The New Boston

October 2001 $4.00 Tea Party

O'L() ~ Cli o"'d 00 ~ o Cli "'"u...:r ...... ~1iiiiiIIiiiiiii1iiiiilliiiiiii1llllllliiiiiii ...:rg ~ ~ "'"~ ~ o::J '-- "Liberty is generally born in stormy weather." -,Tocqueville --'

October 2001 Inside Liberty Volume 15, Number 10

4 Letters Touche!

7 Reflections We demonstrate the impossibility of evolution, offer advice for $4.99 a minute, note that the sun never sets on the FBI, finger the idiots among us, praise murder at work, and uncover the vast libertarian conspiracy. Features 23 The People vs. The State of Oregon Oregon voters amended their constitution to stop the state from stealing their land. But the state's powerful elite took the case to court. William E. Merritt details this sordid tale of corruption, bribery, and abuse of power. 28 Injustice Compounded Edward Feser shows that today's arguments for reparations look a lot like "the mirage of social justice" exposed by F.A. Hayek a generation ago. 30 An Encounter With Harry up close and personal, Harry Browne's vision of the future of the Libertarian Party isn't a pretty sight. R. W. Bradford reports on a recent encounter.

35 Learning From the 2000 Defeat What helped, what hurt, and what just didn't matter when it comes to the Browne 2000 campaign vote totals? Michael New analyzes the data.

38 Bay State Tea Party Fomenting a tax revolt just got easier. Carla Howell invites you to participate. 42 The Economic Causes of the Civil War Was the Civil War less a battle over slavery and more a battle over dollars? Donald W. Miller Jr. explores America's most destructive war. 45 The DEA Trials Sure, it felt good then, but now you're clean, sober, and wanted for war crimes. Bart Kosko weaves a tale of life after prohibition.

Reviews 49 Country Squire in the War Room Clark Stooksbury takes a look at a man totally unsuited for leading a nation at war.

52 The Crimes of Henry Kissinger The best way to judge a man is to see who he wants to put on trial for war crimes. Stephen Berry explains.

55 Practical Libertarianism There's a time for pragmatism in politics. Brian Glazer takes a look at the Cato Institute's latest blueprint for practical reform.

56 Atlas Plugged Timothy Sandefur checks out a new introduction to the works of Ayn Rand, without reading a word.

58 Notes on Contributors The people behind the words. 62 Terra Incognita Why not just stay indoors today? [~======L=e=====t statists of all sorts is that they believe t=er=====s======-] just the opposite, that the rules for indi­ viduals are a subset of those for Will the Real Barbara Walters repeatedly for (allegedly) putting her government. Please Shut Up? royal role ahead of her role as a wife, EdwinJ. Pole My heartfelt thanks for printing mother, and grandmother, but when she Hillsboro, Ore. Timothy Sandefur's piece on that great didn't do this, the news-ghouls were all Civil Morality American TV news-show matchup, John over her for not being in London. The James R. Edwards claims (Letters, Stossel vs. Babs the Fossil (Reflections, press screamed that the royals should be September), that"sexual morality [is] August). As a fan of his work, I grit my "with their people," as though Scotland every bit as essential to civilized society teeth at the end of each of Stossel's seg­ was once again a separate country, instead of being just as much a part of as honesty, civility, limited government, ments, mentally preparing myself for the United Kingdom as Buckingham and private property." the oncoming spike in my blood pres­ Palace itself. I've never thought much of Honesty's importance to civilized sure as Barbara Walters shakes her head the British press, and their uncritical . society is incorporated into laws against and burbles out some argument that Diana-worship cemented my dislike for fraud. Civility is the basis for laws was already addressed in the segment them. Their behavior would have made against assault. Limited government is itself, then rolls her eyes and cuts to the Founding Fathers seriously recon­ the basis for the Bill of Rights. Private commercial before Stossel can respond. I sider the whole free-press thing. The property is defended by laws against am thankful that she was not somehow way they covered Diana made the way theft. involved in his "Tampering with the American press sucked up to the Thus by use of analogy the argu­ Nature" special that aired recently. I Kennedys look moderate and reason­ ment presented gives sexual morality a fully expected that at the end, after an able - if Diana had been caught in an public component. Such an analogy intelligent and refreshing look at envi­ orgy at the Hellfire Club, they'd have could then be used as a basis to put sod­ ronmentalism, Walters would pop on spun it to make it look like a harmless omy, birth control, homosexuality, pros­ screen to tell us how not recycling our charity function for raising money for titution, and any other consensual used toilet paper makes baby seals cry. orphaned, land-mine victims. practice that Comstocks don't like on a Throttle her, choke her with Maria Eric Oppen par with fraud, assault, government vio­ Shriver's hair extensions, anything, just Iowa Falls, Iowa lations of the Bill of Rights, and theft. please make her shut up! Charles Kluepfel Martha Stallman The Case for a Double Standard' Bloomfield, N.J. Houston, Tex. While I cannot disagree with Timothy Sandefur (Reflections, The Libertarian Disgrace The Passing of a Media Gold September), I think he misses a critical Thank you for your hard work in the Mine point. Of course I would forcibly effort to uncover the scandal within the Kudos to Stephen Cox for his review restrain a friend from committing sui­ Libertarian Party ("Browne 2000: Where of Shadows ofa Princess (August). He hit cide if, in my judgment, he was acting the Money Went," September). I know the nail on the head with his comments irrationally or out of impulse. I would this has been hard for you. Harry about Saint Diana and her posturing. also be personally responsible for.my Browne was an editor of Liberty and One thing he missed, though, was the actions and my friend would be entitled Harry and R. W. Bradford were per­ cold-blooded, deliberate way the news to compensation for my actions if he sonal friends. I am sure that this story barons of Britain whipped up the mob desired it. Government is a special case. provided more than its share of sadness. against the royal family after Diana's Government is not liable and is not held However, the truth must come out. death, when it was still widely believed accountable. The principles under which Now the party can begin to solve that the paparazzi were responsible for governmentoperates are different than this problem which has festered its cor­ the accident. This particular aspect of those for an individual. Government ruption within party circles for many the whole death-of-Diana thing stuck in actions cannot be evaluated in the same years. No longer is ~t just speculation my throat then, and I've seen no reason way. that something bad was happening to change my opinion since. Love them The issues and morality of individ­ within the Libertarian Party - we now or hate them, the royals deserved to be ual and government action, while not know it is true. Along the way all of us left alone at that time, if only because entirely separate and distinct, are differ­ relearned the lesson of Acton: that they had two children on their hands ent and must be evaluated that way. The power does corrupt! who had just lost a mother they loved. rules of government are a subset of While Chairman Lark and the rest of Queen Elizabeth has been criticized those for individuals. The problem with the LNC would like this scandal to go Liberty (ISSN 0894-1408) is a libertarian and dassicalliberal review ?f thought, culture, and politics, pub­ away, the silence of the arrogant perpe­ lished monthly by the Liberty Foundation, 1018 Water Stree~,. SUite 2~1., Port. Townsend, WA 98368. trators can only mean that there is more Periodicals Postage Paid at Port Townsend, WA 98368, and at additional malhng offices. to it. Mr. Lark and the LNC have a duty POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Liberty, P.O. Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368. Subscriptions are $29.50 for twelve issues. Foreign subscriptions are $34.50 for twelve issues. Manuscripts to pursue this matter, even if it means are welcome, but will be returned only if accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE). A court action, if for no other reason than writer's introduction is available: send a request and an SASE. to protect those not involved. Browne, Opinions expressed in Liberty are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Liberty Foundation. Copyright © 2001 Liberty Foundation. All rights reserved. Willis, and their colleagues have deceived us. Their current silence may Personal Responsibility Sets Us Free ichael Cloud Libertarian for u.s. Senate • Massachusetts "Personal Responsibility is the Michael Cloud is a vote for small government. Where would he begin? Price of Liberty," said Michael Cloud in his Nationally Televised End Drug Prohibition and the C-SPAN speech. War on Drugs. End Gun Prohibition and the War on Guns. End Social Why Personal Responsibility? Security and the Bankrupting of Seniors. End the Income Tax and the Everybody wants to be free, War on Human Achievement. but who wants to be responsible? Personal Responsibility means That's the dirty little secret about Individual Liberty. Big Government Growth. Why Michael Cloud? Government does not grow by Michael Cloud seizing Individual Liberty. The foremost expert ofthe Art of vote to restore Personal Libertarian Persuasion. The Tom Big Government grows by Responsibility. Paine Award winner. "Persuasion assuming Personal Responsibility. Power Points" columnist with over Every Issue. Every Time. 52,374 subscribers. CEO of the Carla Individual Liberty and Personal No Exceptions. No Excuses. Responsibility are two sides of the Howell for U.S. Senate campaign. Personal Responsibility is the Issue. same gold coin. We cannot surrender "Michael Cloud is, hands-down, one side of the coin without losing Small government is the key. the best public speaker in the the other. Individual Liberty is the reward. Libertarian Party," said Jo Jorgensen, We must take back our Personal 1996 Libertarian VP nominee. Personal Responsibility is at the Responsibility to restore our root of every political issue in Help Michael Cloud persuade Individual Liberty. ' America. hundreds of thousands of Michael Cloud vs. John Kerry. Massachusetts voters that Personal A vote to dismantle Big Responsibility is the Issue. u.s. Senator John Kerry (D-MA) Government is a vote for Personal is toying with a Presidential bid for Responsibility. Please donate generously. 2004. But first there's a minor Please donate today. Thank you. inconvenience: he has to run for y ••••• _-_ •••••••••••••••••••••••••••.•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• re-election in Massachusetts in 2002. Personal Responsibility is the Issue 0$1,000 0 $500 0 $250 0 $150 0 $85 o Other: $ I'll Pay By: 0 Check Democrat John Kerry always Michael Cloud o Visa 0 Mastercard 0 Discover 0 AmEx votes Big Government. You may donate up to $2,000: Libertarian for u.s. Senate $1,000 for Primary & $1,000 for General Election. More Big Government Authority.

