with 1993 11 7 2 rights activists set off both states asserting small incendiary devices the authority to nullify 1992 4 0 0 in four department stores within their territory 1991 5 4 1 that sell fur. laws that violated the The Oklahoma City Constitution. Had 1990 7 5 1 bombing was one of the Adams decided to force most terrible single 1989 4 7 16 the issue, civil war crimes in American his­ FBI data, reported in Misleading "Findings" in Clinton Terrorism Bill (Washington, Feb. 22, 1995) might have resulted. tory, but it was just that: a Happily, the Acts were never uni­ failed to materialize, and the national single crime. Isolated incidents of men­ formly enforced, and after Thomas panic subsided. tal aberration and evil - the mass Jefferson was elected president in 1800, Later, many southern state govern­ murder by arson of several dozen peo­ they were allowed to expire. ments - as well as the FBI - accused ple in a New York City nightclub in Similarly, John Brown's unsuccess­ "Communist agitators" of leading the 1989, the Oklahoma City bombing, the ful raid on Harper's Ferry provoked civil rights movement. But the awful Dunblane murders in Scotland fears in the South of larger revolution­ presence of a few Communists within - are crimes, not organized terrorism. ary conspiracy, leading to attempts to the civil rights leadership did not mean The same goes for repeated crimes suppress anti-slavery speech. In the the movement was fundamentally committed by small groups, such as decades following the Civil War, wor­ Communist, nor that it should be sup­ the fraud and intimidation perpetrated ried authorities reacted to labor mili­ pressed. Nonetheless, that is precisely by Montana's misnamed "Freemen." tancy with "criminal syndicalism" what many state governments To the extent that these acts involve laws. In the twentieth century, too, attempted to do. more than a pair of criminals, prosecu­ radical critiques of the government H it is easy for many Americans to tion of the handful of individuals have too often been met with repres­ understand, in hindsight, the view­ involved will suffice to destroy what­ sion. During World War I, for exam­ points of Jeffersonians, abolitionists, ever pathetic "organization" they call ple, Eugene V. Debs' peaceful criticism labor organizers, or the civil rights themselves. According to the prosecu­ of the draft landed him in federal movement, it is not so easy for some tion's theory of the Oklahoma City prison. Americans to respect the current bombing, that crime was perpetrated After the war, when Communists concerns of their fellow citizens. by the two defendants, alone. took over in Russia, fears of violent for­ Today, tens of millions of people are Although the trial has not yet taken eign radicals intensified. In August terrified of the government, and tens of place, there simply isn't sufficient evi­ 1919, Attorney General A. Mitchell thousands, perhaps more, participate dence at this time to base public policy Palmer established the FBI's predeces­ in militias. According to many in the on the theory that there is some vast sor, the "General Intelligence Division" government and the media, they pose conspiracy the federal government has 18 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

failed to discover yet. Palestinian refugees. administration spokesperson acknowl­ Nonetheless, the bill has been One important distinction between edged that minor support for the passed and signed into law. What does the Clinton and Dole bills was that the African National Congress' peaceful this mean? Dole bill created an explicit exception to activities could have been felonized the "material support" statute: had the bill been law a decade ago, but What's in the Law '''Material support' ... does not include insisted that the American people Before the terrorism bills were even humanitarian assistance to persons not should simply trust the president not introduced, federal law appropriately directly involved in such violations." to abuse the immense power Clinton forbade the provision of material sup­ Thus, sending a Christmas food pack­ was requesting. port to foreign terrorist acts. The law age to an Irish Republican Army pris­ But as another president, Lyndon forbade investigations of people solely oner would constitute material support, Johnson, put it: "You do not examine for lawful First Amendment activities. but giving money toa fund that assists legislation in light of the benefits it will The bill signed by the president convey if properly administered, but in eliminates this statutory protection of light of the wrongs it would do and the First Amendment rights. It also The Oklahoma City tragedy harms it would cause if improperly expands the "support" prohibited to administered." include support for the lawful, nonvio­ has become a vehicle for "wish lent activities of any group the secre­ list" legislation that has noth­ Federalizing Violent Crime tary of state designates a "foreign ing to do with Oklahoma City. It was already a federal felony to terrorist" organization. As the bill make a real terrorist threat - threaten­ moved through Congress, the Clinton ing, say, to set off a bomb or to assassi­ administration retreated from its origi­ nate the president. The new bill the orphaned children of IRA members nal insistence that such a designation widens the definition of "terrorism" to be exempt from review by the courts. would not. The finallegislation did not include almost all violent crime except This will certainly reduce the risk of include even this exception. for sex offenses: any assault with a domestic dissident groups being desig­ So under the new terrorism law, a dangerous weapon, assault causing nated "terrorists," since they would be donor to an IRA orphanage would be a serious bodily injury, killing, kidnap­ able to show in court that they were federal felon, subject to ten years in ping, maiming, or creating a risk of not foreign. But it should be remem­ prison. If the "material support" lan­ serious bodily injury through destruc­ bered that historically, American guage had been law in the early 1980s, tion of property. (This provision is courts have been extremely deferential people who gave money to church actually narrower than the original to presidential foreign policy decisions. relief groups in EI Salvador and Dole and Clinton bills, which also If there were even a scintilla of evi­ Nicaragua that opposed American pol­ labeled any property damage, no mat­ dence in favor of the secretary's desig­ icy could have been prosecuted as "ter­ ter how trivial, as "terrorism," even if nation of a foreign group as "terrorist," rorists." So could anyone who spent there were no risk to any individual's then it is virtually certain that courts five dollars to attend a speech by a vis­ life or limb.) The effect is to federalize would not overturn the designation. iting lecturer from the African crimes that are ordinarily dealt with on Furthermore, in such cases the govern­ National Congress. a state or local level. ment would be able to use secret evi­ The Constitution mandates that if a Another effect is to upgrade the dence, shown ex parte and in camera. person is to be punished for associat­ severity of certain offenses. Mugging a Moreover, the bill requires banks to ing with a group with unlawful objec­ Department of Agriculture employee is freeze the domestic assets of any tives, the government must prove that now "terrorism." So is breaking some­ account-holder deemed an agent of a the individual specifically intended to one's arm while on a private boat in foreign terrorist organization. This further those goals. The Clinton/Dole American territorial waters. Other pro­ doesn't even require designation by bill returns us to practices the Supreme visions go even further, classifying any the secretary of state - it's an indepen­ Court outlawed over half a century offender who "uses the mail or any dent legal duty of the bank. The bill ago, when the Immigration and facility of interstate or foreign com­ offers no provision for an individual or Naturalization Service attempted to merce in furtherance of the offense" as organization to appeal the freezing of deport labor organizer Harry Bridges a terrorist. And a crime is now consid­ their assets. because of his affiliation with the ered "terrorist" if it "obstructs, delays, Skeptical readers should try ima­ Communist Party. Bridges had sup­ or affects interstate or foreign com­ gining this legislation in the hands of ported only lawful Communist activi­ merce," or would have done so had it their worst political nightmare. An ties, but the INS argued that, since the been consummated. organization that provides support to organization had unlawful purposes, To limit the federalization of virtu­ the government of Israel or to the Bridges' intent was irrelevant. The ally all violent crime, the final version Israeli Defense Forces (both of which Supreme Court disagreed, and dis­ of the law requires a terrorist offense to are considered "terrorist" in some missed the case. involve "conduct transcending national political circles) could be outlawed, as Has the White House shown any boundaries," defined as "conduct could (by a different president) a sensitivity to any of these problems? occurring outside the United States in group that provides support to Pressed at congressional hearings, an addition to conduct occurring inside Liberty 19 Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

the United States." This last provision is or wetlands regulations is hardly a seri­ ing than proposals to expand the juris­ considerably narrower than earlier pro­ ous contribution to anti-terrorism, but dictional base for wiretaps are efforts posals. If courts enforce this language amounts to a bait-and-switch on the to remove legal controls on their use. seriously, then the terrorism bill will American people. For example, wiretaps are authorized not turn into a de facto federalization of Currently, the FBI may legally wire­ for the interception of particular speak­ all violent crimes other than sexual tap, bug, and break into the property ers on particular phone lines. If the assaults. On the other hand, given the of Americans in the name of "national interception target keeps switching tel­ great lengths to which "interstate com­ security" after approval from a judge ephones (as by using a variety of pay merce" has been stretched, it is entirely on a seven-member federal court that phones), the government may ask the possible that the requirement for "con­ meets in secret. Applications for court for a "roving wiretap," authoriz­ duct occurring outside the United national security surveillance orders ing interception of any phone line the States" could be met simply through are made, in secret, before specially target is using. Yet while roving wire­ the use of a weapon manufactured out­ selected judges of the Foreign taps are currently available when the side the country, or the perpetration of Intelligence Surveillance Court. Of the government shows the court a need, the crime by a visiting tourist. 8,130 applications that have been the original Clinton and Dole bills Once the government accuses some­ would have allowed roving wiretaps one of any of the above ordinary violent for "terrorism" without court order. crimes, with some conduct occurring Ofthe 976 federal electronic (Again, remember that both bills outside the United States, a heavy set of defined "terrorism" as almost all vio­ hammers begins to fall on the accused. eavesdropping applications in lent or property crime.) Although the law allows state defini­ 1993 and the 1,154 in 1994, The final terrorism bill, while delet­ tions of a crime to be used in order to not one was for investigations ing provisions for warrantless roving create federal jurisdiction, it forbids wiretaps, did significantly expand defendants from invoking constitu­ of arson, explosives, or fire­ wiretapping authority. Earlier, the tional protections of the state where the arms, let alone terrorism. Electronic Communications Privacy alleged offense took place. Sentences Act had banned wiretapping by the for "terrorism" are severe, and must government or private parties, with run consecutively to any other sentence made, only one has ever been rejected. certain exceptions (e.g., when a war­ imposed. Those accused of "terrorism" The standard for a FISA search order is rant is obtained). Now the terrorism will be denied bail. lower than for a normal Fourth bill has narrowed what types of com­ Amendment search warrant. The munication interceptions are consid­ Wiretapping potential for abuse is substantial, since ered to be wiretapping, and thereby Having defined almost all violent all applications remain sealed and una­ greatly expanded the scope of commu­ and property crime as "terrorism," the vailable to the public and since targets nications that can legally be inter­ proposed Dole and Clinton bills would are never notified that they have been cepted - without probable cause or a have allowed wiretaps for "terrorism" spied on. search warrant - by private individu­ investigations. Other proposals would These existing powers contradict als as well as government officials. allow wiretaps for all federal felonies, the government's argument that it Wireless transmission of computer rather than just the subset of felonies needs expanded wiretapping power to data is now subject to search at will. for which they havebeen determined to combat terrorism. Interestingly, as fed­ be especially necessary. It is worth not­ eral wiretaps reach new highs each Habeas Corpus and ing that wiretaps are already available year, they are used almost exclusively Political Surveillance for the fundamental terrorist offenses, to combat gambling, racketeering, and For some government agencies, the arson and homicide. Authorizing wire­ drugs - not terrorism. The last known Oklahoma City tragedy has become a taps for evasion of federal vitamin, gun, wiretap for a bombing investigation vehicle for "wish list" legislation that was in 1988. Of the 976 has nothing to do with Oklahoma federal electronic eaves­ City. dropping applications One prominent example is lan­ in 1993 and the 1,154 guage in the final terrorism bill that applications in 1994, not drastically curtails the right of habeas a single one was for corpus - the first major statutory con­ investigations of arson, striction of it since the creation of Great explosives, or firearms, Writ many hundreds of years ago in let alone terrorism. England. (Habeas corpus is a writ From 1983 to 1993, of requiring a person in custody to be the 8,800 applications brought before court; its prime impor­ for eavesdropping, only tance is in determining whether he is (JitlH 16 were for arson, being lawfully held.) Although "I don't like the looks of this - all my Secret Servicemen explosives, or firearms. Supreme Court decisions in recent have called in sick!" Even more disturb- years have already significantly lim- 20 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

ited habeas corpus, prosecutors' lob­ rights, white supremacist, and anti-war should be brought up to full strength. A bies have pushed much further. Two groups, which led to only four convic­ statute combining the Levi and Smith obvious points should be· made. First, tions. Even after all the public hearings, guidelines should be enacted. habeas corpus has nothing to do with and the implementation of guidelines, Once again, those eager to apprehending criminals; by definition, the FBI continued to abuse the rights of "unleash" the FBI ought first to go anyone who files a habeas corpus peti­ dissidents through massive surveil­ through the mental exercise of imagin­ tion is already in prison. Second, lance in the mid-1980s of members of ing their worst nightmare as president. habeas corpus has nothing to do with CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with Liberals might imagine Pat Buchanan terrorism in general or Oklahoma City the People of El Salvador). The CISPES or Pat Robertson. Conservatives could in particular. investigation, justifiably regarded imagine Richard Gephardt or Jesse Then there are the proposals to today as shameful, would have been Jackson. In such a scenario, would you loosen restrictions on political spying. lawful if the new terrorism bill had Within days of the Oklahoma City been law. bombing, conservative talk show host Right up to the present, FBI infiltra­ The Clinton/Dole bill re­ Rush Limbaugh began casting blame tors have frequently served as agents on civil libertarians, such as former provocateurs, inciting and directing turns us to practices the Ohio senator Howard Metzenbaum, murders and other violent crimes. In Supreme Court outlawed over who had promoted strict guidelines on one of the most notorious recent cases, half a century ago. FBI surveillance of dissident groups in an FBI informant solicited the murder the U.S. Others have also called for of Louis Farrakhan by a dissident fam­ ily of Muslims. The New York Times abolishing the remaining limitations want the FBI to be free to spy on wrote that the case "reeked of entrap­ on FBI investigations. whomever the president does not like? ment" by an FBI informant "clearly Yet there is no evidence that the FBI Under Nixon, Johnson, and Kennedy motivated by money and the need to wanted to spy on anyone suspected in - all of whom were moderates within the Oklahoma City bombing but was please the government." The first set of FBI guidelines was their own parties - the FBI did so, prevented from doing so by the cur­ with baleful results. rent guidelines. Thus, Limbaugh and implemented by President Ford's the others are demanding a "solution" attorney general, Edward Levi, in Aliens and the New 1976. In 1983, these guidelines were for which there is no demonstrated Star Chamber loosened by President Reagan's attor­ problem. Although the United States has suf­ ney general, William French Smith. Furthermore, the guidelines in ques­ fered only one alien terrorist attack in Then-FBI Director William Webster tion exist for a very good reason. Before the last eleven years, special harsh they were implemented, the FBI spied stated that the Smith guidelines "should eliminate any perception that rules for aliens were at the top of the actual or imminent commission of a "anti-terrorism" agenda. The new law violent crime is a prerequisite to inves­ allows prosecutors to use secret evi­ Isolated incidents of mental tigation." Thus, a former FBI official's dence in deportation cases in which aberration and evil are crimes, highly-publicized claim that "you the government asserts that secrecy is have to wait until you have blood in necessary for national security. but they are not organized the streets before the bureau can act" Georgetown University Law Professor terrorism. is patent nonsense. David Cole calls the secret court the While the Smith guidelines would new "Star Chamber," since its powers prevent infiltration of groups simply resemble those of the inquisitorial on literally hundreds of thousands of because they sharply criticize govern­ court that the British monarchy, in vio­ Americans who were doing nothing ment policy, they allow infiltration of lation of the common law, used to ter­ more than exercising their constitu­ groups that actually threaten violence. rorize dissident subjects. tional right to question government For example, in Virginia, a group of 15 The modern Star Chamber proceed­ policies. Victims of these abuses men who allegedly wanted to resist the ings are to take place before a special included Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., federal government held only three court (one of five select federal district the Ku Klux Klan, the Congress on meetings before a government infiltra­ judges), after an ex parte, in camera Racial Equality, Barry Goldwater, tor's secret tape recordings led to their showing that normal procedures Cesar Chavez, and anti-war activists, arrest for weapons violations. More­ would "pose a risk to the national among others. Far from being confined over, militia and patriot groups gener­ security of the United States." Based to a single type of dissident, or to a few ally hold public meetings, sometimes upon further ex parte, in camera years of excess, FBI abuses dated back advertising in local newspapers. There motions, evidence that the government to the 1940s and were pervasive until is hardly a need for greater "surveil­ does not wish to disclose may be with­ brought to light by 15 months of hear­ lance" of such public political held from the defendant, who will ings before Sen. Frank Church's special discussions. instead be provided a general sum­ committee in 1975-76. Altogether, there Rather than being obliterated, mary of what the evidence purports to were 675 FBI operations against civil guidelines on FBI domestic surveillance prove. In other words, secret evidence Liberty 21 Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

may be used. Of course, any of the Confrontation Clause in those cases publish information about how to "showings" that the government may likewise impede the short-term make firearms, or explosives, or any makes behind closed doors may be interests of law enforcement. But the other type of weapon. The only based on the unreviewable allegations Constitution has conclusively deter­ attempt to create an exception of a secret informant. mined that a criminal justice system involved instructions for making No evidence may be excluded without a right of confrontation poses nuclear weapons. because it was illegally obtained, no a far greater long-term risk to public Thus, the sixties relic The Anarchist matter how flagrantly the law was safety than does requiring the govern­ Cookbook remains lawfully available broken. ment to disclose why it wants to today, and can be bought by mail­ Legal aliens do not, of course, have imprison, execute, or deport someone. order and in many bookstores. the full scope of constitutional rights Simply put, confidential informants Likewise, it is legal to purchase and guaranteed to American citizens. For sometimes lie. Informants are rarely read any number of books that detail example, they cannot exercise rights good citizens who come forward to how to break various laws, steal associated with citizenship, such as help prevent a crime. They generally things, or resist the government, such voting or serving on a jury. But a are criminals who have turned infor­ as Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book. recent Ninth Circuit case affirmed that mant in order to protect themselves The fact that some such books are First Amendment rights of association from prosecution; they have every rea­ distributed electronically, by phone son to lie and falsely accuse people. lines, rather than by printing and mail­ Confidential informants who are order, hardly changes their protected Wireless transmission of not professional criminals may have status under the First Amendment ­ other reasons for lying. Consider the any more than the fact that The computer data is now subject 1950 case in which the Supreme Court Anarchist Cookbook was printed with a to search at will. held that secret evidence could be used high-speed modern printing press to prevent a female alien from entering rather than a Franklin press deprives the United States. (She was married to that book of constitutional protection. are fully applicable in alien deporta­ an American.) Because the case gener­ It is well-established that the govern­ tion cases - i.e., you can't throw peo­ ated so much publicity, the alien was ment may punish persons for breaking ple out of the country for the company granted a hearing anyway, and it was the law, or for imminent incitement to they keep. Likewise, legal aliens have discovered that the confidential infor­ break the law. But it may not punish always been accorded the same protec­ mant was her husband's angry ex­ people for knowing how to break the law, or for reading about it. tions in criminal cases as citizens. After girlfriend. all, the Fifth Amendment's guarantee Some people may accept the Star Other Objections of due process protects "all persons," Chamber for legal resident aliens Most civil libertarians, concerned not just "all citizens." under the presumption that such pro­ about the constitutional issues dis­ Procedures like those adopted in cedures would never be used against cussed above, raised little objection to the new terrorism bill have already American citizens. They should the terrorism bills' proposed increases been found unconstitutional. As the remember that cancers always start in federal spending. Not surprisingly, District of Columbia Court of Appeals small. If one international terrorist inci­ put it: dent in eleven years is considered suf­ Rafeedie - like Joseph K. in The ficient reason to justify a Star Chamber Trial - can prevail before the [INS] for certain terrorism suspects, it will be Wiretaps no longer require Regional Commissioner only if he hard to resist the logic that crimes that even judicial approval. can rebut the undisclosed evidence are actually widespread (such as homi­ against him, i.e., prove that he is not cide, rape, and drug trafficking) should a terrorist regardless of what might be entitled to their own Star Chamber. the final bill became a Christmas tree be implied by the government's con­ of new federal money, with the FBI fidential information. It is difficult to Censoring the Internet taking an additional $462 million, the imagine how even someone inno­ The final terrorism legislation Drug Enforcement Agency (which has cent of all wrongdoing could meet requires the attorney general to study such a burden. no anti-terrorist responsibilities) get­ the availability, in all media, of bomb­ ting $172 million extra, and various The argument for allowing secret making instructional manuals, and the other federal and state agencies many evidence in deportation proceedings is constitutionality of restrictions on such millions more. But instead of adding that otherwise the identity or opera­ manuals. still more federal debt, Congress could tional mode of a confidential informant Some congresspersons have have found whatever additional anti­ might be jeopardized. But the very announced their dismay that a recipe terrorism resources are needed by reas­ same argument would apply in every for explosives and other instr\J.ctions signing federal agents currently other case, especially cases in which for making products that are illegal· assigned to matters that are not legiti­ use of informants is routine, such as without a special license can be found mate federal concerns, such as child tax evasion, drug sales or possession, on the Internet. But it is legal in the support enforcement, obscenity, and and gun laws. Obeying the United States, and always has been, to non-interstate drug enforcement. 22 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 luI 1996

As we consider anti-terrorism ordinary citizens' basic rights. government. At least in regard to civil policy, we should remember not only In 1974, IRA terrorists bombed pubs liberties, the Domino Theory has the Constitution, but also the in Birmingham, killing 21 people. proven correct, as one traditional Declaration of Independence. Solici­ Home Secretary Roy Jenkins intro­ Anglo-American freedom after another tude for foreign governments should duced the Prevention of Terrorism has fallen under the government's not blind us to the fact that most of the (Temporary Provisions) Bill. Approved assertion of the need for still more anti­ nations of the world are dictatorships, without objection in Parliament, the terrorist powers. and that many of them promote state Bill was supposed to expire in one year, In Northern Ireland, the right to

terrorism. Under the principles on but has been renewed every year since. trial by jury has been IIsuspended" for which America is based, governments Under the Bill, the police may stop and political violence cases; judges in the search without warrant any person sus­ Diplock courts hear the cases instead. pected of terrorism. They may arrest Confessions extracted through lithe five A culture of lawlessness has any person they IIreasonably suspect" techniques" - wall-standing, hooding, supports an illegal organization, or any continuous noise, deprivation of food, permeated much of American person who has participated in terror­ and deprivation of sleep - are admit­ law enforcement. ist activity. An arrested person may be ted as evidence without corroboration. detained up to 48 hours, and then for Convictions may be based solely on the five more days upon the authority of testimony of IIsupergrasses" (police without the consent of the governed the secretary of state. informers). Wiretaps no longer require have no legitimacy, and it is the right of Of the 6,246 people detained evenjudicial approval. the people to overthrow them. between 1974 and 1986, 87% were In 1988, the Thatcher government Yet the new terrorism law applies never charged with any offense. Many enacted additional laws restricting prison terms of up to 25 years to any detainees reported that they were civil liberties. Television stations were person who plans the destruction of intimidated during detention and pre­ forbidden to broadcast in-person state­ state property in a foreign nation with vented from contacting their families. ments by supporters of a legal politi­ which the United States is lIat peace." The Prevention of Terrorism Bill cal party, Sinn Fein. The ban even Thus, if Chinese refugees living in the also makes it illegal even to organize a applied to rebroadcasts of archive United States planned a jailbreak to lib­ private or public meeting addressed by films taped many decades ago, such erate political prisoners in China, they a member of a proscribed organization, as footage of Eamon de Valera, the would be guilty of "terrorism." If or to wear clothes indicating support first president of Ireland. A confiden­ Americans in 1940 had plotted the of such an organization. tial British Broadcasting Corporation destruction of railways leading to Nazi The Act allows the government to memo announced the government's concentration camps, they too would issue an lIexclusion order" barring a intention to keep journalists from have been guilty of IIterrorism." So person from ever entering a particular would the countless American Jews part of the United Kingdom, such as who smuggled firearms to the Jewish Northern Ireland or Wales. Persons The most important thing resistance movement in Palestine in subject to this form of internal exile the government can do to pre­ the 1940s. Had such a IIterrorism" law have no right to know the evidence been universal in 1776, the Dutch, against them, to cross-examine or con­ vent terrorism is to not prac­ French, and other private citizens who front their accusers, or even to have a tice it. provided material assistance to the formal public hearing. American Revolution while their gov­ The European Court of Human ernments were at peace with the Rights has ruled the Prevention of broadcasting any statement by U.S. British Empire would have been IIter­ Terrorism Act to be in violation of Senator Edward Kennedy supporting rorists" as well. It ill becomes a nation Article Five, Section Three of the Sinn Fein. BBC radio even banned born in violent revolution with foreign European Convention on Human songs protesting the U.K.'s Ireland assistance to felonize the very charity Rights, which requires suspects to be policies. that allowed it to become free. IIpromptly" brought before a judge. As in America, gun prohibitionists Nevertheless, the British government hitched their wagon to "anti­ The British Tragedy refuses to abandon its preventive deten­ terrorism" with Iittle regard for an More government secrecy, more tion policy, and evades the European actual terrorist nexus. Although British police powers to detain people at will, Court's ruling by invoking Article 15's laws regarding possession of actual less governmental accountability, less provision for countries to ignore the firearms were already severe, the freedom - these are not novel Convention on Human Rights /lin time Firearms Act of 1982 introduced responses to terrorism. They are pre­ of war or other emergency threatening restrictive licensing for imitation fire­ cisely the approach that has been taken the life of the nation." arms that could be converted to fire in Great Britain since the early 1970s. One of the most important lessons live ammunition. The sponsor of the The British experience offers sobering from Britain is that even huge restric­ new law promised that it would help

lessons to those who believe we can set tions on civil liberties do not long stem IIthe rising tide of crime and ter­ down this road without endangering remain IIsufficient" in the eyes of the rorism," although there had never Liberty 23 Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

been a crime or terrorist act committed ted that he lied in court. The much of American law enforcement. with a converted imitation weapon. Birmingham Six confessed while being Ultimately, the most important A suspect's decision to remain held incommunicado by the police; the antidote for almost every civil liberties silent under interrogation may now be various confessions were so factually problem discussed above is the same. used against him in court. Although inconsistent that they could not have The federal government should get out terrorism in Northern Ireland was the been true. Civil libertarians fear that of criminal issues that it has no author­ stated basis for the change, the change the Birmingham case is only one of ity over in the first place. The also applies in England and Wales. No many instances of police obtaining Constitution specifically authorizes one who has seen Great Britain's slide coerced confessions. federal enforcement of only two types down the slippery slope can feel confi~ The Birmingham Six were also of laws, both of which involve dent that repressive measures intro­ eventually freed. Britain, fortunately, uniquely federal concerns. The first is duced solely for terrorism will not has no death penalty. In America ­ based on the congressional power to eventually seep into the ordinary crim­ where, before anyone had even been "provide for the punishment of coun­ inal justice system. indicted, President Clinton announced terfeiting the securities and current The first time the Prevention of that the perpetrators of the Oklahoma coin of the United States." The second Terrorism Act was used was after City bombing should be executed ­ involves the power to "define and another pub bombing, in the English the federal death penalty means that punish piracies and felonies commit­ town of Guildford. Four people were any vindication of persons wrongfully ted on the high seas, and offenses arrested, held incommunicado in against the law of nations." Although prison for a week, and coerced into currency and the high seas clearly false confessions through administra­ The battle over the terrorism involve areas of federal, not state con­ tion of drugs and threats against their bills showed the increasing cern, the authors of the Constitution families. While the "Guildford Four" felt a need specifically to authorize were being held, the police fabricated clout of a new Bill of Rights congressional law enforcement evidence against them. Although alliance. regarding these matters. Given that already imprisoned members of the need for specific authorization, it is Irish Republican Army confessed to hard to justify Congress arrogating to the Guildford bombings, the Four convicted of terrorism might be post­ itself vast criminal powers from the were tried, convicted, and sentenced mortem. "necessary and proper" clause, the to life in prison. Several leading To state the obvious, all of Britain's interstate commerce power, and the English statesmen, including Roy "anti-terrorist" legislation has hardly taxing power. Jenkins, felt that the defendants had immunized that country against terror­ Most of the federal government's been framed. A campaign to free them ism. But Britain has, in two decades, criminal law jurisdiction is built on an continued for 15 years, until, upon dis­ eviscerated the magnificent structure intellectual foundation of sand. covery of police notes of fabrication of of liberty and limited government that Perhaps one day it will be swept away evidence, the Guildford Four were took over a millennium to construct. by jurists committed to the text of the released. Britain was once the freest nation in Constitution rather than the political The Birmingham bombings that the world; today, it is one of the least trends of the hour. had led to the Prevention of Terrorism free in Western Europe. No matter In the meantime, the most impor­ Act resulted in the conviction of a how great a country's tradition of lib­ tant thing the government can do to group of defendants called the erty, its freedoms can be lost in less prevent terrorism is to not practice it. "Birmingham Six." Amnesty Inter­ than a generation. Without the unjustifiable, illegal, mili­ national charged that their confessions taristic, deadly federal violence at were extracted under torture. The Practice What You Preach Ruby Ridge and Waco, there would be forensic scientist whose testimony con­ Contrary to some militia rhetoric, no militia movement. If Ruby Ridge victed the Birmingham Six later admit- the United States government is not a had led to a real investigation and gen­ terrorist conspiracy. uine corrective measures instead of But it too often be­ years of coverup by both the Bush and haves in a terrifying Clinton administrations, followed by manner, leading a grudging, ersatz reforms, America majority of the would be both safer and freer. American people to When the federal government, espe­ fear their own govern­ cially the executive branch, stops ment. The police demanding new powers and starts excesses documented exercising its existing powers in a in recent years demon­ responsible and lawful manner, we will - strate that a culture of see a massive reduction in the tension lawlessness, militariza­ between it and the American people. tion, BifiD/) and violence has Our government should be a trusted "Sex, sex, sex - you men are all alike!" permeated far too servant, not a terrifying master. 0 24 Liberty Investigation Witch Hunt in Wenatchee? by Kathryn Lyon

Something is terrorizing Wenatchee, Washington. Is it a dangerous sex ring - or a new Inquisition?

