THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW June 1979 $1.25 There are half a million men and women in Ddspowedul~ prisons around the world for the simple crime of disagreeing with their governments. &eepdsonen From South Africa to the Soviet Union, canIieIp from Brazil to Korea, authoritarian regimes persist ~ in the barbarian practice of jailing, often torturing, of c:onsc:leace aU their citizens not for anything they've done, but Ihe-..Id. for what they believe. These prisoners of conscience have only one hope - that someone outside will care about what is happening to them. Amnesty International has helped free over 14,000 political prisoners by marshaling world public opinion through international letter-writing campaigns. Your pen can become a l'0werful weapon against repression, injustice and Inhumanity. Join with us today in this important effort. Because if we do not help today's victims, who will help us if we become tomorrow's?

Amnesty International 3618 Sacramento San Francisco, 94118 (415) 563-3733 2112 Broadway New Yo'rk, N. Y. 10023 (212) 787-8906 o I would like to join Amnesty International in helping to free prisoners of conscience. Enclosed are my dues offifteen dollars. o Please send me more information. D Enclosed is my contribution of $ _ to help you in your efforts.

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Pre~red by Public Media Center, San Franc'sco. address city state ,zip (Dues and donations are tax-deductible) THE LIBERTARIAN FEATURES REVIEW Winning the Sweepstakes, 28 June 1979 Beating the Taxtnan by Marshall E. Schwartz Volume 8, No.5 By the time Frank McNulty was released from federal prison last St. Patrick's Day weekend, he had served more than five years for refusal to pay his income taxes. But he still hasn't paid them. And his prison experiences, along Howard with some talks he had with fellow inmate Karl Bray, have had a strong influence on his feelings about Jarvis: Mad government.

as Hell Warding Offthe 33 at 76 Great Unwashed An LR Interview by William D. Burt The man who gave us The western director of the National Taxpayers Union Proposition 13 holds forth takes a close look at the campaign being orchestrated by on why he's now trying to Congress, the White House and the traditional spending cut the federal income tax lobbies to abort the idea of a constitutional convention to by 25 percent and the Cali­ balance the federal budget. fornia income tax in half, and why he just might sup­ port the Libertarian Party candidate for the Presidency in 1980. DEPARTMENTS Page ... 22 The Libertarian Editorials 4 Running on Empty; Mrs. Thatcher, U.S. Foreign Policy, and the Dollar; The Nine Old Men and the Loony Bin Editor: Roy A. Childs, Jr. Executive Editor::JeffRiggenbach 10 Art Director: Melanie Price Opening Shots Senior Editor: by Bill Birmingham Joan Kennedy Taylor Associate Editors: 12 Walter E. Grinder Letters to the Editors Leonard P. Liggio Contributing Editors: The Public Trough 18 Murray N. Rothbard Energy Politics Bruce R. Bartlett Bill Birmingham by Bruce Bartlett Milton Mueller Marshall E. Schwartz The Movetnent 20 David Brudnoy Editorial Assistant: by Milton Mueller Victoria Varga Administrative Assistant: Books and the Arts 38 Pat Pope JeffRiggenbach on R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.'s Public Graphics Consultant: Nuisances Andy Saunders John Hospers on Vladimir Bukovsky's To Build a Castle: The Libertarian Review (ISSN My Life as a Dissenter 0364-0302) is published monthly Jack Shafer on Anthony Burgess's 1985 by Libertarian Review, Inc. Edito­ David Brudnoy on Woody Allen's Manhattan rial and business offices, 1620 Montgomery Street, San Fran­ cisco, CA 94111. © 1979 by Liber­ tarian Review Inc. All rights re­ served. Opinions expressed in bylined articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or publisher. The Libertarian Review Subscriptions: Single copy, $1.25; 12 issues (one year), $15; two years, welcomes queries from authors $25; three years, $35. Address Change: Write new address, city, state but does notencourage submission. and zip code on sheet of plain paper, attach mailing label from recent of unsolicited manuscripts and issue ofLR, and send to Circulation Department, Libertarian Review, assumes no responsibility for them P.O. Box 28877, San Diego, CA 92128. Second class postage paid at San unless accompanied by SASE. Francisco and additional offices. been carefully crafted over a period of decades-by the government itself, anxious THE as always to gain control over a key and increasingly important "command post" of the economy, to wit, en­ ergy. The public dialogue on LIBERTARIAN these important issues has become so corrupted by false assumptions that it is necessary to challenge them across the board, and this will be done next month in EDITORIALS the pages of LR, in a special section devoted to "Energy and American Foreign Pol­ icy." Until then, let us get a gacious to begin looking for "windfall profits"-always few facts straightened out. Running on another habitable planet) to asking for more and more This scapegoating of the its ruinous energy policy, power. The dreary litany is oil companies by the Carter etnpty crafted by an Energy Czar always the same. And so is administration is a cheap

who apparently delights in the scapegoat1 from one trick and Americans ought AS THE WEEKS mutilating the American administration to the next: not to fall for it. Oil com­ and months go by it economy, the programs and the oil companies. The pany profits are not as­ policies of this administra­ American people suspect, tonishingly high; they are in is becoming more tion are those of a band of even as they are sitting in the the middle range of most and more difficult to pirates,. a blight and a curse. gas lines, that th~ energy corporations: return on evade the fact that The latest outrage perpe­ crisis is a hoax, a fraud. But total assets has been hover­ trated by the Carter admin­ they are swallowing the line ing at around 6 percent for there is an idiot in the istration is familar by now about the oil companies the past two years, return on White House, run­ to all Americans: they hear being behind the whole sales at 4.8 percent,'and ning amok and about it on their car radios thing: oil companies making return on stockholders as they sit in line waiting for "windfall profits," yet equity at 12.9 percent. stomping on the gasoline. They hear a thin, ever-greedy for more. On Three tricks are being used American people, reedy voice prating about both counts, they are by Carter & Co. to muddy the alleged "greed" ofthe oil wrong: .there is an energy the issue: they are gasping mouthing bromides, companies, about sacrifice, crisis, a very real crisis; and about the percentage in­ cliches and bilge, rationing, shortages and far from being a hoax, it has crease in profits over last scapegoating first one group and then another, all in the name of ... well, nothing in particular. Those who think that this administra­ tion is all style and no substance should look again. There is substance, almost all of it evil. From its insidious foreign. pol­ icy, crafted by the vulture Brzezinski (whose fulminations about the "projec­ tion of power" 4 should cause the sa-

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW year (which often ranges panies do not owe it to any­ panies, either. The main panies something by decontrol­ from forty to more than a one to deliver oil and problem with the major oil ling domestic oil prices. In hundred percent), they are gasoline on terms set down companies is not only their truth, current law removes ignoring absolute dollar by this government. The craven cowardice in the face price controls completely in amounts of profit, and they people working and invest­ of public scapegoating, but 1981 and does not require a are comparing only first new tax as a quid pro quo. But ing in them are not slaves to their willingness to use gov­ by skillfully playing on the quarter earnings. All of be ordered about by offi­ ernment power to their own vision of billions of dollars these are demagogic and cious bureaucrats. They advantage and profit when­ pouring into the pockets of oil confusing. The fact is that have rights: the right to ever it suits them, paying no barons, the President has the first quarter earnings of invest in the production of attention to the fact that this created a political constituency the oil companies in 1975 energy, and to sell the result­ simply erodes their legiti­ for a new oil tax. While Senator came during a depressed ing oil, gasoline and natural macy, year after year. The Kennedy lays down a smoke period, and were not repre­ Igas to whomever chooses to energy industry in this coun­ screen of sham uproar over sentative of the total earn­ buy it, at any freely agreed try is completely dominated "vast new profits" being turned ings for the year; the first upon price. Everything else by the State, and this is not over to big oil, temporary (and quarter of 1979, by con­ is simply a sideshow put on soon to expire) price controls always something which has are being replaced with a per­ trast, reflect an upswing in to distract people's attention been foisted upon the indus­ manent tax. economic activity. But even from the fact that every day try against its will, to put it The permanent tax has a strik­ if the profits earned by the we move farther and farther mildly. Oil companies have ing feature. It applies to future companies do show a away from a free economy been willing to use eminent oil yet to be discovered and marked increase over 1979, in this country. The gov­ domain laws to secure broughtintoproduction. And it surely the proper response is ernment has become the land-though admittedly is not a tax on windfall'profits a hearty "so what?" If we master in this society, the the nightmare ofregulations or even ordinary profits from need more oil, then earnings authority which has gath­ sometimes makes any other new wells, but a tax on the have to increase to pay for ered unto itself the power course of action impossi­ market price of the oil. It works as follows: and authority of controlling investments in drilling, refin­ ble-and they have, since A benchmark price for u.s. oil ing and marketing. More­ the lives of the American the early part ofthis century, is established in terms of con­ over, if a profit margin is people, a power which daily been eager to use the State stant dollars at roughly the three or four percent one becomes more and more Department as a combina­ world price at the time the year, and double that the petty, so that we have now tion negotiating device and proposal is enacted. Today that next, that figure is totally reached the point where the battering ram, to secure ac­ would be about sixteen 1979 meaningless as anything President of the United cess to foreign crude. They dollars. This adjusts the price other than a device with States is seeking the power have, while muttering about for inflation, but not for rises in which to manipulate the to set thermostats and ban "private property" at home, the real or relative price ofoil. If American people. By this pleasure driving. And, as been willing to see the Mexi­ the world price of oil rises above the benchmark price, the reasoning, a company which Hayek warned in his classic can people, the Iranian government takes half of the made no profits in 1978, The Road to Serfdom, people and the Arabs de­ difference. For example, if the and a measly two!percent in As soon as the state takes upon prived of their land, their benchmark price is $16 and the 1979, would show a percent itself the task of planning the "private property," to get at price rises to $18, the govern­ increase of profits of infin­ whole economic life, the prob­ oil and natural gas. But this ment taxes $2 at 50 percent, ity! Is this anything to write lem of the due station of the venal corruption is made which means tax revenues of$1 home about? different individuals and possible only because of per barrel. groups must indeed inevitably But when all is said and government involvement The higher the world price of become the central political oil rises above the u.s. bench­ done, the profits of the oil problem. As the coercive power in the energy field. Thus governments everywhere mark, the greater the tax bite. companies are not impor­ of the state will alone decide As the tax rises as a percentage tant. The actual issue is so who is to have what, the only should get the hell out ofthe of the price, there is an increas­ important and fundamental power worth having will be a energy business, root and ing disincentive to find and that it is naturally not even share in the exercise of this branch. produce new oil in the u.s. being discussed today­ directing power. There will be Instead, governments are [WSJ 5/10179] typical of our shameful in­ no economic orsocial questions using the energy crisis to Roberts notes that if the tellectual and political envi­ that would not be political concentrate more power in world price rises to $30 by ronment, which is swim­ questions in the sense that their their own hands at the ex­ 1990, as is projected (it solution will depend exclusively pense of individuals the ming in false assumptions. on who wields the coercive should in fact go higher, but The assumption here is quite power, on whose are the views world over. Paul Craig Rob­ that is another story), the simply fascist: that the oil that will prevail on all occa­ erts has pointed out how the tax would be $7 per barrel, a companies ought to be a tool sions. current situation is being 23 percent tax on oil. If the of government policy, cow­ It is this fact which was used by the government to price rises to $40 a barrel, ering before the President's behind the machinations of grab more money from the the tax rises to $12 per bar­ threats and caving in to Watergate and so many American people under the rel, or a 30 percent tax on every irrational and arbi­ other cases of corruption; guise of Carter's criminal oil. "Notice," writes Rob­ trary demand, earning only and Carter is setting the "windfall profits tax," ina erts, "that the tax makes the those profits which he finds stage for power plays in the brilliant column in the Wall U.S. government a co­ acceptable. future that will make Wa­ Street Joumal: beneficiary of OPEC price Now, just when did fas­ tergate seem like a utopian The President has succeeded in increases. The higher the cism come to this co'untry, dream. Far be it from us to leading most people to believe price goes above the bench­ Mr. Carter? The oil com- defend the major oil com- that he is giving the oil com- mark, the greater the gov- 5

JUNE 1979 ernment's share." intervened in the Middle tween our· relations with into disequilibrium, when It isa masterstroke of East since the early part of Arab nations and our com­ supply and demand were piracy: in an era when tax­ this century to secure cheap mitments to Israel. out of coordination, and payers are revolting, and access to crude oil. After the During the outbreak of since then there have been voters in state after state are British empire collapsed at hostilities in 1973 between increases of oil prices by demanding·a balanced bud­ the end ofWorld War II, the Israel and the Arab coun­ OPEC ofbetween lS and 30 get, Carter's proposal would American state tried to pick tries,Saudi Arabia's King percent. The spotprice ofoil provide for .continued sei­ up the pieces, particularly in Faisal warned Americans has nearly doubled since the zures of money from the the Arab nations and the against U.S. interference in first of this year. And yet American people through Persian Gulf. And so the "Palestine"- Israel. Faisal demand has continued to the back door, by scapegoat­ 1950s was a decade ofcheap said that ifthe U.S. rushed to place the price of oil as still ing and punishing the oil energy. the aid of· Israel, the Arab too low to clear world mar­ companies. Its effects will be Afraid of discouraging nations would use their oil kets in a way that would disastrous, and will play domestic energy produc­ as a weapon. Heedless of eliminate shortages and into the hands of those who tion, and with the oil com­ this threat, the U.S. rushed surpluses. And the in­ want energy fascism, gov­ panies with a big stake in several billion dollars in aid stabilities which these dras­ ernment ownership or con­ American production to Israel, angering the Arab tic increases in oil revenues trol ofevery aspect ofenergy screaming for protection­ nations and leading to the to OPEC countries have from top to bottom,· from ism, in 19S9·an oil import OPEC oil embargo and sub­ produced are also threaten­ drilling wells and building quota was imposed, restrict­ s.equent cutbacks in produc­ ing supply still further. pipelines to prices and ther­ ing the amount offoreign oil tion, which lead to massive These facts, combined mostats.As Roberts points which could be imported price increases for Western with domestic U.S. price out, "the administration has from other countries. Natu­ nations, and substantial rev­ controls, are leading to an come up with a plan that rally enough, this caused a enue gains for the Arabs: the American shortage, particu­ will produce tax revenues marked drop in the demand price ofoil, which had been larly of low-sulfur, high­ for the government while it for oil from many of the about $3 per barrel, jumped grade crude oil of the sort discourages U.S. oil explora­ Micldle Eastern nations, rapidly to $12 a barrel and gotten from Iran and In­ tion and development and among others, and in re':' more. donesia. That high-grade makes us even more depen­ sponse, the Organization of Because of these price ris­ crude is crucial in refining dent on imports." Petroleum Exporting Coun­ es, in 1974 and 1975, world unleaded gas, for which The taxes, of course, will tries-OPEC-was formed demand for oil dropped sig­ there has been an enormous go to "benefit the people," in 1960. nificantly, as nations ad­ increase in demand in recent by whichis meant, this time, The initial price of OPEC justed to rising prices and years. The culprits here are that a fund will be estab­ oil was quite low, and the decreased production. Yet again not the oil companies, lished to finance long-term OPEC nations began deal­ over the next few years, a but two particularly sinister research. and.development ing with the U.S. and West­ chain of events led to an bureaucracies: the Envi­ of "alternative energy sour­ ern European oil companies actual increase in worldwide ronmental Protection Agen­ ces"-by the State. In short, as a cartel. There were demand for oil. Massive cy and the Department of the progressive nationaliza­ gradual increases in the worldwide inflation began Energy. Both· have been tion ofthe energy industry is price of OPEC oil, encour­ to swell, led by the U.S., conducting a series of at­ to get another boost. Our aged by the U.S. State De­ leading to average price in­ tacks on the American energy future is to be placed partment as an adjunct to creases ofaround lS percent people which is making in the hands of a vicious foreign policy concerns· in on a worldwide basis. And things worse. gang of scoundrels of the the region. It was a policy yet during those years, One cause ofthe shortage most disgusting sort. It is a supported by both liberals OPEC raised its oil prices of unleaded gasoline is the sordid future we face. and conservatives: the con-I only by an average of 9 per­ Iranian cutback in produc­ Why is there a gasoline servatives favored price in­ cent. Thus, over a five year tion. The other is the EPA. In shortage, and gasoline lines? creases because the in­ period, contrary to popular its mindless antipollution The American people are creased revenue could be impressions, the relative policy of the last few years, annoyed, and they have the spent in part on arms bud­ price ofoil in world markets the EPA has inflicted upon right to an honest explana­ gets; the liberals favored the actually dropped. An in­ us auto exhaust emission tion. Unfortunately, an hon­ new arrangements as they crease in demand was the rules which misjudged, as est explanation is not the did in the case ofthe Panama inevitable result. the Wall Street Journal same as a simple one: an in Canal, as a means of in­ When the Iranian revolu­ commented, "how rapidly depth answer would have to stitutionalizing transfer tion hit, as the result of a those rules would raise de­ begin with government en­ payments from Western to resurge~ce of the power of mand for unleaded gasoline ergy and foreign policy since underdeveloped countries as Islamic religion and a quar­ ... It has forced rapid con­ the end of the last· century. a means offinancing liberal ter century of American version to unleaded and At least since the Progres­ forced· modernization and, foreign policy intervention low-lead gasoline without sive Era, the American gov­ industrialization schemes in Iranian affairs, a cutback accurately gauging refin­ ernment has assumed the through socialized invest­ in Iranian oil production hit, ing." fundamental responsibility ment. The continued U.S. which meant a shortfall on When refiners take the lead out for shaping the large con­ involvement in the Middle the world market of nearly ofgasoline, they must use more tours of the American econ­ East continued throughout five percent as oil produc­ ofthe scarce natural elements in omy, its institutions and the 1960s, and always en­ tion dropped.· This caused crude oil to give gasoline its 6 their activities. The U.S. has tailed a delicate balance be- the world price for oil to fall necessary anti-knock prop-

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW erties. You thus get less gasoline Of course, this is accom­ dent realized his directive to since when is such a deci­ from a barrel of crude when plished by having the DOE increase these reserves sion-more gasoline or you are making unleaded or divert high-grade oil away would further draw down more heating oil-supposed low-lead fuel than when you are using lead. from the production of un­ gasoline supplies, but, he to be in the hands of the New catalyst-equipped cars leaded gasoline, which will said, "Given the choice be­ President of the United thatrequire unleaded have been cause even greater gas lines tween the two, you have to States? We used to have a selling briskly. EPA, as any and shortages in the future. give people the heating oil free market economy in this recent buyer knows, routinely Nor is Carter unaware of they need." Thus Carter is country, where people could overestimates their [sic] gaso­ this. Carter's hack apologist willfully and deliberately choose for themselves what line mileage performance. Un­ Jody Powell-the one who increasing the gasoline they wanted, and pay the leaded gasoline demand has was expelled from the Air shortage, while lying to the price. When didwe step over shot up 70 p~rcent in the last Force Academy for cheat­ American people about the into such a statist economy two years and will go up ing-said after Carter's an­ root causes of the problem. that a man like Jimmy Car­ another 22 percent this And while we are at it, year ... [WSJ 5/4/79] nouncement that the Presi- ter should decide for us In the meantime, another bureaucracy is busily at \\ DEC\SIONS,DECISJONS '1 work supplementing the EPA: The Department of Energy, under the leadership of Schlesinger. As the Wall Street Journal puts it, While the EPA is forcing un­ leaded demand upward, DOE has a ceiling clamped on the price, discouraging expansion of capacity. The energy act, with its well-known "small­ refiner bias" designed for the benefit of good friends of cer­ tain key Congressmen, further discourages construction of the large refineries that are most efficient in separating out the components needed to make unleaded. [WSJ 5/4/79] But that is not the end of the story: the EPA makes the building of pipelines more and more difficult as well as the building of new refin­ eries, which require enor­ mous investments by the oil companies. At the same time, the DOE, Schlesinger in particular, has forced some industries using natu­ ralgas (of which there is a massive amount, contrary to propaganda) to switch in­ stead to heating oil. And now comes the news that Schlesinger and Carter have ordered refiners to build up heating oil stocks for next winter before they switch to refining gasoline. Carter dis­ closed in New Hampshire on April 26 that, according to the New York Times ,"he had directed the Depart­ ment of Energy to insure that reserres of home heat­ ing oil were built up to 240-million barrels by Oc­ tober to guarantee adequate supplies for next winter." 7

JUNE 1979 whether we should have the field of energy. We must to suffer heavy taxation. Southern England over the more heating oil or more get the corruption of politi­ This class shift in voting same period (until in this gasoline? cal control offour backs and patterns seemed to reinforce election, Southern England As if that were not out of our lives. the existing geographical voted almost entirely Con­ enough, Carter declared in Carter's energy programs distribution of voting pat­ servative, giving the Labour his usual sanctimonious way and his brain are both run­ terns in the country. While Pa;rty only nine seats out of that "I'm prepared to take ning on empty. Let us be over the last 30 years the 144). In Scotland and the political consequences brave and cast both into the Conservatives have lost Wales, Labour made severe and political criticism of dustbin of history. about 40 seats in Northern inroads against the recently proposing a rationing plan, -RAe England, Scotland, and emerging Nationalist Par­ but I need Congress to be Wales (and in this election, ties, leaving them with two courageous enough to give Labour actually increased seats each, a loss of nine me the authority to prepare its parlimentary strength in seats to the Scottish Nation­ one." According to the New those areas), they have alists and two to the Welsh. York Times, Carter's propo­ gained more than 80 seats in The Liberal Party lost sal would have a "limit of Mrs. Thatcher, three cars for which each foreign household could receive U.5. rationed gasoline and allo­ policy, and cations of gasoline based partly on records of previ­ the dollar ous· consumption in each state." [NIT 5/8/79] Recre­ THE CONSERVATIVE ational vehicles, in addition, party's victory by a margin would get no allocation of 43 seats in the May 3 whatever. elections in England comes Everything about this ra­ after a major change in the tioning planis wrong, stupid party's image. Abandoning and immoral. Rationing its earlier attempts to com­ coupons would be printed pete with Labour as an ad­ up and distributed­ vocate of the welfare state, through long lines, of the party has been influ­ course---and unused cou­ epced by its leaders, Mrs. pons could be sold on a Margaret Thatcher.and her "white market" at whatever key advisor, Sir Keith price the market would Joseph, toward a free mar­ bear. This means that any­ ket philosophy with a strong one could profit from selling sense of the importance of rationing coupons except sound money. people whose property the The result was an election gasoline is. And basing na­ in which the Conservatives tionwide allocations on received 44 percent of the "previous consumption" of vote; Labour, 37 percent; various states means that a and the Liberals, 14 percent. growing, healthy, vital This victory was the result of economy like that of Cali­ a major shift by middle-class fornia would be punished and union-member voters. and held back while decay­ Opinion polls of union ing, stagnant economies like members indicated that those in the East would be two-thirds of them thought rewarded. This punish­ that unions had too much growth philosophy fits in power and felt that the perfectly with the sense of closed shop was a threat to life ofthe Carter administra­ individual liberty. In En­ tion, which looks forward gland, the traditional work­ to people getting nasty with ing-class Conservative vote one another and clawing for is usually around 25 percent a place in gas lines. Nothing of the total working-class better symbolizes the utter vote, but this year it ap­ and complete bankruptcy of proached 40 percent, as the American political sys­ even unskilled workers suf­ tem. fered the effects of major It is time for a new alter­ strikes in key industries and "Margaret Thatcher believes diplomacy is a more effective native. It is time for a sharp, skilled manual workers method of conducting foreign policy than military power, and determined, courageous found themselves in tax her government will definitely not accept American leadership 8 program of laissez-faire in brackets which caused them in foreign affairs."