More Big Government Control. More NAME CREDIT CARD # Big Government Power. ADDRESS SIGNATURE EXPIRATION More Big Government. Every time John Kerry votes, we CITY STATE ZIP OCCUPATION EMPLOYER lose Personal Responsibility. PHONE EMAIL Donate to: Michael Cloud for U.S. Senate· 131 Bridge Street· Salem, MA 01970· Note: Federal law requires political committees to report the name, mailing address, and occupation and employee for each individual whose contributions total $200 or more in a calendar Libertarian Michael Cloud will year. Not tax deductible. Paid for by Michael Cloud for U.S. Senate, R. Dennis Corrigan. Treasurer. LM10/01 • __ ._--•••• __ ._•• _ ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 1 be deafening, but their prior actions time for the Browne campaign, spend­ spoke louder than words. They have ing$2,900 on October 23, $29,561 on the About destroyed our innocence andin the pro­ 24th, $20,740 on the 27th, $29,546 on the cess nearly crushed our idealism. 30th; plus $14,722 on November 2, for a Browne and his minions have sullied total of $97,469 in the final two weeks Your our party for too long. It is now time to before the election. rid ourselves of them. So, HB2000 press secretary Jim LeRoy Lloyd Babka may loosely be considered correct Subscription Bowling Green, Ohio in telling Liberty that HB2000 spent $120,000 on TV ads, if one adds $24,000 Too Easy on Browne of pre-nomination payments to Firm Q: When does my subscription expire? Before the end of July 2000, Browne's Multimedia to the $99,430 post­ A: Please look to the right ofyour campaign manager Perry Willis was nomination payments. name on your mailing label. There claiming on LibertyWire, the campaign's However, Willis' tales of amounts you will find (unless you are getting e-mail newsletter, that the Browne cam­ spent to purchase TV ad time by both a renewal notice) the number of paign (HB2000) and the Libertarian HB2000 and the LNC are wildly exag­ issues left in your subscription, fol­ National Committee (LNC) had already gerated, claiming more than double the lowed by the word "left," as in "3 spent $62,390 buying airtime for TV ads. LEFT." amounts later reported to the FEC. This But the FEC reports filed by both goes far, fc;lr beyond the realm of an Q: I've moved. Where do I send my HB2000 and the LNC show just $16,936 occasional typo, a bit of portraying the change ofaddress information? was spent, all by HB2000. That's a credi­ world throughrose-colored glasses or A: Liberty, P.o. Box 1181, Port bility gap of $45,454, or a whopping even a campaign manager's wishful Townsend, WA 98368. Please 268%. thinking. include your previous address (it's Before mid-August, Willis was claim­ Bradford and Browne are old best to send us your label from your ing on LibertyWire that combined magazine) and telephone number. friends. Perhaps this is why he and Allow us six weeks to receive and HB2000/ LNC spending for TV ads was Merritt were so easy on Browne and his process your address notification. $131,750. The actual number was less campaign. than $49,000; Willis exaggerated by Ken Sturzenacker Q: r m receiving duplicate copies; what $83,000, far more than 100%. should I do? Allentown, Pa. September was HB2000's big month A: Take a look at both mailing labels, to buy TV advertising. FEC repprts Another Scandal, Yawn clip'em out and send'em to us. show a total of $43,248, including identi­ It seems to me the reason we don't We'll make sure that you receive all the issues you've paid for. cal $6,624 purchases on the Discovery want LP staffers working on a particular Channel September 21 and 27. candidate's campaign is the same reason Q: I think you've charged my credit According to the FEC reports, the LNC we don't allow a state-sponsored relig­ card incorrectly; what can I do? apparently did not buy any TV ad time ion. That is, if everyone at LP National A: Call us at 800-854-6991 (during for Browne's campaign in September. Committee is openly working on normal business hours on the West So far, the LNC had spent only the Browne's campaign, then no one else is Coast) or email us at $20,000 in August. However, by likely to run, feeling that the party has circulation@libertysoft~com September 19, Willis had, told ' already endorsed Browne. We'll take down your information LibertyWire recipients of the LNC's If that's the point of the rule, how and then try to solve your problem $113,000 in spending for TV ads. can that rule be violated (in spirit) by as soon as possible. Remember, FEC reports filed by the Willis"secretly" working for Harry? Q: Can I change my address on your LNC show no TV ad time purchases in Isn't that like George Bush"secretly" toll-free number, too? September. endorsing Buddhism? Would anyone A: No. We must get your address cor­ HB2000 made its last TV ad time pur­ really care? If Willis"secretly con­ rections in writing, either by U.S. chases by mid-October, $27,496 for the spired" to assist Browne as alleged, mail or by email. month, announced on LibertyWire on doesn't the secrecy itself undermine the Q: Can I communicate with your ful­ the 18th, and that amount is listed for seriousness of the conflict? fillment department by email? the 17th in HB2000's report to the FEC. Secondly, it's alleged there was"cor- A: Yes; send your communications and This brought the total post-nomination continued on page 61 queries to us at spending by HB2000 to buy TV time to [email protected] $99,430. (One week later, and two weeks We invite readers to comment on articles prior to the election, Perry Willis started that have appeared in the pages of Uberty. We'll try to get back to you as soon We reserve the right to edit for length and as possible. using LibertyWire e-mails to solicit clarity. All letters are assumed tobe intended The editorial offices can be reached at donations to file the FEC lawsuit, first for publication unless otherwise stated. announced in March 2000, more than Succinct, typewritten letters are preferred. 360-379-0242. Please include your phone number so that we can Our sales and subscription fulfillment seven months earlier. At this writing, verify your identity. office can be reached at 800-854-6991 August 17, 2001, the lawsuit has yet to Send letters to: Liberty, P.o. Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368. Or use· the Internet: (foreign callers call 360/379-8421). be filed.) letterstoedito~l)libertys()ft.com. The LNC then started buying TV air- 2 The Bard of Little Rock - Bill Clinton got a tions. The big equation is "E= ... c ." Apparently Einstein's $10 million advance for his"thorough and candid telling of close brush with Attention Deficit Disorder has prevented his life." Who says crime doesn't pay? - Alan Bock him from realizing that "m" is needed to complete the equation. 