Wenatchee and its neighbor, East Wenatchee, coil around the confluence of the Columbia and Wenatchee Rivers at the eastern foothills of the Cascade mountain range. The two Washington cities bask in abundant sunshine, muzak on main street, and apparent community well-being. Yet beneath this idyllic mask, Wenatchee has been the site of a wave of child sex abuse prosecutions over Perez and his foster daughter, told. Maybe she forced him to touch the last two years. Dozens of people referred to in court documents as her. The court will go easier on you if have been imprisoned for bizarre sex "D.E." Long before D.E. came to live you confess. After a few hours, a crimes. But, on closer examination, it with Perez, she had learned some bewildered Abel at last said, "I guess is possible that the real criminals may hard lessons about the expectations of if you say it happened then I'll take be the prosecutors. those in authority. In 1992, the then­ the blame for it." He told Officer If you believe former Wenatchee seven-year-old girl told police and Dresker that D.E. had taken his hand Child Protective Services (CPS) case­ CPS officials that two six-year-old and put it to her vagina. Having satis­ worker Juan Garcia, or former boys had struck her in the crotch with fied the officers, Lopez asked in con­ Wenatchee Child Welfare Services a stick or their hands. D.E.'s brother fusion whether he would have to go (CWS) caseworker Paul Glassen, or backed up her story, but the state to court. Glassen's former supervisor Juana didn't buy it. Although D.E. was returned home Vasquez, the prosecutors' search for Although no one had accused her as promised, the local authorities con­ the truth took a hike because of a parents of abusing her, D.E. was tinued relentlessly to intervene in the long-standing prejudice - the gov­ removed from her home, placed in family. Ultimately, all five children ernment's paternalistic notion that the charge of a foster parent, and were placed in foster homes. All five Wenatchee's less fortunate kids reminded that she would have to suffered from the separation, some would be better off in middle-class name an adult molester if she ever acting out their anger and outrage to homes. Wenatchee and East expected to go home. For a time, the point of self-mutilation. Wenatchee are towns of great eco­ although it was officially acknowl­ First D.E. was placed with an nomic and social disparity. There are edged that D.E. "didn't do well in fos­ unmarried foster parent, Robert wealthy orchardists, and there are ter care," she stuck to her story. But Devereaux, who ran a group home for migrant workers; there are middle­ eventually, D.E. accepted that no one girls. She was unruly and disruptive, class professionals, and there are peo­ wanted to hear about the first graders. and Devereaux was forced to let her ple caught in a generational cycle of After two weeks of separation from go. welfare. And a small but significant her family, D.E. was questioned at D.E. was then placed with proportion of the locals is poor, dis­ length and caved in, whispering to a Detective Perez. No more than a abled, or illiterate. teddy bear the name of a family month before, in January of 1994, friend: Abel. Perez had been put in charge of the The Heart of the Scandal Abel Lopez, an illiterate Hispanic, Crimes Against Persons unit, whose Central to the controversy are was brought in for questioning. duties included investigating child Wenatchee Police Detective Robert Maybe D.E. touched him first, he was abuse offenses. So, at the same time Liberty 25 Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

that investigators' speculation about and modesty, "I'm no better than any and two CPS caseworkers confronted a her family began to include allegations other investigator. I just asked the next confused and alarmed Cherie Town at of incest, D.E. was turned over to the question." her home. One of the caseworkers, city's chief child sex crimes investiga­ Actually, it was a series of ques­ Juan Garcia, observed part of the inter­ tor. This apparently troubled no one tions. Perez soon learned the value of rogation that took place when Perez within law enforcement. pitting one person against another, be told Cherie to step out into her yard. Perez, a cop with twelve years of they child or adult. According to many According to Garcia, Town was crying experience on the Wenatchee police sources, Perez would confront his sub­ and obviously nervous and afraid. force, was, critics claim, singularly ill­ jects (most of them vulnerable because Perez paced back and forth, waving his suited for the responsibilities of his job. of youth, poverty, minority status, or finger at Cherie, swearing and calling In a 1989 performance evaluation, mental or emotional problems) with her a liar. Garcia had known Town for what he "knew," intuitively or from years and felt that she was extremely the statements of others. Then he vulnerable, because of her poverty, Perez dominated the conver­ would persistently urge them to name severe mental impairment, and history witnesses and multiple victims and of losing encounters with authority. sation with ribald humor and perpetrators to support his "knowl­ She was the type of person, Garcia told stories that, according to edge." Sources describe Perez's interro­ me, who would cooperate with author­ Classen, were "extremely pre­ gations as a brutal combination of ity in any way, particularly if someone threats (life in prison,.never seeing a raised his voice. occupied with sexual content." loved one again) and promises of According to Town, Perez told her, extreme leniency. Not surprisingly, the "I've heard the stories that you've list of victims and suspects grew and molested your children. I know they're Wenatchee Police Chief Kenneth Badg­ grew, confirming the expectations of true. Ifyou don't confess to it, I'll make ley and five other evaluators described Perez and the caseworkers. sure you spend the rest of your life in Perez as "pompous" and "arrogant," a "When I was a child, it was a prison." Perez told her she had had sex cop who appeared to "pick out people stranger in the park, maybe an uncle, of every description with her children. and target them." According to the but never this," Perez told a reporter He told her there had been witnesses. evaluation, Perez "[p]resents an image from the Seattle Times. Now husbands When she denied it, Perez snapped at of looking down on people, badgering and wives were in it together, using her, "Well, you're lying to me. I have them. ... Gives the impression of their own children as sex toys, swap­ wanting to trip triggers, likes confron­ ping them around. "Most of them had tation and likes having power over nothing to do but collect monthly wel­ people. ... Is like a wound up wire fare checks and try to figure out ways As with all of the cases that ready to spring.... Is developing the to entertain themselves. Unfortunately followed, Perez's interview reputation of being a hothead in the they decided to entertain themselves wasn't recorded; any notes that community." Strong stuff. But in the by having sex with their children and years that followed, Perez's evalua­ other people's children." might have been made were tions improved. But Perez was willing to tread destroyed. And he had his allies. According to where more faint-minded investigators Garcia, Vasquez, and Glassen, Perez had not. "Nobody ever asked the ques­ went to daily Division of Child and tion about mothers; it was too horrible. the information and it's from more Family Services (DCFS) staff meetings, Mothers are supposed to protect their than one person, so I know you're a scanned confidential files and daily children." The crusading detective had liar." intake referrals, and ~ggressively no such reservations, and soon asked And then, so abruptly that it marched into marginal cases that the big question about Cherie Town. stunned her, Perez's voice became didn't meet CPS standards for family Following a domestic dispute, kind. "I'll tell you what," Town alleges intervention. He worked closely with a Cherie had turned in her husband, he said. "I know you have a drug or small group of CPS caseworkers, Eugene, as a child molester. Perez alcohol problem. I'll talk to the judge including CPS Supervisor Tim Abbey, questioned the Towns' two sons, who and we'll get you in a rehab program Dean Reiman, Pat Boggess, Laurie described an ongoing pattern of moles­ and shorten your sentence." Alexander, and Katie Carrow. Carrow tation by their father. Then Perez got to After close to an hour of question­ often joined Perez while he inter­ wondering what Cherie had ·been ing at her home, Perez took Town to viewed children. She later reflected to doing all that time. Perez asked the Wenatchee police station, where, the Seattle Times, "I know without our Eugene about Cherie, reminding him according to his report, he questioned intervention these children would be that she had got him into this mess in her from 11:15 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., leading lives of abuse and mental ill­ the first place. After a time, Eugene then booked her into the Chelan ness. I've had some time to think about acknowledged that Cherie regularly County Regional Jail. As with all of the it, and I'm real comfortable with what had oral sex and sexual intercourse cases that followed, the interview we did - all of it." with the boys. wasn't recorded; any notes that might Perez agreed, saying with pride On April 5, 1994, at 9:00 a.m., Perez have been made were destroyed. 26 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 luI 1996

The way Town tells it, Perez bar­ removals would be followed by more home for girls after he and his wife raged her with what he "knew" to be "disclosures." Maxine divorced. Prior to that point, true and what would happen to her if First to be accused were her par­ Devereaux had been considered a par­ she didn't confess. At last she began ents, Harold and Idella. Idella's IQ has agon of foster parenting. But once he nodding her head and acceding to his been variously tested to be somewhere became single, he was suspect in the accusations. Perez was typing at his between 58 and 68. Harold is totally eyes of Wenatchee government offi­ keyboard, according to Town, long illiterate. In- an interview, Idella said cials. In an interview, Devereaux said before she'd reached the point of that Perez interrogated her for over that CPS Supervisor Tim Abbey "confession." four hours, telling her things he warned him, "It doesn't look right, "You're gonna feel a lot better "knew" to be true, swearing at her, you, a single guy, around all those now," Perez allegedly reassured her. calling her a liar. On several occasions, girls." Men in that position can give in The statement was unusually to their impulses, Abbey stated flatly. graphic - far more graphic, in fact, Devereaux protested that he had strict than anything I ever saw in my long rules about modesty and that he had experience as a public defender spe­ The confessions Perez ex­ neither the inclination nor the lack of cializing in sex abuse cases. According tracted from mentally limited self-control to be a molester, but Abbey to the statement, Cherie made a run­ defendants bore astonishing was concerned. ning commentary on positions, acts, similarities in language and So, apparently, was Perez. "My sus­ and experiences in language that was, picion started with a gut feeling," to put it mildly, shocking. As Town's graphic detail. Perez told the Seattle Times. attorney pointed out in an unsuccess­ "Devereaux brought a girl into the ful bid to suppress the confession, the police station. He wanted me to tell words far exceeded Town's level of she expressly asked for her attorney by this child she shouldn't have sex with intellectual functioning. (Indeed, the name. Perez told her that she didn't her boyfriend. But the way this came confessions Perez later extracted from need an attorney. Idella eventually across, it wasn't so much that he was other mentally limited defendants bore caved in and signed a statement. In doing it as a concerned foster parent, astonishing similarities in language light of her intellectual problems, a but that he was jealous." And Perez's and graphic detail.) W~natchee judge ordered that Idella suspicions grew. "Then I would see Judge T.W. "Chip" Small disre­ undergo a competency evaluation. She him out driving in his car and it would garded evidence that Town's IQ had did, but before the results became appear more as a social relationship been tested as 77 and that she had com­ known to the court, she had pled than a parent-child relationship. ... pleted only the tenth grade in special guilty to reduced charges on the advice Then a child said he'd allow them to sit education classes. He found that of her attorney. Harold also pled guilty on his lap and drive the car. And that "Cherie Town is a person of at least on his attorney's advice and was sen­ didn't sound right either." average intelligence and ... she was tenced to 23 years, four months. Whether Perez had in fact heard capable and able to understand her And then, according to Perez's the last statement or merely surmised constitutional rights ... and in fact did report, on January 20, 1995, at 7:30 p.m. it, it grew in his mind. One day at knowingly and voluntarily waive these - nearly D.E.'s bedtime - D.E. lunch, surrounded by potted plants rights." At this point, Town's convic­ approached her foster parents and said and plates of half-eaten food and cops tion was inevitable. she wanted to talk. "We sat there, we and caseworkers, Perez became expan­ Many similar confessions were to sat and listened and I didn't take notes sive. Among the caseworkers were follow. because I was a parent, not a police­ Juan Garcia and Paul Glassen. Glassen man then," Perez said to the Seattle was surprised that Perez dominated The Season of the Witch Hunt Times. "Luci and I comforted her, the conversation with ribald humor It was a time ripe for "disclosures." believed her. and stories that, according to Glassen, Many of these had their origin in state­ "It was hard for her," he went on. were"extremely preoccupied with sex­ ments from Perez's foster child, D.E. "She was curled up in a ball under the ual content." Many of the jokes and Although Perez would later testify that coffee table." stories targeted Devereaux. it took as long as five or six months for In his report, Perez claims D.E. said As Glassen tells it, Perez said, D.E. to "bond" with him, even then the that she and several other children had "Some of these children are old course wasn't easy. D.E. would some­ been raped by several adults. The kids enough to drive. I'll bet he teaches times fly into rages, throwing things would be made to undress and to have them to drive." Perez then allegedly and generally disrupting the Perez sex in groups with the adults, until it raised his hand toward his crotch in a household. Several times, Perez and was the next group of kids' turn. It mocking imitation of Devereaux. his wife Luci threatened to have D.E. happened at her home and the Town "Come on honey, sit here on my lap removed from the home. Sometimes home, and at the home of her prior fos­ and grab this stick shift." the threats were carried out and, as ter parent, Bob Devereaux. Months later, D.E. related that Perez would testify, D.E. "was taken The Devereaux foster home was a sometimes she had to "sit on his lap away for a short time to help her deal particular sore point with Perez. and steer the car" while Devereaux with her anger." The threats and Devereaux had maintained his group fondled her. Her words spoke volumes Liberty 27 Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

about either Perez's perceptiveness or tencing and speaking up on her behalf. going upstairs and back downstairs. his ability to influence D.E. According to Roberson, when he left This happened during the day and at In the early months of 1995, the the sentencing, Perez said to him, "We night." Perez household went through more warned you, Roberson. We warned The Robersons, according to D.E., cycles of tantrums, removals, and "dis­ you." would touch children at their home, closures." D.E. told Perez and his wife On March 24, the day after D.E.'s often after swimming parties. Robert about molestations by an ever-growing drive through town, she got to miss did the "wild thing" with the girls and group of adults and children. The con­ school again. In a six-hour marathon fondled the boys. Connie did the "wild versations would take place "about session, she sat with Perez, Kate thing" with the boys and fondled the every night," Perez later testified, or at Carrow, and another CPS caseworker girls. A lot more kids were molested at least "up to 48 times. ... She talked and described a history of molestation the church. "That's all I can remember and I listened." He added that it was right now," said D.E., ending the "great" therapy. "We thought it was interview. great she was getting it out." Now and then, D.E. would But not for long. As Perez drove But it soon became hard for a cop her home, D.E. pointed to a man walk­ who kept no notes, even one with a press her stubby finger to the ing along the sidewalk. "That's Frank," prodigious memory, to keep the facts glass, pointing out locations she said, according to Perez's report. straight. "It got to the point because where she had been raped in "He abused us too." there were so many that she wanted to Perez was outraged. "Child molest­ talk about as time went on, this was orgies. ers are the lowest form of life," he after ten months or eleven months in would later tell Dateline NBC. "They our home, that I would tell her, 'Look, prey on little children who cannot if you want to tell me about something that would fill 16 pages of Perez's defend themselves. I'm not the best you tell me about one or two tonight, typed Incident Report. The events investigator in the world but I will take and then that's it for now,'" Perez told started when she was but two years up the cause of these kids and I will Dateline NBC. "'There were just too old, she said. At first, they involved believe them and I will defend them. many,' [D.E.] would say." just her grandparents; then her parents I'll never be able to arrest every child On March 13, 1995, Perez found a and brothers and sisters joined in. D.E. molester. I'll never find out who every solution to sort out the confusing facts. went on to describe groups of about 15 child molester in Wenatchee is; I don't It was a Monday, but he kept D.E. adults who would meet at various have any illusions about that. But what home from school. Along with two homes and swap kids. Men would do I will do for the time I'm at this desk, I caseworkers, he took her on a drive. "the wild thing" to the girls and the will do my best to see they're all The expedition wound around her old women would penetrate the girls with rounded up, the ones that I'm made neighborhood to the southern part of their fingers. "Then they would change aware of." town, then across the bridge over the kids and start over." By the time of D.E.'s massive drive­ roaring confluence of the Columbia It would happen several times a by disclosures, a drive that came to be and Wenatchee rivers, to the diminu­ week. "Bob Devereaux would come known among critics of the investiga­ tive but sprawling community of East over in the mornings and a man tion as the "Parade of Homes," Perez Wenatchee. named Paul Glassen who worked at was well on his way. By then, Now and then, D.E. would press CPS," D.E. purportedly said. Both Devereaux had long since been her stubby finger to the glass, pointing would do "the wild thing" to all the arrested. out locations where she had been children. Roberson would visit often. On July 3D, 1994, Devereaux had raped in orgies between January 1988 "He did 'the wild thing' to me. He allowed his girls to camp out in the and March 23, 1994. D.E. would point came lots of times to my house; maybe back yard. He set his alarm to go off to a house, and the adults in the car six times a week." every couple of hours, to check on would jot down the address because, At the Devereaux home, D.E. them. The last time, he found one of now and then, it pays to take notes. All related, there were many adults and at the girls in the tent with her boyfriend. in all, D.E. pointed out 22 locations. Of least twelve kids. Kids would go It was A.R., a girl with mental disabili­ these, the authorities were most inter­ upstairs in groups of six, while the rest ties secondary to fetal alcohol syn­ ested in the Devereaux home; the had to remain downstairs watching drome. The party was over. home of Pastor Robert Roberson and pornographic movies. Upstairs, D.E. Also over, Devereaux announced, his wife, Connie; and Roberson's East said, they would go to a bedroom with was A.R.'s relationship with her boy­ Wenatchee Pentecostal Church. six beds constructed from bunk-beds friend. A.R. was furious and, when she Roberson was another man who that had been taken apart. The adults got the opportunity, laced Devereaux's had been raising the government's undressed, got in line, and took turns soft drink with iodine. Devereaux hackles. For months now, he had been having intercourse with each child. noticed it after a tiny sip and A.R. con­ conducting his own investigation, After every adult had had a turn with fessed. In accordance with the legal resourcefully gathering documents, every child, the next group of kids requirements of foster care, Devereaux speaking out in public against Perez's would be brought upstairs for the notified CPS, who, in turn, called the activities, even attending Idella's sen- same treatment. "We would keep on police. A.R. was questioned, made a 28 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

statement, was taken to the juvenile fastly denied that Glassen had coerced County police and prosecutors didn't detention facility, and was charged her into recanting. Glassen was then bother talking to most of them. with assault. The iodine bottle and charged with obstructing a public ser­ Instead, they decided that a small core some other items were placed into evi­ vant. When a pro-tem judge dismissed group of six or seven child witnesses dence. A.R. was arraigned and that charge for lack of evidence, was sufficient to prove their cases. appointed an attorney. The case Glassen's name started appearing in Two, D.E. and her sister M.E., were appeared to be closed. statements given by children and now living with Detective Perez; And then Perez heard about it, and adults who "confessed" after interroga­ another, A.S., had made false allega­ decided to test his theories. Although tion by Perez. tions of abuse in the past, naming a he was assigned to a different police Glassen was placed on paid admin­ therapist, a teacher, and her foster par­ unit, Perez interrogated A.R. at juve­ istrative leave as soon as he was ent of that time, among others. (In fact, nile hall. According to Perez's report, accused of witness-tampering. So was A.R. disclosed that Devereau.x had his supervisor, Juana Vasquez, who molested her and others. But she later had defended his actions. So was CPS The stories became increas­ said that Perez "was putting words in caseworker Juan Garcia, who had fre­ my mouth, mixing things up." He quently and loudly argued that ingly bizarre, including acts questioned her repeatedly, trying to Devereaux had been set up. After suggestive of Satanic rituals get her to acknowledge these things. around twelve months of leave, they and acts defying the limits of According to A.R., the questions were all fired. Glassen took his young "made me feel low about myself." She son and his wife, Suzanne, and moved human sexual stamina. said that she felt scared and "intimi­ to her homeland, Canada. He believed dated," and that Perez was "in my - with good reason - that his child face." might otherwise be placed in foster A.S. admitted in trial testimony that At last, A.R. said, she broke down care and forced to undergo the familiar she had made up lies about being and started to say the things she knew "disclosure"-seeking procedures. molested in the past to "get my own Perez wanted to hear, hoping that her A.R. was later brought down to the way.") Still other child witnesses were words would put an end to it, that he CPS offices so that Perez could ques­ undeniably mentally unstable. All of would leave her alone. "It didn't feel tion her further. Her then-foster par­ the "reliable" child witnesses were right in my heart," she said. ents, the Rutherfords, had researched closely contained - isolated, separ­ Devereaux was arrested that after­ the law and learned that A.R. had the ated from their extended families, and noon; Perez hauled him down to the right to ask that an adult be present kept with "helpful" foster parents. while she was interviewed. According station, leaving the foster children unattended. Paul Glassen, a CWS case­ to Janet Rutherford, when she asked Cops and Robersons CPS caseworker Carrow if Janet and worker with 28 years of experience in With the passage of time, the sto­ her husband or their lawyer could be ries became increasingly bizarre, present, Carrow was silent for a long including acts suggestive of Satanic rit­ moment. "It sounds like you have uals and acts defying the limits of A.R. later said that Perez something to hide," she said at last. human sexual stamina. In the "was putting words in my "Should we be investigating you?" Devereaux home, C.M. reportedly Perez questioned A.R. alone for said, groups of men (some of whom mouth, mixing things up." over two hours, then threatened her "could have been females dressed up with arrest on charges of false report­ as males") dressed entirely in black ing. "I then asked her [if] what she had and wearing sunglasses took turns dealing with children, came to the told me in August was the truth or having sex with each of the girls. home after one of the children called not," Perez recalled. "She looked down Nobody said anything, and when they him. In an interview, Glassen said he and after a few seconds, said, 'I was were finished, they just left. was aghast that the children were lying.'" According to A.R., Perez D.E. and others interrogated by alone. The next day, at the request of a threatened to put her in juvenile hall Perez said that in the Devereaux home, juvenile probation officer, he went to immediately unless she went back to 15 or 20 adults had gone upstairs and see A.R., who was on his caseload, at her original statement. She refused, stood in line to have sexual intercourse the Chelan County juvenile detention and was awarded with a stretch in a with as many children. Each man facility. After a moment, A.R. blurted facility for children with severe behav­ would have sex with each child. One out to him, "I told a whole bunch of ioral problems. proponent of this story was Larry lies about Dad." She went on to To the authorities, such recanta­ Steinborn, a convicted child molester. describe how Perez had pressured her. tions mattered little, now that the circle Steinborn had been offered a "deal" ­ Glassen took notes and, as soon as of accusers had grown. The police rou­ or, as a Wenatchee police report deli­ their meeting was over, reported her tinely urged kids to list multiple vic­ cately put it, an "arrangement" - for words to the authorities. tims, perpetrators, and locations. his testimony. They would dismiss Within a day, Glassen was arrested Although dozens of children had been their charges against him if he agreed for witness-tampering. But A.R. stead- named as victims, Chelan and Douglas to identify and testify against others. Liberty 29 Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996