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW three seats in their western Russia as a counterweight voluptuous Miss Jones. values individual liberty by and Welsh strongholds, but against the dominance of Now the crazy people want denying someone's indivi­ otherwise their vote was either. to get in on the act, and it's a dual liberty on the basis of very strong. If the Conserva­ Furthermore, a key em­ shame. "clear and convincing" evi­ tives were able to appeal to phasis of the Conservatives I mean, here we have the dence that he is both nuts the 4.3-million voters­ has been the fight against Supreme Court of the Unit­ and potentially dangerous, I mainly middle class-who inflation. They campaigned ed States ruling unanimous­ have some trouble figuring support the Liberal Party, on a platform of cutting ly early in May that a person out. they would be able to look taxes and cutting govern­ cannot be unwillingly com­ The Court rej ected the forward to leadership in ment spending, paralleling mitted to a mental institu­ "beyond a reasonable England for decades. European countries (espe­ tion without "clear and doubt" standard, we are But what does this victory cially France and West convincing" evidence that told by Mr. Justice Burger, mean for the United States? Germany) which have un­ he is both mentally ill and because "given the lack of dertaken a major struggle likely to be dangerous. Can certainty and the fallibility Jimmy Carter was strong­ you imagine? Now how are of psychiatric diagnosis, ly disappointed by the defeat against inflation. As a result of this struggle, the rate of you gonna get your eccentric there is a serious question as ofthe Labour Party, because old great-aunt Maud out of to whether a state could ever he knows that the new con­ inflation in West Germany is now about 3 percent, com­ the way when she chooses to prove beyond a reasonable servative cabinet will defi­ leave her money to the Red doubt that an individual is nitely not accept American pared to over 12 percent in the United States. England's Cross instead of to you? both mentally ill and likely leadership in foreign policy. "Clear and convincing" evi­ to be dangerous." Since the In contrast to the Labour joining this anti-inflation axis ofEurope deals a strong dence indeed! so-called "due process revo­ Party's acceptance of such But seriously, folks. lution" of the past twenty American leadership, the blow to the Carter Adminis­ tration's attempts to pretend Looked at one way, the years (I quote the New York Conservatives (whether led Court's decision is a victory: Times) "gave mental pa­ by Churchill, Macmillan, that it is against inflation while simultaneously feed­ it imposes a higher standard tients the right to a precom­ Lord Home, Heath, or now ofproofthan is required just mitment hearing, legal ex­ Thatcher) believe that they ing the printing presses. A huge amount of Middle now in twenty states, among perts in this area have ques­ have a much better under­ them the Empire State, tioned whether any sort of standing of foreign policy Eastern income, originally invested in England, took where a "preponderance of standard, no matter howitis issues than do Americans. evidence" has been enough phrased, really means very Thatis why U.S. Democratic flight to America due to the Labour Party's policies; to send somebody off to the much." presidents have preferred a funny farm. But on the other Precisely; and how many Labour Party Prime Minster now that money will remain in England, and English in­ hand, the ruling may be new books by Dr. Thomas ever since 1945, when the looked at more darkly: it Szasz do we have to read­ Labour Party won leader­ vestments in America will return to England. This rejects the idea thatsays that how many does the good ship in England and the there must be evidence "be­ doctor have to write­ Cold War began. means that America's cur­ rent runaway inflation is yond a reasonable doubt," before we can get it through Mrs. Thatcher's cabinet about to be tested in the before somebody can be de­ our collective societal head believes that diplomacy is a international arena. Watch prived of his freedom and that the very concept "men­ much more effective method out, American dollar. sent off to face the shrinks tal illness" is a subjective of conducting foreign policy forever and evermore. abstraction and not some­ than military power, and -LPL Chief Justice Warren thing easily pinpointed? We suspects that Americans, on Burger allowed as how there are walking here in the the contrary, find military just might be a wee bit of dangerous realm of thought power an acceptable substi­ difficulty in applying the crime, which, after all, is the tute for intelligent foreign ruling wisely. favorite crime of dictator­ policy. Therefore the British The nine old The ultimate truth as to how ship-whether Red or cabinet will rely much more the standards of proof affect Rightwing. Dictators love to on diplomacy and the mili­ OleD and the decision making may well be define a person's behavior as tary power of Western Eur­ loony bin unknowable.... Nonetheless, deviant, his views as dan­ ope than it will on America. even if the particular stan­ gerous' his mentality as Where the Labourites dard-of-proof catch-words do warped, his consciousness tended to rely on a 'special THE CRAZY PEOPLE not always make a great differ­ as sub-social, his mind as have given the insanity plea ence in a particular case, adopt­ deranged, the better to relationship' with the U.S., ing a standard of proof is more English Conservatives, like a bad name; it was much than an empty semantic exer­ brand him "sick" and shoo President De Gaulle, are neater when it was used by cise. In cases involving indivi­ him offto the loony bin. The fearful of what they inter­ the guy with the high-priced dual rights, whether criminal or United States is not a pret to be a Soviet-American lawyer: Well, Your Honor, civil, the standard of proof at a dictatorship, not yet, but in alliance to dominate world my client, this poor wrongly minimum reflects the value the field of psychiatry it affairs, and will become a accused banker, was tempo­ society places on individual ambles in the dirty paths of partner of West Germany rarily insane at the time that liberty. tyranny. The Supreme and France in an "indepen­ he embezzled the three mil­ That latter point can cer­ Court ruling last week dent" European diplomacy, lion dollars from his institu­ tainly be questioned, as, in provides scant comfort to supporting a Europe united tion and ran off to Ven­ fact, can the whole ruling. those who love liberty. 0 against both America and ezuela with his secretary, the Just exactly how a society -DB 9 JUNE 1979 can be justified "for reasons of state" lingers on; at least to the extent that punishing the Shah's hired thugs as they deserve is somehow considered to be cruel and unusual. It is indeed all too unusual for any of"theband of robbers and murderers who call themselves the gov­ ernment" (as Lysander Spooner described them) to be brought to book, but that is scarcely an objection; the such words as "fraud" and body in society has laws to only thing to object to about BILL BIRMINGHAM the like. Clearly we need protect them except ten­ the executions of the Shah's another constitutional ants," claimed Lowe, in ex­ underlings is that the Shah FOR A NUMBER amendment: "Equality of plaining why he supported himself continues to evade rights under the law shall rent control. '·'The relation­ justice. But ... there's al­ of years certain en­ not be abridged on account ship between the landlord ways tomorrow. lightened jurisdic­ of state ofanimation." That and the tenant is probably should be popular with the most primitive economic tions (e.g.: Cook Congress. relationship left in this soci­ TAB Report, the trade County, Illinois) r=;;~~"--I ety, a carryover from the time when the landlord was journal of the pornography have refused to deny industry, estimates that Congress's own state of really the lord of the land." there are 1.3-million full or their citizens the vote animation, you will be We'd always wondered why part time prostitutes in the happy to know, is lower our landlady insisted on the on the arbitrary and United States, or more than than ever. The New York droit de seigneur. legalistic grounds 1 percent of all American Times's Warren Weaver women. "Ifanything, we're that they· happen to says "this Congress has on the conservative side," adopted lethargy as a way of be dead. We are The Shah of Iran is un­ says publisher Dennis Sobin. life." In its first three months pleased to report that happy. Part of that, obvi­ That may well be true; one­ in office, for example, the ously, is no more than the third of the women arrested the great state of 96th Congress has sent just withdrawal symptoms of in San Francisco were ar­ eight bills for President Car­ California has ex­ the power junkie deprived of rested on prostitution ter's signature; the lowest his blood-fix. But recently charges, as are one-half the tended the civilliber­ figure for any Congress since the King of Kings declared women jailed in New York. ties of the dead even FDR's second term. The himself "shocked and hor­ further; they can Congresscritters are also rified" by the executions of introducing fewer bills; just some of his former stooges, now collect Medi­ 3357 in the House and 840 whom he called "Iranians Move over, Ronald Rea­ Cal benefits. The in the Senate (down from whose only crime was love gan! Richard Nixon may be state controller's 5748 and 1176 two years of country and will to serve the GOP's next matinee idol ago.) And for lagniappe, its people." It hardly seems ifhe accepts a role in a movie office reports that they have filled up only 6600 necessary to point out that about an American presi­ California hospitals, pages of the Congressional those altruistic public ser­ dent kidnaped from a Chi­ doctors and nursing Record, whereas the 95th vants for whom the Shah nese toilet. "The president," Congress filled 9000 pages weeps "served" the Iranian says the film's scriptwriter, homes have been in its first three months in people by robbing them, "is noticing that there are paid for providing office. "This is the most torturing them, and slaugh­ graffiti in Chinese bath­ boring session I've. seen in tering them without mercy rooms, just like in the United medical services to my years on the Hill," la­ whenever they dared to States, when the stall turns patients who have ments one Senate aide who complain. Or is it? For the around and he is replaced by been dead for over a surely deserves the famous American media,· too, are his genetically engineered Mandarin curse: "May you puling and moaning over double." The producers year. Pockets of live in interesting times." these scum, as are, incredi­ claim they were encouraged anti-dead discrimi­ bly,even some self-styled to send Tricky the script by, "libertarians". (Such as the believe it or not, "a friend of nation and bigotry the Nixon family." still remain, to be Voters in Santa Monica, one who wrote the letter California, passed a tough printed in this issue, carry­ lM-~-iWI sure; notably in the new rent control law in ing on about "the dead Ira­ state attorney gener­ April, at the urging of such nian generals"-who head­ Just about every account as Mr. Cary Lowe of the ed the Iranian secret police!) of the Three Mile Island al's office, which is California Public Policy Evidently the notion that contretemps remarked on 10 throwing around Center. "Just about every- robbery, torture and murder the infamous hydrogen

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW emnly worries, for example, about the virtual absence of GooD GOD... CoNTINUING Alaskan natives in contem­ HIGM LEVELS OF porary TV drama." It also 1'~ appears that most TV. cops AfAssociated Press. (Tran­ flock to the banner of that General Services Adminis­ said: 'That's not the point. scripts of NRC meetings tight-fisted guardian of the tration, which installed the The point is that the home after the Three Mile Island public purse, Teddy Ken­ doors, says they are useless received public monies and accident show that as of nedy. He has found "the because HUD leaves them they are supposed to aid the April 1 the commission's fastest growing aspect of open and unguarded. They community as a whole and experts believed-errone- the federal budget today"; probably didn't even have the community in Reseda is ously as it turned out-that "the tax expenditure-tax the consideration to open predominantly Protes­ the Three Mile Island hy­ breaks and tax loopholes," them inward so the tax­ tant.'" ... Many black drogen bubble had enough which almost all the foes of payers could see the gold people, for obvious reasons, oxygen in it to make a government spending com­ lettering. The plebeian, cannot abide "Sambo's" flammable or even explosive pletely overlook. It is truly $136 white lettering that the restaurants. Massachussetts mixture; this on the very day mindboggling: "On the one GSA has placed onthe doors Attorney General Francis X. that Jimmy Carter toured hand," Dread Ted told a "didn't go with the image of Bellotti has gone to court to the Three Mile Island plant. Los Angeles Times inter­ a Cabinet secretary," said bar the name; claiming that Alexander Cockburn of the viewer on April 19, in 1976 one official, so HUD ar­ since some blacks will not Village Voice (April 9, "you had people across the ranged for gold leaflettering patronize a restaurant 1979) was surprised that the country outraged by their at a cost of over $1000. named Sambo's, the use of

White House would risk taxes and on the other hand, rN':':~_~"~"-'::I the name violates the state's such a headline as "PRESI­ we were only able to get nine public-acoommodations law. DENT CONTAMINA­ votes to eliminate [the tax Notes from the anti­ Harvard law professor Alan TED," "even though the deductibility] of the three discrimination front: The Dershowitz, who considers sight of [Carter] arguing the martini lunches." Yes, this is US Commission on Civil the public-accommodations SALT case with hair and ground untilled by Jarvis, Rights is agonizing once argument "laughable," in­ teeth dropping out from Gann or even Jerry Brown more over the lowly status vites us to consider what its radio-active poisoning ... will you not enlist in ofwomen and minorities on implications would be "for would conceivably have Senator Kennedy's gallant television. "The new re­ other establishments such as helped the cause of detente, crusade to cut taxes by cut- port," says Fortune, "sol- Dairy Queen." CJ 11

JUNE 1979 contributors, is that U.S. foreign policy is one of the main causes of the Cold War, dating back to the Bol­ shevik revolution. It is again typical that no conservative 'ETTE ever bothers to apply the same standards to U.S. be­ havior as are applied to TO THE Soviet behavior. At the close DITOR of the relatively bloodless Bolshevik revolution, the Soviet Union was invaded by a number of the Allied nations, including the U.S., Roy A. Childs, Jr. an intervention which lead Hysterical to the deaths of as many as replies: seven million people. In­ nonsense? Arnold Steinberg's letter is a vaded again by Nazi Ger­ nearly perfect example of many in World War II, the SOME OF THE ARTICLES what is wrong with the con­ Soviets lost another twenty in The Libertarian Review servatives' thinking about million to the war. In -the are reasonable, literate foreign policy issues, and of face ofthese casualties-not pieces with a free market what is wrong with their to mention the additional viewpoint. Others, how­ blind, unreasoning rejection millions lost during the first ever, are ofdubious scholar­ of a libertarian foreign pol­ World War (one of the ship and consist primarily of icy ofnon-interventionism. I causes ofthe Bolsheviks' rise nonsensical, even hysterical, Your magazine's com­ should begin by pointing out to power)-it is easy to see assaults on· any aspect of mentary on the Mideast is the common denominator that Soviet foreign policy American (or, more pre­ not only factually inaccurate of these assaults on nonin­ since the second World War cisely, any nation's) foreign and historically wrong; but, terventionism: that the con­ has been profoundly con­ policy which tilts toward as someone of the Jewish servatives pushing them do servative and defensive. The anti-communism. faith, I find the tone grossly not even take the time to Soviets took Eastern Europe Frankly, your view that offensive. What qualifies read accurately. by force in beating back the United States is the cul­ Rothbard as a Mideast ex­ The foreign policy posi­ Hitler, and have continued prit in the Cold War is silly, pert? His Orwellian rewrite tion advocated by The their conservative imperial­ even idiotic. Oddly enough, of recent Mideast events is Libertarian Review is that of ism over that territory ever your publication, in the absurd; his depiction of noninterventionism, and LR since. But their foreign pol­ name oflibertarianism, res­ Yassir Arafat as a moderate has accordingly been con­ icy in most other places has urrects the discredited, is a cruel affront to the vic­ stantly critical of interven­ been cautious and re­ Marxian notion thatcapital­ tims of this demagogic ter­ tionist foreign policies, not strained. The U.S. was far ist nations exploit other na­ rorist; his favorable review of "any nation's" foreign more involved in Castro's tions for the sake of their of the PLO is morally re­ policy "which tilts toward revolution than the Soviet raw materials. Come now, pugnant. Do you really be­ anticommunism." Since Union, for example. West­ don'tinsult your free market lieve that Carter's purpose part of our case against in­ ern nations were far more readers with collectivist at Camp David was, as you tervention is that it actually active than the Soviets in mythology. report, to assure "Zionist furthers communist victo­ resurrecting Ho Chi-Minh You rejoice at the over­ funding for his reelection ries-a charge recently during World War II to help throw of the Shah. Look, campaign"? Your Jewish echoed by William Shaw­ the Vietnamese fight the granted, he wasn't a liberta­ conspiracy rhetoric is re­ cross in his new book Side­ Japanese in Asia. In Africa, rian; as an advocate of lib­ miniscent of, and hardly show: Kissinger, Nixon and the U.S. has intervened since erty, I. could hardly support distinguishable from, the the Destruction ofCambod­ the early '60s and before; in certain of the Shah's poli­ racist ravings of the late ia-the charge that we sup­ the Middle East, the U.S. has cies. But, also as an advocate Gerald L. K. Smith. port a procommunist for­ been involved alongwith the of liberty, I am far more The Libertarian Review is eign policy is an ignorant British and other European disturbed by the loss ofIran; a hoax. I don't need a left­ and malicious lie, typical of powers for many decades; in I know that Iran will move wing journal masquerading conservatives. both these areas, Soviet in­ farther away from, not as libertarian. We don't Neither is it the case that tervention has been mini­ closer to, a free society. The simply have a difference of LR believes the U.S. to be mal. If the standards which international implications opinion. Your magazine is "the culprit" in the Cold conservatives use to judge for the United States are an embarrassment in my War; my view is more com­ the Soviets as being "expan­ ominous; as a libertarian home. Please cancel my sub­ plex, which perhaps is why sionist" were applied even­ fortunate enough to live scription at once. Mr. Steinberg finds it handedly to the U.S., no one here, I am concerned (yes, beyond his grasp. My view, could draw any conclusion my self-interest is threat­ ARNOLD STEINBERG shared by Murray Rothbard other than that the u.S. and 12 ened!). Los Angeles, California and a number of other LR not the Soviet Union is out

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW to "conquer the world." And of brutal despots Middle East for a good daffi) are infinitely more While the charge in either everywhere! Again, Mr. many years. He is Anti­ anti-Jewish or anti-Israel case is absurd, it is patently Steinberg mouths platitudes Zionist, and does not con­ than is he, and anyone who false that the Soviets have based in the "lesser-of-two­ nect Zionism with being knows anything about the been anywhere nearly as evils" approach to interna­ Jewish, which he is. Earl Middle East knows this. I aggressive or irresponsible tional affairs that leads con­ Ravenal, on the other hand, and The Libertarian Review in foreign policy as the u.S. servatives, everywhere and whose analysis of the Mid­ are opposed to Arafat and has been. And remember always, to ignore the need dle East in our October issue the PLO, and no less op­ that it is the u.S. which has for a revolutionary interna­ ran alongside Rothbard's, posed to the policies of lately been cultivating an tionallibertarian movement and at several times the Begin and the state of Israel, alliance with Communist as an alternative to rev­ length, is not opposed to and on precisely the same China against the Soviet olutionary Marxism. I can Zionism at all. He partly grounds, with the same Union, even to the extent of only be appalled at Mr. defended U.S. disengage­ principles and justification: helping China to "modern­ Steinberg's remarks about ment from the Middle East we uphold justice for all ize" its army and other tech­ the "loss" of Iran, again so on the grounds that itwould concerned, and oppose the nologies. Who is doing what typical of conservative increase Israel's flexibility continual violations of indi­ to whom? mythology about nations and security, by not tying vidual rights. Speaking for As for the charge that w( being"ours." And I wonder Israel's security into Ameri­ myself, and not LR's official "insult our free market which "certain" of the can foreign policy needs, policies, for me Zionism readers with collectivist Shah's policies Mr. Stein­ which are ever-changing comes from the same roots mythology," by allegedly berg would not support, the and unprincipled to boot. as Fabian socialism: social­ claiming that"capitalist na­ word "certain" underscor­ Ravenal was not anti­ ists, nationalists, colonial­ tions exploit other nations ing by implication some­ Zionist in the least. What ists, having as its sole distin­ for the sake of their raw thing basically positive Mr. Steinberg complains guishing characteristic that materials," the charge is, about the Shah's reign. The about, therefore, is simple to the ethnic group it most again, simply a lie, one monster Shah combined in pinpoint, and itis not flatter­ favors is not the British, but which further exposes Mr. his reign the systems of ing: that The Libertarian the Jews. I am certainly no Steinberg's apparent inabil­ feudalism and state social­ Review would dare to pub­ supporter of the feudal or ity to read a sentence. Our ism, complete with five year lish anything critical of Is­ socialistic Arab states, position has explicitly been plans. He practiced torture rael. My God, of whom which often treat the Pales­ that the U.S. does not need and brutally suppressed civil have we not been critical? tinians even worse than they to intervene in other coun­ and economic liberties. His Deng, Mao, the Vietnamese, are treated by the Israelis. tries to secure access to oil or "modernization" and "de­ the Khmer Rouge, Tito, Butwhy should the behavior other raw materials, but velopment" programs were Qadaffi, Idi Amin, Jimmy of the worst states and rather ought to rely on the pages taken from Gunnar Carter, the PLO, the Shah, people bring us to the cal­ price system in a free mar­ Myrdal, not P. T. Bauer. Khomeini, Callaghan, lous and insensitive point ket, decontrolling the econ­ And his anti-Sovietism was Thatcher, Sadat, Hussein where anything less is omy in the process.. We have simply militaristic megalo­ somehow morally accepta­ said that policy-makers be­ mania, the desire to replace ble? Are we to let Hitler and lieve that the U.S. must in­ Britain as the dominant Stalin define our moral tervene to secure stable ac­ power in the Persian Gulf. views by being so ugly and cess to raw materials, which What's more, the moronic, brutal that anything less is obviously true-all you grade-school foreign policy appears to us a moral bless­ have to do is read Business which Mr. Steinberg parrots ing? No! We must always Week or the various foreign helped produce the Shah's uphold the standards of jus­ policy journals to hear this downfall and the current tice and individual rights, view being advocated all the instability in his country. lest we become just another time. Most recently it has But all in all, Mr. Steinberg's sect ofcowards on the inter­ been trotted forth by the remarks here are again typi­ national scene, opportunis­ likes of the Sinister Energy cal of the conservative men­ tically manipulating one Czar, James Warmonger tality which cannot conceive group against another. Schlesinger. The view that of the need for a revolution­ Neither, finally, is The this is a "capitalist" nation is ary libertarian alternative to Libertarian Review either a again typical ofconservative Marxism, but instead sup­ "hoax" or a "leftist jour­ blindness and ignorance, a ports the "lesser-of-two­ nal." We are proudly and mythology with which con­ evils" year after year, decade defiantly libertarian, in the servatives soothe themselves after decade, until there is no ... the list could go on in­ tradition of the Old Right onlazy evenings so that they difference between the ab­ definitely. We will not be which existed before the never need to confront the surdly named "free world" cowed by the usual shame­ Buckley-National Review need for radical opposition and communist tyranny. less and monstrous attribu­ pro-Cold War coup in the to-and not conservative I shall not back down tions of motives of "anti­ mid-1950s. In my view, The reform of-this system of from responding to Mr. Semitism" to anyone who Libertarian Review is the State capitalism or Corpo­ Steinberg's smears on the criticizes Israel. It is the case best libertarian publication, rate statism. Middle East, either. Murray that, as Arabs and Palestin­ and that for the reasons Yes, yes, we do rejoice in Rothbard is a scholar who ians go, Yassir Arafat is a implicit in Mr. Steinberg's the overthrow of the Shah! has been writing on the moderate-some (e.g. Qa- letter: it will not pull 13