2 In space no one can hear you scream ­ A smaller equation nearby features II mc + Eo" divided Los Angeles has officially staked a claim on its assumption of by the square root of "i + v2." Here we see the tragedy of a being the center of the universe. Because Hughes aircraft genius with ADD, as Einstein foolishly mixes his great owns eight satellites and also is based in El Segundo, Los insight about matter and energy with terms from electricity Angeles·County feels that property taxes should be assessed and elementary Newtonian physics. on them, even though they are stationed 22,300 miles above Inside, the ADD article is an autobiographical piece by an the equator. Idaho writer who actually has ADD. Judging by the picture Just as forensic scientists can pinpoint the time of death of and the text, she suffers from a milder case than the Einstein a victim by the development of maggots on the decomposing impersonator does. We never actually learn what might have corpse, I think you can chart the development of a frontier happened if Einstein had had ADD - other than the cover by noticing when photo's implication the tax assessors that he would have show up. VN PLE~SI\NT been a mathematical - Tim Slagle "TRUTHS ninny. So who cares? If dog, rabbit Well, USA Weekend's Almost all silly cover illustrates medium-sized or how deeply the larger papers feel an magazine feels com­ obligation to buy pelled to warn its one or the other of readers about ADD. these light magazine You can expect to supplements. Even hear soon about the newspapers that need for federal sub­ produce their own, sidies to "do some­ much weightier thing" about ADD. Sunday magazines The USA like the San Weekend cover also Francisco Chronicle points the way to - still provide a more great covers in national supplement the future. What if like USA Weekend or Parade. Moses were Catholic? What if Stalin had Tourette's syn­ Articles in both tend to be short and superficial, with an drome? What if George Washington were a lesbian? What if emphasison the inner thoughts of celebrities, and both mag­ Daniel Webster stuttered? What if Liberty were a preppy azines feature large display ads for nose-hair trimmers and clothing ca~alog? - Dave Kopel the like. So it's understandable that these magazines fly beneath McCain the Magnificent - Having attacked the cultural radar of people who think about politics. But the First Amendment with his bill to regulate political speech ignoring these middle-to-lowbrow magazines is a mistake, and the Second Amendment with his campaign against the because they have an enormous readership. Just as Reader's nonexistent gun-show loophole, word has it that Sen. John Digest is more politically important than The Nation, even McCain is going for the hat trick: He plans to introduce legis­ though The Nation is more prestigious among people with lation requiring Americans to quarter troops in their houses graduate degrees, Parade and USA Weekend have a political in times of peace. - Sheldon Richman impact too huge to ignore. So I was startled one weekend to see the USA Weekend This bomb's for you! - The trouble with the cover story asking, "What if Einstein had ADD?" Well, "he Second Amendment is that traditional weapons kill people. didn't," a smaller text on the magazine cover admits. The Modern media brings the horror of war right into our living cover picture is a shot of an actor impersonating Einstein. rooms, and public sentiment always goes to those injured. Behind the actor is a chalkboard full of mathematical equa- Timothy McVeigh would have found a more sympathetic Liberty 7 October 2001 jury of public opinic·nhad no one been You are invited to the ll10st revvarding killed. Had he targeted a building where tax returns were stored, and destroyed it without a single casualty, he would have been a national hero. According to the September 2001 II Speaking of PopuLar Mechanics, an electromagnetic pulse bomb can be built with 1940s technology for under $400. This would be a weapon that destroys electronics The 2001 Liberty Editors' and magnetically recorded information with no injuries to humans and build­ The 2001 Liberty Editors' Conference promises to be the most exciting, ings. With face scanning technology intellectually stimulating gathering of libertarian thinkers brought together the new rage of law enforcement, cam­ under one roof! eras going up on every street corner, The 2001 Liberty Editors' Conference will bring our readers together doctors required to submit medical with the world's leading libertarian writers, theorists, journalists, econo­ information into a national database, mists, historians, scientists, entrepreneurs, and financial experts for fasci­ and various federal law enforcement nating talks and seminars on topics of special interest to libertarians. agencies watching every e-mail on· the Where has libertarianism been in the last several years? Where will it go Internet; I would suggest that the in the future? What do libertarian thought and perspectives have to contrib­ security of a free state requires a ute to society and how can we speed up the process? From past glories to Patriot's Manhattan Project focused on future possibilities, your favorite libertarian celebrities will discuss all this building up a private EMP arsenal. and more at the 2001 Liberty Editors' Conference. Oops, I submitted this one to The conference will be held at the seaside Port Hudson conference cen­ Liberty via e-mail. Goodbye, every­ ter in Port Townsend, Wash., the beautiful Victorian seaport nestled in the body. - Tim Slagle shadow of the snow-capped Olympic Mountains. So after a few days of challenging intel­ The function of an idiot­ lectual .discussion identifier - In my Dictionary of you can do any­ the Avant-Gardes, I suggested that cer­ thing from hike in tain prominent artists and writers gen­ the Olympics to erate work so dubious, so fake, that take a sea kayak­ they function within the professional ing trip in the San world to mark their admirers as idiots. Juan Islands. Or if When I first introduced this epithet you prefer some­ I was thinking of a "sculptor" who pro­ duced pieces with words, sometimes thing less rigor­ inscribed large on walls, later put in ous you can liquid crystal displays. Her use of lan­ simply soak up guage was undistinguished; the the atmosphere of thoughts she expressed in her words Port Townsend's were pious pap; her style reflected carefree attitude, obvious antecedents, if not outright exquisite restau- plagiarism. It was not for nothing that rants, and unique Water Street in downtown Port Townsend her work subsequently disappeared activities. from common view. (Don't credit me If you've attended a Liberty Editors' Conference in the past you know with influence, though I think others what to expect: stimulating conversations, camaraderie, good food and eventually understood what earlier drink, valuable information, and just plain fun. So don't miss out! occurred to me.) The conference fee of $225 ($125 for students with ID) includes all semi­ Though Martha Stewart is obvi­ nars, receptions, breakfasts, a gala banquet, a Sunday afternoon picnic, and ously an attractive and smart woman, a party every evening! she functions also as an idiot-identifier; it is hard to believe that any intelligent Act Today! person takes her seriously about "liv­ But this opportunity won't wait around. Accommodations in Port ing." Her social function is allowing Townsend are limited, and many Liberty readers have already registered. people who are not so smart to volun­ So don't let yourself miss out on the hottest exchange of libertarian theory tarily identify themselves. Truman and thought this year! Capote, initially a minor novelist, To reserve a place simply complete the coupon and send it to us with became an idiot-identifier after the your $75 deposit for each person in your party. We require receipt of the publication of In Cold Blood (1964); and remaining amount of $150 (or $50 for students with ID) by August 3rd if certain biographers are to be (deposit refundable by August 1st). Come July you'll get plenty of informa 8 Liberty Speakers Include: Liberty" Conference Sept. 21-23