Not surprisingly, Steinborn agreed The Roberson case took on a new cians searched the Roberson house and and, though never called upon to tes­ dimension when Wenatchee police the Pentecostal church, made a com­ tify, received the benefit of the bargain. interviewed Gary Filbeck. Like Larry puter map of the church building, con­ Many of the more bizarre stories Steinborn, Filbeck had a prior convic­ fiscated records and phone lists, took centered around the Robersons and the tion for child molestation. Like swabs of stains, and removed sections East Wenatchee Pentecostal Church of Steinborn, Filbeck accepted a "deal" in of carpeting, drapery, even walls. God. A.S. told an interviewer for the exchange for his testimony. Ironically, Police removed over 55 items from the Douglas County Prosecutor's Office Steinborn and Filbeck appear to be the church and conducted an inventory, that she had been raped by Roberson only people previously convicted of which exhausted nine pages of the and other males, usually in the church molestation (or any felony) to be police report. None of the items was office. Women had penetrated her with charged in the course of these events. overtly sexual, but the police had high crayons and pencils and other writing Perez interviewed Filbeck for sev­ hopes for the stains, which "appeared objects in the tiny ladies' bathroom. eral hours; at the end of that time, to be body fluids." The eight-hour Filbeck, who is totally illiterate, signed search was a spectacular, efficient, and a statement. According to this state­ thorough team effort - something When Sam kept denying the ment, Filbeck and his wife had quit the that, according to all expectations, Pentecostal church the previous year, would do them proud. charges, she was removed per­ partly because "I wasn't getting noth­ Yet a little over a month later, manently from school, strapped ing out of the Bible" and partly Washington State Patrol serologist onto a gurney, and sent for five "because of all the stuff that was hap­ Kevin Jones revealed that he had weeks to Pine Crest Hospital, a pening." And amazing stuff it was. tested all of the submitted evidence for "We used to go in there, in the the presence of semen and that all of mental institution in Idaho. pews on the main floor and Robbie'd the tests had come up negative. No get the Bible out and tell everybody to incriminating tapes, documents, com­ start praying and Robbie'd call some puter programs, or sex objects were A.S. produced a list of 19 adult perpe­ little girl up and do it to her." ("Do it," ever recovered. trators and nine child victims, pre­ Filbeck explained, meant sexual inter­ The police did not reveal Jones' lab pared at the urging of - and with the course.) Pastor Roberson, Filbeck con­ results to the defense for several assistance of - her foster parent, who tinued, would "be kneeling with his months. also made certain editorial changes hands up like the Pentecostals do and As the Robersons' trial approached, (adding names and details). he'd take the girl's clothes off and lay Douglas County prosecutors found a The list received a further workout them down and do it to them right on when A.S. was interviewed by the the stage. He said that was the way to police three weeks later, again at the get the devil out of them. Everybody instigation of her foster mother. This got excited and they'd start doing it, Some clue to Judge Small's time, A.S. said, most of the names on taking kids up and doing it." Filbeck opinions might be gleaned from the list were people who molested her said that he personally exercised more his comment that he wouldn't at Devereaux's foster home. Most of restraint than the rest. "I just fondled agree to be interviewed about the people on the list had "hurt" her them, the ones he just got done doing and other kids, she explained. "Hurt," it to." the trial in progress until Officer Mike Magnotti clarified in his "Robbie would say, 'Hallelujah, "after the sentencing." police report, meant that "objects had there goes the devil!'" Filbeck claimed. been inserted into the girls' vaginas, Roberson would then "pull it out," usually writing instruments and/or ejaculate on the child, and exclaim, way to deal with the absence of semen. men's penises." "That's to wash the devil away!" "The pastor," they explained, "at no Among the listed suspects who had In a grand display, eleven vehicles time ejaculated." This, of course, con­ "hurt" A.S. were a "black lady"; Jon, from the Douglas County Sheriff's tradicted the statement given by one of who worked at a convenience store; Office, the East Wenatchee Police their key witnesses, but that wasn't a and Bobbie, a former foster parent. Department, the Washington State problem, because by then Filbeck's After some investigation, Magnotti Patrol, and the Washington State story had changed. confronted A.S. at her foster home and Patrol Crime Lab screeched to a halt in Shifting strategies in light of wit­ "told her that I suspected she had not front of the Pentecostal church on ness recantations was nothing new to been truthful to me about some of her Ma"rch 28, 1995. Roberson was hand­ these police and prosecutors. It was disclosures." A.S. quickly admitted cuffed and arrested in front of several with confidence that Chelan County that she had "made up" the black lady volunteers and hundreds of clients for Deputy Prosecutor Roy Fore and lied about Jon, "due to the pres­ the food bank he operated out of the announced in April of 1995 that "[ilt sure of the case." A.S. said that the rest church basement. Connie was arrested looks like the circle is growing larger." of what she had said was true but the at a community college she was Douglas County Sheriff Dan LaRoche person she thought was Bobbie could attending. confirmed that many more arrests have been "her twin sister." Meanwhile, police and lab techni- were pending, and Wenatchee Police 30 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

Sergeant Sherie Smith added that her California, where Sam and her tions. The latter would be followed by department was looking at a possible younger sister were staying with a isolation: they would be separated, 50 suspects. "We've only reached the family friend. The two girls were then moved to different foster homes, and tip of the iceberg," Smith told a transported back to Wenatchee ­ frequently taken out of school. reporter from the Seattle Post­ apparently without benefit of the At trial, the children testified to Intelligencer. "Stay tuned." legally required Interstate Compact Perez's coercive techniques. J.D. said Agreement:.- and separated from each that Perez had pressured him, called Dissent and Retaliation other, after a terrible struggle at the him a liar, and asked him the same Critics were urging the media to airport. things over and over. A.D. told a simi­ "stay tuned" as well. Dissenters, some When Sam kept denying the lar story about Perez forcing her to lie: associated with a national organization charges, she was removed perma­ "At first when I was meeting with Bob called VOCAL (Victims Of Child nently from school, strapped onto a Perez, I told him no, that nothing Abuse Laws), had become outspoken gurney, and sent for five weeks to Pine happened; and he - he kept on asking in their complaints about police activi­ Crest Hospital, a mental institution in me the same question over and over ties in the Wenatchee area. A member Idaho. In an interview, Sam said that and over again but in different words, of the group spoke with K.A. about a although she was purportedly hospi­ and ... he wouldn't like really believe four-hour coercive interrogation by talized for being suicidal (a diagnosis me that nothing happened, so I had to Perez, and captured the interview on she vigorously rejects), the subject of tell him something." videotape. At one point, K.A. E.D. acknowledged that she had recounted, Perez picked up the phone written a letter saying her parents had and instructed police to arrest and jail molested her. But, she continued, she her mother. He then told K.A., "Well, When asked to point out his had done this only because Perez had you got ten minutes to speak now. Get molester, J. T. pointed not to pressured her into it. Her therapist, it out and I'll stop that phone call." the defendant but to his attor­ Cindy Andrews, reported that E.D. VOCAL, through its local spokes­ had subsequently written her a letter man, Bob Kinkade, staged protests and ney, Robert Van Siclen. recanting her statement and saying rallies, filed a class action suit in U.S. that Perez had told her "he had all District Court in Spokane, and called today and all tonight and most of for the dismissal - and possible arrest her therapy was victimization and tomorrow to wait" until she told him - of Perez and the CPS employees denial. She was denied all the legal what he wanted to hear. who had assisted in the investigation. rights to counsel and hearing that M.D. said that she had denied that Kinkade said that Roberson had been would have been hers had she been her parents had molested her for a arrested only because he had been crit­ civilly committed to a mental hospital long time, until Deputy Prosecutor Roy ical of the police. And indeed, under Washington state law. Fore told her "about the treatment Roberson had been arrested within After her release, Sam went to the thing." But she also testified that she days of attending a VOCAL rally and media to tell what happened. Her life had become convinced her parents had showing the files of his independent then became a hellish game of musical indeed molested her, and that she had investigation to Spokane television chairs. She was shifted from foster lied when she said otherwise "because reporter Tom Grant. home to foster home, permanently I was afraid that ... we wouldn't be a As if to lend credence to Kinkade's kept out of school, denied contact with family again." allegations about retaliation, his own all members of her family, and threat­ Both Mark and Carol Doggett were name started appearing with regular ened with juvenile hall. A day or two convicted of molesting and raping frequency in statements given by wit­ after her interview with me, she ran M.D. and received a sentence at the top nesses Perez questioned. When away. of Washington's standard sentencing another VOCAL member, Bob Stewart, Ironically, the Doggetts had come range for the crimes: eleven years. was named in the Wenatchee World to police attention after Mark and They had opportunities to plea­ newspaper, his name cropped up in Carol reported to CPS and to law bargain, most recently at the very con­ police reports as well. Defendants such enforcement that their son had fondled clusion of the trial testimony, when as Donna Hidalgo, Steinborn, and their daughter. Mark and Carol had Chelan County prosecutors offered to Filbeck were offered incentives to tes­ wanted some help, believing that Child reduce the charges to a single count tify against Kinkade, Stewart, and for­ Protective Services meant what its each of child molestation, carrying a mer Wenatchee caseworker Paul name implied. Their concern in itself six-month sentence with credit for the Glassen, who had by then gone to the became suspect to the authorities. substantial time they had already media with his concerns. After their arrest, Mark and Carol served, plus community treatment, if Even children who spoke out Doggett consistently maintained their they would plead guilty. Mark and against the Wenatchee government innocence. Sam's siblings were placed Carol refused, preferring, as they put risked retaliation. Consider what hap­ in therapy to help them "overcome" it, to opt for integrity. Said Mark at his pened to 16-year-old Sam Doggett. their"denial" and "recover" memories sentencing, "My feeling toward this is First Perez arrested her parents, Mark of abuse. Over the weeks, they made at no time has the prosecutor been and Carol. Then Perez came to several. "admissions" - and recanta- interested in the truth. They had ample Liberty 31 Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

opportunity but they were interested disavowing reliance on the huge body young daughter, soundly denied that in conviction. I don't believe there can of investigative materials and witness either of her parents had molested her. be justice without the truth." statements turned over to them by Although D.E. did not testify, her state­ Chelan County officials would put Perez - and, above all else, by simpli­ ments were introduced through hear­ it otherwise, pointing to statistical fying the cases. say testimony. Some of the witnesses' mileposts of success as proof of justice Separating themselves from the statements were "supported" by dis­ done. By the end of 1995, 18 defen­ confusing mass of improbabilities, puted or ambiguous medical evidence. dants had pled guilty on the advice of inconsistencies, changed stories, and Prosecutors displayed a computer their public defender; most of these recantations that had become the very chart detailing the police's thorough had confessed upon being interviewed fabric of the "sex ring" investigations search of the church - the search that by Perez. Ten more were convicted was no easy task. But try they did. In had availed the prosecution of nothing. after trial. Some of them received sen­ an interview, Douglas County Filbeck testified in a halting, childlike tences upwards of 40 years. On the Prosecutor Steve Clem said that he way; his testimony contradicted his other hand, eleven felony cases had didn't "view the [Roberson] cases as a original statement. When asked to been dismissed, including Dever­ define a "lie," he was stymied. eaux's. Devereaux had been arrested Then it was the defense's turn. on 670 counts and faced a potential Judge Small refused to let defense eight life sentences. In the end, he pled In the course ofhis coverage, experts refute the medical evidence or to enormously reduced misdemeanor reporter Tom Grant was him­ discuss such concepts as "memory" or charges carrying no jail sentence: mis­ self accused ofmolestation. "suggestibility," because such things demeanor assault for once spanking a were "within the province of the jury." foster child, and obstructing justice for Many other rulings were also unfavor­ warning a man that he might be able to the defense. (Some clue to arrested. sex ring." Instead, he said, they were Small's opinions might be gleaned Still, the conviction rate was "individual acts." He told me that he from his comment to Newsweek impressive. "These statistics, I think, was "not aware of any group sex," reporter Mark Miller that he wouldn't speak for themselves," Chelan County although some of the acts might have agree to be interviewed about the trial Prosecutor Gary Riesen told the been performed "in the presence of in progress until "after the senten­ Washington Post. "As a prosecutor, I'm each other." cing.") Nonetheless, it was soon clear comfortable with my belief that we "Let's say you're a prosecutor," that the state had a problem. The had sufficient evidence of probable Clem put to me. "You have a choice: Robersons' attorneys, Van Siclen and cause to file these cases and get these close your eyes or seek a determination William Parker, paraded in members kinds of results." of whether there has been touching." of the Pentecostal church, one after the Ultimately, in Clem's view, it was the other, each of whom denied observing Meanwhile, in jury's responsibility to sort this mess any nefarious goings-on. The Douglas County. .. out. But Clem tried to narrow the odds Robersons staunchly testified that they Neighboring Douglas County of success by amending the charges on were innocent. couldn't make the same claim. the very eve of trial, adding victims And then the defense ~prung their Pentecostal Sunday School teacher and new facts to support the current trump card, calling Robert Perez to the Honnah Sims was acquitted in half an witnesses and trial theories. stand over the strenuous objections of hour by a jury outraged that she had The Robersons' trial took several the prosecutor and Perez's attorney, even been brought to trial. The weeks. A few kids testified against the Patrick McMahon, who is also Robersons' approaching trial looked couple, including C.M., who admitted Wenatchee's city attorney. Perez testi­ increasingly shaky. D.E. was now so on cross-examination that she had ear­ fied to a hushed courtroom that on the emotionally disturbed that she was lier falsely accused a stepfather of morning M.E. had testified against the hospitalized, and could no longer be molesting her. In the Robersons' case, Robersons, he had grabbed her arm, expected to testify. And the other child she insisted, the molestations had causing a bruise. A few weeks previ­ witnesses and Gary Filbeck had altered occurred, although she had previously ously, he admitted, he had grabbed their stories, and nearly all church denied it because "I pushed it so far M.E.'s arm, twisted it behind her back, members denied knowing of any down inside of me I didn't remember forced her to the ground, and strad­ abuse. Finally, the county police and it at that time." C.M. added that ther­ dled her. prosecutors were becoming uncomfort­ apy had improved her memories. "I Stung, prosecutor Clem got in one ably aware of the massive national crit­ used to be closing doors. Now I'm last dig in his closing remarks. icism that had by now been directed at opening them." Although, he acknowledged, semen Perez. Another prosecution witness was hadn't been found by the Washington But the prosecution persisted. J.T., who said he had been molested at State Patrol forensics team, some of the Douglas County officials claimed that the Pentecostal church. When asked to stains on the church floor were sugges­ there were vast differences between point out his molester, J.T. pointed not tive of organic matter, even bodily their investigations and those pursued to Robert Roberson but to his attorney, fluids. Maybe the church members uri­ by Chelan County. They did this by Robert Van Siclen. R.R., the Robersons' nated on the stage, Clem speculated. 32 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

Who could say what these people accused. Said juror Wes Olinger, counts of communicating with a minor would do? "when they were standing up and for immoral purposes. Countless The jury quickly acquitted the reading the charges, being not guilty, I defendants who were fortunate Robersons of all 14 counts of child rape really felt sorry for those people, for enough to escape conviction now face and molestation. Some of the jury later what they had to go through." financial, social, and professional ruin. commented that the trial had degener­ Roberson, Olinger said, "looked And the spirit of government repres­ ated into ugly and offensive name­ broken. I almost felt like reaching in sion remains intact. calling. Worse, it was an evidentiary my pocket to give him money." vacuum. Jury foreman David Fruit, an So, in early December of 1995, jus­ Against the Grain Orondo orchardist, told the Wenatchee tice was approximated in one small In late September of 1995, I com­ World, "There were some of us on the courtroom, in one large and carefully pleted an approximately 2DD-page jury that were very concerned and dis­ scrutinized trial. The media folded up account of my investigation, titled The turbed that neither the Douglas their notebooks and tripods and Wenatchee Report, describing alleged County sheriff nor the Douglas County headed back to the distant cities civil rights violations by officials prosecutors had invested any time or whence they had come. But the story is involved in the investigation and pros­ effort on determining the truth or fal­ far from over. ecution of the sex cases. I sent copies to sity of the charges." Fruit added that More than two dozen people, many various national civil rights organiza­ the jury was offended by the prosecu­ of them with severe mental or emo­ tions; to a handful of politicians, tor's "insulting" closing remarks and tional limitations, may be in jail today including Washington Governor Mike by his failure to investigate responsi­ as a result of coerced confessions. More Lowry; and to the U.S. Attorney's bly. "He said in court it's his responsi­ than 50 children remain in the limbo of Office for the Eastern District of bility to find the truth that would foster care. One original "sex ring" Washington State, which forwarded it exonerate the innocent as well as con­ case is still pending trial. An out­ to the U.S. Department of Justice in vict the guilty. It seems he didn't do spoken drug/alcohol counselor who is Washington, D.C. that." also an unmarried male foster parent On October 3, 1995, Governor The jury may have achieved some - shades of Devereaux - has recently Lowry wrote U.S. Attorney General insight into what it is to be wrongly been charged on multiple victim Janet Reno requesting a federal review How would you like to work from your home in your sweats? You could if you were one of the 25 million Americans who are now working out of their homes. Americans are starting to understand they can no longer depend on the big corporations and government for their own security. They are starting to take responsibility for their own financial futures. Get the real scoop on the work-at-home market from two FREE cassette tapes recorded by George & Jeanie Douglass. They started a $50 million-a­ year business from the basement of their home and they have already helped men and women of all ages start their own home-based businesses. In these FREE cassette tapes George & Jeanie will tell you: • What equipment do you really need to • Who is most likely to be found working work from your home? A fax? A computer? from the home? Women? Men? White col­ A modem? How much is all this going lar? Blue collar? Who? to cost? With more and more Americans jumping • What are the top businesses you could off the corporate ladder and into home­ operate from your home? How do you based careers of their own, now is the time market yourself and your services and to explore the issue with George & Jeanie Call toll free products when you work from your home? Douglass, America's experts on working or • Can you really earn a living working from the home. write: from your home? Computer Business For FREE cassette tapes and color literature .~B~:~~.:;;.;.::.: Services, Inc. CBSI Plaza, Ste. 3387 Sheridan, IN 46069 Cal~~;e~~~;~t~~~~! ~bli~~~~:387©~I,i Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

of the Wenatchee-area sex ring prose­ credibility of the police and the critics, decision (which they wrongly con­ cutions. Nearly two months after the whose concerns, he claimed, were all strued as a finding that no civil rights Roberson trial had ended, Reno neatly set out in The Wenatchee Report. violations had occurred) and Van announced her decision: that there was At a news conference, Van Blaricom Blaricom's conclusions. The writers insufficient evidence of "prosecutable said the report had "no credibility in urged the governor to discourage all civil right violations" to merit federal it" because it relied on "disgruntled requests for a state investigation. investigation. Although such is not a employees" and "people who pled This was communicated to me by requirement of the law, Reno guilty or were found guilty in court one of the governor's lawyers. The explained that, "typically," Justice after all the protections of the criminal governor wouldn't talk to me, he said, investigates only allegations involving justice system." (In fact, many of the because "that would be taking sides." "physical force," as opposed to "psy­ witness statements on which The Yet Lowry had met with a delegation of chological coercion." Wenatchee Report relied were not from prosecutors purporting to represent all The decision disturbed me, but not people who had been convicted or prosecutors' offices throughout the because I had held out much hope that even accused, and the report was state. Their position was simple: Stay Reno would decide otherwise, given based in large part on Wenatchee out! Or, more accurately: If there's a her history of zealously prosecuting police reports, court transcripts, and problem in Wenatchee, let us handle it. similar cases. I was concerned because other official documentation. Unlike lt was almost deja vu. A few weeks I had learned from reliable sources that Van Blaricom's investigation, my before, a delegation of prosecutors pur­ the most extensive document Reno report took four months to complete.) porting to represent their colleagues reviewed - and the sole source of crit­ Perez and his colleagues, on the appeared before state House and ical concerns - was The Wenatchee other hand, were entirely credible, said Senate committees to oppose legisla­ Report. Although my report was clearly Van Blaricom. Van Blaricom acknowl­ tion designed to safeguard the integ­ intended to be preliminary, neither edged that police are frequently called rity of the child interview process. Let Reno nor the Justice Department inter­ upon to lie in order to extract confes­ us police our own, was the message. viewed any Wenatchee officials, defen­ sions - indeed, that cops have "a duty If Governor Lowry decides to sup­ dants, witnesses, children, or critics. to lie" because such is a badge of good port a state investigation, his lawyer The Wenatchee government police work. Yet, he said, cops cannot added, "the battle lines will be drawn." quickly announced that it had been lie convincingly about themselves and I submitted a proposal for a multi­ completely and thoroughly vindicated. indeed can only lie when it is "for system investigative task force under To be on the safe side, a consultant, good of God and country." Leading the auspices of the governor's office, Don Van Blaricom, was called in at a questions, psychological coercion of but I didn't walk away with a realistic cost of $1,850. Van Blaricom is a retired adults, and destruction of notes are hope that it would happen. In any police chief from Bellevue, Washington similarly appropriate, even desirable event, I wasn't going to be part of the who for years has made a substantial police techniques if they get results, equation. "I'm gonna take a whole lot living from expert witness consultation the expert continued. Nor was it a of flak for just talking to you," I was on the propriety of police activities. He problem that Perez, in his dual role as told. spent one day interviewing four police chief investigative officer and foster And, of course, I knew where the officers (Perez, Chief Badgley, and two parent, lived with key complaining flak was coming from - not only state others) and reading The Wenatchee witnesses. prosecutors who resented my med­ Report. Van Blaricom did not talk to Van Blaricom said that the only dling with their brethren, but Perez any witnesses, children, or defendants; problems with the investigation were and his legal representative, nor did he review any police reports, the result of a media "feeding frenzy," Wenatchee city attorney Pat transcripts, or other documentation. which led public criticism to get "out of McMahon, who had already expressed Instead, he assessed .the relative hand." The media, he continued, were his contempt for me. naive or misguided On February 2, a few hours after the about the dynamics of Reno decision, I was served with a group sex abuse. "It's faxed copy of a subpoena to appear at a probably happened in deposition and produce documents I their own community as had gained in the course of my investi­ well but it's not been gations. The subpoena was from Perez, discovered by them." through McMahon, and purported to Van Blaricom's "in­ be in response to civil actions by three vestigation" found its of the plaintiffs in lawsuits against way to the governor's Perez, the State of Washington office in the form of a Department of Social and Health letter from Wenatchee's Services, and certain named casework­ mayor and three city ers and other government officials. 'Ealoo commissioners. The let­ (Similar lawsuits totaling around "Frankly, the colleges are overstocked right now. How about ter expressed their satis­ $90,000,000 have been filed by various leaving your brain to a high school1" faction with Reno's criminal defendants.) Also subpoenaed 34 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

on that day were Tom Grant, a reporter find out just who were exercising their ances in place. from Spokane's KREM-TV who had First Amendment rights to assemble Officials in Wenatchee have contin­ relentlessly covered the investigations, freely and disseminate information. ued to retaliate against their critics. and Bob Kinkade, VOCAL's outspoken In April of 1996, Grant was The Wenatchee Police Department spokesman. Working individually, the awarded the prestigious Polk Award closed down an Internet website oper­ three of us have probably been most for courageous journalism, based on ated by a grassroots group critical of responsible for national awareness of his coverage of the Wenatchee sex the prosecutions, because it contained the Wenatchee cases. cases. He most certainly deserved it if The Wenatchee Report and court docu­ Grant's subpoena was quashed as the government's response to him is ments critical of Perez; reopening the overly broad. And Thurston County any gauge: in the course of his cover­ site was conditioned on excising cer­ Judge Thomas McPhee ruled that my age, he was himself accused of moles­ tain documents. A woman who efforts were privileged, as the work of tation. So, of course, was Kinkade. No assisted the defense during the a journalist would be. (Though, inter­ doubt there is a police report out there Roberson trial reports that Perez has estingly, such privileges have not been with my name on it right now. IIstalked" her for months. applied in Washington to authors of But maybe not because of allega­ And in March, Perez received journalistic nonfiction books, such as tions of child abuse per see Perez claims Wenatchee's first City Employee of the

the one I am now writing for Avon.) I am part of a IIconspiracyll involving Month award. He was selected based Kinkade was less fortunate. He child molesters, former DCFS case­ on several accomplishments, including underwent a deposition and was forced workers, defense lawyers, and the his work with children. Indeed, accord­ to name the members of Concerned national media. McMahon told Judge ing to the award paperwork, he likes to Citizens for Legal Accountability, a McPhee that I should be placed under "romp with kids." grassroots organization that had oath so that these associations could be Interviewed by the London Indepen­ sprung up in response to the prosecu­ explored, and that I didn't deserve to dent, Perez said, lII'm very satisfied. tions. He was also asked about owner­ make a claim of privilege because I had I've made a major impact on the lives ship of computers and use of the been so low as to speak out against a of these children." Internet. Perez, it seemed, wanted to government with its checks and bal- There is no doubt about that. 0

Medianotes continued from page 16

options, rumors persist that he was while maintaining consistently high lit­ apparently furious at the notion that it tossed out. It seems quite plain that his erary standards. Sullivan's TNR contin­ would publish a piece suggesting that left-liberal colleagues didn't much care ued to serve up the tedious blather of there is such a thing as intelligence, for his conservative, quasi-libertarian Sidney Blumenthal, Hendrick Hertz­ that intelligence matters, and that there perspective, or for his willingness to berg, Martin Peretz, and Micky Kaus ­ seem to be differences in the average expand the boundaries of discussion sometimes it seemed like Michael intelligence levels of different racial within TNR. Kinsley was its only liberal writer who groups. Sullivan ultimately prevailed, Sullivan is adamant that he left vol­ wasn't brain-dead - but it also but Murray's essay appeared only after untarily. "I quit entirely of my own included occasional features from a collection of attacks on it was accord," he wrote in London's Sunday important and thought-provoking writ­ published. Times. lII'd been editor longer than ers like Charles Murray and Elizabeth It would be nice if Andrew Sullivan either of my two predecessors, and McCaughey, plus the fresh reporting had emulated Sam Francis, who wrote with 250 issues under my belt wanted and analysis of Ruth Shalit. for Chronicles a frank and enlightening to leave before I burnt out, not after." Shalit rose quickly from intern to account of his departure from the But reports that he was fired persist, featured writer, while reporting the ins Washington Times. Instead he wrote a spread primarily by those who criti­ and outs of politics in Washington, 2,OOO-word piece for the Sunday Times, cized his tenure at TNR, and I suspect afflicting establishment liberals along consisting of a couple of brief para­ there is probably something to this. the way. McCaughey wrote a tour de graphs asserting that his departure was TNR has long been, as Magnus force critique of the Clintons' health voluntary, followed by a lengthy Linklater put it in the Sunday Times, care plan that may have done as much defense of his editorial decisions. Its the "magazine which is the flagship of to defeat it as any single event. So it's effect was to lend credibility to the intellectual liberalism," so the choice of not surprising that the writing of these reports that he had been fired, or at the young, gay, Roman Catholic, and women afflicted the leftist and center­ least had resigned under pressure. rather conservative Sullivan was a con­ left readers and staff of TNR. Whatever the case, his resignation troversialone. But the reaction to Sullivan's choice was a sad day for American political Prior to his tenure, TNR was as dull to publish McCaughey and Shalit was journalism. Sullivan transformed TNR as you'd expect "the flagship of intel­ nothing compared to what happened from the IIflagship of American liberal­ lectual liberalism" to be, consisting when he proposed to publish an essay ism" into America's most intelligent mostly of predictable pontificating. by Charles Murray and Richard and best-written political magazine. My Sullivan changed that, bringing to TNR Herrnstein, adapted from their book guess is that it won't take long for TNR a variety of thoughtful viewpoints The Bell Curve. Others at TNR were to get back to its old ways. -RWB Liberty 35 Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996 ReQort Behind These Bars by Jesse Walker

You don't have to go to China to find prison labor.