JUNE 1979 punches or spare anyone's murderers running China. of Western technology and taken. sacred cow. We uphold the The attempt to lump tin­ industrialization coupled The OppOSItiOn to the principles of individual horn dictators (who manage with the Shah's rapid and Shah arises not from "free­ rights and the nonaggres­ to murder and torture only a brutal attempts to change dom-loving people in pur­ sion· principle, the entitle­ relatively small number of and secularize Iranian soci­ suit ofthe same civil liberties ment theory ofjustice. These their victims) with the big ety threatened to destroy the all Americans enjoy"-how we believe to be universal timers (who set out to do old world of Shi'ite Islam simple if this were so-but, standards which ought to be murder wholesale) is a fa­ which constitutes the cul­ rather, from this deeper used in judging every situa­ vorite tool of the elitists tural matrix and basic value Levantine opposition to the tion. Mr. Steinberg's letter is running U.S. foreign policy. system of most Iranians.... Western intrusion ushered a perfect example ofwhat is It draws attention away Even without the Shah, Iran in by the Shah. Without wrong with conservatives from the blood on the hands would have faced this crisis question, the autocratic re­ today, and just one more of the large scale totalita­ in some form because the gimeof the Shah, with its reason I keep saying that rians from whom the elitists crisis is not the clash of various injustices, fanned conservatives not only will draw both their power and modern conveniences with the flames of insurrection; lose, but that they deserve to their profit. Thus the butch­ quaint folkways.... but it did not cause it. The lose. Any home embarassed ers are made to appear world is full of despots still by The Libertarian Review somehow less guilty, and in power pursuing exactly is a home which does not hence more palatable, to a the same policies which the deserve the magazine, and gullible American public. Shah tried. The Shah's fail­ therefore I shall indeed do as Mr. Riggenbach has only ure and fall merely illustrate Mr. Steinberg asks. helped to perpetuate this the impossibility of achiev­ myth. Murder is not cumu­ ing the benefits of freedom lative: the killer of one and a market economy by Revisiting the human is as much a murder­ fascistic imperatives, and er as the killer ofa thousand, paticularly in a land where Shah but the genocide is in a class these ideas are alien. of evil by himself. More­ And with the Shah gone, THE EDITORIAL BY JEFF over, the question of the probably for good, what of Riggenbach, "The .shah Shah's viciousness will soon the Ayatollah Khomeini? He revisited," in your January become moot to the Iranian is a religious fanatic, and issue, includes the remark­ people, who have now re­ your editorialists should able statement that, accord­ placed a vanilla dictator know this. He is not a kindly ing to Amnesty Interna­ with· a real-McCoy religious old Iranian wise man, but a tional, the Shah has "the fanatic dictator. Anybody zealot determined to estab­ worst human rights record can tell that that's an im­ lish a medieval theocracy in of any ruler in the world ... provement. The so-called "human Iran and, as such, a more [and that] remains true to­ rights" issue must also dangerous foe to individual FRA~L~S~ERS day." be re-examined. "Human rights than the Shah.... Memphis, Tennessee Really? Ofany ruler inthe rights" in Iran cannot be Exchanging the King of world? That puts him into equated with "individual Kings for the Ayatollah rep­ some pretty heavy com­ IN CONTRAST TO THE rights" as we think of it. If resents little progress for pany: Idi Amin, Leonid many fineeditorials you "human rights" has any Iran. Brezhnev, Hua kuo-Feng, have published·in the past, I meaning here it is the tradi­ The eternal meddling of just to name a few. One found the January, 1979, tional Shi'ite antagonism the U.S. government in the might speculate that Brezh­ editorials on the Iranian between the political state affairs of other countries is nev alone has more peoplein crisis disappointing in vary­ and the religious commun­ certainly nothing to cheer prison camps than Iran has ing degrees. Concerning ity-the claims of religion about, but analysts must not people. U.S. bungling in Iran, they on the faithful against the make the mistake of assum­ While not gainsaying the are on the mark; but in claims of the state on the ing that every crisis in the repressiveness of the Shah's many ways the editorials citizens. "Individual rights," world arises from it. This is regime, I must protest (particularly "The shah·re­ conceived in the Anglo­ the same ethnocentrism statements (such as the one visited") make the same Saxon form, is a non-issue. which assumes the holy mis­ above) which eliminate or error which our State De­ There is no serious Islamic sion of imposing our "supe­ blur the real distinctions of partment has made over and philosophical or legal tradi­ rior" culture on the rest of degree and scale between over again in dealing with tion ofconcern for the indi­ the world. The philosophi­ dictators such as the Shah non-Western countries. Is­ vidual apart from the collec­ cal and ideological streams and the really big leaguers lamic culture must be met tive body of Muslims. Indi­ in the non-West follow a like Mao Tse-tung, JoeSta­ and analyzed on its own vidual political rights is not logic of their own and are lin, or Adolf Hitler. This terms.... a primary category and has not so easily perverted by lack of distinction is ren­ Prior to the Shah's "mod­ meaning only in a full sys­ our incompetent foreign dered especially ironic by ernization" program and tem supporting individual­ policy. If your editorialists the presence in the same the influx of fantastic oil ism, absent in Iran. To think urge on us the equanimity issue of an article which wealth, Iran remained a land that the issues in Iran reduce for a non-interventionist rather minutely recites the deeply rooted in Islamic tra­ to the familiar Western foreign policy-and quite 14 unbelievable record of the dition. The explosive impact scheme is to be badly mis- rightly-then they should

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW also have the equanimity to was talking about govern­ tablishments, for whatever view events on their own ments and the proper for­ purposes? Perhaps there terms without straining Inconsistency? eign policy for them to pur­ would be little or no market them to fit ideological pre­ sue, while I was talking for child selling or child ren­ conceptions. WHILE I REALIZE THAT about individuals outside of tal of the kind I have indi­ Only one thing can be magazines such as yours government, specifically cated, but this does little to certain in Iran's future: as cannot be expected to pub­ those of us iil the libertarian settle the theoretical prob­ always, the chiefvictims will lish fully self-consistent movement. If libertarians lem which these questions be the peaceful, productive pieces so that all contribu­ should be alive to any dis­ only begin to suggest. members ofIranian society. tions square with each tinction in the universe, it is FLORIAN VON IMHOF Between the Shah, the Aya­ other's main thesis, the fol­ surely the distinction be­ tollah, and foreign med­ lowing contrast in your Feb­ tween private persons and Boston, Massachusetts dling, Iranian liberty will be ruary 1979 issue is simply governments. strangled before it even too glaring to pass off as Block replies: takes a breath. Individual mere pluralism among liber­ Mr. Imhof raises some in­ rights in Iran do not need to tarians: How about teresting and important be salvaged but constructed Earl C. Ravenal: "To the questions which will have for the first time. That this traditional objects of quar­ rent-a-baby? to be answered by any can be done in a strictly rels between nations, the complete rendition of the Islamic society is highly un­ Carter administration has I CANNOT DISAGREE libertarian theory of chil­ likely, but Iran must take the added some additional bag­ with Professor Block's arti­ dren's rights. But I am puz­ first step itself if it ever is to gage: economic warfare, cle "On 'baby selling'" zled. What do these queries occur.... Outside the West, and 'human rights'-the [January 1979]. Still some have to do with my article the world is perishing not knee-jerk defense of our uncomfortable questions on baby selling? from lack of liberty, but own peculiar values in other come to mind. If the biolog­ For in that article I took the lack of the very idea of countries." ical mother can sell her for granted that parents liberty. Murrary N. Rothbard: baby to adoptive parents, have the right to give away, "For our aim is to bring can these in turn sell the as in adoptions, the package JAMES LEE BROOKS, JR., freedom to the entire world, baby to still other buyers? If ofrights and responsibilities M.D. and therefore it makes an not, why not? If yes, where they have with regard to Clarkston, Georgia enormous difference to us in does this lead? Specifically, their children. Nor did I which direction various how often and up to what concern myself with analys­ Riggenbach replies: countries are moving, age can a child be sold and ing what this package prop­ If, as Mr. Sanders argues, whether toward liberty or resold? For example, can a erly consisted of. The only "murder is not cumulative" toward slavery." six-year child be sold? If so, point I tried to make is that and "the killer ofone human I believe this discrepancy what rights does the buyer parents have a right to is as much a murderer as the between one of your guest acquire in this transaction? charge for that which killer ofa thousand," then I editorials and an article by Suppose we answer: the everyone concedes they am unable to see why "the one of your contributing right acquired is only the have a right to do when genocide is in a class of evil editors (and one ofthe intel­ right to raise the child. But there is no money transfer; by himself," orwhy the Shah lectual heros of contempo­ then if the buyer's idea of that is, given that they may must be considered a "tin­ rary libertarianism, espe­ "raising the child" is hard allow their children to be horn dictator" outside the cially as espoused by Liber­ labor or any kind of com­ adopted, they may also do class of "really big leaguers tarian Review), should be mercial or quasi-commer­ this for financial remunera­ like Mao Tse-tung, Joe called to your and your cial service, how does this tion. Stalin, or Adolf Hitler." readers' attention. development differ from the Mr. Imhof, on the other Questions concerning the TffiOR R. MACHAN purchase of slave labor? hand, asks for an elucida­ standards used by Amnesty Santa Barbara, California How many such children tion of the rights and obli­ International in judging the can one family (or corpora­ gations that children and comparative evil of human tion disguised as a "fam­ parents have for each other. rights records had best be Rothbard replies: ily") buy? Is one hundred But since I did not deal with directed to that organiza­ Professor Machan's letter is too many? Who will say? I this question, his criticism is tion. a curious one, since it is so am aware, of course, that illegitimate. I am unable to agree with flagrantly at odds with his the problem of treating a It would make as much Dr. Brooks that "individual own well-known enthusi­ child like a slave can arise (or as little) sense to attack rights in Iran do not need to asm for greater diversi­ also in relation to its biolog­ my baby selling article on be salvaged but constructed ty within the libertarian ical parents but not, it the ground that it does not for the first time." Rights are movement. seems to me, with the same deal with the evils of public not constructed, but simply But let that pass. For even immediacy as it would if school education, nor with are. And the fact that those more curious is the fact that "child rearing" were com­ the libertarian view on whose rights are being vio­ Machan sees a contradic­ mercializable in the way I compulsory child inocula­ lated have not yet learned to tion where none exists, and consider. And further, if tions, blood transfusions think about the matter in the he as a libertarian should be one can buy a baby or against the will of the par­ terms we use here in the among the first to realize perhaps even older children, ents, or with child labor West strikes me as quite this. For in the two quota­ can one rent a baby or a laws. These are also crucial irrelevant. tions, Professor Ravenal child, have child rental es- issues for the theory of chi1- 15

JUNE 1979 dren's rights. Libertarians, in moral code is simply a sub­ tators have exaggerated the this case too, have a unique jectivistic commitment to counterculture's hostility to contribution to make. Butin "doing one's own thing," reason, progress, science, similar manner, they are what if one's own thing in­ and technology, it would be irrelevant to the question of volves violating people's folly to pretend that the whether parents who have rights? Perhaps present day attack on the rationalistic the right to give their chil­ decadents are tolerant folks values of Western civiliza­ dren away in adoption also and won't feel inclined in tion is totally divorced from have the right to charge that direction, but surely the growth of the counter­ money for the identical there is no convincing moral culture. Many libertarians transfer. barrier, ifone is preoccupied have argued that the fate of A reply to a letter to the with self-indulgence, to such liberty and the value of ra­ editor does not afford the say; Riggenbach is himself coercive action. In this re­ tionality are inextricably space for an answer to Mr. an essayist par excellence. gard it is worth noting that linked; if this is so, then the Imhof's questions. How­ The entire work-and Max Stirner and Jim Hou­ counterculture may be fun­ ever, there are several places this, in fact, is a quality ofall gan, to whom Riggenbach damentally opposed to the where the interested reader LR issues to date-exudes a fondly refers, provide evi­ spirit of libertarianism. may find solutions to some joyous optimism that surely dence that moral subjectiv­ of the challenges he poses. tomorrow's world is ours ism/decadence is incompati­ Another connection Rig­ These include my "A liber­ for the taking-that liber­ ble with libertarianism: genbach makes which one tarian theory of abortion" tarianism is an idea whose Stirner thought all talk of might well question is that in the March 1978 issue of time has come. It is going to rights was a fiction and between anti-authoritari­ Reason, and the chapter on be a tough fight, no doubt, Hougan thinks decadence anism and libertarianism. . "The employer of child but one, indeed, that we'll refers to "the inconse­ While surely libertarians labor" in· my book Defend­ probably win in the end, if quentiality of an individu­ must applaud the decline of ing the Undefendable (New only because libertarianism al's existence". If Riggen­ state authority, and, to a York: Fleet Press, 1976) pp. can command the talents of bach thinks these are lesser extent, conventional 247-56. There are also those who write for Liberta­ kindred libertarian spirits, authority, it is far from clear Man, Economy and State rian Review; but with pieces then he is sadly mistaken. that anti-authoritarianism (New York: Van Nostrand, like "Decadence," the battle None of this is meant to per se ought to be heralded. 1962) p. 439, the discussion for liberty will not just be deny that a vital concern for IfI am right that a defense of of child labor laws in difficult-it will be enjoy­ one's well-being is in oppo­ rationality and liberty are Power and Market (Kansas able as well. sition to libertarianism. In­ linked, then the authority of City: Sheed Andrews and deed, some libertarian phi­ reason badly needs uphold­ ROSS LEVATTER McMeel, 1977) pp. 56-7, losophers have argued that ing; further, the heart of Cincinnati, Ohio "Kid Lib," in Egali­ an ethic of rational or eu­ libertarianism is a move­ ment against power, not tarianism as a Revolt daimonistic.egoism grounds authority. Some people such against Nature (Washing­ JEFF RIGGENBACH IS the political philosophy of as Robert Nisbet have ar­ ton, D.C.: Libertarian Re­ one ofthose rare individuals libertarianism. Rational self gued that periods of declin­ view Press, 1974) pp 88-95, who write so well that it is interest and libertinism are ing authority are periods of all by Murray N. Rothbard; easy to think the content of worlds apart, however; the rising statism, and while his and "The Law of Omis­ his articles must be as good former can condemn certain analysis may not be fully sions and Neglect of Chil­ as the form. However, a modes of behavior as being dren" by Williamson M. careful examination ofsome immoral, while the latter is convincing, the relationship between the two is more Evers in The Journal of of the arguments in his infused with an "anything complicated than Riggen­ Libertarian Studies, Vol. 2, recent piece "In Praise of goes" spirit. bach suggests. No.1, Winter 1978, pp. Decadence" reveals some Closely related to Rig­ 1-10. serious flaws. genbach's mistaken link be­ Finally, one must protest Riggenbach, argues, cor­ tween decadence and liber­ Riggenbach's out of context rectly, that periods of cul­ tarianism is his failure to references to Murray Roth­ tural decadence tend to be appreciate the massive as­ bard and Lewis Lapham. It Decadence and hospitable to the growth of sault on rationality that is is a little unfair to cite Mur­ libertarian ideas, and that occuring in today's decadent ray Rothbard in a piece liberty much of what is decried as period. While Riggenbach praising decadence without "permissiveness" is merely does briefly mention that mentioning that Rothbard THIS IS IN PRAISE OF another name- for liberty. many of the ideas prevalent has always been a harsh "In Praise ofDecadence," a Riggenbach, however, in a decadent society are critic of the counterculture masterwork of historical seems to jump from the fact false or foolish, he does not and a believer in an objective overview, economic under­ that decadence or permis­ seem to realize howit affects moral framework. And it is standing, sociologic insight, siveness is libertarian in a his basic argument. Cer­ more than a little unfair to and style. Indeed, the entire political or social sense to tainly the values ofthe coun­ cite Lapham's essay on Cali­ piece is ample evidence of claim that morally speaking terculture that Riggenbach fornia without mentioning the claim Riggenbach makes an individual's pursuit of a applauds have no small that one of the focal points that today's greatwriters are decadent lifestyle must be connection with the assault of the attack revolved moving away from the novel applauded as libertarian or on rationality; while un­ around California's alleged 16 and toward the critical es- individualistic. But if one's doubtedly some commen- obsession with image, ap-

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW pearance, and superficiality. ualism ofthe worst kind) is a the U.S. Drug Enforcement ural world. "Technology" dominant cultural value is a officers in Latin America? means only the machines we DANNY SHAPIRO society in which liber­ Let Shapiro consider the use to do the work we do. Minneapolis, Minnesota tarianism is also likely to be historical record and con­ And "progress" means popular among those in­ trast the prevalence of vio­ nothing at all in the absence terested in ideas. This asser­ lent violations of human of any explicitly spelled out Riggenbach replies: tion does not seem to me rights during decadent standard of value by which It is disappointing indeed to tantamount to the assertion periods as against authorita­ it is to be measured. Does be informed, as I am now thatMax Stirner was a liber­ rian periods. And let him Shapiro believe that the informed by DannyShapiro, tarian. As for Jim Hougan, I draw the inescapable con­ counterculture is hostile to that one is a writer of rare can find no reference to him clusion. thought per se, and to study­ skill who has failed to in my essay which I think ing the natural world and to clearly communicate his might reasonably be inter­ the use of machines? What ideas to a reader of obvious preted as an assertion of his does he make, I wonder, of sensitivity and erudition. As sympathy with liber­ the great enthusiasm among a confirmed devotee of the tarianism. As far as I know counterculturists for the idea that form must follow he has no such sympathy. I technology we call solar function, I can only con­ devoted a large proportion power, or for the scientific clude that my recent effort of "In Praise of Decadence" discipline known as ecology, to identify and analyze the to discussion of his -1975 or for the social and trends now dominating our book, Decadence, because it philosophical ideas of writ­ culture has enjoyed only was by ihis book which I ers and thinkers as diverse as middling success. was first led to two of the Paul Goodman, Timothy It seems to me indisputa­ most important ideas in my Leary, and Buckminster Ful­ ble that an individual's pur­ essay: the co-optation of the ler? suit of a decadent lifestyle is counterculture by the left, I must confess that I am at Perhaps I stand convicted individualistic. That is, after and the role ofadvertising as a loss to understand what is of unfairness to Lewis Lap­ all, what it means to pursue a popularizer of the values meant by those who accuse ham, but I think not; Shapi­ a decadent lifestyle: to live of the counterculture. the counterculture of a ro and I seem to have according to values one has "hostility to reason, pro­ formed rather different chosen for oneself, accord­ gress, science, and technol­ ideas of where the thrust of ing to one's individual stan­ ogy." Such windy abstrac­ Lapham's argument lay. In dards, without regard for tions ordinarily conceal a the case of Murray Roth­ the pronouncements of es­ will simply to smear with bard, I suggest Shapiro bet­ tablished authority. It is high sounding words. "Rea­ ter acquaint himselfwith the certainly true that by this son," after all, means only published works of this im­ definition, Charles Manson the processes (which are portant libertarian writer was pursuing a decadent many and various and al­ before asserting that he "has lifestyle when he conducted most infinitely complex, and always been a harsh critic of the atrocious murders at the are not, I fear, capable of the counter culture." Spe­ Tate and LaBianca homes. neat codification) by which cifically, he should consult And needless to say, Charles human beings form and Rothbard's essay on "Lib­ Manson cannot reasonably combine and link their erty and the New Left" in be regarded as a libertarian. Max Stimer ideas. "Science" means only Left and Right, Volume I.. That he was an individual­ I-lougan may not be a liber­ investigation and concep­ Number 2, Autumn 1965, ist, however, seems inescap­ tarian, but he is an acute tual organization of the nat- pp.35-66. 0 able-not in his social cultural critic and one to theories, ofcourse, butin his whom I am indebted for choice of a deviant lifestyle. many of my own ideas. There is, surely, such a thing Shapiro worries that a COMING as an evil individualist. culture whose only folkway Shapiro himself offers evi­ was "do your own thing" SOONINLR dence for this assertion would pose "no convincing when he refers to the poten­ moral barrier" to such be­ tially evil consequences of havior as that exhibited by Roy A. Childs, Jr. Max Stirner's ideas. The the Hell's Angels and the point I sought to make in my MansonFamily. Thisis true, on Energy and essay was simply that liber­ of course; but mustn't one tarianism is a logical out­ ask in fairness whatconvinc­ American Foreign Policy growth (though not, as ing moral barrier was posed Shapiro rightly argues, the by the authoritarian culture Joan Kennedy Taylor on only possible or inevitable which preceded ours to such outgrowth) of individual­ behavior (incalculably more H. L. Mencken's ism. It seems to me, there­ destructive and irrational) fore, that a society in which as that exhibited by the U.S. Defense ofWomen individualism (even individ- military men in Vietnam and 17

JUNE 1979 production has steadily de­ windfall profits tax now clined while imports have reduces the expectations of increased? In 1973 the u.s. profit which oil drillers had imported about six million for the period after 1981. barrels ofoil per day. Today Presumably, the expectation that figure is nine million of reduced after-tax profits barrels per day. And the will reduce oil drilling and situation is steadily growing exploration below what it worse. otherwise would have been. To his credit, President What we all want is an Carter has moved to correct increased supply of domes­ this absurd situation by de­ tic oil and we ought to stop controlling the domestic backing away from doing price ofoil. He has proposed what is necessary to get it. gradual decontrol beginning To get more of anything this year with full decontrol there needs to be an increase in 1981. Unfortunately, he in the return for producing has also decided to combine it. If the rate ofreturn is held decontrol with the imposi­ down by taxes or price con­ tionof a "windfall profits" trols then there is going to be tax. less production, period. Carter's attitude is that a The truth of the matter is windfall profits tax is jus­ that President Carter is not tified since oil producers will decontrolling the price ofoil make more profit after de­ because he believes it will control than they do today lead to an increase in supply. Energy politics consumption, and that sub­ even with the tax. The tax is Carter has always believed stitution is unnecessary. The suppose to insure that the oil that the domestic supply of result, predictably, is rising companies do not "un­ oil is basically inelastic-so BRUCE BAR1lElT consumption and reduced fairly" profit from adversity. that an increase in price will domestic supplies of oil. The fact of the matter is not lead to much of an in­ SINCE 1973, PRIC­ Moreover, in conjunction that Carter is hurting crease in supply. So he is es for domestically with oil price controls the domestic oil production decontrolling oil only for government has established more than he knows. Con­ one reason: full decontrol produced crude oil an entitlement system which gress decreed in 1975 that comes automatically on have been artificially further distorts supply and the price of oil would be September 30, 1981. By held below the world demand. In the absence of decontrolled in 1981 with­ phasing it in, he hopes to entitlements, those refineries out further action. Thus oil reduce the economic impact market price by gov­ with access to lower-priced exploration has proceeded of this move while simul­ ernment controls. As domestic oil would make on this assumption. The taneously justifying an in- in all cases of price huge profits, while those forced to use higher priced controls, this has dis­ OPEC oil would suffer. In torted supply and order to even out the dispar­ ities, therefore, the entitle­ demand. The world ment system establishes an marketprice is telling average price for oil which us that the supply of all users pay. The average price for all oil is declining, that oil used in the United States, consumption should including imports, is now be reduced accord­ approximately $14.00 per barrel. Yet it now costs ap­ ingly, and that sub­ proximately $18.00 per bar­ stitutes should be rel to import oil. The $4.00 sought, while the per barrel difference repre­ sents a subsidy that is paid domestically con­ through the cumbersome trolled price does the entitlement system to those who purchase and use im­ opposite, telling con­ ported oil. In other words, sumers that oil is imported oil is subsidized at more plentiful than it the same time that domestic production is discouraged actually is, that they by price controls. Is it any 18 need. not cut back on wonder, then, that domestic

