Recall Gorby's Peace Prize
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Time to Recall Gorby's May 1991 Vo14, No 5 $4.00 Peace Prize ((0 Liberty! wliat crimes are committea in tfiy nanu!" -Mme !R.gfana Are youcapable,hard-working, anddedicatedto individualliberty? Would you like to take an active role in achieving a freer society LEADERS for yourself and your children? Underits NonprofitManagementProgram,theInstituteforHumane Studies awards fellowships to outstanding men and women to assist their transition from the business or academic world to the AND market-orientednonprofitsector. Supportedby a stipendfrom IHS and working on-site at a suitable nonprofit organization, fellow ship recipients gainhands-onexperience innonprofitmanagement DOERS and administration. Think tanks, institutes, foundations, and citizen action groups are constantly on the lookout for success-oriented individuals to fill positions at every level as organizers, fund-raisers, and managers. TO The Institute for Humane Studies is plugged into an extensive network of market-oriented organizations around the world and works closely with them in tailoring each Nonprofit Management WORK Fellowship to the recipient, and in placing fellows in the nonprofit sector. Ifyou want to workdirectly for freedom, aNonprofitManagement Fellowship is a unique opportunity to move in that direction. Toobtaina fellowship application, writeto: NonprofitManagementFellow ships, Institute for Humane Studies, George Mason University, 4400 Uni FREEDOM versity Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030-4444. Applications accepted year-round. After graduating from Johns Hopkins, Kris Mauren was on the man agement track at a major hotel corporation, based in Hawaii. But he was restless. Today, after an intensive training program under an IRS Nonprofit Management Fellowship, Kris is Executive Director ofthe Acton Institute for the Study ofReligion and Liberty. When hercountry openedup in the dramatic events ofDecember1989, Maria Valeanu ofRomania determined to find out more about the prosperity ofthe west. A query to the Adam Smith Institute ofLondon led her to IRS, where a Nonprofit Management Fellowship in the summer of1990 prepared herfor setting up the Institute Libertate in Bucharest. Jo Kwong has a Ph.D. in natural resource economics and could be researching and teaching at a university. But she chose a different route. In 1987 she was awarded the first IHS NonprOfit Management Fellowship andis today helping to direct the AtlasEconomic Research Foundation, while continuing to write andspeakextensively on market solutions to environmental problems. -d L-b t May 1991 InSl e 1 er y Volume 4,Number5 4 Letters on using meat-grinders, not using clothes, abusing language, and disabusing oneselfof nonsense notions. 9 Reflections on Babe Ruth's crimes against civilization, George Bush's rank among Big Spenders, military alliances coming in from the cold, cops and pundits getting what they deserve, putting teachers in their place, and the romance of right-wingers, hot-to-trot. Features 19 Losing Our Heads In the Gulf by R. W. Bradford 20 Two Kinds of Patriotism by Robert Higgs 22 Uberty Triumphs In the Desert byJames Robbins "Victory" in the Gulf 25 No Victory for Liberty by Sheldon Richman vv Hat 1t 1ut:all~ 29 The Peace Movement: RIP byStephenCox 32 Beer, Chips and the Gulf War by Matt Kibbe 33 Give George Bush His Due by Loren Lomasky 35 Journalists and the Drug War While other pundits worry about the press' servile role in the Gulf War, David Boaz considers their much more ominous role in America's longest-running war, the War on Drugs. 38 In the Woods A poemby William Meyer, Jr. 39 The Free Press: Jealous of Its Freedoms, Careless With Ours Unknown to the largely anti-capitalist journalists, the best case for the free market lies right under their noses: their defense of their own industry. Richard Miniter rubs their noses in this odd fact. 43 Something Anarchical In Denmark Benjamin Best visits the "Free State of Christiania," in Copenhagen, before utopia turns to oblivion. 45 In Quest of the Elusive Dr Cepl On a whirlwind tour of Eastern Europe, Ronald Lipp braved a socialist-designed, bureaucrat-run transit system in an almost-vain quest for a mysterious free-market theorist, and found a LOT of trouble. 49 Publish and Perish Lawrence Thompson explores the nature of poetry, drugs, prostitution and totalitarianism in this tale of a dystopian future. 54 Rescind Gorby's Nobel Prlzel The Norwegian Storting has granted Soviet leader Gorbachev the Nobel Prize for Peace. James S. Robbins tells why the august Scandinavian body should take it back. 55 Callfomla's Man-Made Drought California may seem like a hot-bed of capitalism, but its water system is, in fact, a regulated, subsidized, government mis-run mess, rivalling the worst of Soviet boondoggles. Reviews 59 Economy as Ecology The perennial question of man's place in the universe has been raised to new importance by the environmental movement. John Baden takes a new look at this problem and at a breakthough approach to its resolution. 