On March 22, 1996, politicians, businessmen, and prison bureaucrats descended upon Tallahassee to learn about pork and PIE. The PIE is an acronym for Prison Industry Enhancement. The pork is the prisoners whose industry is to be "enhanced." The occasion was a PIE Program Conference co-sponsored by Florida's Corrections Commission and bound for Japan, where, the Cal­ aren't taking in near enough cash to Department of Corrections. There, ifornia Corrections authorities hope, cover the costs of imprisonment. attendees learned that over 122,000 hip-hopping teens will shell out big Sometimes it's hard to tell whether inmates in 30 California prisons were yen for pants made by honest-to­ even these "profit-making" prison now working for private contractors, goodness gangsters. In Washington enterprises are anything of the sort. doing everything from entering data state, inmates labor for Microsoft, They are often kept in the black only to recycling waste. They listened to Starbucks, and other big-name com­ by sales at above-market prices to reports on similar convict-labor exper­ panies; in the 1994 election, some government agencies - a "profit" for iments in several other states. They found themselves telemarketing for the prison, but a net lo.ss for the heard Stan Czerniak, assistant secre­ Republican congressional candidate taxpayer. tary for operations at the Florida (and now congressman) Jack Metcalf. • Restitution is a fine idea, but the Department of Corrections, explain Is all this good or bad? The case current system doesn't deliver it. some of the advantages to hiring for "good" can sound compelling. It's Instead of directly garnishing inmates: they arrive on time, aren't absurd, the argument goes, for able­ inmates' wages to aid their victims, distracted by outside social stresses, bodied convicts to do nothing but most states put a percentage of every and don't have any family commit­ busywork for the state - or, worse worker's pay - even those in jail for ments to keep them away from the yet, to be idle at taxpayers' expense. victimless crimes - into a general job. They should have to pay at least part compensation fund that makes no The prison-industrial complex has of their living costs, and to compen­ effort to link one prisoner's labor to taken off in the last few years, driven sate their victims. And work can reha­ his particular victim's redress. on one side by desperate govern­ bilitate. It can even teach valuable Of course, it's good that some resti­ ments trying to cover the costs of an vocational skills. If American business tution is taking place. But as we'll see, exploding inmate population, on the benefits as well, how can anyone it's possible to make convicts pay for other by businesses looking for object? what they've done without getting cheaper labor. In Arizona, 10% of the Unfortunately, not much of this tangled up in the extra problems the state's convicts now work for private stands up to close analysis. current model of prison labor creates. corporations. In Oregon, felons make • Sure, it would be nice if prison­ • Work can rehabilitate, but a job's "Prison Blues," a special line of blue ers were paying for their own roofs ­ profitability doesn't necessarily corre­ jeans, for the state-owned UniGroup but they aren't. Most states' convict­ late to its practical value beyond company. In California, prisoners labor programs aren't even turning a prison walls. The salient comparison manufacture "Gangsta Blue" jeans profit, and those that do make money here is to "workfare," the brand of 36 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

welfare reform in which the govern­ work in," Association attorney Steven Assistant Attorney General Adam ment requires people on the dole to Crawley told Isthmus, a weekly news­ Peyton Thomas, argue that these laws work - and, if necessary, pays all or paper in Wisconsin.3 were no more than protectionism. In part of their wages. The employers get Not surprisingly, neither small Crime and the Sacking of America, subsidized labor, the welfare bureau­ business nor organized labor has much Thomas describes historic opposition cracies stay in business, and the affection for convict-employment pro­ to prison labor as "grumbling from bureaucrats' "clients" rarely receive grams. But some politicians have those in the lesser-skilled classes wish­ training of any use in the real market­ decided that, if framed properly, ing to keep their wages artificially place. prison labor could be a winning issue. high."4 That's an odd way to put it ­ Writing in The American Spectator, Senator Phil Gramm endorsed it dur­ when your competitors can't quit, can't David Frum - a prison-labor sup­ ing his aborted presidential campaign. organize, and are subsidized by the porter - acknowledges some more "I'd like to turn our prisons into indus­ government, they're keeping your problems with the rehabilitation argu­ trial parks," he told the Heritage wages artificially low. Nonetheless, ment. "[I]t's possible," he writes, "that Foundation in May of 1995. "Every these laws did generally take a protec­ the cause-and-effect runs the other year since I've been in Congress, Jesse tionist form, and may, as we'll see, way round: that the prisoners most Helms, my dear friend, has offered an restrict some more justifiable varieties eager to mend their ways are the ones amendment to ban Chinese goods pro­ of convict labor as well. who sign up for work. And it's also duced by prison labor. And every year The political climate has changed possible, as one high-ranking I wonder why we can't make our own dramatically since those laws were California corrections official fears, prisoners work." Americans were thus passed. The prison population has treated to the unsightly spectacle of a drastically expanded, increasing by prominent Republican politician hold­ well over 200% since 1980; today, with Thomas' frankness is re­ ing up Communist internment camps 565 out of every 100,000 citizens locked as a model for the U.S. economy. More away, the U.S. has the highest incarcer­ freshing. Rare is the politician recently, former Delaware governor ation rate in the world. One reason for willing to admit he dreams ofa Pete du Pont called for removing this is new tough-on-crime measures, day in which the best way to restrictions on prison labor in a brief such as mandatory minimum senten­ essay published last November by the cing and "three strikes, you're out"; find work is to kill somebody. National Center for Policy Analysis. another is the war on drugs. By the The Road to Industrial Policy that the work most conducive to indi­ Once upon a time, it was practically RENAISSANCE vidual rehabilitation (he cites garden­ unheard-of for prisoners not to work. ing) is the least remunerative for the In the nineteenth century, most BOOKSERVICE American penitentiaries, state and fed­ state."l Books by Ludwig von Mises • Convict labor is essentially a eral, were virtually self-sufficient. Three-quarters of the inmate popula­ gigantic corporate welfare scheme: o Human Action Magnum tion was employed, largely by private costs are socialized and only compa­ opus covers economics from subjec- nies tied into the prison-industrial contractors. Free workers objected to tive value to business cycle. $21.95 complex profit. Competing enterprises having to compete with "slave labor," and workers lose. and the government eventually o Omnipotent Government: Imprisoned workers have virtually responded. From 1895 to 1923, state Rise ofthe Total State & Total War On origins and rise ofthe Nazi Party.$10.95 no bargaining power with their legislatures steadily restricted thepri­ employers, ensuring below-market vate use of prison labor. In 1929, the o Liberalism: In the Classical wages.2 In some cases, employers sim­ , federal government chimed in with the Tradition Ethical Foundations ofliberal­ ism; freedom, peace, equality before the ply replace their entire workforce with Hawes-Cooper Act, which allowed law $9.95 forced labor; in 1994, for example, states to ban intrastate commerce in o Planning For Freedom Lockhart Technologies closed its circuit prison-made goods. In 1936, the 17 essays incl. "Laissez Faire or Dictator­ board assembly plant near Austin, Walsh-Healy Act put limits on which ship" & "Inflantion & Price Control" $9.95 150 government contracts could use· con­ Texas, laying off employees, and ALSO: moved the entire operation into a vict labor. And in 1940, the Sumners­ New Directions in Austrian nearby prison. Other times, entire firms Ashurt Act banned the transport of Economics *D.T. Armentano on become victims. The Utah Asbestos prison-made products within a state monopoly theory; Kirzner on entrepre­ Abatement Contractors Association for private use. After that, American neurship; Rothbard on money theory & has sued Utah Correctional Industries prisoners manufactured goods for gov­ more $9.95 for muscling private enterprise out of ernment buyers only, making license Send order with payment to: the state's asbestos-removal industry. plates and the like. Only in the last two RENAISSANCE BOOKSERVICE "We find it ironic that they are putting decades have these restraints been P.o. Box 2451 Riverside, CA 92516 an industry out of business that they loosened at all. (add $1.00 per book for shipping, Calif residents add 7.25% tax) are purportedly training people to Some analysts, such as Arizona Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

0 most recent counts, about 61 / 0 of fed­ United States. ... Prison labor thus would be more usefully employed lit­ 0 eral prisoners and 21 / 0 of state prison­ stands to do much more than engage erally "paying for his crime" than liv­ ers are in jail on drug charges, figures prisoners in activities that are more ing in a tax-financed cell.f that do not include those incarcerated ennobling than weight lifting and sod­ Most importantly, prisoners should for murders, thefts, and other crimes omy. Prisoners can be the workforce be able to work for themselves or for that would not have occurred in the for revitalized industries, bringing jobs each other. The most extensive experi­ absence of drug prohibition.5 While it back to America."6 ment along these lines took place at is popularly believed that the Clinton Thomas' frankness is refreshing. Maine State Prison in the late 1970s. administration has cut back on drug Rare is the politician willing to admit For decades, Maine State Prison had enforcement, drug arrests have in fact he dreams of a day in which the best had a crafts and novelties program. reached record heights under the way to find work is to kill somebody. Originally, the inmates who worked in the state-run industries (license-plate­ Labor That Works making, etc.) were allowed to use Prison authorities hope hip­ None of this has any bearing, of prison machinery for their own con­ course, on whether prisoners should struction projects: lamps, novelty hopping Japanese teens will work at all. A strong case can be made items, and the like. These were then shell out big yen for pants for allowing them to participate in the sold to tourists at a popular prison made by honest-to-goodness general economy - just not as they do store. Inmates were allowed to hire one now. another and pay wages in prison can­ gangsters. If one accepts that a criminal jus­ teen coupons. tice system should be based, to what­ In 1976, Richard Oliver became ever extent is possible, on restitution, warden, and the program was trans­ Arkansas Democrat's watch. Bob Dole, it makes sense to ask convicts unable formed. Oliver lifted limits on inmate Newt Gingrich, and other leading to compensate their victims to work entrepreneurship, sparking a boom in Republicans are calling for an even for the money they should owe. How the prison's miniature economy. more severe crackdo~; while they can one do this without running into Businesses blossomed; small fortunes opposed much of the pork in the presi­ the problems just outlined? By letting were made. One convict, Aaron dent's crime bill, their version of the inmates act, as much as possible, like Harrelson, took over the prison's can­ law included many of the same fea­ any other participants in the labor teen and started operating it at a profit. tures: expanded prison construction, market. Instead of companies leasing When administrators announced that mandatory minimum sentencing for hordes of toilers from the penitentiar­ they planned to fund the unprofitable nonviolent offenders, further federali­ ies, competing businesses would be state-run prison industries with a tax zation of law enforcement. able to hire individual convicts. A por­ on inmates' novelty sales, Harrelson Not surprisingly, the burgeoning tion of their wages could help pay for "offered to buyout the state operations prison population has strained prison the roofs over their heads, and a por­ budgets, leading a growing number of tion would go to their particular vic­ states - 30 since 1990 - to legalize tims or their victims' families. Convict labor is essentially a contracting out prison labor. While this Obviously, this would be limited hasn't made much of a dent in the cost by practical considerations: no inmate corporate welfare scheme: costs of corrections, it has turned crime con­ is going to be allowed a position with are socialized and only compa­ trol into a perverse sort of industrial the merchant marine. But there's no nies tied into the prison­ policy. Now, when politicians decide reason why security-conscious compa­ fo mete out harsher punishments to nies could not construct facilities spe­ industrial complex profit. nonviolent criminals, they. aren't just cifically for prison employees, or why wasting resources better spent stop­ well-guarded convicts who do not ping murders or rapes; they're recruit­ pose a threat to other people (nonvio­ and state-owned equipment, to employ ing workers for the prison-industrial lent property offenders, for example) inmates to produce prison-industry complex. could not work in the outside world. goods on a profit-sharing basis ... and There are those who both under­ (Indeed, it can be argued that most even to pay the salaries of the shop's stand and welcome what is happening. property criminals needn't be locked supervisory staff!" The authorities Thomas, for one, offers a familiar­ up at all, at least as long as they meet "didn't doubt Harrelson's ability to sounding, if grotesque, industrial­ their restitution payments. After all, keep his promise," but rejected the policy argument: "Prison labor today we don't lock up divorced fathers to offer.8 The experiment ended on April represents America's brightest, and make sure they pay their child sup­ 16, 1980, when higher-ups in the state perhaps final, opportunity to rebuild port. Imprisonment is both inefficient prison system, frightened by the its industrial base. Prison labor would and cruel; its only really compelling radical new approach to corrections make available a pool of low-wage justification is to keep dangerously vio­ unfolding before them, imposed a lock­ workers to the American capital that lent characters segregated from the rest down and brought the burgeoning today is being sent to foreign markets. of society. The average vandal or petty micro-economy to a halt. (The full Entire industries could return to the thief is not dangerously violent, and continued on page 42 38 Liberty Profile The Man With the Plan by David Boaz

It didn't start with Hillary's health care project, and it didn't end there, either.

Better sell your export stocks. Ira Magaziner's got a new project. The architect of Hillary Clinton's health-care debacle is now busily working on increasing American rejected after much national debate. Rhode Island, celebrating this con­ exports. If this project is as successful Magaziner must have been disap­ certed revival of activist government. as his previous endeavors, we'll be pointed, but it wasn't his first experi­ They made Magaziner a minor importing grain from Russia by ence with people who don't have his national hero. Then the voters got Election Day. appreciation for complex, govern­ their turn, and the Greenhouse Magaziner is one of those baby­ ment-run plans. In 1984, he produced Compact got a resounding vote of boomer idealists, inspired by a 1,000-page report for a Rhode Island confidence from 20% of them. President Kennedy's soaring rhetoric, industrial policy to be called the Never one to be discouraged, who decided that smart young Ivy Greenhouse Compact. It proposed a Magaziner moved on. In March 1989, Leaguers could solve all the world's $250 million, seven-year plan, includ­ two Utah scientists announced that problems if only people had to obey ing a state venture-capital fund, they had achieved nuclear fusion at them. His generational hubris has led grants for job training, day care, and room temperature. Within a month him into a string of disastrous modernization, and four technology Magaziner was testifying before a attempts to remake the world. research centers. Brown University congressional committee that it His best-known effort was the 1993 economist George Borts pointed out should invest $25 million of taxpay­ task force to reconstruct the American that a $250 million plan in Rhode ers' money in cold fusion, because the health care system. It was a heady Island was the equivalent of $60 bil­ Japanese were working through the time for a policy wonk suddenly given lion on a national level. night on it. The committee should a taste of power. He organized 500 The Rhode Island establishment gamble with other people's money, bureaucrats into 15 committees and 34 loved it. And why wouldn't they? It Magaziner said, "for the sake of my working groups to redesign in 100 promised lots of jobs for the boys. It children and all of America's next days an industry as big as the econ­ had to be approved by the voters generation." The taxpayers were omy of France. What they came up before it could be put in place, but the saved four days later, when major with was a Rube Goldberg scheme of politicos were too greedy to restrain newspapers reported that leading sci­ agencies, alliances, boards, commis­ themselves before the referendum. entists called cold fusion "scientific sions, and gatekeepers that would Both the two leading Democrats and schlock" and "maybe fraud." effectively nationalize one-seventh of the two leading Republicans in the The next year he worked with the American economy. legislature appointed themselves to Hillary Rodham Clinton on a report Fortunately, Americans retain the supposedly nonpolitical oversight on workforce skills for the National some of the good sense our Founders commission for the plan. Center for Education and the had, and the plan was ignominiously The national media converged on Economy. The report called for Liberty 39 Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

national performance standards, "a In all of these schemes, Magaziner them; but that, in the great chess­ comprehensive system of technical and displays a failure to appreciate the nat­ board of human society, every single professional certificates," and federally ural working of the market process; he piece has a principle of motion of its assisted state centers to guide students. can't see the order that emerges out of own, altogether different from that Work permits, contingent on meeting its undirected and apparently chaotic which the legislature might choose federal standards of workforce prepar­ workings. He has the mind of an engi­ to impress upon it. ation, would be required for those up neer. A GE executive recalls Maga­ Ivy League intellectuals like to age 18. All companies would be ziner, as a business consultant, taking Magaziner and the Clintons are so required to spend at least 10/0 of their smart, they think they can solve soci­ payrolls on certified, accredited, union­ ety's problems as they would arrange approved skills training. On-the-job chess pieces. They're just not smart training would not count. Overseeing Magaziner organized 500 enough to see the spontaneous order the program would be - you guessed bureaucrats into 15 committees all around them that gives us every­ thing from milk and bread in the it - "a system of employment and and 34 working groups to re­ training boards." morning to the highest-quality health That plan turned up again in 1992, design in 100 days an industry care in the world to computers that in Bill Clinton's campaign platform, as big as the economy of bring the world's supply of knowledge to our desktops. except he raised the mandated cost to France. 1.50/0 of payroll. Economist Larry L. Orr So, following the Washington prin­ told Jonathan Rauch of The National ciple of failing upward, Magaziner's Journal that "it would be a fairly mon­ record of disaster qualifies him to take strous thing" to monitor business com­ "apart a television set, component by on trade policy. Here he runs into a fac­ pliance with the mandate. And small component," to understand GE's prob­ tual difficulty and a conceptual prob­ businessman David Flowers said that lems. Magaziner named'his consulting lem. The annoying fact is that American his auto-parts company trained all of its firm Telesis, allegedly from the Greek exports are booming, so why do we new hires, but in ways that wouldn't for "well-planned progress." need a special export task force headed qualify for Clinton's mandate. Because That sort of planning and attention by a White House planner? Well, the of Labor Secretary Robert Reich's to detail makes sense for an individual Washington Post says it's because opposition, the plan was shelved early or a firm. What Magaziner and his kind "imports are still a great deal higher." in the Clinton administration. don't understand is that a society is not That's a misconception, as a real The biggest of Clinton's Magaziner an enterprise. We're not all working for understanding of economics would tell Mandates, though, was one that got lit­ the samegoal; indeed, our plansconflict you. In the first place, exports are a tle attention. In a little-noted comment all the time. They get sorted out in the cost; they're what we have to give during the 1992 campaign, Clinton marketplace. Competing for the hard­ other people to get imports. Sadly, offered a breathtaking view of govern­ earned money of consumers and inves­ firms in other countries will not ship ment's ability and obligation to plan tors is a better way to find the best firms us oil, cars, or fresh fruit in the winter the economy: and the best ways of producing goods without getting something in return. And not for long will they settle for We ought to say right now, we and services than having a board of those green pieces of pap~r that we can ought to have a national inventory experts spend other people's money. of the capacity of every ... manufac­ Just imagine if an older Ira churn out on demand. "Balance-of­ turing plant in the United States: Magaziner had been asked by trade" figures often leave out services, every airplane plant, every small President McGovern to draw up a 20­ where the United States has a surplus, business subcontractor, everybody year plan for, say, the computer and and suffer from other conceptual diffi­ working in defense. telephone industries. Could he possi­ culties. The fact that both exports and We ought to know what the inven­ bly have envisioned - much less imports are booming means that more tory is, what the skills of the work brought about - today's world of per­ of our economy is devoted to foreign force are and match it against the sonal computers 100 times more pow­ trade, which is generally a good thing, kind of things we have to produce in erful than the mainframes of 1975 and because it means more specialization the next 20 years and then we have in the world marketplace. to decide how to get from here to telephones that do things we never dreamed of then? No doubt Rhode Island's economy there. From what we have to what could have benefited from better public we need to do. Adam Smith identified Magaziner's problem 200 years ago: policies, but not what Magaziner pro­ Since five-year plans didn't work, posed. Health care could use some The man of system ... seems to ima­ Clinton and Magaziner decided to plan reforms, such as Medical Savings gine that he can arrange the different more long-term. After the election members of a great society with as Accounts, butnotMagaziner's national­ Magaziner fleshed out this sweeping much ease as the hand arranges the ization. And we could certainly use bet­ vision: defense conversion would different pieces upon a chess-board; ter trade policies, butsomehow it's hard require a 20-year "detailed organiza­ he does not consider that the pieces to imagine Magaziner's latest task force tional plan ... to layout how, in spe­ upon the chess-board have 'no other proposing to repeal U.S. trade barriers cific, a proposal like this could be principle of motion besides that and let international commerce implemented." which the hand impresses upon develop. 0 40 Liberty Autopsy

The Apotheosis of a Crook by Nathan Crow

The good that men do lives after them. The evil is oft interred with their bones.

Upon the death of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, Dorothy Gilliam of the Washington Post compared the departed to Frederick Douglass and predicted "hundreds of books and articles" examining his "legacy." John Harris declared Brown "a national symbol of personal achieve­ ment and racial bridge-building." Pages of photographs showed Brown's funeral cortege passing ''become interchangeable with his investment in a money-losing com­ through Arlington National, drawn white peers." (Has civil rights come to pany. He had the ear of President by black horses through a forest of this?) Such interchangeability, the Clinton, whom he enlisted to bully chaste white marble tombstones; magazine tells us, was an "achieve­ the Saudis into buying American air­ Brown's family, heads bowed as they ment with weight," one Brown "wore planes, so his influence was worth bil­ walk away for the last time, his lightly." Heaving a regretful sigh, lions, though apparently it sold for bereaved wife clutching the flag that they are constrained to note that less. Brown was a tool of Washington had draped his coffin; a corpsman Brown "evidenced a sad recklessness wheelers and dealers, the corrupt cor­ standing at attention while a woman in his own financial dealings." porations whose profits depend on in white reads from the Bible; white Perhaps they exaggerate. After all, favors from government. They loved construction workers and prim black Brown was not so reckless as to Brown, and he repaid their love with ladies from Washington offices, stand­ answer investigators' questions about - influence. Martin Crutsinger of the ing by solemnly or saluting the pro­ whether his son had passed him any Associated Press claimed that with his cession with tears in their eyes; of the $660,000 in cash and stock the death, "American capitalism lost its President Clinton at a prayer service, young man received from an staunchest ally in the Clinton embracing a former Commerce Oklahoma gas company seeking administration." Department official while a stricken favors from Commerce. Such shenani­ Maybe, in some sense, that is true Hillary looks on. The mood of hysteri­ gans are passed off easily by The New - if by "capitalism" we mean what cal grief reminded me of the funeral Republic, which resentfully denies his Noam Chomsky calls "state capital­ of Martin Luther King, or perhaps "detractors'" view of him as a "street ism": large corporations whoring for Charles de Gaulle. One would think hustler." This they call a "caricature." their paymasters in Washington, with that America had lost a kind of secu­ And they are right: never in history the whole charade of regulation, sub­ lar saint, a symbol of American man­ has a street hustler hustled as much sidy, and multilateral "development" hood, a preacher and a dreamer of money as Ron Brown. proffered to the masses as the work of rare gifts and altruistic passions. For Brown was deeply corrupt. the "free market." The New Republic was a bit more Had he died a year from now, he Consider Brown's 13 corporate restrained, focusing its congratula­ would have been remembered only as companions on his ill-fated mission of tions on Brown's mastery of what a disgraced bureaucrat with sticky fin­ mercy to the Balkans. All were major Tammany Hall used to call honest gers. Special investigator Daniel executives: the CEOs of ABB Inc. graft. An unsigned editorial celebrates Pearson had already established that (which sells power-generating equip­ Brown's combination of "loyalty and Brown took more than $300,000 in ment), of Harza Engineering Co. (a cunning," which enabled him to exchange for his sale of a non- builder of dams), of Bridge Housing Liberty 41 Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

Corp. (a developer of "low-income the homes and livelihoods of an esti­ worked at the heart of this system. It housing"), etc. Some, no doubt, hon­ mated 1.4 million people. Fortunately was his role as a global bully for estly intended to help the people of for Harza, the Chinese government is favored U.S. multinationals that Bosnia, to do well by doing good. committed to this outpost of progress, accounts for his reputation as a "friend (David Ford of InterGuard Corp. and has already arrested 179 members of capitalism." Brown was ultimately intended to donate 50,000 pounds of of the Democratic Youth Party for an exalted ward-heeler, one who glass to a Sarajevo hospital.) But others organizing opposition to the dam. No served his masters well. He worked represented companies looking to get a doubt Bosnia's government will be tirelessly to preserve the Chinese slave­ share of the estimated five billion dol­ masters' favored trade status, even if lars in development pork that will this entailed official lies about China's shortly be funneled into Bosnia, cour­ Secretary Brown's influ­ disgraceful human rights record. In tesy of the World Bank, the European ence was worth billions, Bosnia, he no doubt would have oiled Bank for Reconstruction and the machinery of "trade" for his state­ Development, and you. These subsi­ though apparently it sold for capitalist pals, who in turn would prop dized agencies pour billions of dollars less. up Balkan national socialism and bear in patronage ("loans") into poor coun­ witness to the Clinton administration's tries, funding huge "development" pro-business rhetoric. projects that entrench the state, despoil able to deal just as neatly with any of No man's death is a cause for cele­ the environment, erect vast bureaucra­ their own obstacles to the end of his­ bration. But neither is every life. The cies, and destroy lives and traditions. tory. They will, after all, have the help good that Ron Brown did, if there was Hydroelectric dams like the ones of the World Bank, which has assisted any, has been celebrated ad nauseant. Harza builds are a case in point. Harza dozens of poor countries in the expro­ Since the evil that he did will be is helping build China's Three Gorges priation and destruction of the homes quickly shuttered from the public eye dam, a boondoggle of epic propor­ of millions of people, men and women with the convenient and entirely unjus­ tions. If completed, the dam will whose lives, histories, and hopes stood tified closing of Pearson's investiga­ destroy 13 cities and hundreds of in the way of planners' Stalinist indus­ tion, it should be remembered now, towns and villages, flood an area the trialization schemes. even if it hurts, even in the wake of length of Lake Superior, and destroy Men like Ron Brown lived and men's tears. Lest we forget. Cl

Walker, "Prisons," continued from page 38

story is told in Jeffrey Shedd's excellent tution-based justice is sadly misled. house entrepreneurship that briefly article "Making Good(s) Behind Bars," flowered in Maine. published in the March 1982 Reason.) The Dystopia Ahead But if the old protectionist order In short, it's not bad in itself for Many union-inspired laws restrain­ could use some reform, the new day of convicts to sweat at something other ing convict labor remain on the books. corporate slavery is far worse. The than writing books or dealing drugs. Most are far from ideal. Big Labor future offered us by Gramm, du Pont, But anyone who thinks the new doesn't care what kind of competition and Thomas - the future on display in prison-industrial complex is the road it's pushing out of the way, the semi­ Tallahassee last March - is a frighten­ to inmate entrepreneurship and resti- slavery Gramm advocates or the big- ing and authoritarian vision. Cl Notes:

1. David Frum, "Working for Ule Man," The said in 1991 that they committed their 7. This opens up a Pandora's box of ethical American Spectator, August 1995. offense to obtain money for drugs. and practical questions about how a soci­ 2. Federal law requires prisoners to be paid In California, according to the Legislative ety should deal with crime, questions that prevailing wages if their products cross Analyst, 58% of the inmate population is are outside the scope of this article. For state lines. Such regulations do not exist, incarcerated for nonviolent crimes, usu­ the record, it seems to me that property however, for goods sold in-state or ally drug offenses. criminals should be responsible for more abroad. 6. Ibid., p. 121-122. One thinks of the than the cost of the damage they inflict on their victims, and that some form of cor­ 3. Steven Elbow, "Privatization of Prison "quicksilver capital" theory recently pop­ poral punishment may also be appropri­ Labor," Isthmus, November 20,1995. ular with some libertarians - the idea that global markets inexorably lead to lib­ ate in some cases. It also seems to me that 4. Adam Peyton Thomas, Crime and the eralization, since investment-hungry prisons are both inefficient and unjust, Sacking ofAmerica, Brassey's, 1994, p. 120. countries will have to compete with one and that a polycentric, restitution­ 5. The federal data is from 1994, the state another for capital by cutting taxes, tar­ oriented system of justice would evolve data from 1991. While no complete statis­ iffs, and regulations. It is by now obvious away from using them. I'd like to defend tics are available for more recent years, that nations are also trying to attract busi- . these assertions, but that will have to wait the trend has been upward. As far as nesses with anti-market enticements. The for another day. drug-related crime is concerned, 10% of evidence for this stretches from Indonesia 8. Jeffrey Shedd, "Making Good(s) Behind federal inmates and 17% of state inmates to San Quentin. Bars," Reason, March 1982. 42 Liberty ~reciation Half a Century at the Battlements by R. W. Bradford

They have fought a good fight, they have kept the faith, but they have not finished the course.