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW crease in taxes on oil com­ panies. And his desire for a windfall profits tax is not based on any supposed "concern" for the con­ sumer, merely naked greed for more tax revenue. Carter has said that the revenues from a windfall Now profits tax will be used to fund research and develop­ AvaIlable: ment of alternative energy sources. It seems obvious that this will turn into no more than an energy pork barrel fund which will do nothing to create more energy. As Congressman Democracy and Leadership Dave Stockman puts it: "If the $17-billion in By Irving Babbitt 'windfall profits' is such an intractable political prob­ A penetrating work of political lem that it must be taxed and moral philosophy, first away, then the best solution published in 1924, Democracy would be to rebate the pro­ and Leadership is packed with ceeds on a per capita basis as wisdom. Irving Babbitt was a an annual Christmas bonus to the American people. The distinguished professor of French worst solution is to hand literature at Harvard and a them over to a Congress that leader of the intellectual move­ is likely to build a windfall ment called American Human­ or its functional equivalent ism. This was his only directly in every district across the political book, and in it Babbitt land." applies the principles of human­ At present it appears ism to the civil social order. He likely that Congress will summarizes the principal polit­ approve some kind ofwind­ ical philosophies; contrasts fall profits tax. The critical Rousseau with Burke; describes debate will focus on whether true and false liberals; distin­ a plowback provision will guishes between ethical individ­ be included. With a plow­ back provision any funds ualism and destructive egoism; invested by oil companies in and stands up for work and domestic energy develop­ duty. Democracy and Leadership joins the broken links between ment would be exempt from politics and morals-and that accomplishment marks it as a work the windfall profits tax. of genius. With a foreword by Russell Kirk. Hardcover $9.00, Soft­ Since virtually all oil com­ cover $4.00. panies regularly invest more than their annual profits in energy development, the ef­ fect would be to virtually eliminate the adverse effects We pay postage, but require prepayment, on orders from individuals. of a windfall profits tax. Please allow four to six weeks for delivery. To order this book, President Carter is ada- or for a copy of our catalog, write: mantly opposed to a plow­ back, because he under­ LibertyPress/LibertyClassies stands that it would effec­ 7440 North Shadeland, Dept. F22 tively gut the windfall prof­ Indianapolis, Indiana 46250 its tax. It is unlikely, how­ ever, that the Congress will adopt a tax without plow­ back. Although no tax at all would be the best solution, a tax with plowback seems like the probable outcome of 1979's energy debate. 0 CCCO. On that same day LR editor Roy Childs and I debated McCloskey at Stan­ ford University. The debate was broadcast live over local radio. This flurry of SLS­ inspired anti-draft activity has earned the respect of several prominent,anti-war MENT activists from the sixties. David Harris, the former this was not defeated be­ nied a chance to speak, husband ofJoan Baez and a MILTON MUELLER cause the committee mem­ McCloskey skulked about draft resister who went to bers opposed conscription; on the speakers platform jail during the Vietnam war, draft supporters simply telling reporters that SLS will speak at an upcoming ABRIEF NOTE ON thought it was premature. had invited him to speak and SLS Student Activist Semi­ the May 1st anti­ As Cold warrior Marjorie was now reneging. The ral­ nar and at the Libertarian draft rallies called by Holt (R-MD) said in the Hers responded to this pa­ Party National Convention New York Times, "people tent lie with an impromptu in Los Angeles. Ron Kovic, Students for a Liber­ are just going to say we're sit-in at McCloskey's of­ reputedly an anarchist, has tarian Society: silly:" The bill that was fice-and made the CBS praised SLS and has been passed allows them to morning news. invited to speak on a panel The timing could "study the feasibility" of­ The next day, nearly SO at the LPNational Conven­ not have been, better. i.e., orchestrate more sup­ such rallies were held on tion. David Dellinger, one of On the morning of port "for-a reserve draft college campuses around the the Chicago Seven, spoke at while setting up the registra­ country. Crowd sizes ranged the New York SLS rally and April 30, the House tion •. Il1achinery that would from 50 determined high helped promote our anti­ Military Manpower make such a draft easy to school students in Nevada draft rally in Boston. implement. County, California (where it Although we didn't really Subcommittee unan­ As ithappens, the entire rained), to nearly 1,000 at think about it until it was imously reported out week ofSLS-sparked protest the University of California over, the Mayday demon­ a bill that'would re­ was to be kicked off that at Berkeley. Notable de­ strations were unique in the same day in Washington, monstrations were held in history of the modern liber­ sume registration of D.C.The rally, held on the New York, Boston, Cincin­ tarian movement: they were 18 yearolds.The Capitol steps at noon, fea­ nati, Madison, Austin, the first nationwide events bill, which will 'now tured disabled'Vietnam vet­ Minneapolis and Los An­ ever called and organized by eran Ron Kovic, Senator geles. In Boston, coor­ 'libertarians. be considered by the Mark .. Hatfield (R-OR), dinator Leda Cosmides full House Armed pacifist Barry Lynn, Rep­ brought together students Services Committee, resentative James Weaver from Harvard, Boston Col­ (D-OR), Representative lege, MIT, and Brandeis in a The trials and triumphs requires draft regis­ Don Edwards (D-CA) and downtown demonstration of a libertarian tration starting on SLS's own Tom Palmer. SLS featuring Robert Nozick. In bookseller helped to form a nationwide New York, work on the January 1, 1981. It coalition of anti-war and rally brought together what would also commis­ anti-draft groups called are often feuding sections of If the modern libertarian sion a study on how Committee Against Regis­ the movement, as New York movement, barely ten years tration and the Draft University students, the Free old, has any venerable in­ to register people (CARD), which helped to Libertarian. Party, the New stitutions, then Laissez-Faire best, and a feasibility build the rally. CARD in­ Jersey LP, Laissez-Faire Books is surely one of them. study on drafting cludes nearly 35 organiza­ Books and the Association Christian Scientists have tions, such as ACLU, AFSC, of Libertarian Feminists all hundreds of reading rooms; people into the Indi­ SANE, and the National participated. The Los An­ socialist bookstores abound vidual Ready Re­ Taxpayers Union. Over 600 geles area saw hefty dem­ But Laissez-Faire, at 206 people attended the Wash­ onstrations at Occidental Mercer Street in New York serve (IRR). By a ington rally, where a fiery College, the University of City, is the only true store­ vote of 5-4, the sub­ speech by Kovic whipped Southern California and front bookstore devoted to committee defeated them up into a determined U.C.L.A. On May 5, a libertarian literature pres­ chant of "Hell No, We major rally was held in ently supported by the another bill which Won't Go!" Comic relief downtown Philadelphia, movement. would have actually was provided by the "lib­ where Don Ernsberger of It is difficult to under­ drafted 200,000 men eral" statist Pete McCloskey the Society for Individual stand the importance of (R-CA), who somehow got Liberty brought together Laissez-Faire without actu­ into the IRR 90 days it into his head that he had SLS, the Friends Peace ally visiting the neighbor­ 20 after its passage. But been invited to speak. De- Committee, YAF and hood in New Yorkwhere it

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW Nearly 1,000 students turned out at the SLS antidraft rally on the Berkeley campus of the University ofCalifornia. stands. At the corner of over-the-counter sales the However, European anarch­ job. The market, of course, Mercer and Bleecker Streets, store has ever had; the group ists who visit-usually un­ has its peaks and valleys. Laissez-Faire is right in the did a lot of promotion and aware of the individualist The 1976 MacBride cam­ heart ofGreenwich Village, the novelty of a libertarian strain of anarchist paign led to increased in­ only a step away from bookstore attracted atten­ thought-"have their minds terest in libertarian books. Washington Square Park tion. Appropriately enough, blown" by the presence of That and some heavy adver­ and New York University. A the very first person to capitalist literature. Of tising in the early part of few blocks down the gar­ purchase a book there-a course, in Europe, "liberta­ 1977 led to a few months of bage-strewn sidewalks and transaction that took place rian" means anarcho­ actual profit for the store. caked-paint facades of while John was still nailing communist, while "capital­ Business then fell off, only to Bleecker Street, one can find together the counter­ ism" connotes not the free be revived by the new Cato the tiny offices of dozens of became a regular customer. market, but mercantilism Institute series in Austrian left-wing group and group­ Muller still recognizes the and fascism. economics, which is handled lets, from the Yippies to the man because he "probably Ironically, Muller believes through Laissez-Faire . War Resisters League. In the has showed up here more that the worst reception of Muller sums up his midst of all this cultural times than anyone else." all has come from Objec­ seven-year experience as one hubbub and political noise, Laissez-Faire's selection tivists. Whenever Muller is of being "constantly on the it warms the heart to find a of libertarian literature is asked in an accusatory tone, ropes." But the growth of tenacious libertarian flag broad and eclectic. It ranges "Why do you carry this the libertarian movement flying. from John Hospers to the book? " he knows that it is makes him very optimistic And it pays off. I re­ anarcho-communist Open another Objectivist, object­ about the future. Excited by member encountering alter­ Road. Petr Beckmann's ing to subversive literature the prospect of the 1980 native school activist pro-nuclear Access to from the mystic/altruist/ Presidential elections, the George Dennison at a con­ Energy sits alongside mate­ collectivist axis. One cus­ growth of the student liber­ ference where I was running rial from the anti-nuclear tomer who discovered Ayn tarian movement, and the a literature table. He ex­ Shad Alliance. Muller is par­ Rand at Laissez-Faire itself, Cato book program, Muller pressed interest, and said he ticularly proud of his selec­ became an Objectivist and has made a decision to "stop had been introduced to tion of anarchist literature, suddenly refused to pa­ working half-assed" and libertarianism at the much of which is rare and tronize the store because it pursue an aggressive pro­ Laissez-Faire bookstore in hard to find, including was (gasp) "anarchist." gram ofexpansion. Heplans New York. European anarchist jour­ Running a bookstore for to acquire some capital, hire Laissez-Faire opened in nals. a market as tiny as liber­ more help, and begin some early March of 1972 after Generally, Laissez-Faire tarianism has always been a systematic advertising and six months of preparation has been well received by the shaky proposition. Muller promotional activities. by John Muller, the prop­ surrounding community. and Presley started Laissez­ Laissez-Faire Books, he re­ rietor, and his former part­ "The anarchist section Faire with $1500. For a minds me, is "the only truly ner Sharon Presley. The first makes it hard for leftists to while, Muller supported the free market institution in the day was also the best day for be against us," notes Muller. store by working at another movement." D 21

JUNE 1979 hard-earned money and reduce by at least a little the steady AN LR INTERVIEW encroachments of government on their lives. In rallying that constituency to a 2 to 1 victory at the polls in June 1978, Jarvis also lit a fire under a national Politically speaking, Howard Jarvis is phenomenon which came, in the weeks following the nothing ifnot a late bloomer. By the time he passage ofProposition 13, to be called the Tax Revolt. Prop burst into national prominence in 1978, he 13 clones began turning up on the ballot in the 25 states whose constitutions permitted the use of the initiative was 75 years old and had been actively process. Ambitious tax revolters began thinking bigger than politicking-as a press aide, campaign state and local taxes and began talking about finding a way to force the federal government to give up some of its worker and candidate-for nearly 50 years. income and trim some of the unsightly fat off its mammoth It is probably no accident, however, that the bureaucracy. And HowardJarvis was right there in the front campaign which made Jarvis an overnight lines, making every effort to extend the Prop 13 idea to every level ofgovernment in every corner ofthe land. By the fall of national hero was the first campaign in 1978 he had filmed a 30 minute TV special on the tax revolt, .which he'd ever participated as anything arranged for prime time broadcast of the special on major other thana Republican, or at least a stations in America's largest cities, and brought in about $1-million in contributions to start up a national tax revolt conservative. As the colorful, outspoken organization called the American Tax Reduction Move­ leader of the Proposition 13 campaign in ment. By early 1979 he had contracted to write a book on California during the spring of 1978, Jarvis the tax revolt called Mad as Hell (it's scheduled to be published this fall), was involved in negotiations to add a spoke for a new constituency in American nationally syndicated radio commentary to his already politics, a constituency made up of disil­ nationally syndicated newspaper column and his almost astonishingly heavy schedule of public appearances, and lusioned liberals, disillusioned conservatives, was working within California to preserve the gains voters former Republicans, and former Democrats thought they had won by passing Proposition 13. who had changed their voter registration to Within weeks of 13's passage, the politicians and bureaucrats in California had begun working to circumvent "Independent" and had begun staying away the new law. If they were now required to cut certain from the polls altogether unless· there was government programs which had been funded by property really something to vote for: something like tax revenues, they apparently reasoned, they'd just cut services like police and fire protection and garbage pickup Proposition 13, which would make it and sewer maintenance-services which they could feel 22 possible for them tokeep a little more oftheir confident most citizens would prefer not to do without.

THE LIBEItTARIAN REVIEW Then they'd publicly announce that there were no longer California and is rapidly increasing the personal income of sufficient property tax revenues to fund these services at the people of California. So, overall, it's an overwhelming their usual levels, and it would be necessary to charge fees to success. I think we can establish that by the fact that keep them going. The amounts of the new fees, needless to although it passed 2 to 1 onJune 6, 1978, a recent statewide say, were strikingly reminiscent of the amounts many poll asked the question, "If13 were on the ballot today, how homeowners had saved by voting for Prop 13. As of early would you vote?" and discovered that today itwould pass 3 1979, when LR editors Jeff Riggenbach and Roy A. Childs, to 1. Jr. sat down with HowardJarvis for some candid conversa­ tion about howthe tax revolt was doing one year later, these LR: Officials in Oakland, one ofCalifornia's medium-sized efforts at circumvention were still going on, though many cities, recently announced that Proposition 13 would had been stopped and other were tied up in court necessitate cuts in the number of beat cops working the challenges. We decided to begin our discussion by finding downtown area at night, along with other cuts in the fire out how the elder statesman of the fledgling tax revolt felt department and the parks and recreation department. about the success of his first legislative triumph. Jarvis: I can't speak for the parks and recreation depart­ LR: It's been almost a year since Proposition 13 was passed ment, but there's more than enough money in the one by the people ofthe State ofCalifornia. Do you feel it's been percent property tax to pay full police costs, full fire costs, implemented? Has government been cut back to adjust to full street lights costs, full sewer and garbage collection the decreased amount of property tax revenue? costs, and ifthey say they're going to have to cut back on the police department they're giving the public a snow job. In Jarvis: No. Or only to a very small extent. The State of Los Angeles we wouldn't stand for that. The Mayor made California had 880,000 employees; it still has 876,000. an announcement one morning that they were going to take There's been a lot ofeffort on the part ofelected officials to a thousand people off the police force. I got him on the circumvent 13 in a number of ways and they've been phone; I got on the air; and they didn't take anybody offthe successful in most ofthem up to now. On the other hand, the police department. These generally are scare tactics used by real purpose of Proposition 13 was to protect the right of opportunistic politicians to punish the people for voting for people to own homes and property in California, and to that 13. Parks and recreation I don't know too much about. It extent it's been absolutely, miraculously successful. I think hasn't been affected in Southern California. I don't see why 13 stopped four million elderly couples from having their it should be affected much in Northern California. homes placed in jeopardy, along with maybe two million However, I don't think we should sell peoples' homes out middle class people, and it's opening the door somewhat so for taxes for parks and recreation. young people can once again buy homes in California. In addition to that, according to the latest release ofthe United LR: You've now proposed that we follow up Proposition States Department of Commerce, 13 has created an 13 with a 50% cut in the state income tax and the business economy in California that's about twice as healthy as any inventory tax. Why abolish the business inventory tax of the rest of the states have. It's added 91,000 jobs in instead of the state sales tax, which would probably make 23

JUNE 1979 z « ::E ~ z ..; w W ..J en w ..J "The public school system is second to none in waste, "The people of this country are saying to the bureaucrats and incompetence, and zero results. It's a cancer on this society." politicians: 'I'm more important to me than you are!'" for a much more dramatic cutback in the taxes that citizens with other states. And it" doesn't produce enough money to have to pay? justify being such a drag on our economy. That's why I'm in favor ofeliminating the inventory tax. A guy buys a pair of Jarvis: Well, we have to have some taxes in California, and shoes in a shoe store and doesn't sell them for a year, and he the state tax is very productive and it's a pretty fair tax., As has to pay inventory tax twice on it. That adds to the price long as food and medicine are eliminated from the sales tax and it's bad for consumers. We want to keep the sales tax, it's a prettyprogressive tax. Onefeature ithas thatI like very but freeze it at its present level. much is that it gives the taxpayer control over how much of . it he's going to pay. Ifhe doesn'twant to buy a Cadillac, h~ LR: Ultimately, in order to keep cutting taxes, we will have buys a Ford. Ifhe doesn't want to buy a $10 shirt, he buys a to cut back on government services and functions. Which $3.50 shirt. We can't take all the money away from should be cut back? government. We have to leave government the amount of money it needs for essential public services. The income tax Jarvis: All of them. in California has gone up even faster than the property tax. Andthe income tax plus the sales tax, after having produced LR: Where do you feel the most money is wasted by a $61/2-billion surplus lastyear when all the public officials government today? ran around the state lying about it and said it was only $11/2-billion~will produce an $8-billion surplus this year. So Jarvis: Thepublicschool system is second to none in waste, what we want to do is to take is about $21/2-billion more incompetence, and zero results. I think the public school dollars out ofthat $8-billion surplus because the state will system is a cancer on this society. The only difference have ample tax revenues without it. between the public schools and the Mafia is that the public The business .inventory tax is a very serious drag on the schools steal more money. economy of California. In the first place it creates big industries in other states. On March 1st-of each year, the LR: The Libertarian Party has proposed a ballot initiative inventory youhave in stock is assessed for the inventory tax. granting a state income tax credit of up to $1200 for any Big merchandisers like Sears & Roebuck and J. C. Penney individual or corporation that pays the private school always warehouse their incoming merchandise in Nevada tuition of a child in the state of California. What do you or Arizona until March 1st. A lot ofinventory, especially in think of that idea? the motion picture business where they can move $50­ million worth of stuff in one Fruehauf trailer, leaves Jarvis: I have to agree with it. Private schools are far California about 5 days before March 1st, goes over the superior to the public schools. A grand jury investigation in Arizona or Nevada, and comes back about 5 days after Los Angeles County last year turned up the sad fact that"63 March 1st. The inventory tax simply raises the consumer percent of the students at affluent schools-not ghetto 24 price and keeps California business in tougher competition schools, but affluent schools-were functionally illiterate.

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW "A strong third party would be a great help, and the "I liked a great many of the things Ed Clark said in his race for Libertarian Party has the best set of principles I've seenl." Governor of California. I think he ran a terrific campaign."

Instead of providing education, the public schools are a it a great state, a highly educated state, a most progressive manufacturing establishment for permanent welfare state, and a most desirable state. Maybe I'm influenced by recipients. that. I don't quarrel with anyone who has a different view. But those are my views. LR: Another area of government expenditure which some critics feel could be trimmed down or even eliminated is LR: You've now begun calling for nationaltax cuts in funds earmarked for enforcing morals laws. It's been addition to local ones. Your American Tax Reduction estimated that as much as 80 percent ofthe money spend on Movement is demanding a pretty dramatic decrease in the' police work in our society is spent on victimless crimes. In federal income tax. San Francisco, an initiative is being prepared for the local ballot which would abolish the vice squad. Do you applaud Jarvis: I disagree with the word "dramatic." The bill we're that idea as a good way to cut back on government? backing calls for a $100-billion cut in federal spending in 4 years. That's $25-billion a year. But that's only five percent Jarvis: I do not. I think the people that proposed that have of the more than $500-billion the government now spends rocks in their heads. I think we have to have some standards. every year. I can't find a congressman or senator who says What is vice? Vice is gambling and prostitution and drugs that we can't cut five percent of our spending somewhere. I and pornography. I'm notin favor ofany ofthem. I'm notso think I've talked to maybe 80 senators, and 300 con­ concerned about pornography except that it gets into the gressmen. That is not a dramatic cut, but it is about a 25 hands of children. I happen to think that pornography is percent cut for everybody in the country. going to rapidly die out. I think it's run it's course. I hope so. The people of this country want a tax cut. I've been in 48 As for prostitution, I hate the profession. I think it's a states. I know what they want. They want a tax cut. And degrading thing. But because it's probably the oldest they don't care particularly what the government thinks profession in the world, we can probably never do anything about it. They want a tax cut. They want a tax cut because about it. I think there is some argument whether itshould be they know now that every dime they earn in January, legalized or not. But I guess I'm kind ofa blue nose. With my February, March, April, May and June until June10th goes vote I wouldn't do it. I'm more opposed to gambling than I for taxes. And they think they are beingrobbed and they are. am to most things. I don't like horse race tracks. I don't like The average fellow now sees that he can't even take his wife legalized gambling because legalized gambling destroys the out to dinner once a week; he can't get his kid's teeth fixed; poor. They are the victims. And the drug culture in the because the government is stealing his money. So he wants United States cost us $42-billion last year. But maybe my a tax cut. He wants fewer governmental employees. He judgmenton some ofthese is a little bit biased. I happened to knows that if there is a tax cut he has to have fewer grow up in the state ofthe Mormon Church and though I'm governmentalemployees and that's satisfactory with him. not a very good Mormon, I believe the standards andvalues He isn't worried about losing services. The people who are that the Church instilled into the people of Utah have made paying the taxes aren't getting any services. They want to 25

JUNE 1979 keep the money they earn. They're saying to the politicians which takes a strikingly different approach? They aren't and bureaucrats, "I'm more important to me than you are!" really calling for sharp tax reductions at all, but are trying That's what it's all about. instead to limit government spending to its current percentage of personal income. LR:Do the people have any ideas on where they'd like national government cut back? Jarvis: I'm not interested in the National Tax Limitation Committee. I'm not interested in them at all. What they Jarvis:It really doesn'tmakeany difference, and the people want to do is keep you and I working every January, don't really give a damn, except for perhaps one thing. February, March, April andJune 'til the 10thin orderto pay There's one thing they don't want. They don't want the taxes. This country cannot survive free under that condi­ defense department decreased. They want it increased. tion. Tax cuts are what we have to have.

LR:Why? It there no fat, no unnecessary bureaucracy, in LR:Do you think our best hope of winning those tax cuts the defense department? lies with the Republican party or the Democratic party?

Jarvis: There's a lot of fat; there's a lot of unnecessary Jarvis: There's really no such thing as a Democratic or bureaucracy in the defense department. But we ought to run Republican party any longer in the United States. Only itthe best we can. It's the one major expense that we can't one-half of one percent of the Republicans participate in take many chances with. We can risk major cuts in the politics. Less than one percent of the Democrats participate. $268-billion in HEW, but we can't risk them in the And the elections are a contest between the National Feder­ $118-hillion in national defense. The thing is, the people ation of Republican Women and the AFL-CIO. I think a thatdetermine our defense requirements are the Russians, strong third party would be a great help to the country. notus. I got into an argument with a Ph.D. over that, and I said, "you want to cut the defense, and Iwant to raise it. LR:Do you think the Libertarian Party has the potential to Let's assume that I'm wrong; we're out $50-billion dollars a become such a strong party? year. Let's assume thatyou're wrong; we're outthe country. Now, what do you want?" And he couldn't answer the Jarvis: Yes. I think they have the best set ofprinciples I've question. seen in a long time. I think they're very nicely in line with the Constitution of the United States. I've just read Murray LR:Some people, including many libertarians, have argued Rothbard's For a New Liberty, and I agree with a great deal that since most of the u.S. defense budget goes to defend of it. other countries, if we moved toward a noninterventionist foreigh policy we.could still more than adequately defend LR:Ed Clark's race as the Libertarian Party candidate for the United States, and yet have massive reductions in the the governo~ship of California last fall won himalmost defense budget. 400,000 votes and was the most successful thirq party race for that office in more than a generation. Jarvis: I disagree. Jarvis:! thought Ed Clark ran a terrific campaign, especially LR: How do you feel about the move to pass a constitu­ when you consider the mountain he was up against. When tional amendment to balance the federal budget? you think ofthe entrenchment ofthe people in public office, both Democrats and Republicans, when you think of the Jarvis: I think it's crazy. A balanced budget doesn't enormous advantages they have over any outsider, when necessarily mean any cut in taxes. If they're spending you think of the pork barrels and the tax money that they $100-billion this year, they can balance the budget by can use to :improperly affect their elections, Clark ran a colleeting new taxes and bringing in $100-billion. Nextyear fantastic race. I like many ofthe things!he said. they can decide to spend $200-billion and raise the taxes again so they can collect $200-billion. The people in this LR:Do you think thateither the Democratic orRepublican country want a tax cut. nominees for the Presidency of the United States in 1980 are In the second place, I think it would be ten years at least going to endorse the American Tax Reduction Movement? before you could get any federal constitutional amendment into effect in the United States, and we can't wait that long. Jarvis:Well, it's generally a bit stupid to try to predict a We've got to do something sooner. Onlyin the event thatwe political scenario, but I think that the nominees for the can't force the Congress to do whatit ought to do should we Democrats are going to be Carter and Brown. I think that go for a federal constitutional amendment. the nominees for the Republicans are going to be Reagan and Connolly. I think we'd have a chance to get more help LR:Some ofthe organizations which have sprung up in the from Reagan and Connolly than from Carter and Brown. wake of the tax revolt seem to see the situation as you do. The National Taxpayers Union, for example, throws its LR: If you got no support from the Democrats and only weight behind any plan which would result in reduction of wishy-washy support from the Republicans, as you did in taxes. California during the Proposition 13 campaign, and firm, all-out support from the Libertarian candidates, would that Jarvis: I'm for the National Taxpayers Union. The only have an effect on the American Tax Reduction Movement's disagreement I have with them in on the question of a favorite for the Presidency? constitutional convention for a balanced budget. Jarvis: It's a tough question, but yes, because I'm a 26 LR:How about the National Tax Limitation Committee, maverick. 0

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But the 67-year-old former machinist didn't lose any of MARSHALL E. SCHWARTZ his fighting spirit during his long ordeal at the hands of the I.R.S. He's currently staying at the home of a television Frank McNulty shook his head sadly. "It's newsman in San Jose, California, writing a book about his battle. And now he feels he's got the I.R.S. where he wants shameful to say;' he lamented, "butifwe've them. "I could have caused all kinds of trouble when I first got freedom, I don't know where in the hell went to prison," he explained, "and gotten all kinds of publicity if I'd wanted it, but I didn't want it then-the it's at. I wouldn't know where to go look for timing wasn't right. Now, I've got 'em hooked. I've got a it." claim against them, and they know it. I let them make a McNulty should know better than most political prisoner out of me for quite some time, but now people how vulnerable our remaining they're in trouble." The sparkle in his eyes as he spoke made him look more like a balding, overweight leprechaun than freedoms are at the hands ofa greedy and like the new folk hero of the tax resistance movement. capricious State: He has just finished serving At 5'3" and 200 or so pounds, this grandfather of seven more than four years in federal prisons for doesn't look like a lot ofthings that he actually is: someone who receives letters from former Nixon aide Chuck Colson refusing to pay taxes on the' $128,000 he (whom he met in prison), Christmas cards from attorney wonin the Irish·Sweepstakes inMarch 1973. Melvin Belli, itineraries from antitax crusaders, and bundles .Although he never broughthis winnings into of information from Howard Jarvis; someone who has written legal documents for perhaps a score of fellow the United States-he went to Dublin prisoners-many of which resulted.in reduced sentences; himself to collect the money in Irish pounds, someone who, on occasion, used to sit and talk about taxation and the role ofgovernmentwith the late libertarian andthen deposited the bulkofitin a bankon antitax activist Karl Bray; someone who, when he thought the Channel Island ofJersey-he served 44 the younger generation was in the right, would avidly join months for income tax evasion plus another their protests in Berkeley and Oakland. So perhaps the I.R.S. thought they had a straightforward five-and-a-half months on a contempt of case on their hands when they took on Frank McNuhy. court charge. His act ofcontempt? Refusing They were to find out differently. "I bet if you called one of to obey a court order to bring the money in them and asked them," McNulty declared, "they're damn sorry they ever fooled with me. And they're going to be a lot to this country so the I.R.S. could collect the sorrier before it's over with. I've got something in store for 28 $70,000 or so in taxes it claimed as its due. them that's gonna knock them right out of the box."