tion regarding lodging, travel arrangements, schedul­ ing, and local attractions. Or just get out your Visa or Mastercard and call 1-800-854-6991. You'll be glad you did!

Liberty's offices on Water Street in downtown Port Townsend Responses'to Liberty's past conferences have ranged from extremely positive to wildly enthusiastic: "The best conference j've ever attended ­ "An intellectual adrenalin rush!" libertarian or otherwise. " "Fascinating - and fun!" "Port Townsend is one of the most beautiful "Simply amazing. A fine hotel. Terrific places in the world, and your seaside conference parties. And excellent speakers, of course. " center is wonderful!" Join Us! Meet some of the world's highest­ r------,My interest is piqued! I'm ready to attend the elected libertarians at the 2001 eS 2001 Liberty Editor's Conference in beautiful Y • seaside Port Townsend! Liberty Editors' Conference, o My' check or money order (payable to Liberty) is enclosed. including: o Please charge my: o Visa 0 Mastercard Justice Richard Sanders - member of the How many people are in your party? _ Washington State Supreme Court Account # Exp. Date. _ Ron Paul- the fiercest defender of liberty in Signature _ Congress and the Libertarian Party's 1988 presi­ Name _ dential candidate Address _ Otto Guevarra - member of the Costa Rican City/State/Zip, _ Parliament and presidential candidate Phone # _ Scott Reid - member of the Canadian Parliament Liberty, PO Box 1181, Por t Town send, WA 98368 ______L or call 1-800-854-6991 .I October 2001 believed, the quality of his new admirers had a deleterious vaguely recalled his association with this novelist-critic and effort upon his own spirits. Can anyone who has actually thus concluded" no doubt insufficiently, that this sociolOgist read Joseph Brodsky's poems in English think well of anyone must be an idiot. In this case, my memory influenced acultu­ praising them? They are so insufficient that, lacking critical ral decision, perhaps involuntarily. I doubt if the sociologist, reputation or professional influence, their only real purpose secure in a university name-chair, knows how his earlier is identifying idiots. association jeopardized his own image with some readers I think less of the"editors" at any local radio or television outside academia and perhaps undermined as well the repu­ station that airs the Rev. Al Sharpton, not because I disagree tation of his institution. Hearing this sociologist character­ with him but because he is essentially a fake as both a social ized as .a flagrant "name-dropper," I realized how such critic and purported spokesman. Though the economist people inevitably open themselves to the negative effects of Robert Reich expresses attractive sentiments, would any of prominent idiot-identifiers. What's subtle and· thus worthy us regard someone ranking him or, say,.John Kenneth of more exploration is how idiot-identifiers can deflate self­ Galbraith among the world's greatest economists, let alone a assured cultural powerhouses without the latter really know­ major economic mind, as more than dumb? ing how profoundly they've been hit. Ironically, since idiot­ Scarcely alone in observing this I-I insight, I notice that identification measures non-influence, historians are less the academic operator Stanley Fish once declared, "As far as equipped than critics to measure negative effects. That's why I'm concerned, any positive reference to Uurgen] Habermas those vacuums wouldn't even rate a mention in someone's in the· course of an argument is enough to invalidate it." biography. - Richard Kostelanetz Curiously, I've always had a similar prejudice toward posi­ The London Times reports tive references to Professor Stanley Fish. My suggestion in Don't tread on me! - that George and Laura Bush refused to bow or curtsy when my dictionary was that such people had an important they met with the queen. First daughter Barbara, who joined implicit social function, as every profession needed an idiot­ the trip at the last minute - probably when she heard about identifier if it were to be truly a profession. The lawyer Roy the lower drinking age in the U.K. - showed up at the pal­ Cohn, neither honest nor law-abiding, had a similar useful­ ace in a denim jacket. ness for the legal profession, not only in his lifetime, when he The British may be shocked at such insubordination, but was often feared, but aft,erwards, when there was nothing to all I can say is, "Good for them." The royal family got accus­ be feared in dismissing him. tomed to the Clintons slobbering all over them; but 225 years In a funny way, The New York Times itself becomes an ago, a lot of good men gave their lives so that we could face idiot-identifier when someone cites it as their principal the royal family without averting our eyes. That's the kind of authority for cultural judgments, not just because its editors foreign relations I like to see, a president who doesn~t pay are too responsive to publicity machinery but because the royalty any more respect than he would to Mickey Mouse Times often cites prominent idiot-identifiers for pseudo­ and Goofy, on a diplomatic junket to Disneyland. expertise. Some idiot-identifiers can be instructively insidi­ - Tim Slagle ous. Consider a novelist-critic whose work consistently falls short of what is claimed for it, initially by her publishers and The Beloved Leader's heroic journey ­ then by certain journalists susceptible to excess publicity. The recent visit by North Korean Beloved Leader Kim Jong 11 Whenever I come across an interview or review praising this to Moscow was filled with nostalgic .Stalinesque touches, person, my first suspicion is that the writer isn't very bright, with a few early Woody Allen movie scenes thrown in for and that judgment affects my choices whenever I come good measure. Kim is apparently leery of newfangled flying across that interviewer/ reviewer's name again. machines, so he made the trek to Moscow by train with an The effects of idiot-identification scarcely end there. I entourage that included 21 armored cars and took nine days regard dubiously institutions granting her awards or hiring to travel through the Siberian vastness. Apparently for secur­ her to perform. Nothing but nothing deflated a new, self­ ity reasons, the train missed scheduled stops and took secre­ important cultural foundation more in my eyes than its giv­ tive routes. Russia hasn't seen those kinds of security ing a monster grant to her. I put aside a new cultural ency­ precautions for more than a decade. Moscow authorities did clopedia when it had an entry on her. When the work of a their best to make the time-traveling commie warlord feel at certain academic sociologist was recommended to me, I home, laying on old-style goose-stepping parades and a wreath-laying ceremony at Lenin's tomb. "We had to take into account the quaint mentality of North Korean represen­ tatives," a Russian official told one newspaper. "Their men­ tality is much quainter than the mentality of Soviet people not even 15, but maybe 40 years ago." Remember when communism was the wave of the ..r::::L future? - Alan Bock