The Foundation for Economic Education played an enormous role in the revival of libertarian ideas over the past half century, particularly in the early years of that renais­ sance. It stood as a beacon, always advocating a radical libertarian view. Like Leonard Read, its founder, FEE was always well-mannered, always intelli- gent, while never raising its voice in anger and never, never compro­ even accepted myself. Often I was wrote of morality without moralizing, mising. painted into a rather moderate corner of economics without pedantry. It I discovered FEE as a teenager as I by my lack of intellectual resources didn't tell you what to think - it was coming to grips with my own and the loneliness of my peculiar stimulated you to think for yourself. thinking in the early 1960s. I had fig­ beliefs. Then, around 1963 or so, The Freeman in those days was ured out that individual liberty was someone gave me few single-sheet mailed without charge to all who both inherently desirable (for me, any­ leaflets called Cliches ofSocialism, pub­ requested it; once each year I'd way) and in general a good thing for lished by FEE. Each took a single com­ receive a polite letter suggesting that humanity, and that the growth of gov­ mon belief that supported the status if I wanted to contribute an amount ernment power over the previous cen­ quo or the further growth of state sufficient to defray the cost of publica­ tury or so was a bad thing. At the power and presented a short, intelli­ tion, I should send them $5.00, and time, I identified myself pretty much gent criticism of it. that I might even want to send more with political conservatives, because FEE described these flyers mod­ to help them in their work. As an indi­ they seemed to share some of these estly: "These are not the only answers gent student, I usually sent them notions. or even the best possible answers; but nothing, but The Freeman continued to The world that surrounded me they may help you and others brighten my life once each month. was awash in what was then gener­ develop better explanations of the ally called "liberalism" or "middle-of­ ideas of liberty." But Cliches did far The Forces of History the-road" thought. The boundaries of more than that, at least for me. They and the History of Force respectable debate were rather nar­ helped me remove from my eyes the It is difficult for us to appreciate row. Yes, people would say, socialism scales of my middle-of-the-road edu­ today the low esteem in which the may be a bad thing, but we need to cation, to think critically and for idea of liberty was held when recognize that the welfare state is the myself, to know that I was not alone Leonard Read founded FEE in 1946. best security against Communism. in my understanding of how the The intellectual foundations of the lib­ Sure, small government made sense a world worked. eral social order had been under­ century ago, but today big business Before long, I subscribed to The mined during the previous three and big labor require big government. Freeman, FEE's monthly publication of decades, both by the material forces of If free enterprise is such a good sys­ reflective essays on libertarian history and by the decline in the intel­ tem, why the Great Depression? And themes. It totally eschewed politics lectual vigor of liberty's advocates. on and on. and policy, sticking instead to theory As the nineteenth century ended, I countered some of these argu­ and history, providing support, intel­ western countries were raising taxes, ments as best I was able, but some I lectual ammunition, and refuge. It instituting economic regulation, and Liberty 43 Volume 9, Number 6 luI 1996

organizing central banks. In 1914, the Everywhere, banking remained car­ pete successfully in this new modern West opted for the moral tonic of the telized, and government, not the mar­ world? Great War, with its attendant opportu­ ketplace, controlled money and credit. Individual responsibility and indi­ nities for heroism, self-sacrifice, and Everywhere, economic nationalism vidual action seemed old-fashioned, nation-building. Large-scale organiza­ supplanted free trade. Everywhere, the reactionary, part of an earlier era. tions became the order of the day. cartelization of labor triumphed. And People coming of age during the 1930s Even in America, where political tradi­ everywhere, the state's power to con­ began to see their future happiness and tions had kept the power of govern­ trol private enterprises was still security as dependent on their ability ment under the strictest controls, the increasing. to become a cog in one of these giant economy was organized into huge car­ The "Great Depression" was the machines. The educated classes sought tels, and economic competition was predictable result of governmental employment with great corporations eliminated, along with free speech. In intervention in the credit market and or in the civil service, while the labor­ restrictions on trade, but in the popular ing classes sought jobs in industries mind, it was nothing less than the fail­ controlled by powerful unions. Find ure of capitalism and the liberal social yourself a position with one of these The idea that huge organiza­ order. Prior to this time, the major socioeconomic behemoths, subject tions were inherently more defense of the liberal social order and yourself to its rules and expectations, viable than small ones had free economic institutions had been stifle your individuality and personal­ that they delivered prosperity. The ity, conform ... this was the price of taken root, and it seemed natu­ Depression destroyed that defense, economic comfort and security. ral to believe that a huge and and as western economies continued to powerful government was decline, the idea of a free society was The Age of the left with hardly any intellectual under­ Concentration Camp more efficient than the old pinning at all. Dictators took control in There were problems with this small, limited government. central and eastern Europe, while view, of course. Prosperity had not somewhat less fascist regimes took returned to the United States or to over in Britain and the U.S. Europe, despite the increased carteliza­ Europe, the war arrested the nascent The idea that huge organizations ton of the economy and the burgeon­ liberalization of Russia, and a concate­ are inherently more viable than small ing power of government. But to those nation of historic accidents placed that ones had taken root with the large pri­ who held positions in the gigantic emerging economic giant under his­ vate corporations of the late nineteenth bureaucracies, corporate or state, and tory's greatest dictatorship. century, and it seemed natural to to those who were on the receiving end Elsewhere, the 1920s brought a believe that a huge and powerful gov­ of government handouts, this didn't reaction against the destruction, hor­ ernment was more efficient than the seem to matter much. As for others, ror, and futility of war, and the size old small, limited government of the well, they were reassured that progress and power of government was rolled libertarian (or classical liberal) vision. was being made and recovery was just back somewhat, though not to pre-war Just as huge industrial organizations in around the corner. Everyone knew this levels. But the increasing popularity of which individuals were small and was the case; they heard it over the socialism, economic nationalism, and rather stupid cogs had become the radio and saw it on the newsreels, other forms of statism continued to dominant economic organization, now courtesy of the huge propaganda weaken the West. The old institutions huge government organizations and machines of the government and the of liberal democracy -limited govern­ labor unions took control of political corporations. ment, private property, free trade, indi­ and social life. A much bigger problem, it seemed, vidual rights, free elections, and an The Communists had taken a semi­ was the rise of other dictatorships. independent judiciary with codified feudal agricultural society and in a sin­ Unlike the "progressive" Communist and objective law - seemed impotent gle generation made it into a steel­ dictatorship in Russia, Germany's Nazi against the forces of totalitarianism. producing industrial giant. The Nazis government was quickly identified as Britain and France saw their economies had taken a conquered and prostrate "reactionary" and "evil." At first, some weaken, as pusillanimous govern­ nation and made it again into a great intellectuals expressed admiration for ments attempted futilely to maintain power. In the United States, chain Italian fascism, but soon the alleged overseas empires while increasing con­ stores were replacing individually merit of its vaunted efficiency was trol over economic activity. The spectre owned shops, and the hundreds of overwhelmed by the problem of its of revolutionary communism, which automobile manufacturers in business alliance with Germany. Meanwhile, proposed to abolish of the very foun­ in 1905 were reduced to three giant when conflicts developed between the dations of the old liberal order, seemed firms and a couple of specialized com­ nascent imperialism of nationalistic especially threatening in Germany, panies. Even the business of entertain­ Japan and the established imperialism Italy, and eastern Europe; against this ment was now controlled by a handful of the West, Japan too was portrayed threat, people were willing to accept of huge movie production companie~ as a reactionary, evil dictatorship. and support governments nearly as and radio networks. How could an These countries suppressed minori­ totalitarian. individual, on his own, expect to com- ties, both ideological and racial. 44 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

Somehow it seemed irrelevant that the eminent Austrian economist living in zens at a time when hardly anyone else United States had burned books and Britain, Friedrich August von Hayek, was doing so. arrested individuals for the crime of offered to a state-saturated world a As FEE succeeded in its mission, its having a German surname during the well-mannered but provocative book, relative importance naturally began to Great War, or that the American gov­ The Road to Serfdom, which challenged wane. But it continued to serve a ernment engaged in the systematic the notion that socialism could some­ critical function, quietly fulfilling its legal suppression of African-American how avoid degenerating into dictator­ mission of patiently and politely and Asiatic minorities, or that Hitler's ship. It became a bestseller in America. advancing the cause of liberty. concentration camps were modeled on FEE held high the banner of lib­ By 1983, when Leonard Read died, the reservations into which the U.S. erty, advancing the notions of private the influence of libertarian ideas was government had herded Native property and limited government in ascendent. Two scholars who had been Americans. thousands of ways, some great and associated with FEE had won Nobel Control of the world's great powers some small. It rediscovered and pub­ Prizes, and two others received that was in the hands of aspiring dictators lished writing by classical liberals same honor in the next decade. Other, and power-hungry demagogues, all (such as Frederic Bastiat) that would more visible institutions - the Cato intent upon increasing their power and otherwise have been forgotten. It pub­ Institute, the Libertarian Party, the all willing to go to war toward that lished the work of such great contem­ Institute for Humane Studies, Reason end. And all had popular opinion porary libertarians and liberals as magazine - were now in the forefront. behind them. Not surprisingly, another Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, Read left a leadership vacuum at Great War broke out, and with it the Murray Rothbard, and Henry Hazlitt FEE that was not filled until Hans power of government grew stronger, in books, pamphlets, and (from 1956 Sennholz assumed its presidency in as taxes were raised, conscription insti­ onward) The Freeman. It conducted 1992. By this time, the continuing tutionalized, economies re-cartelized, seminars for students, academics, and advance of libertarian ideas had made private property seized, civil rights opinion leaders. Leonard Read's approach less distinc­ eliminated, racial minorities impris­ FEE was a generous source of tive and effective, and without his oned, and political critics persecuted. encouragement and enlightenment to charismatic leadership, FEE had In Germany, Hitler was rounding all who approached it, a bulwark of begun to decline. Sennholz immedi­ up Jews and forcing them into concen­ libertarian thought and idealism, a ately took radical action, stemming the tration camps. In Russia, Stalin was place of refuge for those tired of what flow of red ink and redefining FEE's rounding up Poles and sending them often seemed like a fruitless battle. FEE mission, a process that continues into concentration camps. In the U.S., always remained true to its original today. It will, I fervently hope, allow Roosevelt was rounding up Japanese principles, quietly advancing liberty, FEE once more to play the critical role immigrants and Americans of Japanese working among intellectuals, teachers, in the battle of ideas that it had played ancestry and forcing them into concen­ students, clergymen, and ordinary citi- under Read. 0 tration camps. In the British Empire, Churchill rounded up Germans and imprisoned them. In 1943, in a single province in China, more than three million people Is FEE Turning died of starvation; against the world­ wide backdrop of death and destruc­ tion of the previous quarter century, Conservative? these three million deaths were hardly noticed. By 1945, a great war with total­ itarians and statists on both sides had by Michael Peters killed over 40 million human beings and consumed more than $1.5 trillion Itis unfortunately common for organ­ and available to head the organization. for war material alone, whose use had izations to stray from their founding So for a successor, he names his son­ caused incalculable additional damage. principles. The Intercollegiate Society who, if he isn't quite as devoted to the of Individualists, founded by the semi­ founding principles, at least has blood Into This Cauldron... anarchist Frank Chodorov, has turned ties. Or perhaps he hands over the This was the world in which into the conservative Intercollegiate reigns to his attorney, who then ends Leonard E. Read founded FEE. The Studies Institute. Henry Ford would up handling the assignment more as seeds of the rebirth of libertarian think­ sputter in his grave if he knew what an administrative responsibility than ing had been planted in the midst of the Ford Foundation is up to these as an ideological commitment. The son the war, when three American women days. or attorney has trouble finding good - Ayn Rand, Isabel Paterson, and Why does this happen? Basically, help, too, and turns to a capable Rose Wilder Lane - published path­ because it's tough to get good help. employee with many years of service breaking books proclaiming anew, The founder can't find anyone commit­ - but who's not particularly devoted more radical libertarianism. And an ted to his vision who's also competent to the founding principles. Eventually, Liberty 45 Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996

the organization starts to support peo­ Breaking even, in view of heeled conservative donors. When ple and causes that would have horri­ Thatcher's travel expenses and her Cato president Ed Crane received a fied the departed founders. $30,000 speaking fee, required selling promotional letter describing FEE as The process can take a generation the event to the large conservative America's oldest conservative organi­ or two, but some groups have market. FEE did a lot better than break­ zation, he wrote back that Leonard changed their colors within a few ing even, perhaps netting over Read would roll over in his grave at years. It might be underway at the $150,000. But at what cost? the idea of being called a conservative. most venerable libertarian organiza­ Sure, billing FEE as a conservative Or look at Laissez Faire Books. Its tion, the Foundation for Economic organization will attract conservative sales volume has expanded substan­ Education (FEE), which recently cele­ contributors. But these people are tially over the past several years. Many brated its fiftieth anniversary. bound to oppose many libertarian of its customers come from advertising The late Leonard Read - FEE's positions. FEE might not intend to in conservative media, but one founder - was proud to call himself a abandon, say, free trade or free immi­ wouldn't know this from looking at its libertarian. He always kept his distance gration, but the pressure will surely monthly catalog. It doesn't list any from the conservative movement, cen­ books by such popular right-wingers as tered around William Buckley and Thatcher, Buckley, Russell Kirk, National Review, with its emphasis on FEE might not intend to William Bennett, or Rush Limbaugh. anti-Communism above all else. But The word "conservative" rarely this April, FEE celebrated its fiftieth abandon, say, free trade or free appears, and never as a self-description. anniversary by having Margaret immigration, but the pressure So yes, a libertarian organization Thatcher, a politician and a conserva­ will surely build to do so. can grow by forthrightly appealing to tive, speak at Manhattan's Waldorf­ people who love liberty - just as FEE Astoria Hotel. Thatcher endorsed gov­ originally grew under Leonard Read. ernment schools, defended socialized Reportedly, Dr. Sennholz is contem­ medicine, and insisted that drug prohi­ build to do so. The idea may be to lure plating retiring next year. That could be bition must never end - all positions in conservative money and feed it make-or-break time for FEE. FEE is no that drastically contradict FEE's liber­ libertarian literature. If so, FEE's fund­ longer the only game in town; there are tarian creed. raisers are sadly deluded. Conser­ many other places libertarians can give The master of ceremonies was vative money wants conservative satis­ money to promote freedom. Cato, the William F. Buckley, Jr. Buckley may be faction and becomes impatient with Institute for Humane Studies, the more libertarian now than he was in anything else. And once you've hired Future of Freedom Foundation, the the 1950s - he's turned against the people whose jobs depend on right­ Competitive Enterprise Institute, the War on Drugs, for example. But he is wing money, the organization begins Institute for Justice, Citizens for a Sound not a libertarian. He is a mainline to spontaneously self-censor, purely Economy, the Reason Foundation, the conservative. out of self-interest. Heartland Institute, the Liberty One can't blame FEE's current Libertarian organizations can grow Foundation - the list goes on and on. president, Dr. Hans F. Sennholz, for without billing themselves as conser­ Not to mention everything else compet­ wanting to draw a big crowd - and vative or taking right-wing positions. ing for people's time and money. he did, some 800 people. But his deci­ Look at the Cato Institute, which dis­ To endure, FEE must find a succes­ sion to book Thatcher and Buckley led played rare courage and integrity by sor with an inspiring vision of liberty him to promote FEE as a "conserva­ opposing the Gulf War, even though - one who can touch people's hearts tive" organization. its stand meant losing some well- as well as run the place. Cl

Letters, continued from page 6 Otherwise, what's the use in having candidates: they don'tgetvotes because room, and having people vote by phys­ minor parties at all? they are viewed as nothaving a credible ically standing by their choice. After a RyckeBrown chance of winning, which inturnkeeps few minutes the least popular candi­ Kingman, Ariz. them from becomingcredible. date's supporters will shift to their sec­ ond choice, and so on. Dragging Dole Down Under Specifying a list of preferences (I like"A" best, then "B," then "C") Imagine how many people would While I disagree as vehemently as allows one to cast one's vote indepen­ vote (first) for Browne rather than Dole Bill Bradford does with the rest of the dently of other people's votes - or if they did not worry about "wasting" Australian voting laws ("Plebiscital rather, the perception of how other peo­ their vote (my parents are among them). maniacs," May 1996), their practice of ple will vote, based on polls, political Even if he does notwin, Browne might having voters list candidates in order of ads, and pundits. (This is why so much get 20%, thus commanding much more preference is, Ibelieve, a good one, and attention is paid to polls.) attention and respect - and possible helpful to the cause ofliberty. Ifused in This idea (by no means or\ginal to victory - next time around. this country, it would break the chicken­ Australia) is equivalent to hav\ng the Larry Ruane and-egg problem faced byLibertarian candidates spread themselves out in a Parker, Col. 46 Liberty Law White Man's Ghost Dance by Bob Black

Constitutionalists may loathe lawyers, but they outdo them in their reverence for Law.

Once upon a time, there was a fair land called England. All the English were free men and most of them were serfs. All the English were self­ governing in counties run by sheriffs appointed by kings, the descendants of a foreign conqueror. England alone enjoyed the Common Law, handed down by Moses, and dating from 1215 A.D. Secured by the Common Law, rists - "Constitutionalists" - with to confound the dark powers of legis­ all men's property was inviolable, and an urgent transrational need to lation, equity, and common sense. it all belonged to the king. The believe that the world was once the Never mind what words like Common Law, also known as Natural way they want it to be. The deeper "Sovereign Citizen" or "Lawful Law and God's Law, only restricted allure of Constitutionalism is that it Money" mean - what does "abraca­ conduct that harmed the person or purports to be not only history which dabra" mean? - it's what they do that property of another, such as swearing, explains, but technique which con­ counts. Unfortunately, Constitution­ fornicating, possessing weapons in trols. Resentful and suspicious, alist words don't do anything but lose the royal forests, converting to Constitutionalists are sure that con­ court cases and invite sanctions. Judaism, and dreaming that the king niving judges, legislators, and lawyers Constitutionalism is the white man's had died. There was complete relig­ switched their own false law for the version of the Ghost Dance. Believing ious freedom, i.e., Roman Catholicism real law when the people weren't you are invulnerable to bullets puts was the state church, attendance at looking. But the real law, the you in more, not less, danger of being services was compulsory, and heretics Common Law, lives still, for it is shot. were executed. As perfect, as deathless; it is God, Nature, and Jutting out of the wreckage called unchangeable as the Common Law Reason all rolled up in one. Although Constitutionalism are a few more ele­ always was, it got even better when Constitutionalists loathe lawyers, they vated piles, such as "Common Law" free and prosperous Englishmen flee­ outdo them in their reverence for and "Magna Carta." These are, if in ing persecution and poverty brought Law, their solemn obeisance to what no better repair than the rest of the it to America. They repaired there, as Oliver Wendell Holmes mocked as a ruins, at least of respectable antiquity. Garrison Keillor quipped, to enjoy "brooding omnipresence in the sky." Back when little was known of less freedom than they had in Constitutionalists look upon law English legal history - when history England. as the word-magic of lawyer­ as a discipline scarcely existed ­ As fantasy, this Common Law necromancers who draw their wiz­ ingenious jurists like Selden, Coke, England would never find a pub­ ardly powers from grimoires, from and Hale manipulated these hoary lisher: it's not nearly as believable as books of magic spells they have self­ myths to win some limited victories Narnia or Never-Never Land. You ishly withheld from the people. over royal absolutism and arbitrari­ don't even have to know any real law Constitutionalists have extracted from ness. Even if Constitutionalists were or history to notice that it's nonsense. these books - from judicial opinions, juridical Jack Kennedys and not, as But as myth, it appeals to increasingly from the Constitution, from legal dic­ they are, Dan Quayles, the conditions frustrated conservatives, libertarians, tionaries, from the Bible, from what­ for getting away with pious lying fundamentalists, and conspiracy theo- have-you - white magic with which about these parts of the past no longer Liberty 47 Volume 9, Number 6 luI 1996

obtain. Good history does not necessar­ obligation of contracts, excessive bail, opposed to the varied local law ily overthrow legal orthodoxy, but by right to counsel, cruel and unusual pun­ enforced by manor and hundred now bad history never does. So ishment, indictment by grand jury, etc., courts, borough courts, and courts leet. unprincipled are judges and lawyers etc. Far from forbidding even involun­ Ironically, if there was ever a trace of that they will even tell the truth if it tary servitude, it presupposes it (chs. truth to the Constitutionalist dogma serves their interests. Consider, for 17, 20, 23). Far from forbidding the that the people in juries "judged the instance, the unscrupulous way in establishment of religion, it confirms it facts and the law," it was in the local which they might point out what the in its very first provision (ch. 1). courts outside the Common Law. And Magna Carta actually says and what The real Magna Carta was not even it was the law of these courts with the Common Law actually is. remotely libertarian in content. Modern which ordinary Englishmen were most Constitutionalists revere the Magna libertarian notions such as self­ familiar and which, as Julius Goebel Carta, but if they were to read it, they'd ownership, laissez faire, greatest equal has shown, most heavily influenced liberty, the nightwatchman (minimal) colonial American law. state, even private property itself As if "Common Law" were not a Constitutionalism is the would have bewildered the signatories phrase already overburdened with of the Magna Carta. They understood meanings, Constitutionalists load on white man's version of the liberties, not liberty; privileges, not even more. They equate Common Law Ghost Dance. Believing you property. The free market was a con­ with Natural Law, with Natural are invulnerable to bullets puts cept of the far future: "markets" were Reason, with Christianity, and even times and places where the government with (as Krawchuck says) "common you in more, not less, danger of authorized buying and selling. sense." His example is common-law being shot. Property rights were derivative and rel­ marriage: "If a guy and girl live ative - except for the king, nobody together for seven years, they're mar­ owned anything "allodially" (abso­ ried; it's the common law. It's plain be baffled. Expecting to find, as libertar­ lutely). Rather, title (ownership) was common sense."2 It's neither. Mere ian Constitutionalist Ken Krawchuck relative to other claims, and in theory cohabitation never married a couple in says, "many of the rights we still enjoy always subordinate to the king. England or America. There was appar­ today,"l they'd find themselves adrift Constitutionalists disparage legislation, ently no such thing as nonceremonial in an alien, feudal world of "aids," but that's all the Magna Carta ever was, "common law" marriage in England at "wardship," "scutage," "knight ser­ amendable and repealable like any all. In America, a "common law" mar­ vice," "reliefs," "wainage," "castle other statute. By 1992, only three of its riage required, not just shacking up, but guard," "socage," "burgage," and other 63 provisions were still on the books. an agreement to marry and a public arcana even medievalists toil to In the guise of declaring custom, reputation as being married. As for comprehend. Magna Carta changed the law, violat­ "common sense," why seven years? The Magna Carta - extorted from ing what Constitutionalists consider King John by a few dozen rebellious the Common Law. They cherish the barons in 1215, a dead letter within county, for instance, to which the sher­ Constitutionalists revere the three months, voided by England's iff was answerable (they suppose), but Magna Carta, but if they were feudal overlord, the pope - did the Charter forbade sheriffs and other almost nothing for almost all of local officials from hearing the pleas of to read it, they'd be baffled. England's two million people. It con­ the Crown (ch. 24). It is as if the U.S. firmed or created privileges for church­ president issued an executive order men and barons, occasionally for that felonies should be tried only in Why not six years and eleven months? knights, and in only two instances for federal courts! Why not five years? A lot of legally sol­ "free men." Most Englishmen were vil­ As for this Common Law (cue the emnized marriages don't last that long leins, not freemen. And as historian angelic chorus here), just what is it these days. Since when was common Sidney Painter has written, "Whenever anyway? The term has at least a half sense so dogmatic? provisions of the Charter seem to bene­ dozen meanings. It might refer to Constitutionalists say that the fit the ordinary man, a close examina­ English law as distinguished from the Common Law is based on litigation tion will show that it is his lord's civil-law systems of Europe. It might over property (more precisely, real pocketbook that is the real cause of be "law" as distinguished from property - land - although as their concern." It was only a question of "equity," Le., the law of the royal generalities go this one is not too far who would do the fleecing. courts at Westminster distinguished wrong). Under Common Law, real The Great Charter has nothing to from certain distinct doctrines and property descended to the oldest male say about free speech, unreasonable remedies administered by another - except in Kent, where partible inheri­ searches and seizures, self­ royal appointee, the Chancellor. It tence among male issue obtained, with incrimination, the right to bear arms, might refer to judge-made rather than the proviso that the youngest son inher­ free exercise of religion, obligation of statutory law. Perhaps most often it ited the household. Nowhere did it contracts, ex post facto laws, bills of referred to the law "common" to all descend to a female if there lived a male attainder, petition and assembly, the Englishmen, the national law as heir, however remote the relationship. continued on page 68 48 Liberty History Millennium, Then and Now by Frank Fox

History is awash with amorous millennial faiths.