61 Hope for a Troubled Land Scott Reid ponders the plight of that beleaguered nation, Canada, and considers a program for its recovery. 63 On the Side of the Angels Leland Yeager restates the truth about capitalism and one ofcapitalism's most effective advocates. 64 The Brain as Market Peter Reidy reveals the ominous parallels between bad computer science and bad economics. 68 The Paleo-Stalinists In America Richard Kostelanetz questions the privileges of the "politically correct," and uncovers the Stalin in the soul of .... conservatism. "This concern is moot, as it is impossible to abort a pregnancy in the first trimester etters without killing the fetus." That's rubbish. [ L ] It is certainly possible to remove the kid ~=====================================:::::()~ alive-even though death will result due to lack of sustenance afterward. By Dr. Liberty's Regress social problem? Non-aggression is a fine Schendel's own distinction, that's not What has gotten into you? I refer to general moral truth, but it is not a magic "killing." Or, does "She'll die anyway" the steadily declining discussion of the key-some problems just can't be settled mean that it's OK to shove her through a abortion question. by reference to non-aggression, as the meatgrinder? First you published R. W. Bradford long controversy over abortion has dem It makes sense to talk about the kill (September 1989), who argued that the onstrated. Neither side can convince the ing/letting die distinction in discussing root ofthe problem was the fact that the other, but each can offer devastating crit whether parents owe their children care transformation from egg (whose destruc icisms of the other's position. and support; such an obligation would bar even "non-feticide" abortions if they tion all agree is not murder) to person It seems to me that the top priority of (whose destruction all agree is murder) both sides is to avoid walking on a slip threatened the kid's health. But does Dr Schendel really mean that the mother is gradual. Positing any specific point in pery slope by defining away the contro (and implicitly the father) is like a slave this development as the beginning of versy. The anti-abortionists define away in a slave/master relationship? This is a personhood (and the protection of the the controversy by insisting that a micro "slavery" where the "master" had pre state) is therefore arbitrary in a certain scopic fertilized egg is a human being; cisely nothing to say about setting things sense. But it is no more arbitrary than the pro-abortionists define away the up. Odd, I thought slavery was the other positing a point at which a child becomes problem by insisting that pre-natal life is way around. Or did the kid force the par sufficiently mature that he can be held some sort ofaggression. I am not sure that Bradford's solution ents to have sex? (Powerful little devil responsible for contracts, something even before being conceived.) which libertarians (and others) have no is the best one, but I believe he made a major contribution by insisting that the The article leaves us with a choice problems with. He concluded with a dis that was obvious in the title: we can ad cussion ofvarious stages of prenatal de gradual development of human life re quires that we negotiate our path along mit that it's all right to outlaw feticide, or velopment and the prudence ofdefining we can defend feticide as permissible on one or another as the beginning of per the slippery slope. I question your judgment in publish its own face. sonhood. This was a sophisticated and Until that choice is confronted, ad challenging argument, notable in its ing Schendel's piece. It takes the argu ment back to the same silly and futile vancing the killing/letting die distinction avoiding the sophistry that characterizes as a defense of abortion is just a word both libertarian pro-abortion and liber level of the 1970s: anti-abortionists offer devastating criticisms of pro-abortion game: let's pretend that abortion in the tarian anti-abortion arguments. real world is just letting die, not explicit ists, to be followed by pro-abortionists' You followed that with Ron Paul's killing. discussion ofabortion and the so-called devastating criticisms of the anti John Walker "abortion pill" (September 1990). Dr Paul abortionists, neither making any Washington, D.C. wanted to avoid the slippery slope that progress on the issue. Abortions Are Not Eviction Bradford walked across, but was reluc Michael Townshend Chicago, Ill. Notices tant to do so because he realized that Eric Schendel's essay is so full of logi with modern medical technology, pro Gristle for the Mill cal fallacies and historical inaccuracies it hibiting abortion entails a massive inva Eric Schendel, M.D., argues that is hard to do it justice in the space of a sion of privacy and a tremendous in "Abortion and Feticide Are Not the letter, but I am infuriated enough to try.