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Perhaps she was speaking from her own experience. twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, resulthap­ Cantwell had a disproportionate amount of Internet stocks in piness." The wealth of young people today is typically no her portfolio against which she borrowed 10 million real dol­ less. lars to finance her Senate campaign. When the bubble burst, Libertarians may not like this line of argument. For one, she was left worse than penniless as her collateral had evapo­ its corollary is that people who don't have money don't have rated. Her paltry $250,000 Senate salary is incapable of pay­ freedom, and thus it may lend credence to the view that peo­ ing the interest on the debts she incurred in acquiring said ple should have positive rights to material goods. I don't salary. agree with this, and I don't think we have to go there. What I Throughout the Social Security debate, senators and rep­ am saying is that to neglect the enormous purchasing power resentatives tell us that only they are wise enough to manage of Americans may be to overstate restrictions on our our retirement funds. It is refreshing to hear someone admit freedom. that we cannot be trusted with our own money because we Another possible criticism is economists' argument that might be as stupid as Maria Cantwell. - Tim Slagle people's needs are never satisfied, so, although wealth may overwhelm some restrictions on freedom, using it that way It is a All the freedom you can afford - means that it can't be used for other things that people want. question that constantly nags at me: Does the typical True. The world is far from perfect. But thanks to that American have more or less liberty than in the past? Have wealth, we are freer than we would be. I'd like that to be the many claims that we are losing our liberty, "that we are included in assessments of liberty. - Jane S. Shaw on the road to serfdom," proven to be correct? Certainly, the noose has tightened in many ways. We Duh NA - Whatever your opinion of the debate over have identity cards that weren't around until the 1930s, we stem-cell research, the one thing that debate has demon­ have widespread taxation, we have a federal government strated, with embarrassing repetition, is the degree of scien­ that knows few bounds in legislating rules affecting competi­ tific illiteracy among Americans - who nevertheless feel tion, health, safety, environmental protection, political themselves able to make decisions on what fields of scientific inquiry to prohibit or permit. A little over 40% of Americans believe that dinosaurs and man cohabited on earth; and For a responsible and energetic person, the something like a majority think evolution - perhaps the greatest scientific discovery ever - is a myth. opportunities seem limitless. This prosperity I recall a conversation I had some months ago with a gen­ overwhelms many deprivations of liberty. tleman, in every other way a respectable citizen, who attempted to explain to me that evolution was impossible, because, after all, it would have required such a remarkable finance - you name it - and local governments that inter­ coincidence. How so? I asked. Well, he answered, evolution fere with how you paint your house and where you build presumed that a man evolved out of the mud one day, and your home. that on that same day, a woman evolved out of the mud, and Yet this picture ignores an important element, America's that the two were able to meet and mate and thereby propa­ prosperity. The wealth of a 21st-century American is mind­ gate the human species. As H.L. Mencken once put it, this is boggling in comparison to any other time in history. the sort of nonsense a boy of 10 would - or ought to ­ Americans are mobile. Jobs go begging. Wages are high. For laugh at. Yet this respectable, politically active gentleman a responsible and energetic person, the opportunities seem was willing vehemently to support the cause of such ignor­ limitless. In my view, this prosperity overwhelms many dep­ ance. And of course the politicians are even more ignorant. rivations of liberty. Long after this stem-cell conflict has cooled, we will be For example, I dislike the public school·system and many left with the problem that a great many Americans have no things that go with it: the petty bureaucracy, the wasted idea how DNA even works, yet propose to make 'rules for effort, the uniformity. With prosperity, however, I can senQ. those who do. Scientific illiteracy is probably the most dan­ my child to a private school. The government has long gerous social ill in America, particularly because nobody is attempted to limit my ability to watch the television I want, ringing the "Decline Of The West" alarm the way they do but I can pay for cable and satellite television.· I have new over the public's ignorance of the great books or the lessons options for recreation because I can travel almost anywhere of history. But then, that's no surprise. The people who ring by air. The system of taxation and pork-barrel spending dis­ such alarms are generally the same conservatives who have mays me, but prosperity allows me to have money left for an innate dislike for science, with its acidic reason and refu- the things I want. In many ways, we can get around restric­ sal to appeal to authority. -:- Timothy Sandefur tions on our actions through wealth. Miss Cleo, am I getting overbilled in I am not even talking about "Yealth as measured by American standards today. I'm referring to relatively modest risky relationships? - Once again, the. govern­ amounts of money. Most Americans are rich by the stan­ ment has moved in to protect us from "fake psychics." dards of history and the rest of the world: I personally have Access Resource Services, purveyor of Miss Cleo, finds itself been "rich" ever since I received my first paycheck (around embroiled in a suit from the Missouri attorney general. $56 every two weeks, after taxes). Since the room I rented ARS has been accused of overbilling clients. I think charg­ cost $35 per month, my finances were as satisfactory as Mr. ing anything for a "psychic reading" is tantamount to over­ Micawber's on a good day, who observed: "Annual income billing, but I am quite happy to let the market have the last 12 Liberty ------October2001 word. If Miss Cleo has been charging too much for advice, stand on the property rights of lines of cells. No one on the you have the freedom to find another source. There is never committee but them had any idea what a line of cells was. a scarcity of people willing to give you a piece of their mind, After they explained the issue to us dummies, I made a short and most of them charge little or nothing. but obnoxious speech against the LP's taking a stand on the According to the attorney general, charges from Miss issue. Sure, I said, we favor property rights; we say so else­ Cleo were even showing up on the phone bills of deceased where in the platform. But why litter our platform with clients. I would suggest that perhaps there is a tradition of stands on issues that not one person in a thousand has ever surviving family members getting free long distance calls in heard of? that short window between death and having the phone It was late, committee members were tired, and they turned off, but there may be a better explanation. Perhaps voted down the measure. And the LP lost an opportunity to dead people have to contact the spirit world to make reserva­ be ahead of the curve. If I hadn't ridiculed the idea, LP tions. - Tim Slagle spokespersons would be publishing op-eds and appearing on talk radio about the importance of private ownership of Staying behind the curve -.- For the past few lines of cells. Mea culpa. Mea culpa maxima. weeks, the news media have been full of reports and discus­ And what happened to the new, improved pro-abortion sions of lines of cells, i.e., cells reproduced from embryonic plank we'd proposed? The chairman (oops, I mean chairper­ stem cells for use in medical research. Lines of cells have son) of the platform committee, Steve Civot, was against the been around since 1981, when scientists learned that lines of measure, and when he presented the proposed changes to cells from early mouse embryos could be reintroduced into embryos to generate an animal with cells from both the host embryo and the cell line. The Libertarian Party had an opportunity to be years The Libertarian Party had an opportunity to ahead of the curve on this important political issue. But it be years ahead of the curve on this important didn't take it. And the reason it didn't, I confess, is me. Here's how it happened. political issue. But it didn't take it. And the One day in 1989, Murray Rothbard called me. He had a reason it didn't, I confess, is me. favor to ask: Would I serve on the Libertarian Party's plat­ form committee at its convention in Philadelphia? It seemed there was a movement afoot to eliminate the pro-abortion plank from the platform, and Murray added, "I know you the convention, he put abortion last on the agenda. After are hard core on this issue." I thought it might be an interest­ leading several hours of debate on other issues, time was ing experience, so I agreed. He said he'd arrange it, and that running out, and he proposed the convention reject all those Bill Evers and Kathleen Richman would be heading the pro­ not yet introduced. The delegates, anxious to get on to the abortion efforts there, so I should report to them. weighty matter of re-electing party chair Dave Walter, went I arrived at the meeting late, having taken a train from along by acclamation. The party's support for abortion sur­ New York where I had had a speaking engagement and it vived, but hadn't been strengthened. - R. W. Bradford quickly became evident that Evers and Richman had come to More children are seriously injured the meeting very well prepared. At the first break, Evers introduced himself, explained why he had treated me rudely reading The Weekly Reader than read­ during the meeting (he hadn't realized who I was), and ing Hustler - Scientific American Online recently handed me a stack of papers he and Richman had prepared reported that"more children are seriously injured on play­ with proposed changes to the platform that he and Richman grounds than in traffic." Well- good! I mean, wouldn't it be had prepared. He also told me that the plan on abortion (my awful if it was the other way around? This story only proves reason for being there) was to focus on other issues, ignore that parents are careful not to let their children play in traffic! abortion until it was brought up by the anti-abortionists, and Another thing it proves is that it's not the (already meaning­ hope they didn't have enough votes to change the platform. less) statistic that matters, but how you phrase it. For I chatted with other members of the committee during instance, this one is true: "The leading cause of death in the breaks and came to think that although members were tiring workplace is murder." Why, dear God! That must mean of Evers' and Richman's endless proposals, there were more murder is rampant across the nation! And we've seen all than enough pro-abortion votes to beat back any challenge. those post office shootings, right? It must be an everyday Figuring that the best defense is a good offense, I suggested occurrence! Well ... no. It's just that we've managed to make to Evers that we propose to make the platform even stronger the workplace so safe that the only way to die at work today on the issue of choice. He told me that it was a bad idea and is if someone does it to you on purpose. "The third leading we should stick to the game plan. cause of death among teenagers is suicide." Something has I counted the votes again and concluded that the votes to be the "leading cause of death." But when it's phrased in were there, so I proposed making the party's support for the such terms, the result is to perpetuate the crisis mentality right to abortion a separate plank to appear early in the plat­ which motivates irresponsible knee-jerk legislative "solu­ form and to make its language even more forceful. Evers tions." In fact, only a few days after the Scientific American glared at me a bit, but the measure passed easily. report, the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a As the final day of the meeting wore on, Evers or report concluding that "backyards [are] more dangerous Richman introduced a proposal for the LP to take a firm than public playgrounds." And the language used by the Liberty 13 October 2001