The year 2000 beckons many with its "signs," but past millennial expectations suggest that human beings have an infinite capacity to deceive themselves. In 1843, for exam­ ple, thousands of followers of William Miller donned white "ascension" clothes and climbed trees and rooftops, ready to fly to Jerusalem. They quickly discovered that while Millennium was a wish, gravity was a accompanied by a show of loving sup­ little notice of Kozlowska and her lit­ fact. As Norman Cohn noted in The port from fellow congregants. Both tle band of enthusiasts. Indeed, the Pursuit of Millennium, rapes and mas­ were excommunicated from their Mariavites' ardent embrace of social sacres, bad rulers, civil wars, churches. Both built personal for­ work seemed a useful antidote to the droughts, famines, plagues, comets, tunes. Both spent time in jail, and time lassitude of so many clergy. But the sudden deaths of important people, in palatial retreats. Kowalski, an out­ Mariavites became embarrassingly and a general increase in sinning have spoken critic of Communism, was visible when they took to wearing a always been taken as millenniaI imprisoned on morals charges on the fashioned habit that featured an "signs" - so "there was never any eve of WorId War II; Moon, jailed in embroidered monstrance (the chalice difficulty about finding them." Korea for what he has claimed were of the Eucharist) in the middle of their In the long history of millennial anti-Communist activities, subse­ chests. anticipations, few parallels are as close quently served time in the U.S. for tax In 1903/ Father Kowalski was as those between the Reverend Sun evasion. elected to a position of leadership in Myung Moon, the still active Korean the Mariavite community. Coinciding leader of the Unification Church, and The Rise and Fall of as it did with an increase in visions and John Maria Kowalski, a Polish priest John Maria Kowalski revelations from the Little Mother, his who died at Dachau. Both men pro­ Father John Maria Kowalski was election finally brought censure from a claimed themselves the "Third born on Christmas Eve, 1871. The son Church ever suspicious of self­ Adam/" the progenitor of a new race. of a farmer, he graduated from the appointed visionaries. Still, the Polish Their religious arithmetic was simple Catholic Academy of St. Petersburg hierarchy was reluctant to act, since the enough. The union of Adam and Eve and was ordained in 1897. Three years Russian authorities, undoubtedly try­ failed because of the corrupting influ­ later, a fellow priest introduced him to ing to sow dissension in the ranks of ence ofSatan. Jesus, the Second Adam, the Mariavites, an order that venerated Polish believers, had recognized the had no opportunity to find a mate. the Virgin Mary and was led by Feliksa Mariavite sect. In Rome, the Church Now the Third Adam was ready, will­ Kozlowska, the "Little Mother." was under no such constraint. In 1904/ ing, and able. Both Kowalski and Kozlowska, following the example of the Vatican forbade Polish priests to Moon shared their messianic duties earlier Franciscans, had dedicated her­ join the Mariavites and directed the with a female partner and arranged self to helping the poorest parishion­ Order to disband. Its priests, including marriages for their followers. ers. Kowalski was smitten. He joined Kowalski, were dispersed to distant Both men staged large meetings at her group and quickly emerged as her parishes. which confessions (sometimes pre­ heir apparent. Hewas 29. She, 38. If the strategy was to isolate the ceded by public accusations) were Polish Church officials at first took Little Mother from her followers, it Liberty 49 Volume 9, Number 6 Jul 1996

failed. The persecuted, as the Church medieval lord, enjoying jus primae noc­ had scandalized the Jewish and Polish should have expected from its own his­ tis - the right of first sexual relations communities of his time, and antici­ tory, only grew bolder and acquired - with the younger brides-to-be. The pated the ideas of both Kowalski and more believers. In 1906, Pope Pius X, atmosphere soon resembled a hot­ Moon. determined to assert his primacy, house more than a convent, with some Like the Moonies and Mariavites, excommunicated Kowalski, Kozlow­ of the young sisters named in the man­ the Frankists skillfully acquired both ska, and 40 priests. The sect responded ner of garden hybrids: Love, membership and economic power; like by forging an alliance with the Old Cherubina, Desideria, Dilecta. Older the later cults, they emphasized the Catholics, a splinter group of Catholic nuns had to be content with Christian female as the central figure of their clergy who opposed Pius IX's 1869 worship. Their secret initiations of "sis­ proclamation of papal infallibility. ters" shocked their contemporaries, They defied the ban on the Mariavites, much as Kowalski's sexual exploits and in 1909 elevated Kowalski to the The "mystical marriages" shocked his. And Frank, like Moon rank of bishop. produced real babies. Kowalski and Kowalski, was eventually impris­ The Mariavite order now grew insisted that the infants had oned. He and his followers were forced quickly. A magnificent house of wor­ to convert to Catholicism, with the ship was completed in 1911. World been born to virgins. Polish king and nobility acting as their War I drew in still more followers. sponsors. Frankists were found among After the Bolshevik Revolution, the leading Polish families, and it is Kowalski became an archbishop, a names, such as Honorata and believed that both the mother and the position he used to rail against the dan­ Gertrude. The young followers formed wife of the Polish bard Adam gers of Communism. In a Poland Mickiewicz came of a Frankist back­ an orchestra of mandolin players. threatened by an emerging USSR, he Other innovations followed, with ground. It is likely that Kowalski knew gained a large audience. something of Frankist history, since Kowalski opening the priesthood to all Feliksa Kozlowska did not live to that "heresy" deeply affected genera­ comers and instituting a People's witness these successes. The woman tions of Jews and Poles. Mass, celebrated at times by women. Kowalski described as "The Bride of What is especially interesting about Contacts were established with sympa­ the Lamb and the Espoused Wife of the three "Adams" is their use of the thizers in other countries. Christ" succumbed to cancer in 1921. female godhead as the central part of The inevitable happened. The (The cancer had distended her stomach their faith - the woman as wife, "mystical marriages" produced real into a grotesque simulation of preg­ mother, and symbol of sexual freedom. babies. Kowalski rose to the challenge, nancy, a condition depicted in a death­ Ironically, in their efforts to revive the bed photograph revered by many of insisting the infants had been born to powerful and primal figure of Adam, virgins; they were without sin, he pro­ her followers.) Kowalski inherited the Jacob Frank, John Maria Kowalski, and Little Mother's mantle, and with it a claimed - the progeny of a new faith. Sun Myung Moon - chauvinists all ­ smoothly run organization that had But to non-Mariavites, they were proof brought the female down from her tra­ tripled its membership since the 1906 of the sect's depravity. Some young ditional pedestal and allowed her to excommunication. The Mariavites now Mariavite girls left the compound and become a near-equal partner. counted not only 200,000 members, but told reporters their stories. There were Our modern age has allowed the hundreds of priests and nuns in 70 par­ confessions and attempts at what we Reverend Moon to procreate in a man­ ishes, a comprehensive school system, would now call "deprogramming." By ner undreamt-of by earlier "Adams." summer camps, orphanages, soup 1928, charges of polygamy could not Moon and his wife, Hakja Han Moon, kitchens, sanatoria, workshops, banks, be avoided. A series of lurid trials have arranged multiple marriages for businesses, and even fire brigades. ended in Kowalski's conviction; he their followers, on one occasion presid­ Then came the mostbizarre phase of was imprisoned from 1936 to 1938. ing over simultaneous weddings for Mariavite history. The death of the Released on the eve of the German 364,000 couples in 160 countries. The Little Mother seemed to release her pro­ invasion, he tried to reassert authority couples were matched by a database tege from all restraints. Before long, over his movement. After a disgrun­ meant to assure each follower a suita­ Archbishop Kowalski had created a tled colleague denounced him to the ble partner - a technology that prob­ faith that had been only dimly realized Gestapo, Kowalski wrote Hitler, urg­ ably would not have impressed Father during his relationship with Kozlowska ing the Nazi leader to accept the Kowalski. - a religion designed to satisfy both his Mariavite creed. There is no record of spiritual and sexual needs. He prO­ any response. Kowalski was sent to the The Road to the Millennium ceeded to arrange supposedly chaste Dachau concentration camp, where he The central puzzles remain. At "mystical marriages" for his followers, was put to death as prisoner number what point does the pretender come to pairing off priests and nuns in a spirit 24542 on May 18, 1942. believe his own pretensions? And why of whimsy that resulted in the most do so many follow blindly? The road unlikely partnerships. Three Adams to Millennium may be paved with Taking a young bride himself, More than a century earlier, the good intentions, but so is another well­ Kowalski acted as matchmaker and Jewish mystic Jacob Frank (1726-1791) traveled highway. 0 50 Liberty Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investi­ mend reforms. The Senate version was gations ofthe CIA and FBI, by Kathryn S. Olmsted. University of North chaired by Frank Church (D-Idaho), the Carolina Press, 1996, 272 pp., $34.95 hc, $15.95 sc. House counterpart by Otis Pike (0­ N.Y.). Despite months of hearings, how­ ever, the committees achieved few results. The Pike Committee became the victim of a public backlash, engi­ The Fourth Estate neered by a sophisticated propaganda campaign directed by President Gerald Ford's administration, a network of CIA alumni, and their political allies. and the Secret State The committee ultimately suffered the indignity of a House vote barring the public release of its report. Although the less confrontational Church 1950s and 1960s had close links with Ted Galen Carpenter Committee fared a little better, its prin­ the CIA as an institution and with the cipal accomplishment was to pave the Ivy League alumni who ran it. They way for greater congressional oversight America's powerful and pervasive went to the same colleges, attended the of the intelligence community's covert national security state is an especially same dinner parties, joined the same operations. As the Iran-contra scandal damaging legacy of the Cold War. country clubs, and shared the same underscored a decade later, that new Early in the fight against the Soviet assumptions about the CIA's role in the oversight system was less than Union, the U.S. political elite embraced world" (p. 22). effective. policies and institutions that would But the foreign policy consensus It is difficult to come away from have been anathema to most Amer­ that sustained that relationship began Olmsted's book without the depressing icans even a few decades earlier. In par­ to unravel as the Vietnam War turned conclusion that in the mid-1970s, we into a debacle. Even friendly journalists ticular, the United States developed an missed a rare, perhaps irreplaceable found it increasingly difficult to ignore extensive intelligence apparatus that opportunity to reign in the national U.S. policymakers' misjudgments, did far more than gather information security state. Several parties were to flawed logic, and outright lies. Perhaps about possible foreign adversaries. The blame for that failure, including a more importantly, the widespread pub­ Central Intelligence Agency manipu­ lic discontent spawned by the war led lated elections in Japan and Western to a rebirth of adversarial journalism on Europe, orchestrated coups against international as well as domestic issues. We missed a rare, perhaps democratically elected governments in That confrontational trend was rein­ irreplaceable opportunity to Iran and Guatemala, funneled slush forced by the discovery of the Nixon money to repellent (albeit anti-Soviet) administration's egregious abuses of reign in the national security dictators, and plotted the assassination power. state. of foreign leaders. Consequently, when iconoclastic Throughout the first two decades or journalist Seymour Hersh uncovered so of the Cold War, the American peo­ and published evidence in December Congress that feared the responsibili­ ple learned little of the CIA's misdeeds. 1974 that the CIA had not only engaged ties that would accompany a restora­ As Kathryn Olmsted points out in her in odious conduct overseas but had tion of its constitutional foreign policy well-researched and eminently spied on (and perhaps even disrupted) prerogatives and a public reluctant to readable book, Challenging the Secret domestic antiwar groups, the end confront some ugly truths about Government, journalists frequently sup­ seemed near. Congress, the media, and America's intelligence agencies. But the pressed, or at least sanitized, stories the public seemed ready to leash the principal culprit was a supine journalis­ about the agency's covert operations. A increasingly aggressive "secret govern­ tic community that once again chose to disturbingly incestuous relationship ment." Congress promptly established play lapdog rather than watchdog on between government and the press special committees to investigate the national security issues. developed: "the news media of the intelligence community and recom- Indeed, there were early warning Liberty 51 Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 signals when Hersh published his ini­ prosecute not only federal employees nearly destroyed for daring to arrange tial revelations in the New York Times. who make unauthorized disclosures the publication of the Pike Committee Hersh recalled that he was "reviled" by but also journalists who print stories report that the House had voted to many of his colleagues, and Times cor­ based on those leaks. seal.) respondent Harrison Salisbury noted But fear of government harassment The deeper cause of the media's that most Washington journalists "did does not fully explain the media's timidity is the national security state's not rush to verify" the charges. Why reluctance to pursue evidence of CIA successful efforts to co-opt the journa­ was the supposedly adversarial post­ misconduct. Even less does it explain listic community - to make journalists Watergate press so passive? Olmsted why so many journalists turned on view themselves as members of the speculates, "Journalists often find it Hersh, Daniel Schorr, and the handful government's foreign policy team hard to decide whether to publish of their colleagues who sought to shed rather than as independent monitors, national security stories. On the one some badly needed light on the secret much less critics. Such co-option long hand, reporters believe that it is their government. (Schorr had his career predated the intelligence investigations duty to inform the public of official misconduct and policy mistakes; but on the other, the media's pursuit of genu­ ine national security secrets could alienate the public and bring about And the ideas behind American government government censorship" (68). today are corrupt and contradictory. Maybe Such fears had some validity. Even that's why Bill Clinton and Bob Dole want the short of outright censorship, the American people to blindly assume that govern­ government has a variety of means to ment is the solution rather than the problem. retaliate against overly inquisitive But Americans are - finally - beginning to newshounds. Instead of curbing CIA grasp that something is rotten. Sure, they've abuses at home and abroad, the Ford been told a thousand times by the party pols that administration looked for ways to pun­ it's just a matter of a different party, a new pro­ ish Hersh for revealing those abuses. In gram, one more tax increase. But year after year two secret meetings at the White crime gets worse, schools fall apart, and the net House, Ford's key aides considered of regulations is drawn more tightly around your several options, including privately life and property. asking the editors of the New York Harry Browne, the Libertarian Party alterna­ Times to spike future stories, launching FBI investigations of both Hersh and tive to Clinton and Dole, says enough! Here at the Times, and convening a grand jury last, presented so that any intelligent person can to indict Hersh for espionage. understand, are the critical libertarian solutions Ford's efforts to stop Hersh were no to the problems that beset us. Always eloquent, aberration. A long series of administra­ always convincing, Browne explains how to tions - liberal and conservative, clean up the mess the state has left - the War on Republican and Democrat - have hun­ Drugs, Social Security, public "schools," wel­ gered for an American version of fare, you name it. Only voluntary action, Browne Britain's infamous Official Secrets Act, argues, can make this country great again. which allows the government to Perhaps the most compelling part ofthe book is Browne's explanation of the declare any information a state secret psychology that created and sustains big government - how the average and criminally prosecute anyone, American's dream of a better life so often hinges on fantasies about government including a member of the press, who that can never come true. This is the kind of book that produces the "ah-hah!" discloses it. Although Congress has response - the sudden realization of how things really work. repeatedly refused to enact such a stat­ Publisher's price $19.95 - Liberty Book Club price $14.95. 234 pp., hardcover. ute, Ronald Reagan's administration may have achieved the functional What America Needs - and What Americans Want equivalent through the courts. In the After a year of sPeaking with Americans, Harry Browne is more optimistic than late 1980s, the Justice Department suc­ ever about the prospects for freedom. From coast to coast, he has met with cessfully prosecuted a Pentagon everyday Americans angered by the continued erosion oftheir liberties. In this employee, Samuel Loring Morison, for illuminating talk, Browne recounts his political education on the campaign trail and espionage, even though Morison had outlines his agenda for a comprehensive dismantling of the federal government. leaked the information (about a Soviet Audio: $5.95; Video: $19.50. aircraft carrier with which Moscow was undoubtedly familiar) not to a foreign Call 1-800-854-6991 government but to a defense publica­ or write to Liberty Book Club, Dept. Be8, P.O. Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA tion. Since the Morison case, there has 98368. Add $3.00 s&h for single orders, $1.00 extra for each additional book or been a marked increase in threats to every two additional tapes. (Foreign orders add $5.00 s&h for single orders, $1.00 extra for each additional book or every two additional tapes.) 52 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 of the mid-1970s; it had been a promi­ patches from the Gulf and the Balkans sive moments of historical change" nent feature of press-government rela­ might just as well have been produced (xv). Only the novel (or, I would add, tions since the beginning of World War by the Pentagon or State Department the very greatest kind of historical nar­ II. The Vietnam-Watergate era saw only press offices. rative, a narrative enforced with a nov­ a brief and partial disruption of that Challenging the Secret Government is elist's imaginative power) can do all relationship, and the pendulum was a modest but significant addition to the this. already swinging back by the time literature on media-state relations in What is brought to life in the mod­ Hersh published his first investigative the Cold War era. It also provides a ern novel is a story of astonishing pieces on the CIA. sobering account of how powerful the progress and of startling loss. The nov­ Moreover, there is no evidence that national security state had become in elists whom Moses studies are all, as he the end of the Cold War has prompted barely three decades. The aborted puts it, "citizens and beneficiaries of reporters to become more adversarial. attempt to leash the intelligence agen­ the modern world, but they nonethe­ Indeed, press coverage of the Persian cies in the mid-1970s underscores the less feel compelled to record for poste­ Gulf War and the Balkan conflict sug­ inherent difficulty of restraining rity the great costs, paid in blood and gests that too many journalists are will­ entrenched institutions. Nevertheless, pain, that peoples around the world ing cheerleaders for Washington's that malignant system must be cur­ have rendered to settle accounts with global crusades and passive conduits tailed before it destroys what remains history" (xvii). You cannot be modern for government propaganda. Many dis- of American liberty. 0 and traditional at the same time; you have to give something up. As a classi­ cal liberal, Moses knows that progress The Novel and the Globalization ofCulture, by Michael Valdez is real, but that it has to be paid for, and Moses. Oxford University Press, 1995, 262 pp., $35.00 he, $17.95 se. that different people will find them­ selves paying for it in different ways. Moses develops this theme by close analysis of a series of novels, each of which reveals the impact of the tide of modernization as it reaches a particular The Novel Takes culture. Every book is a distinguished literary achievement, as interesting in artistic as in political and social terms: Stendhal's The Red and the Black, on the World Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, Conrad's Lord lim, Achebe's Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease, and Vargas Llosa's The War ofthe End ofthe World. traditional societies. Moses' account of each book is judi­ Stephen Cox His idea is that modernization, cious, meticulously documented, and which is inseparably associated with Current debates about literature are the capitalist system, is a global and usually driven by political considera­ probably irreversible process. No other You cannot be modern and tions - most notably, by demands that system has successfully competed traditional at the same time; literary judgments become less against capitalism and the political "Eurocentric," "phallocentric," or just structures that accomodate it. No other you have to give something up. plain centric. The response to such system can be expected to do so. demands is often as overgeneralized as Modern culture is global; it cannot eas­ the demands themselves. The value of ily be "subdivided" on a regional basis. finely sensitive to the individual the canon of Western literature is often The form of culture with which author's literary craft. Moses is no fool asserted, for example, without much Moses is especially concerned is the about politics, either. He misses neither awareness of the fact that "Western" lit­ novel. This is, of course, a distinctively the complexities of political conflict nor erary forms are now in practice all over Western genre, in origin, at least. It is their connection with fundamental the world. also, as Moses argues, crucially impor­ issues and large historical movements. Michael Valdez Moses, a young tant for our understanding both of the He sees much that other people miss. In classical liberal critic, has provided a global process of modernization and of discussing Achebe's Nigeria, for useful corrective to both sides of the its various effects on various societies instance, he emphasizes the fact that argument. In The Novel and the and individuals. The novel, as he says, the political difficulties of new African Globalization ofCulture, his subject is the "provides a condensation or crystalliza­ states result, in large part, not from the important literature that has emerged, tion of social life that registers both the onslaught of a highly competitive mar­ during the last two centuries, from objective conditions of society and the ket economy but from the competition confrontations between the ways of the particular subjective reactions of indi­ for governmental favors among collec­ modem West and the ways of viduals to those conditions during deci- tive groups, the shadows of traditional Liberty 53 Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 collectivities. It's neither capitalism nor to say, that current literary criticism ing substantially. In particular, she traditionalism but an unfortunate very seldom merits. removed two passages that expressed attempt to combine the two. Classical liberal analysis has made strong Nietzschean sentiments. In one, Moses' ability to explain works of signal contributions to the study of eco­ the heroine tells a Communist: literature without reducing or falsify­ nomics, history, and a variety of other I loathe your ideals. I admire your ing them shows to particular advantage disciplines. But although some of the methods. If one believes one's right, in his analysis of Achebe and Vargas most influential exponents of classical one shouldn't wait to convince mil­ Llosa, who are concerned with political liberalism have been literary people, lions of fools, one might just as well conflicts that might otherwise appear classical liberal ideas and methods force them. Except that I don't know, inaccessibly remote to late-twentieth­ have, at present, a quite limited influ­ however, whether I'd use blood in century American readers. But one ence on literary studies. Moses' impor­ my methods. returns with heightened awareness and tant contribution to literary criticism In another, the Communist tells the appreciation to every text that Moses will certainly help to resolve that heroine that "we can't sacrifice millions treats. This is a compliment, I am sorry paradox. 0 for the sake of the few." She responds, "You can! You must. When those few are the best. Deny the best its right to We the Living, by Ayn Rand. Dutton, 1995,433 pp., $25.95. the top - and you have no best left." Rand also eliminated a passage describ­ ing the hero as "not a lover, but a slave owner" and the heroine as longing to be under his whip. Peikoff's introduction to the new edition fails to mention these changes. We the Revising In this, he followed Rand's lead. In the foreword to the 1958 edition, she denied having made any significant editorial alterations: I want to account for the editorial published, and 1958, when its revised R.W. Bradford changes which I have made in the edition came out, than in the eight text of this novel for its present reis­ years between the first and second edi­ sue: the chief inadequacy of my liter­ When Leonard Peikoff prepared a tions of Anthem. In addition, We the ary means was grammatical - a new edition of Ayn Rand's novelette Living is a substantial novel, while particular kind of uncertainty in the Anthem, he performed a great service to Anthem is hardly more than a lengthy use of the English language, which those who study and admire Rand: in short story. reflected the transitional state of a addition to the text of the revised edi­ According to Stephen Cox, whose mind thinking no longer in Russian, tion of 1946, he included the text of the essay "Ayn Rand: Theory Versus but not yet fully in English. I have original 1938 edition, which had long Creative Life" Uournal of Libertarian changed only the most awkward or confusing lapses of this kind. I have been out of print. This was of tremen­ Studies 8:1, Winter 1986) remains the best analysis of Rand's literary method reworded the sentences and clarified dous value to those interested in their meaning, without changing Rand's literary development, for it ena­ and contains the first detailed discus­ sion of the differences between the two their content. I have not added or bled them to compare the two texts and eliminated anything to or from the identify the changes the more mature editions of We the Living, Rand's edito­ rial changes are very instructive: novel. I have cut some sentences and Rand had made in the novel. a few paragraphs that were repeti­ It's too bad he didn't do the same ... the majority of Rand's hundreds of tious or so confusing in their implica­ for the new edition of Rand's first book, revisions are fastidious tinkerings tions that to clarify them would have We the Living. Like Anthem, We the with sentence rhythms and images ­ necessitated lengthy additions. In Living was a commercial failure when changes that usually have little to do brief, all the changes are merely line­ first published. Like Anthem, its second with her ideology. ... About her changes. The novel remains what imagery she is minutely conscien­ edition included many revisions. And and as it was. tious: "dusk" becomes "semi­ like Anthem, copies of its first edition darkness," an official's "stamp" With that, Rand rewrote her own are extraordinarily difficult to locate. becomes a "rubber stamp," and "little intellectual history. Rumors that she Indeed, a reprint of the first edition bridges" become "delicate bridges." had once been quite Nietzschean of We the Living would be far more val­ Ifthis degree of concern is any indica­ would remain only rumors, promul­ uable than the reprint of the first tion, it(,seems clear that Rand devoted gated by those who located a first edi­ edition of Anthem, if only because a hug~ proportion of her lite as a tion of We the Living and noticed Rand's changes were much more sub­ working novelist to problems of Nietzsche's influence. stantial. Rand matured as a novelist far imagery. Peikoff's introduction also repeats a more in the years between 1936, when Rand's revisions of We the Living highly dubious claim about the film the first edition of We the Living was sometimes changed the book's mean- version of We the Living produced in 54 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 Italy during World War II: sources, including the Italian film Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The fascist government had ap­ archive, Cinematec. One of Rand's and Washington Post for all manner of proved the movie on the grounds alleged sources, Brazzi, emphatically flaws, including panic-mongering, that it was anti-communist. But the denied the tale in a 1986 interview. junk science, and poor writing. public (like the director) understood Standard histories and reference books Our Stolen Future falls into a trap at once that the movie was just as about Italian cinema of the period common to conventional environmen­ anti-fascist as it was anti-communist. make no mention of it being banned; talism: it neglects trade-offs. ... Five months after its release, the some flatly assert that no Italian films Abandoning the 100,OOO-plus chemi­ government figured out what every­ cals that play a role in 45% of the one else knew, and banned the were ever banned by the Fascists. (See R.W. Bradford, "The Search for We the world's economic activity would be movie. (The Nazis, too, were extraordinarily costly. The authors demanding that Italy ban it.) Living," Liberty, November 1988.) Of course, it's good to see that We demand "eliminating the use and This story first surfaced in 1961, release of hazardous compounds," set­ the Living is still in print. I am among when Rand told her biographer ting standards to protect those most the minority of Rand's admirers who Barbara Branden that she had been so vulnerable, reducing the numbers of believe it to be her best novel. It's too informed by the film's stars, Alida Valli chemicals on the market and in given bad that the new edition contains noth­ and Rossano Brazzi, and is supported products, using only easily detectable by a 1986 claim by a lawyer for the ing new except Leonard Peikoff's intro­ and well-understood chemicals, and company that produced the movie. It is duction, which only regurgitates old phasing out synthetic chemical manu­ contradicted by virtually all other myths. 0 facture. Such "broad government action" doesn't come cheap. Mandatory monitoring and disclosure Our Stolen Future, by Theo Colborn, John Peterson Myers, and Dianne laws for chemical manufacturers, Dumanoski. Viking Books, 1996, 306 pp., $24.95. water companies, grocers, and distrib­ utors would ultimately impose sizable costs on consumers. Implementing Our Stolen Future's recommendations would close off many valuable opportunities. Immense Flying Blind or benefits to food production and deliv­ ery systems would be lost. The benefits of plastics, medical drugs, and synthet­ ics would no longer be available. Running Scared? According to Dr. Lorenz Rhomberg of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, "a crash program of [hormone disrup­ tor] control and cleanup will divert precious resources from other pressing John A. Baden and We Threatening Our Fertility, environmental problems. This could Douglas S. Noonan Intelligence, And Survival?" - alleges that synthetic chemicals (found in PVC In its foreword, Vice President Al pipes, Tupperware, Tide, etc.) disrupt hormones. These hormonal disruptors It has a sexy title, afetus on Gore announces that Our Stolen Future the cover, and a dramatic "raises compelling and urgent ques­ are responsible for all manner of eco­ tions that must be answered." The book logical, psychological, and social ills, detective story inside. It is a has been promoted as the next Silent they claim, ranging from domestic vio­ PR masterpiece. Spring, Rachel Carson's 1962 book that lence to "lesbian seagulls." The cure? spawned much of the environmental Ban them. The book's timing was perfect. The movement. More likely, it marks the divert regulatory and research atten­ end of an era of gullibility, hysteria, National Academy of Sciences had just tion away from other, true causes of and crisis entrepreneurship. Unlike Al convened to discuss hormone disrup­ breast cancer, birth defects, and wild­ Gore, intellectually honest environmen­ tors. It arrived on bookshelves just in life toxicity." These lost opportunities talists demand factual and logically time for April 22, Earth Day - and just would be costly indeed. consistent foundations for reform. as Congress was being taken to task Costs alone do not invalidate a pol­ Hype and rhetoric are becoming passe. over environmental issues. It had a icy option, of course. The costs and The book was written by Theo sexy title, a fetus on the cover, and a benefits of any policy must be Colborn, John Peterson Myers, and dramatic detective story inside. It was, acknowledged and reconciled. We Dianne Dumanoski, two zoologists and and is, a PR masterpiece. know that reckless proliferation of a journalist. Their "scientific detective Yet it's flopping. It has been thor­ synthetic chemicals may bring repro­ story" - provocatively subtitled "Are oughly trashed by the New York Times, ductive ruin to affected wildlife. Liberty 55 Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996