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW

ment based on a rather faulty assumption to begin with. Winning the Irish Sweepstakes So the day before St. Patrick's Day-almost fouryears to the day from the start ofhis trial, and almost six years from The whole thing began back in March 1973 when the time he received that fateful telegram from Ireland­ MeNuhy was notified by telegram. that he had won the Frank McNulty walked out of jail a free man. jackpot in the Irish Sweepstakes-thanks to a $3.25 ticket he, along with millions of other Americans, had bought illegally on the race. With a friend (who later testified for the An antitax activist is born prosecution in his tax evasion trial) he went to Dublin to pick up his winnings, and immediately deposited most ofthe Right now, McNulty is probably fighting harder than he $128,000 in a bank on the Isle ofJersey-where banking did at any time during his 49 months and 16 days in prison. secrecy is among the strictest in the world. Then, after a Never one to respect authority just for authority's sake, his short jaunt to celebrate his luck, he returned to his Oakland four years in jail has further reinforced his views. home. "Taxevasion?" he exclaimed, his eyes widening almost to But his luck was already dwindling. Nosy neighbors, saucer size. "WhatI consider tax evasion is when they retire surprised by his sudden disappearance, had notified federal·judges on a sixty or seventy thousand dollar a year newspapers of his absence, and the I.R.S. was alertly tax-free pension. And also a man like Nixon-now, I don't waiting. But it took nearly two more years-until January know how much he got, but that liar got all kinds ofmoney, 29, 1975-before he was "kidnapped" (the only term and they changed his pension three orJour times. That McNulty uses to describe his abduction by federal officers) makes you.stop and think a little bit. We've got bankers in from his apartment, where he was sitting at his kitchen table this country that don't pay a bit of tax." eating peanuts. In the meantime, he had been living offhis As for the IRS, "I don't care how powerful they say they monthly disability payments from the government. are, they're not that powerful. They're powerful as long as (McNulty has a history of accidents and illnesses dating they can abuse you, throw you in their stinking prisons. But back to an injury he suffered diving off a bridge while in the as long as you don't give into their whims, then eventually Army during World War II.) they get exposed. But they seethey've got the average person From there on, things only got worse. "From the day they scared to death. That's how they break him down and get kidnapped me," McNulty declared, "I never saw a breath of going. Well, it's lucky that I was tough enough that I lived fresh air. They held all kinds of courts on me at different through it and I made it. I've been asked would I do it times-theyviolated every law in the book, every rule, every again-I would have to answer yes. Butifit was worth it ... standard, every general procedure, everything. They if youhave principles like Ido, you'd probably have to say, violated everything. They can't get away with it." 'Yes, it's worth it.' But in the long run,when you get to More bad luck was in store when Federal Judge Luther thinking about it, you wonder just how low-down and how Youngdahl was appointed to handle the case. Youngdahl, a rotten can the authorities possibly get ... I would just as former three-time governor of Minnesota, had wheeled his soonnever put that agency's name in my mouthagain." way into his lifetime sinecure because he was a power in But it's not just the I.R.S., or the prison system, or the Republican politics. Maybe Youngdahl is one reason Justice Department-atwhose hands he suffered so long­ McNulty has such a low opinion ofjudges in general: "Most that piques McNulty's interest these days, when he's not of them are insanely drunk with power. When you watch busy committing his experiences to paper. Take inflation one of them as he walks to the bench, he staggers like·he's and U.S. monetary policy: got a million tons of coal on his shoulders." "It's a shame when they have to close the Treasury On St. Patrick's Day, his trial began. And oneday before Department to readjust the national debt and set it high Tax Day and two days after he was convicted oftax evasion, enough, because they figure they're going to throwaway he was sentenced, Youngdahl imposing the maximum some more ofthe taxpayers' money ...There's no end to it. prison term, although he did not levy a possible $10,000 And now it's beginning to be obvious, and something's got fine. to be done, something's got to give. The younger people are With credit for time served before sentencing, McNulty's more awake than the older ones-the old, hard-core ones. 44 months should have been completed last October 6. But They've robbed them so long, they've kicked them in the the I.R.S. and the Justice Department had other plans in seat of the pants until they've kind ofgot used to it. But the mind. On October 2, 1978, he appeared again in court, younger ones aren't going to hold still for it.... You make a before U.S. District Judge Alfonso Zirpoli. After McNulty $400or$500 paycheck, and the government takes $289 out refused to obey Zirpoli's order to bring the money into this for taxes. That's the way its going ... The first thing I'dlike country so the I.R.S. could get its hands on it, the judge to see them do is do away with the Federal Reserve System, declared McNulty's act to be "a clear and deliberate act of the whole, goddam, corrupt, rotten business. That was one civil contempt," and sent him back to jail on contempt of the worst things that ever happened to this country. Fact charges-adding that the additional jail sentence "is not to is, I would say that put this country on the road to ruin." ·punish but to compel compliance with a court order." If that's the case, should government get its. hands out of Steadfastly, McNulty refused to comply that day-and did the monetary system entirely? "Well, I would put a yes on so again before Zirpoli on November 15, and again on that," McNulty replied. "They've proven that they're January 17, 1979. thieves and outlaws in the past." Finally, his perseverance was rewarded on March 13 Other governmental changes suggested by McNulty when Zirpoli announced he was setting the feisty Irishman included limiting the presidency to one four-year term. "If free because it had become obvious that McNulty could not they can't get anything done in four years, they should get be forced to pay by keeping him in jail. "In short," Zirpoli out andgive someone else a chance. Maybe eventually you'll explained, "the ends of justice will no longer be construc- findsomeone who knows how to run a government. We've 30 tively served by your continued incarceration"-a state- had a bunch ofdropouts trying to run the country ever since

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW I can remember." Perhaps that observation has a more there (in jail). It's nonsense." universal implication-perhaps no one can run a country On Challenging the System :"He once sent a letter contain­ well, because when you try to "run" any country-or state, ing 35 points on what he felt was wrong with the prison or city-thevery nature ofyour actions, your interventions, system to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. "They sent it back prevent it from running "well." and said, 'You tell McNulty that it's prisoners like him we're While any libertarian would agree wholeheartedly with going to keep in prison the rest of their natural lives.'" McNulty's various views, most Americans still accede to On Slave Labor: "When I first went to prison, I made taxation and money manipulation without complaint. damn sure that I got medically unassigned (for work in Why? "They're taught this from the ground up-they're prison) by a certified doctor.... In fact, when the doctor taught this from little children on up. I call it brainwashed. was making out the papers, he said, 'You didn't come here They're brainwashed into the system," he declared. to participate in any slave labor, did you, Mr. McNulty?' But McNulty wasn't "brainwashed into the system." Nor 'Absolutely not,' I replied." were many of his friends in prison. Consider his encounters On Involuntary Testing for Drugs: On one occasion, with Karl Bray-a founder of the Utah Libertarian Party, a McNulty told an individual who gathered urine samples speaker at many LP functions, a Libertarian candidate for from prisoners to test for the presence ofvarious drugs "Ifhe Congress in 1974, and author ever tried to pull anything like of Taxation and Tyranny, who that on me I'd run his ass right died last year at age 34 of out of there in a hurry. He cancer-at the Terminal Island Tax said, 'Oh, we know you're a Compu­ prison. tation clean man, Mr. McNulty.' I "He was a good friend of said, 'Whether I'm clean or mine," McNulty remembered. not, I'm at home. I don'tgo for "He got out and he came back that stuff-that's invading a again. Karl's thinking and mine man's privacy to no end." were altogether different.... I On Psychological Testing of don't say that I disagreed with Prisoners: After sitting and him, but he came up with watching a prison psycholo­ things that I'd have to research, Credits gist drawing lines, in triangu­ because he was farther down lar patterns, on one sheet of the road than I am. He put paper, and then-upon some things to me, like if I had request-duplicating the to take over a country, what Other scribbles on another, he told would I use for law and order Taxes the psychologist, "You're all and other things? It's pretty nuts. The whole damn bunch hard to give a conclusion on of you are lunatics." something like that unless you On Prison Tours: If officials had it pretty well thought wanted a prisoner to be "lost" out ... so no one could reach him or "He was one of the smarter find him, he'd be sent on a Refund guys I ever talked to. But Karl or Due "tour," McNulty declared. "I was in a position where he was on two tours like that.... didn't have too much time-he They could send a prisoner was fighting his own case, and from Springfield to Lewisburg (the officials) were messing (two federal facilities), and with him in prison. So the only they'd be four-five months get­ times we talked were some­ ting to Lewisburg. Take him times when we'd be doing some down to Texas, maybe, for a research in the law library or at lunch." couple ofmonths, then put him on a bus and backtrack him all around." On Man's Inhumanity to Man: Shortly after he was first Notes on prison life arrested, on February 9, 1975 his daughter-in-law called the jail "and told them that my son had unexpectedly passed McNulty's most pointed comments, however, have been away. Well, the sheriffs, they didn't believe her, and made reserved for that aspect ofnaked state power with which he fun ofher, and made kind ofa fool ofher. And then she had has had the most direct experience: the prison system and its her brother call them, and they still wouldn't accept it. So on ancillary operations. the 10th (my lawyer) comes over and tells me the bad news. His complaints cover a spectrum of ills, and run from So then the sheriff's people bust ass to tell me and apologize before he was sentenced until after he was released. His for not letting me know the day before. But that don't do personal papers, which should have been returned to him any good because, with something like that, God accepts no from the federal prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri, replacements anyway, you know." when his official sentence expired last October, were McNulty's most copious flow of accusations and tales of reportedly not sent on until March 5-and they haven't horror, told with amazing good humor, concerns prison turned up yet. medicine-or what masquerades as such. "In army hospi­ On Crime and Imprisonment: "I would say a lot of" the tals and in prison, I never did seem to run into a good prisoners he met had not committed crimes to his way of doctor," McNulty recalled sadly. "All of these prison thinking. "Iwould say 60 percent ofthem don'teven belong doctors, they're real lunatics. The ones that aren't are 31

JUNE 1979 borderline lunatics. I never run into so much crap in my parole officerin the traditional, subservient fashion. Instead life." His rich repertoire of anecdotes bear out his accusa­ of reporting in himself, McNulty has managed to cajole his tions, as does what he was told recently by a doctor at San parole officer into coming out to visit him. "Parole-" he Francisco CountyJail-theonlyprison in which he received snorted, "controlled action, that's what it is." good medical care. After alLthis, what advice would he offer his grandchil­ "A young doctor for [the] Kaiser [Hospital and Medical dren were they to find themselves in a confrontation with Plan] who puts in a little time at the jail said, 'Mr. McNulty, the-I.R.S.? "I'd tell them to go to some country where it's if you hadn't arrived here when you did, two more months tax-free and try to survive there," McNulty replied. ':ButI of the treatment you were in-you wouldn't have been wouldn't worry too much about that, because I look for a around to tell about it.' Thatkind offloored me, although I drastic change in this country. I think the whole system's knew I was in bad shape. I was overmedicated, eight or nine going to collapse. A lot of people don't believe me, but you pills, three or four times a day. They had me all drugged up know, when it went down in England, it went down in a and-medicated. I couldn't hardly breathe. I was-in -bad hurry. It's got to change. They're bringing it on themselves, shape; fluid was backed up in me." and it's coming on pretty fast now." That was not the worst assault McNulty's system took while undergoing what is incongruously referred to as Immortality in the Lord Nelson "medical treatment" in prison. At a Federal prison on the west coast, he had the misfortune to receive dental "care." If you walked down San Francisco's Sutter Street too "This bastard stole all the quickly, you'd probably never gold out of my mouth," see The Lord Nelson. The McNulty charged. "He stole English-style pub (one of the the gold bridges on both sides leading hang-outs for dart of my m6itth. He was drilling throwers in the Bay Area) can down into my roots and he be distinguished only by a drilled too deep and got into small, handpainted sign bear­ my jawbone. So my jawbone inga likeness of the fanious was infected, and I had this ' admiral hanging from its brick lump in the bottom _of my facade. Inside, you'd find a mouth for three years." Later, new addition to the decor sit­ at another federal prison, he ting behind the bar (and right was at first unable to get ~_....,rl!ll'llJ!.'''- in front of the Oxford English treatment for the problems Dictionary and several other caused by the first dentist. So reference works used fre­ he sought help from an inmate quently to resolve arguments dentist (serving time on drug among patrons): a portrait of charges). But when, after Frank McNulty in his orange ponying up 12 cartons of :~ prison jumpsuit, painted and cigarettes as his fee, he met the ~ brought into the pub by a prisoner in the tunnels, "he ~ former Los Angeles police­ comes running by me three or j man living in the Bay Area. four yards and drops dead! ." ~~ McNulty's smiling face is a The report was that he was ~ fitting, addition to the five dart overdosed on barbiturates." . boards, one ping-pong table, Later two partial plates were made for him. When they the tree trunk running from floor to ceiling that makes more arrived, a doctor inserted them despite McNulty's insistence than a foot of prime elbow space at the bar rather uncom­ that they didn't feel right. But the bottom plate had been fortable, and the small wallstand displaying several dozen jammed on top ofa bone spur (created by the Gold Thief), issues of Punch. He's been a friend of owner Sam Hill, a and when McNulty got on the elevator to go back to his cell, transplanted Liverpudlian, for some 20 years, even helped "Istarted getting the dry heaves.... I was downon the floor him build his original pub across the bayin Oakland. ofthe elevator, going up three floors, and everybody else on "We still have to get it framed," remarked Dick Dobbins, the elevator thought I was crazy," McNulty shook with a bearded ex-Bostonian who is Hill's partner. He recalled laughter. "And all the time I'm digging in my mouth trying the scene in the pub just hours after McNulty's release from to get this crap out." prison in March, when he, Hill, McNulty, McNulty's When his infected mouth finally was examined carefully, attorney, and several others were sitting behind closed doors McNulty was told the remaining teeth in his lower jaw had sipping Irish coffees. All that the sweepstakes winner could to come out. But the infection, caused by the first dentist, talk about was his coming legal and literary campaign was still so potent it took a six-month course of penicillin against the government to balance the scales. "He's some treatments to eliminate it before the teeth could be pulled. fighter," Dobbins added. But even this couldn't make a dent in McNulty's resist­ "This one man took on the most powerful government in ance. "I'm too old to let a bunch ofdamn fools throw me in the world-and he won," Hill grinned, "Isn't it great?",~ prison like they did," he asserted. "They haven't gotten away with it yet-they think they have, but they haven't LR Contributing Editor Marshall E. Schwartz is a longtime San gotten away with nothing." Just as he hasn't cooperated Francisco Bay Area journalist, whose career has included stints as with the I.R.S., and didn't cooperate with prison officials' editor of the Stanford Daily, reporter for the San Francisco 32 regimentation efforts, McNulty isn't respondi~g to his Chronicle, and managing editor of Inquiry.

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW WdrdingOff The Great Unwastled: WASHI VS. -THE-BUDGET

California governorJerry Brown has journeyed to Washing­ WILLIAM D. BURT ton to plug for it, but an anonymous California congress­ man says gleefully that the state's congressional delegation "kicked the hell out of him when he got there." An aide to the u.s. House of Representa­ "A good way to get a fat lip." "Kick the hell out ofhim." tive's Democratic leadership calls it "a good Such words have always peppered a certain percentage of way to get a fat lip real fast." One congress­ the mail sent to politicians by taxpayers who have reached their wits' end. But all of a sudden, the politicians are man is so angered by it that he's written sending it back. After years of hearing about public Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt in tones contempt for government, more than a few elected representatives now seem to be saying that the feeling's Babbitt complains were "just dripping in mutual. poison." Senators Lloyd Bentsen, Edmund Nor is this petulance confined to Washington, D.C. At Muskie, and Robert Byrd have chimed in to recent hearings held in the California Assembly, some members grew openly impatient with the long parade of threaten darkly the end of federal revenue witnesses. Fits of pique sent pencils flying as witnesses sharing programs to all who support it, and spoke. Politicians took open pleasure in baiting speakers, Senator Edward Kennedy has labeled it "an dismissing their answers and puttingwords in their mouths. The object ofall this vituperation is the accelerating drive ominous development for the nation ... a for a constitutional amendment requiring the federal serious threat to the integrity of the government to halt inflationary deficit spending. Initiated in 1975 by the National Taxpayers Union, a 100,000-member Constitution." Washington based organization dedicated to cutting taxes House minority leader John Rhodes says and government spending, the "balance-the-budget" that the way to alleviate concern over the campaign has picked up support from 30 state legislatures for a resolution to require a balanced budget amendment issue is to elect a Republican Congress, but a drawn up by Congress, or, failing that, by a constitutional national policy conference of Republican convention. The Constitution's Article Five commands leaders has carefully avoided taking a stand Congress to convene such a constitutional convention when 34 states make the call-an event which could occur by late when pressed on it. House Judiciary 1979, according to NTU balance-the-budget director Committee chairman Peter Rodino says he George Snyder. hopes "that the people in the states ... Indicating broad public support for the amendment proposal are three polls taken in early 1979 by Gallup, the pause, knowing that a responsible commit­ New York Times/CBS News, and the Associated PresslNBC tee of Congress is looking into the matter." News. Upwards of 70 percent in each poll supported the 33

JUNE 1979 proposal, and the New York Times/CBS News pollsters system." commented that "the proposed budget-balancing amend­ But this contempt for the public is nothing compared to ment had a remarkably uniform level of support across the the sustained, derisive, and irresponsible attack upon the country, and demographically." Interestingly, Gallup found balanced budget drive by advocacy groups once thought to support for the amendment to be 95 percent ifprovisions represent large segments of the public. Constituents of the were to be made for emergency expenditures; all the state traditional spending lobbies are invariably assumed to be legislatures' resolutions do in fact include such provisions. beneficiaries, rather than victims, of inflation, and oppo­ Most taxpayers approach the issue in a common-sense nents ofthe amendment have struggled mightily to keep the manner. They know that as individuals they cannot live old social hatreds burning. beyond their means, atleast for very long. Then they look at For example, the 88 percent of union families who twenty years' worth of ever-ballooning federal deficits. support the balanced budget amendment now find them­ Peering through the cloud of dust kicked up by the selves being derided by AFL-CIO spokesmen as misguided government's stable of sympathetic economists (Paul patsies of big business manipulation. The NAACP's Virna Samuelson, for example, who belittles the analogy between Canson describes voter acceptance of the amendment as household and government budgets as "the fallacy of "ignorant"-despite 78 percent support among nonwhite composition"), many taxpayers correctly surmise that these families-and she goes on to patronizingly attribute the deficits are the engine ofinflation and economic stagnation. appeal ofthe balanced budget idea to an "illusion" fostered And they are further convinced that Congress will not by "blatant political ambitions, vested economic interests, restrain itself-hence the tnassive support for a constitu­ elitism, greed," and, ofcourse, most ofall, "racism." Major tional amendment. metropolitan newspapers have clung to their perch as The widespread acceptance of these insights has, more inveterate obfuscators of important issues, disdaining the than anything else, focused concern over inflation into a balanced budget as a "simplistic solution" and lecturing the protest against the real villains of the piece. The public's unenlightened as to inflation's "diverse" causes. The Los demand for a balanced budget is a demand for an end to Angeles Times, for example, sniffs that "one message on servitude, pure and simple. It is a mandate for an end to taxes from California to the rest of the nation is enough" inflation fueled by government borrowing, and a plea to and characterizes an amendmenttorequire fiscal integrity as loosen the chains ofoppressive taxation. It is a hope that by "mathematical graffiti at the bottom ofthe [Constitution]." restoring some sanity to this country's finances, we can Other papers have published editorials such as the one by again cherish the possibility of a better life. It is a Common Cause's David Cohen, flippantly entitled, "A fundamental change in the political debate, one which Constitutional Convention? You Must Be Crazy!" strikes at the assumption that society is to produce while All in all, America's politicians and their hangers-on,have government is to consume. And this is why Congress is treated the public to a monumental display ofarrogance and fiercely trying to ward off the balanced budget drive. contempt. Those who rule literally do not seem to comprehend that no, the taxpayer is not crazy. Not being able to afford hamburger or buy a house is no joke to the The Carter task force directs the opposition millions oflower- and middle-income families now ravaged by inflation and taxes. The Carter administration has been less vocal but equally determined· to stop the balanced budget amendment. The man who campaigned for the Presidency on a promise to Is the Balanced Budget Amendment balance the budget appointed a high-level White House task the right answer? force in early March to bring pressure against state legislatures thought most likely to endorse NTU's resolu­ Amid all the hysterics lie some substantive issues which have tion. The White House unit has coordinated its lobbying concerned thoughtful observers of the balanced budget with the congressional leadership, and participated in campaign. Many of these are central, strategic questions: sponsoring a front group known as "Citizens for the First, why all the concern with budget-balancing? Why not Constitution" headed by Massachusettslieutenant gover­ spending limitations (a fa Milton Friedman)? Why not tax nor Tom O'Neill, son ofU.S. House Speaker "Tip" O'Neill. cuts (a la Howard Jarvis)? Why not denationalization of Office ofManagement and Budget officials have cooperated money (a fa Fredrich Hayek)? Few would disagree that with Vice President Mondale's and President Carter's staffs spending cuts, tax cuts, and an end to fiat money would in recruiting state officials and private interests to clamor contribute to the liberation of the economy from govern­ against the balanced budget drive. At the request ofWhite ment manipulation. Indeed, one may venture that ifallthese House staffer Tim Kraft, Harvard University law professor measures were in effect, a balanced budget would be far less Lawrence Tribe has submitted a 23-page memorandum of important than it is now. But the difficulties are these: The legal and political arguments opposing the amendment; and public cannot seem to obtain spending cuts of any real . Tribe, along with a parade of other academics who have magnitude unless Congress' hand is forced by constitutional volunteered their services to the beleaguered government, restraint. The popularity ofthe Kemp-Roth bill suggests the has been dispatched to testify before state legislatures. possibility ofobtaining tax cuts, but as long as Congress has It is clear that Carter opposes both the constitutional access to its money machine, the foregone taxes will only be convention and the amendment itself, notwithstanding his "invisibly" re-imposed via inflation. Finally, denationaliza­ once-upon-a-time commitment to fiscal integrity. White tion of money seems nowhere near becoming a political House task force chief Richard Moe has told reporters that reality; that would require a substantially greater public the President has given his staffers a "clear mandate" to awareness of the intricacies ofgovernment finance than we attack the convention as a "nightmare" and the balanced now have. budget amendment as a fearful specter which "presents In this context, balancing the federal budget is the best 34 serious dangers to our economic, social, and political available means for ending inflation. If Congress is going to