Canadian newspaper which reported on the study gives one the message that the United States considers the entire world pause: "There are safety standards for playground equip­ its crime-control domain and that it doesn't trust the ment," the article read, "but they are only mandatory for benighted folk in colonial outposts like Europe and Russia to public areas." Anyone who recalls last year's attempt by the handle crime problems. Not that the governments in most Occupational Health and Safety Administration to enforce other countries are all that great at real crime control, but the workplace "ergonomic" standards on home offices should be FBI is hardly in a position to assert superiority. able to see where that is leading. - Timothy Sandefur -Alan Bock Welcome to the monkey house - Peter A·vast libertarian conspiracy - Liberal par­ Vetique, aNew Yorker, went to the Bronx Zoo in August, anoia about the growth of the conservative and l~bertarian stripped down to his boxer shorts, and leaped into the gorilla movements is getting more and more severe. It began with cage. A quick zoo attendant kept the gorillas away while Hillary Clinton's "vast right wing conspiracy" •blather, and Vetique, protesting that he "want[ed] to be at one with the Bill's grudging - and, needless to say, insincere - state­ monkeys," was dragged away by police. He is going to be ment to the country that the era of biggovernment was over. given a psychiatric examination. All the nonsense about"extremism" among the bland 104th I protest. No psychological examination was given to Congress, all the talk of old people being reduced to eating Julia "Butterfly" Hill, an environmentalist activist who lived dog food, showed the hysteria growing louder and louder. in a tree for two years to protest the logging industry. The various accusations of "disenfranchisement," or of Bush Nobody ordered Donna Rawlinson MacLean to see a shrink "stealing the election" have become background noise while when she filed a patent on "herself" to protest the evil capi­ liberal law professors claim that "conservatism now domi­ talists who completed the human genome project. The acti­ nates the law." vists at PETA are now even encouraging people to feed Most recently, Rep. Robert Matsui (D-Calif.) identified vegetarian meals to their dogs and cats. "Vegetarian or the Cato Institute as the real behind-the-scenes puppet mas­ vegan dogs and cats enjoy their food and good health," reads ter. "This is really the Cato Institute· that is behind this," he an article on their Web site, "and a vegetarian diet for your said, "and some individual groups on Wall Street that are companion animal is ethically consistent with animal rights funding the Cato Institute." And now in a review of a new philosophy." PETA especially recommends "soy milk, book on Barry Goldwater, Atlantic Monthly writer John tomato sauce, avocado, melon or garbanzo beans." But none Beatty claims that"the libertarian economics with which the of them have been subjected to psychological evaluations. GOP pulled in the shy white backlash voter is now the con­ This is unequal treatment, to say the least. ventional wisdom." - Timothy Sandefur It would be so nice if the Republican party were really A different kind ofchild care - A new law in what left-liberals say. According to Beatty, "the goal [of con­ South Carolina purports to be about education standards for servatism] is to remove the federal government from the day care workers. So why does it expand the requirement economy, to put ordinary Americans back where they were that photo developers report to the police film that seems to in 1929: un-championed, naked to the whetstone of the mar­ involve "children" under 18 in what seem to be sexual pos­ ket." The old term for this, of course, was "freedom." tures? Why does it contain a requirement that private com­ "The message the conservative movement has for puter technicians must tell the police if they find child Americans," Beatty says, is "You're on your own.". One pornography when servicing machines? - Wendy McElroy might observe that this was precisely the message of the American Revolution, as well. In his old age, Jefferson wrote Globocop - Former FBI director Louis Freeh, who that the real message of the Revolution was that "here every seems to have gotten out of the bureau just in time to miss one may have land to labor for himself if he chuses; or, pre­ the fallout from his disastrous years at the helm, still consid­ ferring the exercise of any other industry, may exact for it ers the expansion of the bureau overseas as his lasting leg­ such compensation as not only to afford a comfortable sub­ acy. It's true that he was aggressive in this mission: 19 of the sistence, but wherewith to provide for a cessation from labor 44 FBI overseas offices were opened during the last five in old age." years. But while FBI-nauts brag on convicting a few African But what's so sad is that Beatty and his ilk say this about E-} embassy an administration that has placated leftist teacher's unions - F bombers, the by abandoning vouchers, appeased the steel industry by contribution threatening other countries with protectionist tariffs, given in ~ ~f of the FBI to on judicial appointments, and accepted price caps for energy. Reading about Republicans in the newspapers, and " G'; I 'I 01) inte~national ~/J-71.' €.) comIty and then seeing them in reality, one gets the same feeling as when ordering a steak at Sizzler. I didn't want this puny ~~ ~ EI crime control J ..rfI/ ~ -) \ is negligible at thing, I want the big one in the picture! - Timothy Sandefur U - best and nega- Be all that you shouldn't be - So there's yet \'l- \NV;{ tive at worst. another allegation of rape by a U.S. serviceman in Okinawa. .c:::::.~~() The expansion Isn't it time to get our troops out of there? The contribution sends the rest "I'll need a little more than that, sir -I of Am"erican troops on Okinawa to genuine national security plan to go to Starbuck's." of the world interests of the United States is undetectable and their pres- 14 Liberty Oakeshott's "Voice" Advocates 'Adventures in Human Self-Understanding'

"When British political philosopher Michael Oakeshott died in 1990, the world lost one ofits greatest defenders ofliberty. " -Robert A. Peterson, The Freeman - The Voice of Liberal Learning I .... • • I By Michael Oakeshott II ..1.11 -.-D • - r~.E]~ I i~ • ~.: lp· I Foreword and Introduction by Timothy Fuller • .. • • •• By 1989, when Michael Oakeshott's Voice ofLiberal Learning was first published by Yale University Press, books that held a negative view of education in the • United States, such as Allan Bloom's The Closing ofthe American Mind and .:·1 • E.D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy, had garnered a remarkable amount of attention. ilIiIiIi There have been countless lamentations about the state of schooling in • I iiiliiiI ••• America in recent years, and there have been countless recommendations • 1t u n toward what is invariably called ((educational reform." • • • • • To those weary and wary of the cacophony about what's wrong with •...... •••- education in America and what ought to be done about it, Oakeshott's voice • .- . beckons. As usual, his approach to the subject is subtle, comprehensive, and .- •- radical-in the sense of summoning readers to the root of the matter. That root, • - Oakeshott believed, is the very nature of learning itself and, concomitantly, the means (as distinct from the method) by which the life of learning is discovered, cultivated, and pursued. As Oakeshott has written, "This, then, is what we are concerned with: adventures in human self-understanding. Not the bare protestation that a human being is a self-conscious, reflective intelligence and that he does not live by bread alone, but the actual enquiries, utterances, and actions in which human beings have expressed their understanding of the human condition. This is the stuff of what has come to be called a 'liberal' education-'liberal' because it is liberated from the distracting business of satisfying contingent wants." Liberty Fund's new edition of The Voice ofLiberal Learning includes a foreword by Timothy Fuller that reiterates the timelessness of Oakeshott's reflections amid the continuing clamor that characterizes discourse about liberal education. Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990) was Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He was the author of many other works, including Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, On History and Other Essays, and Hobbes on Civil Association.

September 200 I. 51f2 X 8 1/4. 240 pages. Hardcover. ISBN 0-86597-323-7. $18.00. Paperback. ISBN 0-86597-324-5. $12.00.

For those interested in reading additional works by Michael Oakeshott, his Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, On History and Other Essays, and Hobbes on Civil Association are also available from Liberty Fund. October 2001