Conversely, a ban may bring unbeara­ bility, because someone can always "All of us have the right to know and ble costs to economies and ecosystems claim we haven't looked hard enough. the obligation to learn." worldwide. Competing interests must Conversely, we could readily prove it if In practical terms, this "right to be reconciled. But Our Stolen Future we see them. know" is an exceptionally expensive fails to do this. Similarly, a presumption of chemi­ entitlement. Its costs would first be Except once. The authors do make cal guilt places the burden of proof on borne by chemical manufacturers and an exception to their absolutist position chemical manufacturers, even though distributors. The costs would then be when they acknowledge that breast­ proving that their chemicals don't dis­ passed on to consumers in the form of feeding is a primary source of contami­ rupt hormones is logically and techni­ higher prices and burdensome instruc­ nation. Breast-feeding "exposes infants cally impossible. One could always tion manuals detailing the biochemistry to disturbing levels of chemical con­ claim that the manufacturer hasn't of everything from lettuce to business­ taminants ... levels ten to forty times looked hard enough. No harm to the wear. greater than the daily exposure of an The authors want to pay for this adult." right by imposing a duty on manufac­ So the prime culprit in "stealing our The book rejects classic turers and distributors, because they future" may be the sacred practice of have deeper pockets. In this, they breast-feeding. It is easy, trendy, and ideals ofscientific prooffor fail­ neglect the power of market forces. politically correct to recommend organ­ ing to address the alleged hor­ With proper incentives, competition ­ ically growing one's own foods, avoid­ monal threat. not mandated disclosure laws and high ing animal fats, and giving babies transaction costs - will drive the mar­ unpainted toys. It is not acceptable to ket to satisfy customer preferences. If bash breast-feeding. In a rare instance the public is curious about the composi­ of prudence, the authors write, "We first generation doesn't prove harmless­ tion of its plastics, then firms will pro­ know too little to judge how the unde­ ness to the second, or third, or tenth. vide this information voluntarily. If the niable benefits of breast-feeding bal­ The infinite combination of varying consumers really want to know, they ance against the risks of transferring chemicals, circumstances, and levels of can purchase that knowledge like they hormonally active contaminants. While susceptibility render the task absurd. purchase organic lettuce. And lettuce we have great concern, it is premature Colborn, Dumanoski, and Myers producers will find ways to communi­ to advise women against breast­ alsb offer a declaration of inviolable cate that knowledge flexibly, feeding." The authors would do well to rights, starting with "children have a effectively, and inexpensively via certi­ consider trade-offs in all their recom­ right to be born chemical-free." This fication. The market rewards those who mendations. epitomizes the book/s irresponsible and please customers. naive rhetoric. The authors do not iden­ To be fair, there is one useful pre­ Pseudoscience and Pseudo-Rights tify who has the responsibility for guar­ scription in Our Stolen Future: the admo­ Sifting through the morass of con­ anteeing those rights. The judicial nition that we move beyond "the cancer jecture, innuendo, and propaganda in system is responsible for ensuring a paradigm." Too much research has been Our Stolen Future is nearly impossible. right to due process. Who can have driven by the cancer scare of the 1970s, The book's backwards methodologies responsibility for "chemical-free the "War on Cancer/" a:p.d hype over and hysterical biases subvert what births"? inflated cancer rates. In a way, our past might be valuable evidence. To be born free from synthetic experience with cancer helps explain Our Stolen Future rejects classic chemicals, the authors tell us/ requires why this book takes such a hysterical ideals of scientific proof for failing to that mothers themselves be free from tone. The politics of funding research address the alleged hormonal threat. chemicals. This requires "that women pushes research money toward trendy Out with hypothesizing explanations minimize the consumption of animal scares. The mysterious role of natural for observations; in with "eco­ fat from birth until the end of their child­ and synthetic estrogens in the develop­ epidemiology." The weight of the evi­ bearing years." They must also avoid ment of animals and humans does need dence now depends on "value judg­ exposure to plastics, pesticides, and explaining, and a prudent, cautious, ments," such as "how much risk we are detergents. Little girls playing with and scientific response to the important willing to entertain." Of course, value painted or plastic toys as infants, the questions raised in Our Stolen Future is judgments can't be disproven. They are authors note, may be violating their definitely in order. A "War on Synthetic sovereign decrees, not testable future children's right to chemical-free Chemicals" is most definitely not - but hypotheses. nativity. the success of the War on Cancer, in Colborn, a leader in "eco­ Obviously, this "right" is for attracting funding if not in curing can­ epidemiology," tells us that chemicals, bumper stickers, not serious analysis. cer, speaks volumes about why Colborn unlike people, must be judged guilty Another unequivocal right advo­ and company might call for one. until proven innocent. But basic logic cated in Our Stolen Future is the "right dictates that one cannot prove a nega­ to know" what chemicals are in one's Flying Blinded tive. Unicorns may well frolic in the food, water, and other consumer goods. Modem chemistry has brought ben­ forest. We cannot disprove that possi- This is echoed by Al Gore, who writes, efits to society too numerous to list. But 56 Liberty Volume 9/ Number 6 July 1996 this better living has had its costs. In 1896/ when Herbert Spencer edited his libertarian classic Social Statics, he deleted its most radi­ DDT and CFCs prove that not all cal chapter, "The Right to the Ignore the State," and toned down several other positions. In this good things go together. When DDT review, written for his two-volume autobiography, the more mature Spencer explains his changes first arrived, Paul Muller won the by sketching a critique "as might have been written by a competent critic who had read Social Statics through, and given due thought to its arguments." Nobel Prize for his seemingly miracu­ lous chemical compound. But as Silent by Herbert Spencer. Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, Spring and recent history have shown, Social Statics, 1995 (1851), 430 pp., $15.00. DDT is not unambiguously wondrous. It carries severe consequences for much wildlife and some humans. Chloro­ fluorocarbons, similarly, were heralded as "one of the safest substances ever invented." Half a century passed before A Youthful Work by a CFCs were blamed for imperiling life on this planet. So technological progress, while Promising Author beneficial, is neither free nor without risks. Colborn, Dumanoski, and Myers take this observation much further. They find civilization plunging arro­ state, by making conformity to these gantly into the future with "dangerous Herbert Spencer conditions spontaneous. In a chapter ignorance" and risky "hubris." The entitled "The Evanescence of Evil," he risks and realities of progress have exemplifies the truth that increased use always existed, they admit, but the Nothing in this volume implies that its author accepts the current creed; of any power, bodily or mental, is fol­ scale of human impact now encom­ and though a chapter entitled "The lowed by increased strength of it; and passes the entire Earth. The stakes have Divine Idea" implies that he is a theist, conversely. He argues that the implied become too high. The risks and trade­ yet, for anything that appears to the adaptation of constitution to require­ offs of advancement are now contrary, his theism is nominal only. ments goes on without limit; and that intolerable. Immediate divine interposition therefore, in course of time, the adapta­ Our Stolen Future claims that we are, nowhere enters as a factor into his con­ tion of human nature to the social state in essence, "flying blind." What do we ception of things; but, contrariwise, will become complete - man will do when we see a dark, nebulous shape things, human as well as other, are con­ become perfect. Here is one illustration ahead? Will we race through it, hoping ceived as conforming everywhere and among many of Mr. Spencer's too­ it is a cloud and not a mountainside? always to immutable law. Such being little-qualified conclusions. We will not Will we slow down? Or will we "land the case, it seems to us that merely put­ enlarge on the fact which he should the plane as quickly as possible"? The ting at the back of immutable law a have recognized, that as fast as adapta­ technophobic authors embrace the last divine idea, practically amounts to tion approaches completeness, it option. Phase-outs, bans on new chemi­ nothing: the immutable law might becomes slower and slower - that the cals, and safer ways to "meet basic stand just as well by itself. forces which produce change become human needs" are "the only way to opt Social Statics, or, to quote its sub­ less as the need for change diminishes; out of the experiment." title, The Conditions essential to Human so that adaptation must ever remain We are flying blind to the future, Happiness specified, and the first of them incomplete. Merely noting this, we go and the authors want off the plane as developed, might fitly be characterized on to point out that, for adaptation to soon as possible. They long for an as a kind of Natural-History ethics. Its become complete, the conditions must ~dyllic past, when synthetic chemicals sub-title shows that, assuming happi­ remain constant; which they do not. didn't exist and people satisfied only ness as the end to be achieved, it Astronomic and geologic changes must their basic needs. But renouncing mod­ regards achievement of it as dependent cause in the future, as they have ernity and stifling progress will mean on fulfilment of conditions; conformity caused in the past, unceasing altera­ taking away most of the twentieth cen­ to which constitutes morality. It consid­ tions in the climatic and other charac­ tury's benefits. It takes a much more ers Man as an organized being subject ters of men's habitats; entailing slow convincing argument than Our Stolen to the laws of life at large, and consid­ migrations of races from regions which Future to cajole a full plane to land, just ers him as forced by increase of num­ have become unfit to fitter regions. because someone with a window seat bers into a social state which Along with such migrations must go sees a cloud and feels some turbulence. necessitates certain limitations to the modified habits of life, and of indus­ Responsible analysts will advocate actions by which he carries on his life; trial arrangements. So that before policies based on sound science and and a cardinal doctrine, much empha­ adaptation to anyone set of conditions the broad interests of the citizenry, not sized by Mr. Spencer, is that Man has has been approached, some other set of the machinations of crisis entrepre­ been, and is, undergoing modifications conditions will have to be met. ~m& 0 of nature which fit him for the social Passing now to the ethical part of Liberty 57 Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 his theory, we find Mr. Spencer's first Just noting that certain privileges deducing the constitution of the State proposition to be that every·man is free which men accord to women constitute from the law of equal freedom. Nor to do whatsoever he wills provided he a kind of social priority, it will suffice need the chapter on "The Duty of the does not infringe the equal freedom of to emphasize the fact that along with State" detain us, further than to remark any other man - free to do it, that is, in their citizenship, men have the obliga­ that we wish we could see some sign the sense that within this limit, other tion of defending the country, while that the State will presently give to men have no right to restrain him. This women have no such obligation. To each citizen that complete protection is said to be the primary condition to give women the same political power against civil, as well as criminal, inju­ which men's, actions must conform as men without joining to it his onerous ries, which payment of taxes entitles before social life can be harmonious. political duty, would be to give them him to. But the next chapter - "The But Mr. Spencer does not say what he not equality but supremacy. Only if, Limit of State Duty" - introduces means by men - How about children? while receiving votes, they undertook another of Mr. Spencer's peculiar H the law is not applicable to them, are to furnish to the Army and Navy con­ views, which most readers will they to be regarded in old Roman fash­ tingents equal to those which men fur­ ion, as property over which the parent nish, could they be said to be politically has life-and-death power? If, contrari­ equal. The citizen is so entangled wise, the law is applicable to them, In Part III. of his work, Mr. Spencer must they be considered as having the treats at length of those political appli­ in the organization of his soci­ same claims to freedom as their fathers, cations of his first principle incidentally ety, that he can neither escape including political freedom? Clearly touched upon in the last paragraph; the evils nor relinquish the Mr. Spencer should at least have lim­ and here we shortly come upon the ited his doctrine to adults. strangest and most indefensible doc­ benefits which come to him After making this needful qualifica­ trine in the book. Unquestionably Mr. from it. tion, we may accept the conclusion that Spencer has "the courage of his opin­ men's claims to life, to personal liberty, ions;" for, in a chapter entitled "The to property, to free speech, &c., &c., are Right to Ignore the State," he actually promptly reject. In it he contends that corollaries from this first principle: all contends that the citizen may properly beyond its function of protector against forms of equity, or equalness, being refuse to pay taxes, if at the same time external and internal enemies, the State implied in it. Passing over some he surrenders the advantages which has no function;' and that when it chapters in which these corollaries are State-aid and State-protection yield assumes any other function it becomes drawn, we come upon one which again him! But how can he surrender them? an aggressor instead of a protector ­ shows our author's way of pushing his In whatever way he maintains himself, partly by unduly restricting men's doctrines to extremes, without he must make use of sundry appliances spheres of action, and partly by taking which are indirectly due to governmen­ away their money to support its addi­ tal organization; and he cannot avoid tional staffs of officials. The remainder How about children? If the benefiting by the social order which of Part III. is devoted to discussing the law is not applicable to them, government maintains. Even if he lives various forms of legislative aggression, on a moor and makes shoes, he cannot in chapters on "The Regulation of are they to be regarded in old sell his goods or buy the things he Commerce," "Religious Establish­ Roman fashion, as property wants, without using the road to the ments," "Poor Laws," "National over which the parent has life­ neighbouring town, and profiting by Education," "Government Col­ the paving and perhaps the lighting onization," "Sanitary Supervision," &c., and-death power? when he gets there. And though he &c. Each of these chapters begins by may say he does not want police­ deducing from the law of equal free­ guardianship, yet, in keeping down dom, the inequity of the particular kind regarding the limitations necessitated footpads and burglars, the police neces­ of State-action treated of; and then pro­ by social conditions. We refer to the sarily protect him whether he asks ceeds to show the impolicy of such chapter on "The Rights of Women." them or not. Surely it is manifest - as kind of State-action. The conclusion set Setting out with the assertion that indeed Mr. Spencer himself elsewhere forth in the first two of these chapters, "equity knows no difference of sex," he implies - that the citizen is so entan­ are conclusions already drawn by argues that the rights previously gled in the organization of his society, many people. Those set forth in the oth­ deduced must be as fully recognized in that he can neither escape the evils nor ers will be variously regarded ­ women as in men; and presently com­ relinquish the benefits which come to mostly with repugnance. For ourselves ing face to face with the question of him from it. we may confess to feeling some sympa­ political rights, he boldly claims these Concerning the succeeding chapter thy with Mr. Spencer in his protests as much for the one as for the other. on "The Constitution of the State," little against the multitudinous mischiefs Now as a matter of equity simply, this needs be said. In these days of done by legislation; and think that poli­ claim might be valid were the social extended franchise and agitations for ticians would do well to inquire more positions of men and women alike in wider extension of it, Mr. Spencer will carefully and sceptically than they do, every other respect. But they are not. find general agreement in his argument before proposing new regulations. In 58 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 defending some of his theses, however, perhaps obscuring too much sundry the carrying on of their lives, it inevita­ Mr. Spencer enunciates doctrines which points of agreement of greater impor­ bly diminishes their liberties, by con­ will horrify many soft-hearted people. tance. We do not deny that, for harmo­ trolling either their actions or their Describing (on p. 322) the ways in nious social co-operation, there must be purses; while, unquestionably in many which among animals the destroying recognized the liberty of each limited cases, it does evil rather than good by agencies at work, continually "weed only by the like liberty of all: the fur­ its officious meddlings. Though, as out the sickly, the malformed, and the ther limitations which morality dic­ pointed out, the absolutely optimistic least fleet or powerful," and saying that tates, not being properly imposed by belief in the perfect adaptation of men by this and kindred processes"all vitia­ public agency. That those various to the social state, is untenable, yet tion of the race through the multiplica­ claims which we distinguish as "rights" there is reason for thinking that an tion of its inferior samples is are corollaries from this fundamental approximate adaptation is being prevented," Mr. Spencer goes on to requirement, seems also to be a well­ slowly effected. And there may be war­ argue that mankind are, and should be, grounded proposition. Moreover, the rant for the doctrine set forth in a subjected to this "same beneficent, arrangements implied by political jus­ curious section of the "General though severe discipline"; and he holds tice are deduced by Mr. Spencer from Considerations," where, saying that we that when a Government tries to pre­ the first principle he lays down, by often "speak of the body politic" and vent the misery necessitated by the arguments which seem to us mostly "compare a nation to a living organ­ stress of competition and the conse­ valid. Nor are we concerned to dispute ism" (being led, by this collocation of quent "struggle for life or death," it the inference, that when the State ideas, to use the strange phrase "the eventually creates far more misery by undertakes to regulate and aid men in social organism"), Mr. Spencer argues fostering the incapables: saying of the "spurious philanthropists" that "these sigh-wise and groan-foolish people bequeath to posterity a continually increasing curse." So, again, on pp. 378-81, he asserts that "inconvenience, suffering, and death, are the penalties attached by nature to ignorance, as well as to incompetence;" and contends that Classified Advertising is available for SOt per word, with a ten-word minimum. 10% discount for six or more insertions. Payment must accompany order. Please suggest the State does mischief when it wards c1assification. off such penalties. Verily this teaching Business/Employment Liberty Book Club, P.O. Box 1181, Port is not meat for babes but for men; and Townsend, WA 98368. men of strong digestions, too. New - Freedom Technology! Become self­ sufficient doing the easiest thing ever invented How the Government Got Its Hands on Your to make huge $'s seven ways! Full details ... Paycheck. A concise history of the Income Tax. write to: Academic Investigators, 11684 Ventura One copy free. Please send two stamps for post­ Blvd., Suite 758-E, Studio City, CA 91604 age. Bill Anderson, 4150 Capitola Rd., Suite 0-50, We wish we could see some Capitola, CA95010. sign that the State will pres­ Literature How Women Manipulate.Toward a general the­ Abortion and Rights: Applying Libertarian ory of manipulation. $5.00 + 38 cents in Texas. ently give to each citizen that Principles Correctly, by Doris Gordon. $2.00. Textar Media, Inc. P.O. Box 270813, Corpus protection which payment of Libertarians for Life, 13424 Hathaway Drive, #22, Christi, TX 78427. Wheaton, MD 20906.301-460-4141. Letters of Ayn Rand, edited byMichael Berliner. taxes entitles him to. AIDS Epidemic inTampa,Florida!!! Free Report: Take a look into the private and professional life HPAF. P.O. Box 10088, Tampa, FL 33679. of Ayn Rand - in her own words. $24.95 ($10.00 Ayn Rand admirers: Self-realization through offpublisher's price) plus$3.00 s&h. Liberty Book Club, P.O. Box 1181, PortTownsend, WA 98368. However, it is needful to add that Mr. eudaimonic Objectivism. Principles & applica­ Spencer protests only against interfer­ tions! Send $5 to Brian Foley, Dept. L-1, 17-09 liThe most thorough and scholarly work ever Utopia Parkway, Whitestone, NY11357. done on Ayn Rand." Ayn Rand: The Russian ence by the State with the normal con­ Radical, by Chris Matthew Sciabarra. $21.95 nexion between suffering and Better Government: Read Voter's Revenge. ". .. a great piece of work" - Cato Institute. $6.95 ($23.00 off the publisher's price) plus $3.00 s&h. Liberty Book Club, P.O. Box 1181, Port inferiority: saying, of the natural expur­ postpaid, guaranteed. Ph: 800-238-6823. Box 394­ Townsend, WA 98368. gation of society ever going on, that, Y, Youngtown, AZ 85363. voters@thebookcom "in so far as the severity of this process http://www.thebookcom/revenge/ XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography, by Wendy McElroy. A stirring defense of sexual is mitigated by the spontaneous sympa­ Directory of Libertarian Periodicals, updated freedom. $18.95 ($3.00 off publisher's price) plus thy of men for each other, it is proper latest edition, lists about 150 titles, with $3.00 s&h. Liberty Book Club, P.O. Box 1181, Port addresses, other information. All believed to be that it should be mitigated." Townsend, WA 98368. Part IV. we must pass over; though presently publishing. $3.00 postpaid, $4.00 over­ seas. Jim Stumm, Box 29-LB, Hiler Branch, Periodicals the chapter entitled "General Con­ Buffalo, NY 14223. siderations" contains matter for com­ Living Free newsletter, practical methods for Mor~lity, ment - mostly approving but partly Foundations of by Henry Hazlitt. increasing personal freedom, for libertarians, Stirring defense of individual freedom from the survivalists, anarchists, outlaws, since 1979. dissentient. Already points of dissent author of the classic Economics in One Lesson. Lively, unique. $12.00 for 6 issues, sample $2.00. have been sufficiently emphasized - $13.95 ($4.00 off publisher's price) plus $3.00 s&h. Box 29-LB, Hiler Branch, Buffalo, NY 14223. Liberty 59 Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 that there is going on a conciliation welfare of society demands. of flattery, but it can also be the most between the structure of society and the It is a pity that Mr. Spencer did not conniving form of blasphemy. Post­ structures of its units - an action and devote some years more of thought to irony often involves the conscious reaction by which the two are being his work before publishing it. He might choice to display bad taste in order to ever moulded and re-moulded into then have set forth the truths it contains sneer at it. When people wore bell­ congruity; so that eventually man will freed from the crude ideas with which bottoms and tacky platform shoes in acquire a nature such that he will tend they are now mingled, and undisfig­ the '70s, they were following bad fash­ to do spontaneously that which the ured by illegitimate corollaries. 0 ion. When a post-ironic GenXer dons the same duds, he does so with full knowledge of how bad he looks. He Spamming the Spamways: a guide for the perplexed. puts these objets d'(non)art on to sneer at them. Baby boomers may not fully understand why so many of their chil­ dren are dressing as they once did, but by and large they know enough not to take it as a compliment. Post-irony becomes a clever, almost insidious way A Very to strike back at your elders. How could you have been so stupid? is the implied message. And the boomers are forced to rewitness their less-than-glamorous Brady Irony past. By digging up or making reference to past examples of bad art or pop cul­ ture, post-ironists require the viewer to the joke. Matt Asher understand the reference. The more Such is the nature of post-ironic obscure the reference, the more kudos humor - it is contextual and often you get: wearing a Brady Bunch T-shirt In straightforward irony, someone requires inside information to be scores fewer points than reciting lyrics achieves the opposite of his intent. If an understood, or even noticed. Often it from an old T. Rex song. actor in a play, sensing an impending exists solely for the sake of the teller, flood, completely sandbags his house who is not upset if no one else catches It's Everywhere to save it, but the weight of the sand­ on. If romantic art strives to express Marcel Duchamp may have been bags collapse the house, that is ironic. universal human themes, post-irony the first artist to recognize the power of The post-ironic actor would save his looks to express particular artistic post-irony. His cans of "merde" are a house by simply torching it to begin quirks. The less accessible it is to the good example. By packaging and sell- with. general populace, the greater its ing a can of his own feces, Irony is usually serendipitous. Post­ chances of being deemed wor- Duchamp pointed out that irony requires self-consciousness. The thy. Post-irony is the humor of people will buy any post-ironist acts in full awareness that inside jokes. shit that had been he is being ironic. If, as Nietzsche Post-ironic action often neatly packaged. argued, we become that which we fight involves co-opting He distilled what he against, the post-ironic solution is to the symbols of ,J/j~s.. , saw as the worst of embrace that which we do not wish to another movement '/G:~ .:~; commercial art and become. If you believe our cultural to make the opposite point. The ~~/';": ,If:":' threw it back into peo- ~I ~ nadir was Scooby 000, what better way context creates the irony. For ffJ[ 'Wi I pIe's faces. · d C 1 h ',. : ~~ /1/;1;7:'//,( to deal with this atrocity than by parad­ exampIe, my f~l~n a as a '\,.,:"A~ 1i.~JF~}~,/~ The most promi- ing it around on a T-shirt? Volkswagen mInIbus. He plays ~

Pleased to be included, I wish - for So why read about this kind of Andrews, Tucker, Spooner, et al.) with my sake and for that of my unidenti­ thing at all? Parfrey's answer comes at those outside the tradition. Sprading's fied admirers - that A Reader's Guide to the conclusion to my favorite chapter, idea was an interesting one, but he Twentieth-Century Writers were a "The Endangered Freak": "We must re­ doesn't really convince. Everybody stronger book. -Richard Kostelanetz learn to gawk without shame, to admit knows just how different these people our fascination with deformity, the bio­ were. Learning to Gawk - Adam logic expression of the fin-de-siecle. If The biggest problem, for me at least, Parfrey is the kind of journalist who we aren't allowed to know the 'other,' is all the nutball economics (the selec­ wouldn't just cover a serial killer ­ we sure as hell will never understand tions from William B. Greene are espe­ he'd hire the murderer as his crime cor­ ourselves." -Jesse Walker cially embarrassing). Most of these respondent. As an author and as a pub­ writers fell prey to money-crankism, lisher, Parfrey takes the voyeurism Libertarian Chrestomathy ­ odd land-reform schemes, and idiotic beneath the surface of mainstream jour­ "Libertarianism" originally meant a anti-capitalist blather. In the few pages nalism, magnifies it, and thrusts it into belief in free will, with no political of his introduction to the new edition the reader's face. So you're interested implications at all. The construction (Fox & Wilkes, 1995, xiv + 362 pp., in cultists, criminals, and crazies, he "civil libertarian" seems to date from $24.95 hc, $14.95 sc), Carl Watner tries says. So you're curious about the the latter half of the nineteenth century; to set this into some perspective. But he fringe. Well, here it is. Take a good look the word "libertarian," alone and needs more space, and a lot more will­ at it. Don't turn away! Are you satisfied? naked, was taken over by the anarchists ingness to criticize the American His most recent book, Cult Rapture as a euphemism a little later. (The anar­ individualists. (Feral House, 1995, 371 pp., $14.95), chists needed a new label, as the bomb­ But for all their errors, these think­ covers everything from the mail-order throwers and assassins in their midst ers also have their charms. Theodore bride business (which "confirmed femi­ had sullied the name even beyond its Hertzka, an Austrian economist nist tracts pillorying the male's dehu­ original meaning, "a supporter of social (though not of the"Austrian school"), manizing regard of the female as or political chaos" - which was pejora­ makes sense occasionally, even as he commodity") to James Shelby tive enough.) advocates ideas I find dubious (he Downard, the undisputed king of the If Charles Sprading's Liberty and opposes land ownership). Any radical conspiracy theorists. There are also sev­ the Great Libertarians, published in who demolishes the labor theory of eral chapters on the militia movement, 1913, is any indication, the word was value can't be all bad. with which Parfrey betrays some sym­ also used as an attempt to cast the net pathies. Then there's I CAN ("a cult of It is apparent that the term "libertar­ outside the small world of die-hard sex-obsessed cripples"), a rather cruel ian" has evolved since Sprading's time. attack on Andrea Dworkin (whose the­ anarchists. Sprading's book includes Mencken used it on occasion, and ories he initially equates with the femi­ aphorisms ("Laconics of Liberty") and Mencken was more a Sumnerian Social nist mainstream, "a lazy, misogynist essays from a great diversity of individ­ Darwinist than anything else. About assumption for which I apologize"), uals. The anti-slavery, anti-Constitution mid-century, the Georgist radicals and a report on a fan club devoted to constitutional lawyer Lysander Albert Jay Nock and Frank Chodorov, one of Elvis Presley's girlfriends. This Spooner is preceded in these pages by along with thinkers and promoters last item is prefaced by another apol­ the American president Abraham such as Leonard Read and Robert ogy: "The following article, which orig­ Lincoln; the single-tax theoretician LeFevre, began using the term to inally appeared in the San Diego Reader, Henry George is followed by the defend their pro-capitalist, anti-socialist ostensibly contains insights on the soci­ Christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy, the philosophies. This usage was solidified ological bizarrarie of fandom. A little individualist-anarchist Benjamin as admirers of Ayn Rand's thought hindsight has filled me with shame Tucker, and the communist-anarchist (and refugees from it) also adopted the over the article's laconic sadism. Little Prince Peter Kropotkin. Oscar Wilde term to describe their thinking. did I realize that the vicarious pleas­ and George Bernard Shaw snuggle Anarchists of the old-fashioned, ures of fandom exist so that its between the covers with practitioners can face impossibly bleak Robert Ingersoll, John lives. ... Although I fully admit my Stuart Mill, Emma culpability in the following article's Goldman, and Edmund sneering condescension, I offer it here Burke. Max Stirner is uncut as an object lesson to unfeeling excerpted, as are Herbert sadists. Those who laugh with the arti­ Spencer, Thomas Paine, cle, who share in my joy at clubbing Auberon Herbert, and ... easy targets, should consider them­ Mr. Dooley! selves implicated in the crime ... joy at The charm of this vol­ other people's expense is the necessary ume is the juxtaposition first step in dehumanizing the 'other,' of the American individ- the psychological precondition for ualist anarchists Gosiah "We shouldn't have left it running over the weekend ­ genocide." Warren, Stephen Pearl it came up with a doctrine of free will." Liberty 65 Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 anti-capitalist variety find this appro­ Sprading's, geared to contemporary the crime and the evidence, focusing priation maddening. Perhaps when the individualists and titled Liberty and the most of her attention on the most word "liberal" once more denotes sup­ Great Liberals, would simply not fly. Or, arcane, namely the DNA evidence, port for individual freedom, we can it would fly in the face of everyday which mirabile dictu she renders intelligi­ give "libertarian" back to the "real" usage. ble. She concludes with a postcript con­ anarchists. But right now a book like Too bad. -Timothy Virkkala sisting of 28 propositions ranging from unlikely to preposterous that one would Warning: D.J.-Related Para­ have to accept as true if O.J. were actu­ graph - After a year's intrusion of ally innocent. She adds several appendi­ O.J. into my life, I didn't think it possi­ ces, ranging from the informative (a ble for anyone to write a book about his directory of all witnesses) to the merely case that would be remotely interest­ funny (a directory of O.J. websites on ing. M.L. Rantala has proven me wrong Internet). Somehow, she manages to be with 0./. Unmasked (Catfeet Press, both informative and amusing on a 1996, 272 pp, $16.95). Rantala reviews weary subject. -R.W. Bradford