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW hold onto its power to create money, then society can at again soon-with little controversy. What is needed is some least limit its power to create the debt which is going to hold simple but non-arbitrary constraint which can be used to onto its power to create the debt which is to be financed by hold Congress accountable. The balanced budget fills the newly-created money. bill. A balanced budget can then be used as the essential lever But couldn't a balanced budget be the cause ofhigher for obtaining true tax and spending cuts. The balanced taxes? No. As Milton Friedman has emphasized, the true budget requirement by its very nature introduces an element measure of taxation is spending, or in other words the sum of intellectual honesty into fiscal policy debates which of explicitly levies taxes and the "implicit" taxes levied increases the attractiveness of tax and spending cuts. No through creation of new dollars. Since a balanced budget longer must people fear that a Kemp-Roth tax cut would does not, to say the least, command increased spending, simply boost inflation; a tax cut would necessitate spending. there is no way that a balanced budget requirement could cuts. increase this total real tax burden. Congress might choose at There is no evidence, on the other hand, that tax and any time, as it can choose now, to raise explicitly levied spending cuts can be obtained without a balanced budget taxes. The reason it does not do so at the present time is that requirement, orthat they would have any lasting influence if the politicians know they have pushed taxes about as high as they were. Experience with the congressional budget the publicwill stand. In the private business world prices are process, which was established to control the recurrent a function ofwhat the customer is willing to pay, not of the deficits, demonstrates concretely that spending limitations businessman's need for more revenue. The same is true of are too complex and arcane to be politically workable. The government. By cutting off the opportunity to create debt, federal government's "permanent debt ceiling," raised the balanced budget requirement increases politicians' through various supposedly temporary adjustments from its perceived need for increased revenue from alternative original $400-billion to $798-billion, is due to be raised sources such as explicitly levied taxes, but does nothing to W/lro\~~~' I 11'1" ','1 el'lnlo/tiliU'&'~fi-·~ '61

JUNE 1979 increase the willingness ofthe taxpayer to pay. Politicians, their resolutions becomenull and void should the conven­ who are expert in making these calculations, have to date tion seek to consider other matters. religiously avoided talking about punishing the public with Third, Congress. must transmit any resolution from the increased taxes, even as Washington's campaign ofvilifying convention to the states for ratification. In extreme the balanced budget amendment goes on. situations this transmittal process can hecome the crux at Why a constitutional amendment and convention? By which Congress could head off nongermane proposed opening the Constitution to this statement offiscal policy, amendments~An attempt by the convention to submit only do we not invite others to endanger the Bill ofRights to a non-budget-balancing amendment would be rejected out gratify their political aims? Couldn't a convention run of hand as blatantly violating the limited convention call. amok, exposing our cherished freedoms to attack? If, as the And if the convention were to add unrelated "riders" to the Los 4ngeles Times alleges, an amendment to require an end proposed budget amendment, it would present Congress to deficit spending is a bit of "mathematical graffiti at the with a ready-made excuse to ditch the entire proposal, bottom of the Constitution," then what about the much­ balanced budget and all. The likeliest way the convention loved Sixteentp. Amendment, authorizing income taxes? can guarantee a hostile Congress's cooperation in the The balanced budget amendment responds not to a minor transmittal process to prepare the proposed amendment in issue of fiscal policy, but instead to what National strict accordance with the limited convention call. Taxpayers Union chairman James Dale Davidson has Finally, the proposed amendment must be ratified by described as a "structural" problem in American politics: it three~quarters ofthe states. That 34 ofthese 38 states could places.an important "check and balance" in the way of the move at any time to "dangerously" amend the Constitu­ spending lobbies who have run rampant over fiscal integritY tion, and have not done so, at least suggests that final in the last few decades. It ameliorates a fundamental flaw in ratification also assures a sober and careful consideration of the American political system, and therefore represents far any convention proposals. more than an attempt to settle some political squabble over the ends of government. The presentreaction from Washington demonstrates that Time to do something about inflation a constitutional convention is an absolutely necessary "big stick" to wield against recalcitrant politicians. Under threat The American people have waited patiently for solutions of a convention, Congress might draw up and submit a while enduring over two decades of inflation and ten years balanced-budget amendment. If not, the Constitution gives ofliteraleconomic stagnation. Inflation and big government the people the power to force Congress to call the have never been very far from their minds during this time, convention. and they have considered the matter at length. They have There is no guarantee that a convention will not run listened while the seemingly most disinterested "citizens amok. Nor is there any guarantee thatCongress will not run lobbies" propounded band-aid measures like civil service amok. In fact, Congress is running amok. While critics like reform and sunset laws as the answer to skyrocketing prices Common Cause's David Cohen fiddle on that the conven­ and the even-higher tax take. They elected a President who tion route "raises dozens of ... questions" and warn that promised balanced budgets but now battles them. Itis not "litigation could be endless," Rome burns. The runaway surprising that people have quietly and independently federal juggernaut, to reiterate, confronts the American resolved to do something about a disease which threatens to people with a clear and present danger, not only to our rot the foundations of our society. What is surprising to Constitution but to our continued existence as a free and many is the blatant political ambition, vested economic productive society-a danger surely as real as any prospec­ interest, elitism, and greed of those who rally around the tive constitutional convention. There are few things onearth State when citizens dare question its right to go on enriching more ill-considered and disruptive than the way govern­ itself at their expense. The Founding Fathers reserved ment spends money. While Common Cause accuses state Article Five and its constitutional convention for precisely legislators of acting"chaotically" to approve balance-the­ such situations when rulers' interests stook allied against the budget resolutions, Congress chaotically prepares to pile on interests of the ruled. The fact that nearly all the traditional another $96-billion to the federal government's oft-violated interest groups urge us notto use Article Five makes perhaps debt "ceiling." the most convincing argument why we should. Many constitutional scholars disagree with Cohen and Some years ago I wasone of a small group of students point to factors which would tend to assure an orderly, who visited outgoing Congressman Howard Robison in his limited convention. Many of these factors are noted in an office. Robison was respected and popularin his district, but excellent study completed by the American Bar Association he had had it and was quitting. It was no fun anymore, he in 1974, entitled Amendment of the Constitution by the said; every time he drove up home, people who did not even Convention Method Under Article V. know him would see his congressional license plates and First, most constitutional scholars are agreed that the make obscene gestures as they passed him on the road. likeliest method for selecting delegates to the constitutional Howard Robison was too decent ahuman being to respond convention would be to follow the same apportionment in like fashion, and he quit instead. used to select Congress itself. For better or worse, this tends Can we say the same of those politicians who today to assure that delegates will reflect the present political threaten to kick the hell out of the "ignorant" majorities makeup ofthis country. One may look at this establishment who demand a constitutional convention to require a and ask if it is likely to support the kind ofwholesale attack balanced federal budget-who threaten to give 30 state on the system which convention critics claim to fear. legislatures a collective "fat lip"? Or has statesmanship Second, all the resolutions passed by the state legislatures turned into a simple scratching and clawing for power?~D make clear that they appeal for a convention to draft an amendment for balancing the federal budget, and nothing William D. Burt is western director of the National Taxpayers 36 else. The legislatures have often and loudly stressed that Union.

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------P.O. Box 28877 San Diego, UBERTARIAN California 92128 REVIEW OK! Please enter my subscription for: Name _ o 1year ($12) D2yearn~2~ Ad~~ _ o 3 Years ($30) Charge card no. o Payment enclosed City State Zip _ o Charge me Expiration date o VISA 0 Mastercharge Signature _ 3001 1 ------JUNE 1979 self-seeking pretense on its that of J. P. Woolfolk. contents page is actually Woolfolk was an iconoclast designed. to cash in.on the from Chicago. who earned same dubious virtue-by­ himself a scandalous reputa­ association which Tyrrell's tion and a handsome living essays are designed to tap. during the 1930s and '40s lOOKS And the chief means by by writing mildly porno­ which Tyrrell has gone graphic novels under the about associating himself penname Jack Woodford AND THE with Mencken is, of course, for the bustling, pre-paper­ his style. If the style is the back, circulating library man, then Tyrrell must be a trade. In private life Wool­ curious specimen indeed. folk was something of an One imagines a faceless intellectual and connoisseur dummy from a department of the arts (though, to be ARTS store window somewhere in honest, there was always downtown Bloomington, something in him of the Indiana. The dummy has crank, and in his last years Calling the status of a governing prin­ taken into its head (or has this something all but took ciple-)and this is doubtless been programmed, who him over), and he numbered kettles black the reason why it is the knows?) to write. It sits dozens of the major writers world of popular entertain­ down at a desk and begins and public figures of his era ment that seems readiest to studying a weighty book; among his personal friends JEFF RIGGENBACH hand with comparable perhaps it is A Mencken and acquaintances. His cases. One can search Chrestomathy; perhaps it is 1962 autobiography (The Public Nuisances, by through all ofAmerican and some heretofore unknown Autobiography of Jack R. Emmett Tyrrell, British literature and not mammoth one volume edi­ Woodford, New York: find Tyrrell's like, but in the tion of the Prejudices. Doubleday, out ofprint) is Jr. Basic Books, 248 world of popular entertain­ Whatever it is, the dummy an undiscovered treasure pp., $11.95. ment he is legion. One might studies it assiduously, then trove of recollections and easily say, for example, that after a· time turns tc·a type­ anecdotes on figures asdi­ IF IMITATION IS Tyrrell is to Mencken as the writer and begins.. .imitat­ verse as Theodore Dreiser, indeed the· sincerest Beach Boys were to the· Four ing is the only word for it. Sherwood Anderson, Clar­ Freshmen, or as Brenda Lee All writers learn to write by ence Darrow, Charlie Chap­ form offlattery, then was to Kay Starr, or as patterning their works on lin, James Branch Cabell, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Brook Benton was to Nat those of established writers George Antheil and William Jr. has flattered H.L. "King" Cole. they admire, by, as Steven­ Randolph Hearst. Woolfolk However one says it, son put it, playing the sedu­ always regarded his own Mencken more sin­ whatever analogies one in­ lous ape to their mentors. writing with unconcealed cerely byfar than any vokes, the unlovely facts of But in this case the imitation contempt, as "literary other of the Sage of the matter remain: For more is strikingly, almost stagger­ whoremongering" and as "a than a decade, Tyrrell has ingly, literal, unimaginative, dubious living rearranging Baltimore's many been publishing a political andexaet. And, as Mencken the 26 letters ofthe alphabet idolatrous fans-has and cultural magazine at himselfonce argued, such an in various combinations." more or less monthly inter­ imitation style is really no He composed his novels at flattered him more vals and filling itspages with style at all. "The essence ofa enormous speed (one of sincerely, one might ersatz Menckenisms, many sound style," he wrote in them, City Limits, is said to venture to say, than of them extended to full 1926, have been written in three essay length, all of them is that it cannot be reduced to days), and with not more anyone has ever be­ (needless to say) of his own rules-that it is a living and concentration than is mus­ fore flattered a man invention. He has latterly breathing thing ... that it fits tered by the average worker taken to calling this periodi­ its proprietor tightly· and yet on an assembly line: he fre­ of letters of his emi­ ever so loosely, as his skin fits cal The American Spectator quently bragged, in his au­ nence. Such flattery him. It is, in fact, quite as and to making extravagant securely an integral part of him tobiographical books and in is more commonly claims in the fine print at the as that skin is. It hardens as his the autobiographical sec­ associated, after all, bottom of his contents page arteries harden. It ... is always tions ofhis famous, idiosyn­ about its being in direct line the outward and visible symbol cratic books on writing, that with the world of of descent from the original of a man, and it cannot be he could carryon intelligent popular entertain­ American Spectator, which anything else. conversations about com­ was founded and edited by It can be something else in pletely unrelated subjects ment (and especially Mencken's long-time friend the hands of an R. Emmett while simultaneously writ­ with the world of and associate, George Jean Tyrrell, Jr., however-or in ing his novels. But the im­ commercial tele­ Nathan. In fact Tyrrell's the hands ofthe one figure in portant thing about Wool­ American Spectator bears all of American literary his­ folk in the present connec­ vision, where it has not the slightest resem­ tory whose case may be tion is the approach he took 38 been elevated to the blance to the original; the comparable to Tyrrell's, to learning the trade which

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW he practiced so disdainfully. before been thought possi­ ality through his work save monotonously similar po­ As he told the story in ble, he has beer~ gradually that, sadly watered down lemics, if there any longer is 1950 to magazine inter­ transformed into an unmis­ and distorted, ofhis idol, the an R. Einmett Tyrrell, Jr. viewer Hy Kellick, he was a takable Mencken lookalike great Mencken. Even the whose persona might be ex­ thirty year old teller in a of the sort one might expect admittedly worthless novels pected to shine characteris­ Federal Reserve Bank in De­ to see in a rural wax muse­ of Jack Woodford, tossed tically through his work, or troit, married and the father um. off during conversation at if more than a decade of the ofa baby daughter, when he Of course, the cases of J. 100 words per minute, con­ most precise and exact im­ decided he had to have a P. Woolfolk and R. Emmett tain, here and there, fleeting itation has left him utterly new career, a new source of Tyrrell, Jr. are different in a reminders of the inimitable without characteristics of income, "something that number of important ways. Woolfolk persona. The es­ his own. But if there is noth­ would'free him from his-job Woolfolk offered his work says collected in Public Nui­ ing to Tyrrell's style but which he hated." He de- frankly as trash, while Tyr­ sances, by comparison, ersatz Mencken, perhaps ,cided, needless to say, to rell gives unmistakable evi­ though they were obviously there is somthing individual become a hack writer. That dence of taking himself and slaved over and painstak­ and unique about his ideas? ,evening, on his way home his writing with deadly seri­ ingly revised and re-revised Alas not. Tyrrell eschews from work, ousness. Woolfolk aban­ until every last detail of the ideas the way other writers Heturned into a magazine store doned formula and wrote great Mencken's charac- eschew exclamation points and asked the man in charge and dangling prepositions what was the worst magazine and misplaced modifiers. he had in the place. He handed And even when he is sum­ [him] a Young's Magazine. He marizing the ideas ofothers, took it home, read it from cover he is very careful to avoid to cover and then he studied the specifics. He writes of Bella shortest of the short stories in it all night. Abzug, for example, that she He counted the words in the would have had all Americans story. He noted how many of living like Cambodians. For her those words were devoted to to get away with appropriating descriptive matter, how many the label liberal was to make a to dialogue, etc.... He wrote mockery of the Truth-in-Ad­ out, separately, every word that vertising Act. She was a described the heroine. straightforward totalitarian, susceptible to every quibble the And when he was finished Marxist has with a free society, compiling and studying his eager for every statist intrusion lists and his sheets of for­ into the lives ofprivate citizens, mulae and calculations, he and utterly indifferent to the wrote a short story for spreading dark age of tyranny Young's Magazine in which that stalks every continent. he devoted the prescribed Yet, in seven pages devoted number of words to the to this kind of ranting, Tyr­ hero, the prescribed number rell never manages to focus to the heroine, the pre­ on a single specific political scribed number to the set­ idea for which Mrs. Abzug ting, the prescribed number has plumped. Has she pro­ to the action-and in every posed concentration camps? case the words themselves An American Five Year were those prescribed by the Plan? Psychiatric incarcera­ vocabulary of the story he tion of political dissidents? had chosen as his model. He At the end ofTyrrell's essay made his paragraphs to we still do not know. We order too, each one consist­ know only that Tyrrell ing of the proper number, in doesn't like Mrs. Abzug for the proper arrangement, of whatever reasons, and that simple and complex senten­ he has Menckenized his dis­ ces, the subordinate clauses like for' publication­ arranged just so, the adverbs nothing more. and connectives in their H. L. Mencken And the same is true for familiar places. All accord­ naturally on at least half a teristic sentence-his adjec­ every one ofthe other essays ing to the model. dozen occasions, producing tives, his hyperbole, his in this book, especially the Woolfolk succeeded with books of opinion and au­ sonorous cadences-had ones on "Betty Friedan and this approach. And so, ap­ tobiography on which his been perfectly duplicated, the Women of the Fevered parently, has Tyrrell. He own unique personality is contain nothing which we Brow" and on "Larry Flynt: may have begun as a faceless indelibly imprinted. Tyrrell, can say is unmistakably or Up from the Fuzzy Toilet dummy, but by taking by comparison, has never inimitably Tyrrell. Seat Cover"-though it is Stevenson's admonition written naturally and has One wonders, in fact, only scarcely less true in more literally than had ever never projected any person- after reading these 27 Tyrrell's pieces on John 39

JUNE 1979 Kenneth Galbraith, Lillian mous Woodward and arranging sentences and quite comparable age, de­ Hellman, Charles Reich, Bernstein that "Their only paragraphs; he should have scribes it as "artistically Theodore H. White, Gore talent as journalists was stolen his ideas while he was barren", and passes on to Vidal, Bob Dylan, Andrew their ability to answer crank at it. devote several pages of the Young, Ralph Nader and calls in the night from whom It is, in fact, one of the May 1979 issue of his Henry Kissinger. Most of no one knows, and the boys high ironies of the current magazine to loud hosannas these folks are public nui­ are not telling-at least not American publishing scene on behalfofJoseph Heller, a sances, to be sure. But it until the price is right. (and a splendid testimonial writer who had one good seems the least one can ex­ Neither of these hinds has for the doctrine that writers book in him and who stub­ pect from a political essayist done anything remarkable are no better than anyone bornly and tragically and that he explain why they are since Nixon's last helicopter else at knowing themselves) tediously refuses to recog­ such nuisances, and that he flight, and I contest the no­ that Tyrrell promotes him­ nize that fact. Where couch his explanations in tion that they ever did do self as an exponent of Mencken was a libertarian prose which is his, rather anything all that remarkable Mencken's point of view, in his politics, believing, as than in prose which is lifted except hog the show right up and goes unchallenged. For he put it, in "free competi­ from another political es­ to the last limits ofthe plaus­ Tyrrell's ideas, to the extent tion in all human enter­ sayist now dead this past ible." they may be said to exist, are prises, and to the utmost quarter century. There is nothing genu­ the antithesis of Mencken's. limit," Tyrrell is a garden­ Dh, here and there, like inely original here, granted. Where Mencken was an his- variety statist. "Intelligent needles of shiny brass in an people," he writes, in his odoriferous haystack, there essay in this volume on the are cleverly written passages menace of dirty books" which seem, if only briefly, can distinguish pornography to contain thoughts worth from art. The rights of the thinking and worth commit­ pornographer can be balanced ting to paper. In his essay on against the rights of a commu­ "Richard Milhous Nixon nity that judges pornography and the Serenade in B-Flat" baneful. One can make pornog­ (he even patterns his titles raphy less accessible without banning it totally. The claim after Mencken), Tyrrell that by regulating pornog­ writes, for example, that raphy's availability America Popular journalists resort to the glissades down a slippery slope name Nixon to galvanize toward total censorship is pris­ feelings that remain at rest even tine andexquisite balderdash. If when the name Stalin is men­ for its own survival each free­ tioned. The phobia Nixon dom must be given absolute stimulates in millions ofAmeri­ license, why are our vicarious can's most virtuous and en­ civil libertarians not exercised lightened citizens is impossible over income tax laws or the to exaggerate, and this seems to regulation of commerce? By be true of people all over the limiting some income are we world. From 1970 to 1975, a not on a slippery slope toward poll conducted by Mme. Tus­ banning all income, or by limit­ saud's Waxworks found him to ing access to booze are we not be among the five most hated on a slippery slope toward and feared men in history. In prohibition? No doubt speed 1975 only Field Marshal Idi limits put us on a slippery slope Amin Dada and the late Adolph toward eliminating motion. Hitler surpassed him. Count The absurdity of the slippery Dracula tied him, and Jack the slope argument stands up and Ripper finished a poor fifth. roars for attention when one How is it that the father of R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. of The American Spectator considers that those who use it Tricia and Julie has earned such to preserve and protect pornog­ disesteem? Is it for his wicked But there is undeniable evi- torical revisionist who op­ raphy are the very statists who deeds: prosaic lies endlessly dence of thought, which is posed u.s. participation in so often demand strict regula­ repeated, eavesdropping, the rare enough in writing about both World Wars, Tyrrell is tion of commerce, affirmative bombing of Cambodian pro­ Watergate and almost un- a militarist warmonger who action, busing, and other such gressives, the harassment of heard of in Tyrrell's essays. prattles about the Russian tyrannies. And the nitwittery North Vietnam's liberal demo­ about slippery slopes aside, crats, those brummagem uni­ The sentences are still me- "military build-up" and the chanically and formulaically necessity of defending Af­ how much intelligence does it forms he ordered for the White take to see the inevitable con­ House guards? Surely they do Menckenesque in his piece rica and the Middle East flict of different freedoms, for not compose the corpus delicti. on Watergate, but they are against the Soviet menace. instance, freedom ofspeech and Discreditable acts they are in­ no longer utterly devoid of Where Mencken recog­ freedom to privacy? Obviously deed, but there must be more to ideas. Still, skilled mimic nized, enthused over, and in any free society judgments the Nixon legend than this. that he is, Tyrrell should actively promoted the artis­ must be made about the He is even more on the mark have finished the job he tic and literary talent he boundaries of potentially con­ when, later in the same began when he learned to found all aro~np him, Tyr­ flicting freedoms. 40 piece, he writes of the fa- imitate Mencken's way of rell looks upon our own Obviously R. Emmett Tyr-