ence is a constant source of friction with the Japanese. <;::ontent of the newspapers we read. But at least the elite jour­ -Alan Bock nalists are good at what they do; they can report and write, and if more libertarians and conservatives could report and Arrogance in the summits, ignorance on write, more of them would get hired by the elite media. the street - The "anti-globalization" protesters who (That's not to say that there's no bias in elite media hiring, assembled in Genoa to protest the leaders of the world's just that not many conservatives and libertarians develop the industrialized nations meeting at their G8 summit may have interest and skills to apply for such jobs.) But whCl~about the accomplished one thing. According to the London Daily Tele­ cartoonists? Political cartoonists can shape the way we look graph, the decision to hold a scaled-down meeting next year at politicians and political issues. Boss Tweed was reported in a fairly isolated resort in Alberta rather than Canada's to have said of Thomas Nast, "Stop them damn pictures. I capital of Ottawa was made in part to discourage demon­ don't care so much what the papers write about me! My con­ strators. stituents can't read. But damn it, they can see pictures!" There are pluses and minuses in such an outcome. British Garry Trudeau of "Doonesbury" is one of the most effective Prime Minister Tony Blair, according to the Telegraph, was liberal propagandists around, and he's effective because he's "visibly angered" that anarchist protesters had "hijacked" funny. But look at some of his colleagues. The Washington the summit. Disrupting meetings of democratically elected Post has been running "Herblock" since 1946· (he started leaders, Mr. Blair says, is "to stand the whole principle of drawing cartoons at the Chicago Daily News in 1929), and he democracyon its head." hasn't been clever or funny for years. His idea of wit is a big Really? Each of the leaders was elected in his own coun­ fat plutocrat sneering at a starving child holding out a bowl try, but that election was hardly a blanket endorsement of labeled "human needs." Maybe that was provocative in 1929, participation in the floating crap game of international for­ but in 2001? Meanwhile, many alternative papers, including ums that is the "international community." International Washington's City Paper, run a weekly cartoon called "Tom summit meetings can easily devolve into meeting for the the Dancing Bug." It's a ham-handed attack on "free-market" sake of meeting (and feeling important) rather than for any­ and conservative ideas every week. But it's not very funny, thing substantive. And a sneaking suspicion that when polit­ and the art is only average. (Don't take my word for it; check ical leaders get together the agenda is more likely to be out www.tomthedancingbug.com.Andwhy.com? Wouldn't about enhancing their own power than disinterested concern it be less crass to be .org?) It's not just that I don't like his for the poor is more likely to be justified than not. ideas; the similar cartoon "This Modern World by Tom To­ That said, much of the visible opposition to "globaliza­ morrow" that runs in Salon is often humorous. But how did fion" as expressed on the streets when leaders get together is Ruben Bolling get a job doing "Tom the Dancing Bug"? misplaced, confused, or both. Increasing globalization, in the Maybe it's media bias, or maybe the alternative papers are sense of increased international trade, commerce and contact just·desperate for timely commentary in cartoon form. So if made possible by improvements in technology, transporta­ any Liberty readers would like to express their dogmatic tion and communication, is as close to inevitable as anything ideas in a few brief panels of clumsy art, consider becoming can be. The question is whether it will be controlled by inter­ a political cartoonist. Apparently the competition's not too national bureaucrats with little accountability or built from stiff. - David Boaz the bottom up through trade and other voluntary activities. Protesters whose hostility to what they view as interna­ When right-wing oligarchs attack - On tional capitalism· includes opposition to trade as such have Aug. 3, Mary Anastasia O'Grady reported in The Wall Street , picked the wrong target. Trade liberates. Control by unac­ Journal that the American ambassador to Guatemala had cir­ countable, unelectedinternational bureaucrats does the culated a memo to other Latin American ambassadors opposite. - Alan Bock denouncing a hitherto obscure economist and his university. Manuel Ayau and the Francisco Marroquin University, Career opportunity for the aesthetically Ambassador Prudence Bushnell advised, were "against challenged - I know most mainstream journalists are democracy." As evidence, she quoted Harvard University liberals, and - no matter what they say - that affects the scholar Lawrence Harrison'scharacterization of Ayau as "an archetypical, far-right, libertarian Latin American oligarch." He was right about one point. Prof. Ayau is a libertarian. He supports free trade and radically lower taxes and opposes income redistribution and government regulation. But how does this make him a "typical, far-right oligarch"? In the context of Latin America, "far-right" means support­ ing a powerful state church and military, neither of which Ayau does. An "oligarch" is a member of a powerful ruling class that runs a country for its own end. If Prof. Ayau were a "typical oligarch," presumably Guatemala would be run along the libertarian lines that Ayau advocates. All this is interesting enough. But not as interesting as a letter to the editor the Journal published a few days later. The good Prof. Harrison explained the logic of characterizing "I'm afraid you've got a rampant new disease called 'hair.'" Prof. Ayau as a "typical, far-right oligarch." 16 Liberty October 2001

First, Prof. Harrison observes that most Guatemalans are their "caretakers" were arrested. (The dogs were allegedly very poor, yet Prof. Ayau "asserts that most Guatemalans owned by two prison inmates, which is another story ... ) 'bear their poverty with patience and in peace.'" Hmm. So But that wasn't enough. A wrongful death suit was filed by Prof. Harrison of Vineyard Haven, Mass., knows more about Ms. Whipple's mother and by Ms. Whipple's lesbian partner, what most Guatemalans believe than does Prof. Ayau, who Sharon Smith. Smith's suit, however, was in danger of being lives in Guatemala City. Even so, this is a disagreement squelched, because she was not a "family member." about a fact, not a belief, right-wing, libertarian, or other­ And this is where the thing gets really strange. A San wise. Obviously, it does not support Prof. Harrison's claim. Francisco judge has now ruled that her suit may go forward, Second, Prof. Harrison observes that Guatemala is "a because she was unfairly burdened by California's prohibi­ country with an extremely low tax burden," yet Prof. Ayau tion of same-sex marriages, and because the equal protection "calls for a reduction of income and corporate taxes." A provisions of the California constitution forbid the exclusion quick search of the Internet reveals that Guatemala has a cor­ of same-sex couples from benefits available to other couples, porate income tax rate of 25%, which is lower than the U.S. including the right to sue when someone's dog has, by killing corporate rate. But it's also higher than the corporate rate of one of them, "deprived [the other] of companionship." As a Hong Kong, Hungary and even the socialist paradise of senior counsel for the gay and lesbian Lambda Legal Defense Vietnam. But whether Guatemala's taxes are relatively high and Education Fund puts it, the "constitutional problems" or relatively low doesn't seem very relevant to the issue at arose because"if Sharon Smith would have been Steve Smith, hand, namely whether Prof. Ayau is a "typical far-right oli­ this couple would have been married." garch." The fact remains that if calling for tax reductions This is interesting - and not because of anything having makes one a "typical far-right oligarch," then Prof. Ayau has a lot of company, including President Bush, Steve Forbes, and virtually the entire Republican party. Ever since O.J. Simpson was acquitted in his Prof. Harrison's third reason for characterizing Prof. Ayau as a "typical far-right oligarch" is that"in the face of criminal trial for murder, no homicide in the high rates of illiteracy [in Guatemala]," he believes that United States has ever failed to go into extra "unfortunately, the notion prevails that government educa­ lnnlngs. tion is the best way to educate the people." Again, the pro­ fessor from Harvard denounces Prof. Ayau on their disagreement over a factual matter. Prof. Harrison does not explain why, if government education is better than private to do with gay marriage. Whether you think that state­ education, he chose to accept a position at Harvard, known sanctioned marriage should be open to gay people or not, all over the world for its scholarship, rather than, say, the whether you think that gay people have a right to get married Western Montana College at Dillon, Mont., known all over or not, whether you think that the right to same-sex marriage Montana for producing excellent high school football is implied by the California constitution or not - all this is coaches. beside the point. What's interesting, and richly amusing, is the spectacle of jurists and litigants maintaining, in effect, that This is the sum of Prof. Harrison's defense of his odious legal decisions ought to be made, not on the basis of what characterization of Prof. Ayau. But it's not the end of his let­ people actually did in some situation, but on what people ter. He goes on to say: would have done if the situation - if they themselves, in fact I find Mr. Ayau's repeated references to "freedom" unset­ - had been entirely different: "this couple would have been tling, particularly when he says, "I am one who believes that, since the principal function of government is to protect peo­ ple's freedom, it follows that it is proper to use the coercive powers of government to maintain freedom." The implication is that people who dissent from the ideas of Hayek and von Learn at Liberty! Mises had better watch out. Hmm. Harvard may have a reputation for scholarship. Are you interested in working as a journalist? But it certainly doesn't deserve any reputation it might have for logic, if we are to take Prof. Harrison as typical of that Liberty offers full-time, paid internships at all times of the institution's thinking. - R. W. Bradford year. Interns at Liberty work closely with the editors. Re­ sponsibilities generally include fact-checking, re­ Coulda, shoulda, woulda - A few months searching, circulation and advertising work. ago, in the city of San Francisco, two bad, bad dogs, appro­ Liberty interns have gone on to become editors at Liberty, priately named Hera and Bane, attacked and killed a young Reason and Regulation, authors of articles in major mag­ woman named Diane Whipple. No one could have guessed azines and newspapers, researchers at important think that such an atrocious event would result in anything like tanks, and to win major fellowships and scholarships. comedy, but it has. First, you need to understand that ever since O.J. For information, write: R.W. Bradford, Editor, Liberty Simpson was acquitted in his criminal trial for murder, no P.O. Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368 homicide in the United States has ever failed to go into extra email: [email protected] innings. There must always be a civil as well as a criminal trial. After the death of Diane Whipple, both the dogs·and Liberty 17 October 2001