Stupidity Kills - The films of video rental library to find the collected writers Joel and Ethan Coen show just works of the Coens, you might want to how "in sync" two artists can be. Their expand your search for stylish films latest, Fargo Goel Coen, dir.; 1996), is about stupid criminals to include satire. one of their best. The last five minutes I will recommend one: last year's bril­ transform the film's dark comedy by liant send-up of the television age, To adding a profound moral argument for Die For (Gus Vant Sant, dir.). Starring bourgeois virtue. And the argument is Nicole Kidman in her best role (and per­ made cinematically, not verbally: to get formance) ever, this film takes the prem­ Liberty is on the Web! the message, you have to read between ise of a vapid, stupid, ambitious woman Visit Liberty Unbound, the actors' spoken lines. and carries it to its logical conclusion. our Web site at Earlier movies, such as Raising As with Fargo, it is based on a real event http://www.LibenySoft.com/liberty/ Arizona and Miller's Crossing, proved - though Van Sant's film takes, I think, and tellyourfriends! that the Coen brothers are masters of greater liberties with the basic story. film style. Blood Simple, their first pic­ Written by Buck Henry (who also ture, showed their talent for shock. has a small acting role in the film), To Fargo shows that their talents have blos­ Die For takes an arch view of media Attention somed. It also carries on their tradition consciousness. It is very funny, flaw­ of telling tales about stupid criminals. lessly acted, artfully directed, and Liberty While Hollywood regales audiences tightly edited. Is there an argument in with fantasies of Moriartyesque super­ the film? Sort of. The viewer is made to Subscribers: criminals and evil geniuses - the Bond see how media-obsession scuttles the There is an easy way to find out when films, The Silence ofthe Lambs, just about play of actual thought and cultivated your subscription ends: any technothriller - the brothers Coen virtue. And I confess: if the criminals in (l) Ifyour subscription runs out with offer viewers a more realistic picture of the story had any claim to intelligence, the current issue or the next issue, we will the world. Research does not offer I might turn away in disgust and see enclose a renewal notice with your copy. much evidence that criminals tend to modern media as a corrupting influ­ (2) Ifyou do not have an enclosed be smarter than their victims. Holly­ ence. I might even turn away and read renewal notice, take a look at the address wood's army of unrealistically intelli­ a book or something. But the criminals label on your magazine. To the right of gent villains thus displays a rather are so stupid that the proper reaction is your name should be the issues left in twisted romanticism. to laugh, and to gloat in their undoing. your subscription, followed by the word Joel and Ethan Coen may be a little And to scour the video racks for more "left," as in "3 left." twisted, but they are not romantics. intelligent movies like this. Any questions about your subscription They are capable of irony and.under­ -Timothy Virkkala should be directed to: statement and a hundred other subtle­ Liberty Circulation ties that romantics rarely master. But Don't Look Back - Neglected in P.O. Box 1181 they are not quite satirists. his day, rediscovered in the late '70s as Port Townsend, WA 98368 So, while you scurry to the local "the worst director of all time," Ed Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 Wood has been reassessed again. The becomes a living paradigm of bad taste. want to push too much.) The director's new Wood is a misunderstood auteur, a Far better to watch Burton's movie, agenda against the British class system, filmmaking primitive whose best or to pick up one of Wood's own gems. however laudatory, also prevents a movies were dada masterpieces - all -Jesse Walker thorough exploration of the subjects' the more so because he had no idea personal lives. The best moment of the what he was doing. Though best Heads Down, Thumbs Up - It film comes when an exasperated known for Plan 9 From Outer Space, was inevitable that a documentary like woman exclaims, in reaction to the Wood's greatest picture was his first, 28 Up (Michael Apted, dir.; 1985) would interviewer pressing for her opinion of Glen or Glenda, a gender-bending sub­ be made. In 1963, a group of seven-year­ her working-class station, "I don't think version of American sex roles that old English boys and girls were inter­ about it - except every seven years deserves comparison to the best work viewed for the BBC. Give me a child when you ask me!" of the Spanish surrealist Luis Buftuel. through seven, goes the cliche, and I'll There are other problems. My post­ I'm serious. Well, half-serious. show you the man. The director decided feminist sensibilities were disgusted Wood was comically incompetent, an to put this to a test, returning every with the emphasis on the men and chil­ alcoholic transvestite who started out seven years to discover how each per­ dren in the women subjects' lives. I making Grade-Z exploitation flicks and son evolved. (Since this film came out, must also confess to some chauvinism: I ended up directing extremely-Iow­ 35 Up has been made, and I am told 42 found myself wishing the interviewees budget porn. His pictures featured Up will be released in the near future.) were American, because we are infi­ bizarrely inappropriate dialogue, Unfortunately, the film is disap­ nitely more interesting than at least laughably cheap special effects, and no pointing. It's certainly interesting to these Brits: more outgoing, more opti­ sense of continuity whatsoever. But the watch the subjects' lives develop, but mistic, more idiosyncratic. I hope that result could be greater than the sum of the director relies far too much on sit­ this putative "cross-section" of British its parts. You've all heard of movies down interviews, stunting our insight society isn't anything of the sort. that are "so bad, they're good"; Glen or into how these people interact with Nonetheless, these people aren't Glenda is so bad, it's a work of genius. their friends, families, communities, boring, and I saw enough of their lives Like schizophrenic writing, Wood's and careers. (But then, would you let a to want to see more. Perhaps the film­ films exude a giddy originality that few filmmaker follow you on your daily maker's ambitious reach thwarted his "real" artists can beat. So if you don't rounds? The director was already mak­ work's success. Life is just too damn think Wood and Buftuel are lost soul­ ing quite an imposition by returning complicated to capture satisfactorily in mates, a primitive and a genius who every seven years, so perhaps he didn't this format. -Michael Levine wound up at strikingly similar destina- ~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~I tions, try putting them on a video dou- ble-bill - Glen or Glenda and The Exterminating Angel, or Plan 9 and Un AYNRAND Chien Andaleu. But don't rent Ed Wood: Look Back in Angora (Ted Newsom, dir.; 1994), a MILTON FRIEDMAN Rhino Home Video documentary Interviewed on video by released right after Tim Burton's excel­ lent film Ed Wood. Wood connoisseurs may enjoy seeing clips from the direc­ PHIL DONAHUE tor's late, hard-to-find skin flicks, but other than that, this video is next to Volume 1: Two sizzling interviews: Rand vehemently useless. You hardly ever know which attacks the immorality ofgovernment and religion; Nobel Wood picture it is you're seeing clips winner Friedman discusses best seller "Free to Choose." from, and when you do, you're still likely to be puzzled. (Why, for exam­ ple, are some Glen clips colorized and Volume 2: A moving visit with the brilliant philosopher, others black-and-white?) Worst of all perhaps the last video interview before her death; Friedman, are narrator Gary Owens' smarmy in layman's terms, decapitates "liberal" economics. voice-overs. Owens seems capable only of making unfunny jokes about how Each Volume Only inept Wood's movies are. He's right, of Indicate how many ofeach volume course, but he's also superfluous. We $ 24.95 you want and sendpayment to: can see how bad these movies are; the (inc!. shipping, handling, CA sales clips are right in front of us. Owens' tax - allow' 4-5 weeks for delivery) sarcastic tone and dumb wisecracks No Free Lunch Distributors only insult our intelligence. And when 2219 W. Olive Ave. # 218 10% DISCOUNT he makes fun of Wood's human failings Burbank, CA 91506 - his poverty and alcoholism - he on orders of2 or more tapes! Volume 9, Number 6 July 1996 Reflections, continued from page 15

Treating women as chattel, as de refused an earlier, non-binding ruling tives and libertarians argue that the facto slaves to either their fathers or to free her). Her case began in earnest family should be kept sacrosanct no their husbands, can have gruesome on May 2, before the Board of matter what, simply to allow it to thrive results. "Surgical" removal of the clit­ Immigration Appeals. As I write, no as a "countervailing power" to the wel­ oris is one. Sewn-up vaginas are decision has been reached. fare state. But the Kasinga/Ferlise story another. (The latter is inflicted most It is instructive to note just who in reminds us of such an extreme posi­ commonly on virgins; on wedding day, this case the oppressors are: "tradi­ tion's limits. Laissez faire does not mean the vagina is opened with a razor to tional family values." No, not our tradi­ "let them govern"; it means "let them permit coition. In many African coun­ tional family values; the traditional act," with the strong suggestion of "let tries, the husband has a right to family values of some Africans and them act peacefully" or "live and let demand that his wife or wives be sewn some Muslims. (It would be easy to live." Any group can engage in "gov­ up for long stretches of time - usually expand the list of oppressors, of course: ernance"; families are themselves pow­ while he is away traveling, but in until public pressure was applied, the ers worthy of limits. theory for any reason whatsoev~r.) INS played its role with all the Surely we should be able to agree Unfortunately, this short list of genital humanity of an East German border that familial authority should be lim­ mutilations is not exhaustive; Africa is guard.) ited by individual liberty, at the very full of surprises and culture shocks. It is also instructive to note who the least of the adults within the families. Thankfully, public pressure has led heroes are: feminists who have rallied And surely we can agree that clans can to a review of Kasinga's case. After two around Ms. Kasinga and pressured the be as oppressive as states, and that sys­ years in prison awaiting appeal, Ms. INS into reviewing her case. tematic oppression by clans might con­ Kasinga was released by the INS Many Americans are, of course, stitute a legitimate reason to emigrate. (though this took some doing: one INS legitimately leery of government inter­ And immigrate to America. You know, district director, Scott Blackman, ference in family life. Some conserva- the "Land of the Free"? - TWV

Bob Black, "White Man's Ghost Dance," continued from page 48

Why is primogeniture common sense courts - as the Constitutionalists submitted to the court. Enormous everywhere in England except Kent? Or believe. Over the centuries there was quantities of paperwork piled up. consider the Common Law doctrine jurisdictional jostling, ideological antag­ Anybody who thinks equity proceeded that in marriage, husband and wife onism between jurists trained in differ­ summarily should reread Bleak House. If become legally one person - and that ent legal traditions, and political conflict Constitutionalists are correct that courts person is the husband. If this is com­ over the scope of the royal prerogative of equity are tyrannical, colonial mon sense, so is the Holy Trinity, a kin­ and thus of the power of the prerogative Americans would never have set them dred doctrine. It implies that wives courts, but these were not battles in a up, and the Constitution would never have no property rights, which was holy war. Some of it was little more than have countenanced them. In fact, by the very close to their legal situation in competition for business. Some settled eighteenth century, there were home­ England and colonial America. But down into a rough division of functions. grown chancery courts in New York, libertarian it is not. Litigants did not take sides; they South Carolina, and other colonies; else­ Krawchuck has an illustrious prede­ exploited the confusion. Thus a plaintiff where, "Common Law" courts exer­ cessor: England's first Stuart king, might bring an action in equity to take cised equity jurisdiction. And the James I. In 1607, the king announced advantage of its "English bill" proce­ Constitution the Constitutionalists that he would join his judges on the dure providing for pre-trial discovery of would rather revere than read expressly bench. Common Law, he had heard, evidence - and then introduce that evi­ assigned equity jurisdiction to the fed­ was "Natural Reason" as dence in a common-law action where eral judiciary (Art. 111,02(1); Am. XI). Krawchuck would say, common sense the court could not have secured that Which brings us up to the - and he had as much Natural Reason evidence itself. The vast majority of Constitutionalist contention that the as anybody! Gently but firmly, Sir Englishmen had nothing to do with Constitution is part of the inherited and Edward Coke corrected His Majesty. It these elite machinations. immemorial Common Law. This poses was true that the Common Law was It's absurd to say, as Con­ obvious logical difficulties. If Equity is based on Natural Reason, but it was stitutionalists do, that equity was a not Common Law, but the Constitution not identical with it. To expound "the summary proceeding in which defen­ includes Equity, how can the Artificial Reason of the Law" required dants had no rights. On the contrary, Constitution be Common Law? If experts: judges. from at least the Elizabethan period, Americans (once rid of British tyranny) There was never any such equity was condemned for being too enjoyed the Common Law in its pleni­ Manichean (or Tolkienesque) war of cumbersome and slow. Instead of oral tude, why did they take the trouble to good with evil - of the Common Law testimony, for instance, depositions adopt the Constitution? And then the against the equity and the conciliar were taken, reduced to writing, and Bill of Rights? How is it possible to 68 Liberty Volume 9, Number 6 improve upon perfection - over and over again? In the fairy tale, the king had twelve beautiful daughters, each more lovely than all the rest. is Constitutionalism has the Common Chester Alan Arthur Liberty's Bill Kauffman is author of America Law, the Magna Carta, and the political correspondent. First!, Country Towns ofNew York, Constitution, each replete with every Matt Asher was founding editor of and Every Man a King. excellence of the others, and then some. the short-lived Chicago Scroll. David B. Kopel is research director of The Constitution of 1787 does not even "Baloo" is cartoonist Rex F. May. the Independence Institute. mention the Common Law (although it John A. Baden chairs the Foundation Richard Kostelanetz is an independent mentions Equity) - perhaps out of for Research on Economics and the artist and critic. modesty, a virtue the Common Law Environment. Michael Levine is circulation manager necessarily possesses, since it possesses John Bergstrom won the 1995 of Liberty. them all. And thensome. Mencken Award for editorial Loren E. Lomasky is author of Persons, In Egyptian mythology, the god cartooning. Osiris was slain by his brother Set, and Rights, and the Moral Community. Bob Black is author of Beneath the his dismembered pieces were scattered Kathryn Lyon is an attorney and Underground, Friendly Fire, and The writer in Olympia, Washington. far and wide. But these parts could no Abolition ofWork. more die than could immortal Osiris, Harold Lyons is Schering Plough David Boaz is executive vice president although, dispersed and hidden, they Professor of Chemistry at Rhodes of the Cato Institute. were separately impotent. Once his University and coauthor of limbs were retrieved and reassembled, Ben Bolch is McCallum Professor of Apocalypse Not. mighty Osiris rose from the dead and Economics at Rhodes University and coauthor of Apocalypse Not. Douglas S. Noonan is a research assist­ vanquished the forces of evil. That's ant at the Foundation for Research how Constitutionalists regard the R. W. Bradford is editor and publisher on Economics and the Environment. Common Law. Now that their treasure­ of Liberty. Joseph Olson is a law professor at hunt has turned up the missing pieces, Ted Galen Carpenter is director of for­ Hamline University. all Americans have to do, according to eign policy studies at the Cato the Oklahoma Freedom Council, is get Institute and author of The Captive Randal O'Toole is president of the it all together and "the country would Press. Thoreau Institute. be free overnight." And they all lived Stephen Cox is author of Love and Michael Peters is a friend of freedom happily ever after. Logic: The Evolution ofBlake's who enjoys mountain-climbing. The tragedy of Constitutionalism is Thought. Ralph Raico is professor of history at that it hopes to evoke by its magic an Nathan Crow is an editorial intern at State University of New York in idealized imagined earlier version of Liberty. Buffalo. the very form of society - our own ­ that was the first to banish magic from Brian Doherty is assistant editor of Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) coined the world. With growing commerce Reason. the term "survival of the fittest," came calculation, quantification, and Frank Fox is editor and translator of among other achievements. the distinction of "is" from "ought." Am I a Murderer? Clark Stooksbury is assistant publisher Myth is timeless, but when it comes to James Gill is Liberty's staff artist. of Liberty. the performance of contracts, "time is Mina Greb is an editorial intern at Timothy Virkkala is managing editor of the essence." Money is merely a gen­ Liberty. of Liberty. erally accepted medium of exchange, Robert Higgs is research director of Jesse Walker is assistant editor of not some sacred "substance"; whether the Independent Institute. Liberty. it's gold, silver, tobacco, or paper is a matter of convenience. Law is any application for the official use of coer­ cion that succeeds. The proprietor or Nor ever will. Constitutionalism Mormonism, they grow up in them. We trader is indifferent to whether his combines the worst features of supersti­ seem to be in prime time, sad to say, for invocation of the law against a thief, a tion and reality without the attractions cults both old and new, but not this one. trespasser, a business rival, or a com­ of either. Like real law, it's dull as dirt; Itisn't even tax-deductible. CI munist revolutionary owed its effec­ unlike real law, it doesn't work. Like tiveness to immemorial custom, superstition, it's inconsistent, irrational, Notes: legislation, the Ten Commandments, or obscurantist, and ineffectual, but it a well-placed bribe. Myth and magic 1. Ken V. Krawchuck, IICommon Law Court entirely lacks the poetry and pageantry Convened in Pennsylvania,1I 34 R.S.V.P. are merely tactics to tryon those who that often enliven myth and religion. (1995-1996), p. 22. believe in them. Judges don't believe in Very few people espouse belief-systems 2. Ken V. Krawchuck, IIKen-Nection IllIlI: Constitutionalism and neither do very this complicated and crackbrained Playing with the System and Winning," 32 many other people. unless, as with Catholicism or R.S. V.P. (1995), p. 9. Liberty 69 Norway Germany Identity politics in Scandinavia, as reported in The sociology of German laughter, as reported in The Dagbladet: Wall Street Journal: The leader of Norway's 9,115-member organization Justice A recent cover of Der Spiegel featured pictures of TV personal­ for Losers - whose particularly strong representation in Lapland ity Harald Schmidt, Hitler, and other famous Germans wearing leads it to refer to that region as "Loserland" - recently met with clown noses and asked "How funny are the Germans?" The article King Harald. The group now receives about $40,000 annually in invoked Kant and Hegel to explain why so many Germans seem to government support. have trouble laughing. Roanoke, Ind. Sembach Air Base, Ga. Advanced Judaic taxonomy, from Dispatches from The Postmodem military training, described in Airman Last Ditch: magazine: "I stipulate that by 'the Jews' I do not refer, for purposes of American peacekeeping troops bound for Bosnia are trained in ruling-class analysis, to Sam the deli owner or Isaac the violinist land-mine recognition, winter survival, first aid, and talking to the or David the urologist. However, justice demands a qualification: press. once Sam or Isaac or David sends money to the State of Israel, AIPAC, or the ADL, he does become an Official Jew, albeit of United Kingdom minor standing as a 'domestic servant.'" Evidence that government health care doesn't mean rationing, from the London Times: San Francisco At least 500 people with kidney failure are being allowed to die A victory for the Differently Abled, reported in the San each year because there are too few facilities to treat them, accord­ Francisco Chronicle: ing to a report commissioned by the British government. And the The cost of rebuilding a small footbridge over less than ten shortage of facilities will worsen over the next decade. feet of water has skyrocketed to $413,000. The Americans with The National Review of Renal Services was ordered by the Disabilities Act requires the new bridge to be wheelchair­ Health Department almost two years ago, but publication was accessible - which, in tum, requires a total regrading of the sur­ delayed by the Treasury because of alarm at its financial implica­ rounding hills. tions. The Department eventually slipped it out unannounced. North Carolina Texas How government regulators protect the public, The most pressing problem with government health according to the Norfolk Virginian Pilot: care, according to a letter to constituents from Rep. Steve The North Carolina building code requires funeral homes to Stockman (R.-Tex.): get permits every time they set up a tent for a service. "Medicaid money is being used to pay for sex change opera­ tions! Thousands of taxpayer dollars wasted because some man Planet Earth thinks he's trapped in a woman's body!" Culture in the global village, as described in World Press Review: Oklahoma City Baywatch is seen each week by approximately one billion peo­ Justice in the Sooner State, as described in the Chicago ple - a fifth of the world population. Tribune: A jury recommended a 30,000-year prison sentence for a con­ Simi Valley, Calif. victed child rapist because they didn't want him on the streets New techniques of evaluating student performance, as again. "By God we can sen.d a message," jury forewoman Laura described in the Los Angeles Times: Bixler said. Simi Valley elementary schools have replaced letter grades He could be up for parole, though, in as little as 15 years. with evaluations of 160 academic and social skills, including "holds book upright." Washington, D.C. The wit and wisdom of Rep. Sonny Bono (R.-Calif.), Denver from an interview in The American Enterprise: Advanced technique in nature documentaries, as Q: Who, so far, is your favorite House Democrat? reported in the Denver Post: A: Barney Frank. He's a tough guy and he's very smart. He's According to former employees of the Wild America TV got good humor and he enjoys a good beef. He can become a series, some of the show's scenes - including some sequences in straight man and know he's a straight man. which animals were killed - were actually filmed in cages. The cages were edited out so the scenes would appear to be filmed in (Readers are invited to forward newsc1ippings or other items for the wild. publication in Terra Incognita.) 70 Liberty Before you take the plunge, think! And before you think, listen! Investment Advice - Bonanza or BS? Wise words from eminent investors and economists. Do investment advisors really have anything to offer their customers - at least so far as good investment advice is concerned? Is there a science ofeconomic forecasting? Advisors HarryBrowne, Douglas Casey, and R.W. Bradford are joined by economist David Friedman and professional speculator Victor NiederhofIer in this Money no-holds-barred debate! Audio: $5.95. Video: $19.50. The Economy ofthe Twenty-First Century The future promises to challenge every one ofour prejudices, every one ofour expectations. Sparks fly when world-famous commodity Talks speculators Victor Niederhoffer and Jim Rogers join investment advisors Douglas Casey, R.W. Bradford, and Harry Browne and academic economists David Friedman and Leland Yeager for a fascinating exploration ofthe future. An incredible tape! Audio only: $5.95. The Nazijication ofthe Money Supply The War on Drugs has sent government officials after your right to privacy, turning the very money you use into an instrument ofyour own subjugation. J. Orlin Grabbe explains how and why the government has taken over the banking system for its own ends, and how you can get your privacy back. Audio: $5.95. Video: $19.50. The Best - and Worst - Places to Invest and Live Investment advisor Douglas Casey is also a world traveler, visiting Third World backwaters and chatting with tinpot dictators from Cuba to Central Asia. In this fascinating talk, he recounts his recent adventures - and tells what valuable wealth-protecting information he learned. Audio: $5.95. Video: $19.50. Money Camouflage, Deception, and Survival in the World ofInvesting Victor NiederhofIer, one ofthe most successful speculators in the Talks nation, offers his model ofhow markets function. Complex and r------,in-depth. Audio: $5.95. Video: $19.50. I Yes! Please send me the following tapes: name I Investment Advice - Bonanza or BS? I =The Nazification of the Money Supply address I I The Best - and Worst - Places to Invest and Live I _ Camouflage, Deception, and Survival in the World of Investing city, state, zip I_ The Economy of the Twenty-First Century (Audio only) 0 I enclose my check (payable to Liberty Book Club) I Please specify audio ($5.95) or video ($19.50) 0 Charge my 0 VISA 0 MasterCard I Add $2.00 s&h for first tape, 50¢ for each additional tape. I signature I To order, call 1-800-854-6991, or write to Liberty Book Club, I Dept. BC8,.P.O. Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368. account # expires ..I L ------All politics is loco.

Enjoy the spectacle with the sharpest political observers in the world.

Bill Clinton. Newt Gingrich. bates on controversies like children's Jesse Jackson. Jesse Helms. Al Gore. rights, capital punishment, and na­ Pete Wilson. Hillary Clinton. Bob tional defense. Dole. .I Liberty brings you witty and Where do they find these people? sometimes outrageous reviews of lit­ American politics is a circus. erature and film from a variety of in­ American public policy is a vaude­ dividualist perspectives. ville show. And the men and women ~ From Waco to Wenatchee, who put on the programs are a little ... Liberty's investigative reporters Nutty. Goofy. blow the lid off government's dirty Loco. deeds. Time and again, we're ahead If you prefer liberty to coercion, of the play-it-safe magazines. logic to demagoguery, and real wit to .I Plus the outrageous car- the politicians' canned jokes, you toons ofJames Gill, Baloo, need relief. and John Bergstrom; the wit of You need Liberty. "Reflections"; the weirdness of Liberty is the probing, pro­ "Terra Incognita"; media criticism; vocative alternative to the cant of the and much more! political class and the cliches of the All politics is loco. Washington punditocracy. We treat And there's no relief like Liberty. the statists' mindless babble with the actionary fear of the free market. Act Now! disrespect it deserves, and we un­ Liberty celebrates freedom - and Liberty offers you the best in earth the problems - and solutions! our thought-provoking reviews and libertarian writing. So don't hesitate. - that the politicians and bu­ essays dissect the history and argu­ Send in the coupon below, or call us reaucrats don't dare touch. ments of freedom's enemies. toll free at Each issue of Liberty offers fresh .I Liberty tackles the tough issues news and original. perspectives you - the problems of living in a co­ 1·800·854·6991 won't find anywhere else ... ercive society, of playing hardball in .I Liberty's writers do battle with the world of realpolitik. We face the with your credit card information. both conservatism's moralistic nag­ most explosive libertarian conflicts You don't want to miss one issue of ging and modern liberalism's re- head on, with no-holds-barred de- Liberty, so subscribe today! ~------­ , ,YeS' I want Liberty. Please enter my ------I· subscription as follows: D Twelve issues: $37.00 (two years) Name I D Six issues: $19.50 (one year) I D My check/money order is enclosed (foreign Address I orders add $5.00 per year) I Charge my: D MasterCard D Visa expires:__ City, State, Zip I Call toll free: 1-800-854-6991 Account # Or send to: Liberty, Dept. L54 I P.O. Box 1181 I L Signature Phone Date Port Townsend, WA 98368 ~