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW rell, Jr. is no libertarian. content. But he performs have come to the West to member Alexander Dol­ But since Mencken was a quite willingly. In fact he give us a clear and detailed gun's Story of a few years libertarian and since Tyrrell goes on and on and on all picture (see the reading list back. Herman's book is has chosen to devote his life evening long, doing his im­ in my Solzhenitsyn review, even more vividly detailed to imitating Mencken, he pression of W.C. Fields. No LR Sept. 1978): when than Dolgun's. has, of course, described matter what topic you steer people have already Solzhenitsyn's three vol­ himself from time to time as the conversation toward, no achieved enough fame umes have little to say about a libertarian-most recently matter what sorts of things within the Soviet Union to the Soviet Far East, for he in the aforementioned May you get him talking about, have aroused world opin­ lacked extensive data on this issue of his magazine, in even when you ask him if ion, the U.S.S.R. 'will some­ area, and there were few which he reviewed his own he'd like more coffee or times get them out ofits hair survivors. Robert Conquest, book (the one under consid­ where is the restroom, he by letting them go West-in the British author of the eration here) and signed the does it all in his W.C. Fields Bukovsky's case he was ex­ most thoroughly researclibd review ... you guessed it. voice, complete with all the changed for the Chilean ofall books on Soviet penal H.L. Mencken. "He is dubi­ mannerisms. It wears onyou communist leader Luis Cor­ methods, The Great Terror, ous," Tyrrell writes of him­ after awhile. And when the valan-and books like this has now authored another, self in the middle of this evening is over and you can one, exposing the system, Kolyma (Viking, 1978, colossal piece of effrontery, go home and close the book, are the price the U.S.S.R. $10.95), concerning this "of the efficacy of all cures, it's a genuine relief. pays for such actions. most horrible of all labor in medicine, in politics, in Most vividly detailed of camps, the coldest, most religion, or in anything else. all the recent volumes de­ forbidding, most inaccessi­ This is the source of his scribing the Gulag is Com­ ble. More than three million politics, which can best be The lIleans of ing Out ofthe Ice: An.Un­ persons, Conquest con­ described as uneasily liber­ expected Life (Harcourt cludes, have died there, tarian-though he has a egalitarianislIl Brace, 1979, $12.95) by either in the gold fields very strict personal moral Victor Herman, an Ameri­ themselves, or in building a code." But if Tyrrell were a JOHN HOSPERS can who went to the road to it through impassa­ libertarian, he would be U.S.S.R. with his family in ble swamps, or trying to using the slippery slope ar­ To Build a Castle: MyLife as 1931 atthe age ofsixteen, as build a harbor for the ships gument to preserve and pro­ a Dissenter, by Vladimir part of the Ford Motor that would carry the gold tect pornography and to get Bukovsky. Viking Press, 438 Company team that built away. rid of income taxes and reg­ pp., $17.50. the Gorki automobile plant. Following upon Epstein's ulation of commerce and The family stayed and was Operation Keelhaul, dealing affirmative action and bus­ THIS IS THE MOST RE­ caught in the big purge of with the British-American ing and all the other statist vealing volume on condi­ 1937-8. All the Americans postwar policy of forcible evils he so rightly demands tions inside the Soviet Union died in the Gulag except repatriation of nationals, that "vicarious civilliberta­ that has appeared since the Herman, and he was not during and after World War rians" be consistent and third and last volume of released until 1976. He too II, we now have Nikolai oppose. Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Ar­ would have died had he not Tolstoy's remarkable new Tyrrell is not a libertarian, chipelago (reviewed by me been an athlete in superb book A Secret Betrayal however; nor is he, for that in LR, September 1978). condition at the time, be­ (Scribners, 1979, $14.95), matter, a liberal or a conser­ Many others have appeared, sides having an urtconquer­ much of it drawn from doc­ vative. He takes no princi­ however, and the chief ad­ able will to survive, and an uments only recently made pled political position ofany vantage of this one, apart abiding hatred for his op­ public. Many Russian pri­ kind, but merely searches from its accomplished lit­ pressors, plus some luck. soners ofwar, and Cossacks for opportunities to heap erary style, is that it de­ The worst nine years were and others who join~d Vla­ Menckenesque derision. scribes conditions inside the spent in a Siberian hard sov's ~nti-Soviet armies de­ The object of the derision Soviet Union through De­ labor camp from which no signed to liberate Russia and what he or she really cember 1976, at which time one was expected to emerge from Red control, trusted in represents really doesn't Bukovsky was forcibly ex­ alive: those who did not die the fairness and humanity of matter. Tyrrell is like some­ iled from Russia as Solzhe­ of starvation were expected Americans, and thus made body's obnoxious country nitsyn had been in 1974. to die of the cold. For no escape attempts until it cousin from Bloomington, Bukovsky, internationally months at a time he was in was too late: they were not Indiana whom you're in­ famous as a Soviet dissenter the isolator, a hole dug into told in time that the Ameri­ vited over to dinner to meet. for several years before his frozen ground in which he cans, following Eisenhow- You're told he does this exile, is now doing graduate was forced to sit while er's policy, were about to absolutely fabulous W.C. work in biology at Cam­ guards doused him with betray them into Soviet Fields impression. And he bridge University in En­ cold water every few hours. hands. In some cases pri­ does. Actually it's not abso­ gland. This plus being regularly soners thought they were lutely fabulous, but it's not As the months go by, vol­ beaten almost did him in, going to the West, but bad. It is, however, rather ume follows volume detail­ and he survived only by cap­ shortly after the train began hollow; because all the ing the horrors of life in turing and eating rats. If moving it was surrounded country cousin has mastered Soviet prisons and labor readers do not believe that by Soviet soldiers, and the is the externals, the surface, camps. Millions have died Americans too were sub­ prisoners were taken backto the mannerisms. And his who could have provided a jected to the horrors of the the Soviet Union and either impression therefore lackf personal record, but enough Gulag, they should re- shot or sent to slow death in 41

JUNE 1979 camps. Thousands tried to Bukovsky's book deals world, partly through Bu­ through all those years, a kill themselves (slit their with recent Soviet condi­ kovsky's own efforts, is fas­ small percentage of the to­ wrists, jump from the train tions, since the fall of cinating: starting with a tal, have never been re­ while crossing a bridge, etc.) Khrushchev. Though it television interview that he leased, and they still lan­ rather than surrender them­ covers many subjects, illegally granted foreign re­ guish in labor camps. "Their selves to the Russians, and perhaps the best thing about porters, which was smug­ lives had come to a halt many American soldiers it is its in-depth expose of gled out of Russia and when they were about forcibly prevented them Soviet psychiatry, particu­ broadcast in other nations, twenty. Simple peasant lads from doing this, so that they larly ofthe strategy ofavoid­ he was tireless in his efforts, who had never been able to would not escape Soviet ing political trials by having between stretches in prison become the fathers of fami­ "justice." In this manner the dissidents declared insane and mental hospitals, to get lies." One, a cell-mate, had British and Americans re­ and putting them in mental the truth known in the out­ been captured by Soviet sol­ turned 2.2-million anti­ institutions, with no definite side world. His attempt to diers: "they had dragged his Soviet Russians, Latvians, release-time. According to find even one psychiatrist bullet-sliced body away and Lithuanians etc. to the Bukovsky, three techniques who would stand up to the literally pieced him together U.S.S.R. Many of them are most frequently used in Soviet regime and expose again; they needed him alive were returned after the war these institutions for punish­ the "therapy" as fraudulent in orderto torture him. Iwas was over, in 1946 and 1947, ing dissident opinions (p. is a minor thriller in itself. amazed athow, after all this, when there was not the 206): amazine "treatment," One wonders, however, plus 25 years in the camps, slightest doubt what their which makes the person fall whether Western psychia­ he had retained an astonish­ fate would be. into a doze or stupor, un­ trists turned out to be much ing joi de vivre, with a sense The result of the publica­ aware of his surroundings; better: they had no fear of ofhumor and a sort ofinner tion ofsuch books is that no the use of sulfazine, which punishment hanging over purity ..." (p. 409) reasonabte person can any inflicts excruciating pain them for being truthful, yet Most memorable of all, longer deny the evidence of and induces high fever; and when mountains of data perhaps, is the man Ma Soviet oppression, which is third, the "roll-up," wrap­ concerning Soviet psychi­ Hun who fled across the now overwhelming. Jean­ ping the patient tightly in atry were placed before Chinese border to Siberia, Paul Sartre's statement of wet strips of canvas: as ma­ them (compiled at incalcul­ then got caught in the toils some years ago that even if terial dries out it shrinks, able human cost), the Inter­ of Soviet "justice" when he the allegations against Rus­ inflicting terrible pain and national Congress of Psy­ inquired about how to lo­ sia are true they should be scorching the patient's chiatrists meeting in Mexico cate his father on Taiwan. suppressed in the interests of body, causing him to lose City in 1974 declined to take Compared with China, the socialism seems today not consciousness. (All this is for any action, probably for fear U.S.S.R. was a paradise. All only monstrously immoral non-violent patients; violent of upsetting relations be­ Chinese soldiers who had (which it was and still is, like ones are kept in solitary tween the Soviet Union and been captured in Korea and any attempt to hide the confinement and beaten the West (p. 420). returned by Americans had truth) but curiously out of mercilessly, sometimes to Bukovsky was in and out been wiped out, to the last date in a tactical sense: most death.) No dissident leaves of prisons, camps, and men­ man (p. 415), as well as of today's Marxists, rather such an institution unless he tal hospitals in the Soviet "class aliens," "oppor­ than trying to suppress these first recants his heresies and Union all his adult life prior tunists,"!and the intelligent­ facts as they once did, dis­ promises notto deviate from to his exile to the West. After sia. Ma Hun thought the play them with a kind of received truth again, placing his release from the asylum labor camp at Perm was proud contemptuousness. it on record that he was in Leningrad-itselfa major very good. "But it's starva­ David Friedman's statement mentally ill until the physi­ accomplishment, fascinat­ tion rations."·"What starva­ of some years back (in The cians helped to make him ingly described-he was tion?" he asked. He Machinery ofFreedom) that well, and that he is now soon picked up again for "pointed at the flies flying he knows ofno socialist who recovered owing to Soviet having interviews with about the cell. As if to say, if does not shrink from the psychiatry. Even so, the sin­ "enemies of the State," es­ there had been real starva­ final consequences ofsocial­ cerity ofmany who perform pecially foreign newspaper tion' this wildlife would ism once these are brought this recantation is doubted, reporters; and in spite of long since have disappeared home to him, can now be and they are still kept in year taking advantage of every ... In time Ma Hun was replaced by the statement after year, or until the legal loophole in Soviet law able to tell us about the that·they do know and do methods kill them. he was sentenced to twelve starvation in China, when not shrink: Nkomo, for The author describes the years in prison and labor they ate all the leaves off the example, does not hide the "psychiatric therapy" to camps, beginning with a trees and all the grass. For fact that if he takes over which he himself was sub­ camp for political prisoners fifty miles around you Rhodesia the result will be a jected, but even more emo­ in Perm, in the Ural Moun­ couldn't even find a dung­ one-party Marxist dictator­ tionally involving than this tains. beetle." (p. 414) "As an ship, and he knows full well description is that of many His description. of Lithu­ individual without citizen­ what is implied by this: for­ other patients who are en­ anians and other nationals ship, he was not allowed to cible suppression, nationali­ tirely sane but will never be who had participated in the move about the country, but zation of property with re­ released from this regimen struggle to keep their nation Soviet life still seemed like sulting poverty and starva­ of pain. And the story of from being taken over by the paradise to him: you were tion, and the.smoking out how the conditions in Soviet USSRin the 1940s is par­ paid money for your work, and torture or shooting of psychiatric hospitals came ticularly. moving (pp. 407 which you could use to buy 42 dissidents. to be known to the outside ff.); those who survived food and clothing without

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW restrIctIon. Not like in The description of the they buy their children candy in universal equality: that China, where you got nine poverty of farm life in Rus­ and ice cream every day and everyone should be equal, yards ofcloth per person for sia, the desolation, the hope­ take them to,the movies." Sud­ not only before the law, but a year. As for the hypocrisy, lessness and bitterness, is a denly one of the little girls in income, living conditions, he was used to it. Soviet telling one: bursts into tears. "What's the and every aspect of life in matter, Tania, why are you hypocrisy struck him as State farm workers were unable which inequality is not ren­ child's play compared with crying?" "I want to go to the dered unavoidable by nature to resign orleave the farm, since Soviet Union," sobs the little the Chinese variety" (p. they weren't allowed to hold girl. (p. 62) (as it is in looks, for exam­ 416). Shirley MacLaine, their own internal passports; ple). "This dream of abso­ please note. and without a passport you All through the nine­ lute, universal equality is Though the most detailed were outside the law and could teenth century and even dur­ amazing, terrifying, and in­ account (in a popular book) be arrested by the first town ing the reign of Lenin, human. And the moment it of today's Soviet economy policeman to come across you. Bukofsky remarks, Russian captures people's minds, the Nor could you get another job occurs in Hedrick Smith's thinkers, "all ofthem, sitting result is mountains ofcorp­ without a passport. Boys ofour on their estates or in their The Russians, this book age were waiting for their call­ ses and rivers of blood, ac­ contains some fascinating city apartments, loved to companied by attempts to up into the army as a salvation: hold forth about 'the insights into the bureauc­ when they finished their mili­ straighten the stooped and racy that rules the Soviet tary service there was a chance people,' about the latent shorten the tall." (p. 106) unplumbed forces of the What is the connection, people, and about how the one may ask, between the people would .one day ideal of equality, and these awaken from their slumbers corpses and blood? Well, if and resolve everything, pro­ those in power are possessed nounce the ultimate truth, of this ideal, it will have to and create a genuine cul­ be imposed by force on ev­ ture." (p. 105) But a century eryone else, including those ago John StuartMill pointed who don't want it. If the out in Chapter 3 of On Lib­ person who works hard erty why this would never won't give up what he's happen: the majority are earned to the loafer, he must suspicious of creativity, in­ be made to do so. That's a novation, unusual intelli­ part of the ideal: if others gence ofany kind; lacking it don't see the nobility of this themselves, they do not un­ ideal with the same flashing derstand it and do not trust blue lights that you do, they its presence in others. And will have to be made to con­ the Russian people today, form, or in Rousseau's Some Soviet defectors, like ValentinAgapov, spend years trying Bukovsky reminds us, hav­ words, "forced to be free." to arrange for their families to join them in the West. ing experienced poverty and But what if some of them economy. Nobody in a fac­ they might find a city job in­ the Gulag for 60 years, are are incapable ofit? That tory is in a hurry to work, stead ofhaving to go home. The less reverential about the can't be, comes the reply, and most workers are drunk young girls thought of nothing idea than the leaders of the because all human defects or hung over in the morning but how to marry a towny and Revolution were (the pres­ are the result of environ­ (p. 123). Occasionally one get away. Drunkenness, ent Soviet leadership is not ment and can be changed man puts in a full day's brawls, and knife fights were very reverential about it through re-conditioning and daily occurrences. (p.12S) work; the other workers either). re-education. Man is born a then hate him, and try to Such descriptions of To us who had grown up in the tabula rasa, an empty vessel, damage his machine or steal Soviet farm life are matched communal apartments of this completely malleable; so if his tools, to cut down his but not excelled by those of self-same proletariat, living he is re-conditioned in the production. On a state farm, John Barron (KGB, pp. among them as equals, not right ways, there will be no workers had to plant pota­ 55-8). masters, the term "proletarian more dissatisfaction or envy culture" sounded grotesque. toes that were rotten: Apparently the following or hatred or crime-and in joke has done the rounds in For us, it meant no mystical fact no more opponents of How on earth did anyone ex­ secret, but drunkenness, brawl­ pect them to grow? But nobody the Soviet Union: ing, knife fights, obscenity, and socialism. But that's the long cared about that. The peasants The teacher at nursery school is chewing sunflower seeds.... run; in the short run re­ explained to us that they were giving the children a little talk. The distinguishing feature of education in "corrective paid for every ton of potatoes She hangs a map of the world the proletariat was a hatred of labor camps" and mental planted, so what was harvested on the wall and explains: all culture, combined with a institutions and the like will didn't interest them. Soon it "Look, children, here is Amer­ sort of inexplicable envy. Cul­ be required; and the few turned cold, the rain set in, and ica. The people there are very ture was a witch they stoned. holdouts whom it would we were sent out to weed beets badly off. They have no money, "Intellectual" was an insult take too long to change will by hand. ... [Meanwhile] therefore they never buy their hissed venomously by your have to be got rid of by the whole ofthis state farm was children any candy or ice cream neighbors. also hung about with posters, and never take thein to the means of the firing squad: banners, production graphs, movies. And here, children, is Yet the basic idea underly­ the rotten apples can't be and pictures ofplump cows and the Soviet Union. Everybody ing socialism in all its forms allowed to infect the whole buxom milkmaids. ... (p. 12S) here is happy and well off, and is egalitarianism, the belief basket. "You must think of 43

JUNE 1979 humanity-past, present, unequals, benefiting from 1985 share a common 1985's hero, Bev Jones, and future-as one, great the intelligence of his bet­ mise-en-scene; both futures lives in a Britain in which body that requires surgery. ters, stands higher·in the are gray, squalid, decayed, radical syndicalism prevails. You cannotperform surgery scale of life than any of the and British. Both stories Britain bears the new desig­ without severing mem­ equals in an egalitarian soci­ pitch an everyman against nation ofTUK, or Tucland, branes, destroying tissue, ety. That is the major lesson the State (Orwell's pro­ short for the United King­ spilling blood ... But none of this book-and of the tagonist is named Smith, dom or Trade Union Con­ of this is immoral. All acts history of the twentieth cen­ Burgess's is named Jones) in gress, instead of Orwell's that·further history and tury. doomed battle. But, impor­ Airstrip One. The petro­ socialism are moral acts." Yet this lesson is but ill tantly, Nineteen Eighty­ Arabs are everywhere, buy­ (John Barron, KGB, p. understood, for the pressure four is the last work of a ing up hotels (the Al­ 366.) . toward egalitarianism is dying man who bitterly dis­ Dorchester), building In a popular Soviet psy­ greater today than at any sected his own orthodoxy mosques, foreclosing on the chiatric examination, one previous time in our history. with one eye on the gray, North Sea oil deposits test for idiocy involves one's For libertarians, this is the squalid, and decayed Britain pledged as collateral for ability to solve this problem: major challenge-not'to of1948 and the other on the loans to Her Majesty's Gov­ "Imagine atrain crash. It fight political or economic future he feared might ar­ ernment in the early eighties. is well known that the part "isms," but to strike at the rive. Orwell's novel was not Workers' English, the argot of the train that suffers the root of them all, the egali­ most damage insuch crashes tarianism that leads so many is the carriage at the rear. people to accept them. How can you prevent that damage from taking place?" John Hospers teaches philoso­ Answer: Uncouple the last phyat the University ofSouth­ carriage. The richer are get­ ern California. He was the ting richer and the poor 1972 presidential candidate of poorer under free enter­ the Libertarian Party. prise: what is to be done? Uncouple the last carriage -liquidate the rich, take Orwell awa,y their wealth, distrib­ ute it to the poor. But after plus one this has been done and the money spent, the next to the last carriage is now the last, JACK SHAFER and it is now uncoupled. Soon these spoils are spent, 1985, by Anthony Burgess. Little, Broum and Company, again there are rich and poor, so the next carriage is 272 pp., $8.95. uncoupled, and then the IN 1948 GEORGE OR­ next, and so on, because well dreamt his bad dream, co~plete equality has not Nineteen Eighty-four. His yet been achieved. , novel ofthe "future imper­ Finally, "the peasant with fect" has the circular logic of two cows and a horse·turns a nightmare~ Every person out to be the last carriage trusted,. every act of rebel­ and is prpnounced ~ kulak lion returns the dreamer and deported. Is it really to his origin where trust surprising that whenever is betrayed and rebellion you get striving for eql1ality snuffed. In the terror of the and fraternity, the guillotine nightmare there is no es­ appears on the scene?" (p. cape, only the respite of George Orwell 107) cowering in sweat and fear an act of prophecy as many of the proles, is now the There lies the jugular of out of the sight of evil. of his enthusiasts believe. It compulsory language. Bill the enemy we have to fight: In 1978 Anthony Burgess was a warning, a buoy for the Symbolic Worker looks coercive egalitarianism. dreamt his bad dream, a the democratic socialism he down on the masses from a Once it is put into practice, novella ofthe "future imper­ hoped would triumph. million posters. And damn the labor camps and torture fect," and returned to Or­ 1985 is not the surreal, near every day another chambers are a natural and well's modern classic to satiric nightmare as dreamt union strikes. inevitable consequence. But plumb its meaning with his by Orwell. 1985 is a waking When London's firemen when the impulse toward skills as literary critic. This nightmare with fewer seeds strike, Bev's wife fries to coercive egalitarianism is book of bad dream and bad of the fantastic and a plau­ death. Her dying words restrained, the individuality dream examined is 1985. sible enough piece ofproph­ burn in his ears, "Don't let and creativity ofhuman be­ Burgess's novella is no ecy to give us another date in them get away with it." Bev ings know no limits, and in sequel to Orwell's novel, but the upcoming eighties to rages against the compulso­ 44 the end the lowest of the Nineteen Eighty-four and anticipate with itchy dread. ry unionism he holds re-

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW sponsible for her death. cide whether or not to with­ that the crime the State press. Still, he writes as best Once a history teacher, Bev hold his labour. Mycurse on commits by disconnecting as he can, congizant of A.J. has been barred from that syndicalism." In a society as Alex from his will is more Liebling's sentiment that the profession because the State, rigid as this his heresy casts foul. Burgess states it plainly only man with freedom of the sole employer of educa­ him outside the social order. in his critical essay on Nine­ the press is the man who tors, has strict ideas ofwhat Without a proper dismissal teen Eighty-four: freedom owns one. should and should not be from his job he has no right means the right of moral Bev is too much the taught. Now an assembly to unemployment benefits choice for the individual. recidivist to remain a Free line worker in a candy fac­ or a shot at another job. When Alex regains the right Briton or a Tuc1ander much tory, Bev decides being told Pure and simple, Bev be­ ofmoral choice at the end of longer and his penchant for how, where, and when he comes a nonperson. A Clockwork Orange he is free-thought lands him, can sell his labor is as intol­ But he becomes a nonper­ once again free, free to do guess where? The asylum. erable as being told to teach son by choice. Questions of good or evil. For Burgess, to Here Burgess is doing little official history. Bev tears up choice and free will domi­ opt for moral choice makes more than plucking from his union card, the societal nate Burgess's writing. In a a man free. As long as headlines. In the Soviet passport of Tucland, and previous stab at future fic­ Winston Smith and Bev Union (as well as the United throws it in the faces of the tion, A Clockwork Orange, Jones rebel they are free. States; see the jailing of tax union leaders. They are Burgess turned a plot on the So Bev exercises the resistors on mental health choice he has left-he drops raps for further reference) out-and drops straight failure to accept the ontol­ into the underground of an­ ogy of the State oftens de­ tistate professors, musi­ fines insanity. The soul doc­ cians, derelicts, and Greek tors lecture him, "Insanity is and Latin speaking gang defined as a rejection of the toughs who celebrate learn­ . majority ethos. You pro­ ing because the State does claim insanity in words and not. In 1985, learning has actions." Bev languishes in become the supreme antiso­ the asylum, thinking and cial act. teaching, until he exercises The underground sur­ the painful remainder of vives by its wits and thievery choice he has left by choos­ so it's no real surprise when ing his own end. Bev is caught and jailed. In As with all Burgess fic­ fact, sometimes it seems as if tion, 1985 is strong on half of Anthony Burgess's wordplay, dark humor, and characters have pulled time characterization. Burgess is in prison. Burgess finds pri­ unafraid to invent educated sons as settings endearing characters. Bev Jones enter­ because their order and limi­ tains us with the logic of his tations make clearer the true rebellion; unlike Winston nature of the society outside Smith, he still has the gift of their walls as well as the language and access to the nature of the men incarcer­ humanist tradition. He can ated inside. do more than just intuit the In 1985 there is no Room reason for his struggle. 101 to psycho-torture the Where the novella disap­ will out of men. Instead, a points is on the level ofplot. carrot and stick approach of Burgess is an impatient and sex and beatings is designed prolific writer turning out to make men surrender. Bev books at a fast clip. As he survives this "rehabilita­ writes in The Novel Now, Anthony Burgess tion" and lands back on the his survey of contemporary hardly nonplussed. They value that free will, even if streets ofLondon as a repor­ fiction, "Only the ama­ intone, the will is to sin, is the very ter for the Free Briton Army, teur-carpenter or novel­ a neo-fascist organization ist-has all the time in the The tearing of the card is noth­ thing that makes a man ing. It's like in the old Christian a man. Alex, the brain­ financed by Islamic paymas­ world; the professional days when people got baptized. stomping, drug-eating, Bee­ ters. The Free Briton Army sometimes has to hurry." Tear up your baptismal cer­ thoven-loving, libidinoid intends to preserve general Sometimes a storyteller dis­ tificate and it doesn't make you protagonist of that novel, is services (and protect pet­ covers the plot only after he unbaptized. You're a union shorn of his free will by the ro-Arab investments) when begins the tale. In his hurry member, and that's it ... The psycho-medical arm of the the inevitable General Strike to tell the tale Burgess has records say so and the records State. Alex's crimes are foul comes. Bev writes editorials neglected the suspenseful are like the tablets of the and legion-theft, assault, and stories to order for the and climatic plotting which Mosaic law. murder-and deserve pun­ Free Britons' newspaper, a makes his A Clockwork Bev argues, "The individual ishment or retribution, but press which is as biased as Orange, The Wanting Seed, worker has the right to de- Burgess convinces the reader the trade union controlled and Tremor of Intent so 45 JUNE 1979 arresting. teach the State's version of she's writing, Isaac's ex-wife Ah, but the novella is just history. Orwell shaped the On View observes that "nothing I half the book. Burgess, who news to help the State shape wrote was untrue." Besides, has published book length history. Nineteen Eighty­ Woody Allen's "Ithink I'd better warn you studies on Joyce, Heming­ four, an entry in what Bur­ that I've had interest in a way, and Shakespeare, turns gess calls the Worst of All Manhattan movie sale." Just what Isaac next to Nineteen Eighty­ Imaginary Worlds stakes, needs. four. Consider: both Orwell was designed to shape the DAVID BRUDNOY What Isaac does seem to and Burgess were schooled future. need is the love of a good "I THINK PEOPLE woman, or at least a good in British universities, did Burgess mixes straight­ child. As the movie opens he time in the military, worked ahead essay and self-inter­ should mate for life, like pigeons and Catholics." has the latter. Seventeen­ in the Southeast Asian col­ view to critique Nine!teen Isaac Davis (Woody Allen) year-old Tracy (Mariel Hem­ onies for the Royal Gov­ Eighty-four. The self-inter­ has lovely dreams like that, ingway, Ernest's grand­ ernment, and established view is a handy didactic even after two marriages, daughter) might be Isaac's careers as novelists and device·enabling Burgess to the last of which went ker­ avenue of escape from rela­ journalists. And for what it play his own devil's advo­ plop when his wife, Jill tionships with mature is worth, both adopted pen cate. Burgess has written (Meryl Streep), left him­ women; she is, in any case, names. Burgess's affinity that when a novelist turns for another woman. She's wholly unconcerned that makes him the ideal critic critic often he is too soft a also writing a book about Isaac is 42, and, as she for Orwell. critic because he sym­ their life together (and slightly incorrectly com­ pathizes with the author. Why did Orwell write apart) called Marriage, Di­ putes itwhen he projects her Burgess is a gentle critic. He Nineteen Eighty-four? Bur­ vorce and Selfhood. Isaac into the future, when she's refuses to come between the gess tell us there was more frets that all his friends will 37 he'll be 63. Even that reader and the novel, pre­ English than·Socialism in read about his quirks and his doesn't dissuade Tracy, no ferring the role of intelligent Orwell's English Socialism. crotchets-like how he does more than Isaac's suggestion He was bound to tradition, companion. His·tour of Nineteen Eighty-four is not in bed and what he does in thatshe have affairs with her literature that didn't help· bed-and that his ex-wife school chums, the Billys and an easy one to summarize. the "cause," and bourgeois will distort and exaggerate Biffs and Scooters and other Bakunin's legacy, Charles tastes, and he saw himself things, as when she insists ridiculously named kids of Manson as a bloodyJesus, a writing in the spirit ofDefoe that he tried to run over her her class·and age. Manhat­ comparison of the Pelagian and Swift. Orwell fought lover. "Can I helpitifthe car tan, which begins with the and Augustinian theologies, with the Marxists in Spain accelerated?" he asks. "Just New York skyline and shift­ a linguistic appraisal of only to run for his life when as I was walking in front of ing vignettes of the city, and Newspeak, and a short his­ the Russian Communists it?" the lady lover shoots the sounds of Gershwin's tory of thecacotopia (a turned on the Catalonian back. And why did Isaac "Rhapsody in Blue" played word of Burgess's invention Anarchists. After he drama­ marry her in the first place? by Paul Jacobs and the New meaning an anti-utopia­ tized the· Russian Revolu­ "You knew my history York Philharmonic, soon the invention of new words tion as a barnyard fable in when you married me," she introduces us to Isaac's tor­ is a Burgessian cottage in­ Animal Farm, his desire to says. "My analyst warned tured attempts to compose dustry) are held up against right the spoiled dream, "the m~," he allows, "but you an opening sentence for his Orwell's novel to illuminate revolution betrayed," led were so beautifulthat Igot latest book, a sentence that better its meaning. Good him to conjure an ariti­ another analyst." tries to combine a sensitive stuff. utopia to dispel the false This is Manhattan, the soul's love-loathing rela­ utopian image Uncle Joe Like his hero, Bev Jones, latest and most fully realized tionship to Gotham; soon Stalin was projecting ofthe Anthony Burgess despises and wonderful of Woody thereafter, we meet Isaac, Soviet Union. authoritarianism whether Allen's screen ventures, a his friends,. his current girl, Burgess also informs us its source is· clan, church, wedding ofthe comedic bril­ his anguish and his Age's that Orwell worked for the union, or state~ Whether he liance, sophistication and self~indulgentconcerns. In BBC during the war at is a libertarian is of little neurotic wit of Annie Hall time he will reject Tracy and Broadcast House, an ana­ concern to me. Like Orwell, to the "seriousness" of take up with yet another logue of the Ministry of he is a free-thinker uncom­ Interiors, a film, inciden­ mature woman. It might Truth. In Ninteen Eighty­ fortable with dogma' and tally, that demonstrated to have been his undoing. four the room in which each ideology. Tax-exile Burgess, close observers a deep al­ Mary Wilke (Diane person's personal horror is like his heroes, would rather though dark humor beneath Keaton) is the current ex­ exposed is Room 101. At ignore the State and get on the grimness. Manhattan is tracurricular interest of Broadcast House Orwell with the personal and almost unbearably deadly in Isaac's closest friend, Yale worked in Room 101 spiritual concerns oflife. But hitting its targets; it'll make (Michael Murphy), a man broadcasting propaganda to to do thathe tells us we must chic upper-East-side New who loves his wife, Emily India. Propaganda is not too heed Milton's warning to Yorkers squirm as they (Anne Byrne), but needs that far removed from double­ Cromwell's England-we make their Saturday hegira bit of half-involvement that think, nor is it that distant must hang on to our liber­ to Bloomingdale's, and their only a nice guilt-inducing from the polemic of Nine­ ties. next Sunday devoted en­ affair on the side can teen Eighty-four. Winston tirely to the Times· might provide. But Yale decides to Smith erases history for the Jack Shafer writes frequently suddenly seem rather like a make do with a wife alone, 46 State. Bev Jones refuses to forLR. cultural cliche. Ofthat book parts with Mary in a splen-

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW did short scene ata sidewalk at last that she still loves competent with women, the man sets for modern man. It cafe, leaving to Isaac what­ Yale, which eases Isaac out hopeless nice guy who al­ has a "classic" look, con­ ever consolation can be of the picture, or rather it ways loses. Gone, too, is tributed by Gordon Willis's gained from Mary, who is propels him to a surprising, Woody Allen's need to get velvety black & white "into" everything-review­ gratifying, improbable but the biggest laugh out of photography, and the lush ing obscure books for more nonetheless beautiful ending every situation. He has said and light and evocative obscure journals, going to scene that the viewer will in an interview that he left sound ofGeorge Gershwin, all the right gatherings (in­ want to discover for himself. some of Manhattan's fun­ and it emerges as a morality cluding one featuring Bella With which we return again niest scenes on the cutting tale for our times, as un­ Abzug, to push for the to the New York skyline, room floor, because they preachy a morality tale as E.R.A.), knowing how to and to Gershwin's "Rhap­ intruded, they added noth­ anyone could imagine. Just disparage Mahler and sody in Blue," framing a ing necessary. And gone, the same, though, it is a Bergman and anybody else picture scored entirely with maybe, is his insistence in short lesson, one not alto­ who might be fashionable Gershwin's lovely tunes. Interiors that we be spared gether pretty, but altogether with people a year or so out Love is sweeping the coun­ even one joke, lest we mis­ engaging. of date-and whose level of try, we might actually be­ understand his meaning and Three years in a rowAllen self-awareness is expressed lieve at Manhattan's close, think we were in for yet has given moviegoers a film with merry good cheer: "I'm and I've got a crush on you, another stock Woody Allen to be remembered, Annie beautiful, I'm young, I'm and on you and on you, too, comedy. This is the flower­ Hall in 1977, Interiors last highly intelligent, I've.got and strike up the band be­ ing of one of our greatest year, now this. They might everything going for me ex­ cause there's someone to contemporary cultural trea­ well be seen as stages in an cept I'm all fucked up.... I watch over me. Truly, sures, Allen Stewart Kon­ evolution, and· we might could go to bed with the s'wonderful. igsberg, reborn as Woody consider them as Allen's entire M.I.T. faculty. Shit! Manhattan is Woody Al­ Allen, now so confident of working out of some likely, Now I lost my contact lens." len's magnum opus, at least his powers that he has ifnotinevitable, progression Mary is beautiful and in­ to date. Gone, probably learned to combine a sly and in his thought. Annie Hall, telligent and she is a. bitch. forever, is the character barbed humor with a know­ Interiors, and Manhattan Just made for Isaac. Woody played and re­ ing awareness of the more all star Diane Keaton, as Except that Mary decides played: the shnook, the in- sober traps that modern have other, earlier Woody

JUNE 1979 Allen movies; each carries with Mary quite philosophi­ have happened. Emily we are fully confident, WIll Allen a giant step beyond his cally, casually remarking to doesn't know that Isaac was do quite nicely with her screwball comedies, even Isaac thatshe almost blames the meatloaf in a sandwich lover, and will with her lover beyond his amusing and him for the final turn of date, the bread ofwhich was provide two fine mothers for sometimes outrageously events, because if Isaac had Yale first and Yale at last. Willie (Damion Sheller), her funny but still awkward sat­ not introduced Mary to Only Isaac's lesbian ex-wife and Isaac's son. Streep, by ire, Love and Death (1975); Yale, none of this would is drawn sketchily, and she, the way, who came within a only Interiors lacked Allen in a screen role, but in that film his absence was essen­ tial, since we were being instructed not to laugh, and to see Woody is to laugh. In the last three movies Allen broke with the easier pat­ terns of his early films, cul­ minating now in this ma­ ture, measured dissection of hollow people making their own miserable lives more miserable by refusing to take anything as a given, by reso­ lutely willing themselves into complications. If Man­ hattan is not as obviously funny as, say, Bananas, it is because Woody has now become confident enough of his vast talent to eschew the easy guffaw in order to con­ struct the more complex situations that are them­ selves so risible, as well as so pathetic. Manhattan is a hard and cold movie, with touches of warmth that are the more precious because they arise from such an arid landscape. Annie Hall was the quintessential New Yorker's revenge on Cali­ fornia, Interiors his gesture to the gods of respectability (so Bergmanesque, as every­ one duly noted, that Berg­ man's Autumn Sonata, which appeared shortly after Interiors, could with a straight face be described by some critics as Woody­ esque), Manhattan his own rhapsody in blue, his mas­ terpiece. I wrote earlier that Man­ hattan is a morality tale. By which I don't mean to imply that it is censorious, or that it pits good guys against bad guys, or computes the sins and ladles out the pun­ ishments. It does not leave anyone particularly dev­ astated or, except for Yale's wife, abandoned-and Emily takes Yale's decision Scenes from Woody Allen's Interiors· (top) and Manhauan: last stages in the evolution of a 48 to leave her and move in masterpiece.

THE LIBERTARIAN REVIEW hair of winning a best sup­ years ago as an uncomfort­ "Hewas too romantic about recent films weren't so bril­ porting actress Oscar for her able transition piece. A sec­ New York," Woody-Isaac liant, I suppose we TVcritics stunning work in The Deer ond viewing opened me to a narrates over the New York would bellow. As it is, most Hunter, gives such fullness different interpretation, scenes with which the film of us are resigned to the fate to her small part as Isaac's which I now realize was an begins, which quickly shifts he prepares for us.) former wife that she fills in initial grasping ofsomething to a bitter (or bittersweet) The movie presents not with a few gestures what the that Interiors and Manhat­ depiction ofManhattan, the only a scrupulously apt screenplay omits. Allen's tan have made very clear. place, as "a metaphor for screenplay to tell a serious and Marshall Brickman's And Interiors, for all that it, the decay of our culture." and majestically funny screenplay is so expressive, like Annie Hall, is a brilliant Only in the opening few story, it isa showcase for a so tight, so restrained, and exercise in intellectualizing, minutes, and this as a paro­ half dozen outstanding per­ so wickedly funny while also is the missing piece in the dy of Woody's own earlier formances. Woody becomes being so poignant that I am puzzle, or, rather, now parodic and satiric films, is a lover a gorgeous teenie going to predict, not yet half seems so obviously the link: anything made quite so ex­ child could adore. Michael way through the year, thatit a hauntingly beautiful, plicit. Elsewhere, while the Murphy,Woody's close will pick up one of those deeply moving screen tri­ tongue meanders about in friend and a key figure in gold statuettes at next umph, branching off from the farthest crevices of the several ofhis films, is perfect April's Oscarfest. How the zany Woody's awkward cheek, the put-ons and the as the weak, indecisive, much really wound up on contact with the concepts send-ups are purposeful: cuddly and pleasant Yale. the floor of director Allen's Family and Love, providing they don't pummel us, they (And isn't that name won­ cutting room, I don't know; the crossing-over place from cozy us into awareness. In derfully suggestive?) Streep, what is on the screen is flaw­ comedy for comedy's sake one scene, at a party, a pre;. as noted above, makes every less. to the comedy within sobri­ tentious fellow is talking one of her few minutes on Woody here says more ety of Manhattan. I would about his brilliant idea for a screen memorable: her Jill is about love, aboutthe imped­ not reduce these three pic­ novel-or is it a movie?­ no bull dyke caricature, but iments to love, about loneli­ tures to units in a triptych, or about a person who delivers a wholly believable homo­ ness and desperation, about suggest thatthey have mean­ such fabulous orgasms that sexual woman rather sin­ making do and refusing to ing only, or even primarily, his partners die when they gle-mindedly pursuing her make do, than almost any in conjunction with each come. A woman remarks own ends. Mariel Heming­ other movie of the last sev­ other; I would only urge the that she finally had an or­ way, first seen, I believe, in eral years. Manhattan viewer to keep Annie Hall gasmand her doctor told Lipstick, which starred her swims in the concept oflove, and Interiors in mind when her that it was the wrong impossibly tall, impossibly virtually drowns us in its experiencing Manhattan, kind of orgasm.To which gorgeous, impossibly talent­ variations, never once deni­ and to see if the reading I've Isaac responds, bemusedly: less model sister, Margaux, grates the centrality of love given the three movies isn't, Wrong kind of orgasm? All is at a tender age not only in man's life, but never ro­ at least, plausible. my orgasms are the right outstandingly beautiful but manticizes or trivializes Woody's lesson in Man­ kind, he boasts. "The least also bursting with talent. A love. The lovers in this film hattan is quite simple. It is a of my orgasms-right on little more fullness to her are often ridiculous, as gentle warning against emo­ the button." In many of voice, and a starring role of people in love, or people tional suicide as practiced Allen's early movies a scene her own, and she'll be who think they're in love among the tribe ofthe urban like that would be played dynamite. Anne Byme, Dus­ and don't quite know what trendies. It is an even gentler out at length, would rise to a tin Hoffman's wife, has the to make of it, usually are. urging that people enjoy crescendo; in Manhattan it tiniest ofroles here, as Yale's But Love itself is not ridicul­ what they have while they is a quick bite and over and wife, but she fills it fully. ous and Allen is calm have it, and not pine for out. (It is, precisely, 54 sec­ And Keaton-Keaton has enough this time to accept some brighter green pasture onds; I know, because our taken an unappealing role, that unblushingly-to sub­ around the bend. And it perverse genius, Mr. Woody given it the full measure of merge it, granted, in the holds up human affection as Allen, provided a clip ofjust her talent, put aside those film's almost sensual love of the strongest weapon we this scene, and only this almost trademark gestures a city, THE city-but never have against the long dark scene, to us television re­ that have been distracting in to ridicule it. Annie Hall night, as the most powerful viewers, knowing full well so many of her screen parts, was a lovable film, too lov­ charm to ward off the evil that we wouldn't be able to and, as is now becoming her able, in many long desperate spirit Loneliness, and as the use it on TV. Woody not pattern, walks away with stretches too cute, and aw­ most precious thing we have only forbids critics' advance the film. Diane Keaton joins fully self-pitying. I rejected it as we race from fresh­ screenings, he also arranges Meryl Streep and Jane on first viewing, seeing it as scrubbed youth to decrepit things so that those of us Fonda and perhaps a hand­ shamelessly autobiograph­ old age. who review films on TV are ful of other actresses as the ical but still coyly distanc­ The writing is so mod­ reduced to illustrating our best we have on screen to­ ing: Woody's love-hate rela­ ulated that none of this is two-minute gems of cinema day. Watch Keaton move tionship with the gentile vulgarly presented; reducing wisdom with static glossies. from the brash know-it-all world, the in humor of a Manhattan to analysis, or The man not only controls to the cock-tease to the vul­ certain literary-cultural set, even, as here, deliberately, almost every facet of the nerable lady unsure of just the outlandish situations only to brief description and making of his films, he also whose cock to tease to the designed to hammer home the most cursory ofinterpre­ reaches out and controls woman methodically con­ some fairly obvious points. tation, strips this remark­ what happens to them after cluding that Yale is the man Annie Hall struck me two able movie of its fullness. they are released. If his for her: watch that trans- 49

JUNE 1979 controversial. So order your hardcover copy directly from the publisher. $9.95. 3 week money-back guarantee. Or THE send for free brochure. Fleet Press, P.O. Box 21, Brooklyn, NY 11235. LIBERTARIANISM vs. COMMUNISM-a debate held at the Annual Gathering LIBERTARIAN of Mensa. Robert A. Steiner is Chair of the International Libertarian Organization in Mensa, a founder of the New Jersey Libertarian Party, anda long-time activist in the LP. CLASSIFIEDS J. L.Lunsford is a long-time activist and an organizer for CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENTS are accepted atthe discretion cornucopia and desire like Communist Party, U.S.A. Said of the publisher of The Libertarian R{!view. Basic rate: 10 cents helpmate, warm, attractive, one attendee: "Those who per word (minimum $3); six or more insertions: 10 percent enthusiastic and organized. witnessed the confrontation discount; 12 or more insertions: 20 percent discount. Payment Picture please. Ken Brydges, came away favorably im­ must accompany order. Address: Classified Ad Department, The Beaver Creek, Blind Channel, pressed with the freedom phi­ Libertarian Review, 1620 Montgomery Street, San Francisco CA British Columbia, Canada losophy. It was clear thatleftist 94111. VOPIBO. ideology is incapable of de­ EDUCATION fending itself against a princi­ BOOKS trators write for school, college pled case based on individual openings, USA and abroad. SURVIVAL I COMBAT I HOME STUDY COURSE IN liberty." Two cassettes total­ "Instant Alert" notifies you of ECONOMICS. A 10-lesson ing about two hours. $9.95 Self-Defense / Wilderness Liv­ openings in your field. Instant study that will throw light on plus $.75 postage and hand­ ing IGuerrilla Warfare ... Alert-R,15 Orchard Street Books I Manuals ... Catalog today's baffling problems. Tui­ ling. Robert A. Steiner, LR059, Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts tion free: small charge for Box 80327, Lincoln, NE $1.00 ... Ken Hale (LR-I00), 02181. McDonald, Ohio 44437. materials. Write to Henry 68501. PERIODICALS George Institute, 55 W. 42nd LEWIS CARROLL CON­ St., New York, NY 10036. LIBERTARIAN BUTTONS TRIBUTED 'Chortle' and ARE YOU FROM DIXIE? AND STICKERS, poster, 'Galumph' to the language. Read the Southern Libertarrian FREE MARKET bumperstickers, fliers and Have you any original coin­ Messenger, Box 1245, Flor­ booklets. TAXATION IS UNTIL NOW, NO AUTHOR THEFT, TANSTAAFL, FUCK ings? Am compiling dictionary ence, SC 29503. $3/yr. HAS DARED TO CHAL­ of. new words-will credit THE STATE, SOCIETY BY LIVE AND LET LIVE is our LENGE THIS ASPECTO·F CONTRACT, SOCIALISM contributions. Send with name YOUR SELF-DESTRUCTIVE and definition to: Box AL, religious doctrine and the SUCKS, DOWN WITH name of our newsletter. Free BELIEFS. Dr. Walter Block ARCHY and 50 more. Free Swarthmore, Pennsylvania demonstrates how you pay a 19801. sample issues available. Write catalog. Society for Libertarian Church of Eternal Life & Lib­ burdensome economic and Life, Box 4, Fullerton, CA BUSINESS erty, Box 622, Southfield, MI emotional price by not defend­ 92632. OPPORTUNITIES 48037. ing such victims as the pimp, prostitute, drug pusher, slan­ THE PEOPLE'S GUIDE TO TEACHER-ADMINISTRA­ LIBERTARIAN derer, slumlord, profiteer, loan CAMPAIGN POLITICS, by TOR: There are good teach­ ANNOUNCEMENTS shark and scab. Now his book, Gary Robert Schwedes. Defini­ ing, administrative jobs aV'lil­ "Defending the Undefenda­ tive work on local campaign able. Current school, college GOOD WIFE WANTED, ble," has itself become a vic­ techniques. Nominated in openings list USA, $5.95; NEW OR USED. Have iso­ tim. Although this intellectual Washington Monthly for abroad $4.95. EISR, Box 662, lated seaside homestead, ac­ adventure has received rave "Political Book of the Year" Newton, Massachusetts cessible by boat, mild climate, reviews from Hayek, Szasz, award. Send $3.50 to: 02162. superb garden and deep Hazlitt, Rothbard, Hospers, Schwedes Campaign Consul­ woods. Am 48, Libertarian, Nozick, and MacBride, it has tants, 1725 The Promenade, GET THE EDUCATIONJOB iconoclastic, agnostic, musical, been virtually banned by the *224-B, Santa Monica, CA you want! Teachers, adminis- . bibliophile, gourmet. Have nation's bookstores as too 90401.

formation in 93 minutes and Maybe so. But only a fully himself Isaac says: "In my award. I don't think I'll have see a fantastic actress strut charged brain, encompas­ relationships with women, I to retract that one. l:J her stuff. sing a mature sensitivity and wiq the August Strindberg Manhattan joins Hair tenderness, can conceive Award." Well, they are neat LR's film critic reviews films and plays for WNAC-TV and The Deer Hunter in the something as memorable as little throw-away lines, (CBS), where he also hosts a Olympian reaches of true a philosophically consistent, speaking volumes oftruth in weekly talk and entertainment cinema brilliance confront­ faultlessly intelligent work the kernel ofa quip. Try this program, "Nightscene." He is ing .us within the last half ofmovie art. OfMary, Isaac one, and test it with an hour host, as well,. of "The David year. At one point Isaac says: she is "the winner of and a half in the theater: Brudnoy Show" on WHDH­ remarks that "the brain is the Zelda Fitzgerald Emo­ Manhattan wins the best AM, also in Boston. ©Copy­ 50 the most overrated organ." tional Maturity Award." Of motion picture of 1979 right David Brudnoy 1979

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