married." And to sound that extra, oddly satisfying note of Sandra A. McAfee, chief legal counsel for the university, II she black humor, what we're talking about here is an attempt to would definitely have given us all her nloney." ground legal decisions on an action that "would have" been Attorneys for the hamsters have vigorously defended the taken by someone who cannot say for herself whether she anilllais' right to inherit, while pressing their own $50 million "would have" taken it or not, since she now· happens, very wrongful death suit against the United States government. unfortunately, to be dead. Their central argument is that the federal government's It nlakes sense to argue - indeed, I would make this argu­ unconstitutional interference with the sale of amphetamines resulted in Whitehall's early death and their clients' conse­ ment myself - that people have a right to grow and smoke quent loss of her uaid, succor, and companionship." uWere it marijuana. It might even make sense for someone to argue not for these unconstitutional enactments," Dustin C. Brown, that. the right to grow and snloke marijuana is somehow lead counsel for the estate, argued on Friday, "Ms. Whitehall implicit in some article of the Constitution somewhere. But to would easily have been able to control the obesity that argue that the family of Joe Smith, now deceased, has a right claimed her life. $50 million is a small sum,when one consid­ to sue for danlages because he was unfairly denied the ers the enornlOUS position that she occupied in the plaintiffs' income that he would have gotten if marijuana had been legal lives." and he had been allowed to cultivate it, which he would have Final resolution of the lawsuits is anticipated in approxi- wanted to do - that's where the hilarious world of legal fan­ mately 35 years. - Stephen Cox tasy begins. Shanle on Tinl If this new line of reasoning catches on, we're all in for a Ideologically correct pets - Slagle's attack on cats, among his September Reflections. Cats lot of laughs. We can expect to see plenty of news like this: SAN FRANCISCO - Final argunlents were made today in are the only true libertarian aninlals. A dog, like a Democrat, the conlplex series of civil suits surrounding the Alexandra is always eager to please, to lick the boots of any tyrant who Whitehall estate. Whitehall, 43, died in her lavish Nob Hill tosses him food; and, like a Republican, a dog can serve as a condominium last July, willing her entire estate to Huey, comfortably sycophantic servant, the traditional "Man's Best Dewey, and Louie, her beloved hamsters. Friend" evoking thoughts of Lassie and the days of black and Anl0ng the parties contesting Whitehall's will is a former white. But a cat is free; no amount of appeasement or intimi­ suitor, David P. Barker, also of San Francisco. Barker has testi­ dation can force a cat's affection. It is freely given only when fied that Whitehall and he were "very much in love and deserved. What better symbol of freedom than a cat? would have been married, if it hadn't been for nlY wife and the laws against polygamy." His attorneys argue that the anti­ polygamy statute is contrary to the equal protection provi­ Unilateralisnl, mliitilateralism, and iso­ sions of both the California and the United States constitu­ The Bush administration has come under tions, because the statute "plainly discriminates against lationism - persons who wish to marry and are f<;Jrbidden to do so, sim­ sporadic criticism for what some critics call "unilateralisnl" ply because they are already married." Absent the anti­ and that some go so far as to deem /I isolationism." President polygamy statute, the attorneys contend, Barker and Bush has said that the United States will withdraw fronl the Whitehall would have been married, and she would have left Kyoto global warming treaty and will not participate in the hinl her property. latest protocol revision of a germ-warfare treaty. Although he In andther suit, lawyers for Dement's Chicken Run, an exer­ has consulted with and tried to explain his position to cise salon that Whitehall visited a nunlber of times during the European and Russian leaders, the president has nlade it 1990s, maintain that if tax deductions were not unconstitution­ clear that he plans to move toward building a missile defense ally provided for contributions to churches, her annual contri­ system w~ether European leaders approve or not. butions to the Unitarian Church would have gone to the salon Few critics are as waspish as Senate Majority Leader Tonl instead. Shaun Dement, proprietor ofthe salon, testified that. Daschle, who accused President Bush of "fostering isolation­ Whitehall once told him, "I get a lot more inspiration out of coming here than I ever get from that old church of mine." ism" in the nlidst of the president's recent European trip, Denlent is suing the estate for uncollected potential donations then apologized for his tinling but insisted Bush has a "dicta­ of $3 million. torial approach" in foreign relations. Meanwhile, lawyers for the California State Democratic The United States would be better off consulting vv:ith and Central Comnlittee are arguing that had it not been for the .sometinles yielding to traditional allies, especially the unconstitutional linlits now imposed on contributions to cer­ Europeans, rather than going it alone, many say. The arro­ tain categories of political organizations, Whitehall, a lifelong gant unilateralist u""re're the sole superpower and we can do Democrat, would have left the bulk of her estate to various so­ what we like" attitude will eventually come back to haunt the called soft money funds administered by the Democratic United States when it wants cooperation on issues it deems Party. They are suing for $20 million, as are lawyers for the important. University of Michigan, who have presented evidence that Is unilateralism really isolationism? Whitehall told telephone solicitors for the university's endow­ In international relations, the classic theory is that in a Olent fund that she owed the university approxilllately that world of nation-states each nation, large or snlall, is equally much. II U of M lllade me what I am," she reportedly said. "And someday, I'm definitely going to pay it back." The fact sovereign in its o\vn territory and equally endovved with the that she died without mentioning the university in her will is right to nlake its own decisions about foreign relations. When attributed by U of M lawyers to Chronic Willmaker's Inability a country nlakes decisions about foreign policy on its own Syndrollle (CWIS), a condition that, according to expert testi­ and carries thenl out, it is said to be acting unilaterally. When lllony, is brought on by distress over the unfairly complicated it chooses to· act in concert with other nlembers of a treaty legal terminology typically encountered in making a will. 111£ organization like NATO, signatories to a special-purpose the government had not confused Mrs. \Vhitehall," contended treaty (e.g., ballistic nlissile or land nline control), the mem- 18 Liberty Welfare-State Morality by Jacob G. Hornberger and the left are missing a or not. Every citizen is re­ They are meaningful only much more fundamental quired by law to file an an­ in the context of voluntary, question: Why should gov­ nual report of his income willing choices of indivi­ ernment even have the and render payment for the duals. power to take money from taxes due. Equally important, it's one person in order to give What happens ifa citi­ only in a climate of indivi­ it to another? zen refuses? Once the IRS dual freedom, not coercion, By its very nature, gov­ targets him, the process of in the area of peaceful ernment consists of laws collection will begin with choices, that morality and and regulations that either polite requests, but ifthe compassion tend to rise in As a compassionate conser­ mandate conduct or prohib­ resistance.continues, the a society. When govern­ vative, President Bush it it. The rules are not advi­ state will ultimately resort ment forces people to help wants to give federal aid to sory. They are compulsory, to force. For example, the their neighbors, conscience faith-based organizations. and they are enforced by IRS will file a lien on the atrophies. When people are Religious leaders object the state's monopoly on the person's property and then free to choose whether to to Bush's plan on the use of force in society. ask a court to foreclose the help their neighbors or not, ground that it will lead to If the nature of govern­ lien. Once the foreclosure conscience is strengthened. governmental interference ment is organized force, sale is completed, the court Thus, if people care with religious organiza­ then the collection and will issue an order com­ about morality and com­ tions. The point they make distribution of monies that manding the tax resister to passion, they should not was summarized by the Su­ are ultimately paid to surrender possession of the only be opposing Bush's preme Court in 1942 in the religious organizations is property to the new owner. plan to distribute govern­ case of Wickard v. Filburn: itself based on force. Such The order will be enforced ment aid to faith-based "It is hardly lack of due being the case, how can by armed law-enforcement organizations. They should process for the government force be reconciled with officers. also be questioning govern­ to regulate that which it principles of morality and So, who's the moral and ment aid to anyone. subsidizes." compassion? compassionate person in all Those on the left end of Consider for example this? The taxpayer? The IRS Mr. Hornberger is founder and the political spectrum are the U.S. federal income tax, agent? President Bush? president of The Future of complaining that federal which came into existence Congress? The welfare Freedom Foundation aid to religious groups in 1916. Despite periodic official? (www.fff.org) in Fairfax, Va., would breach the wall of IRS claims to the contrary, The answer is: None of which just published Tethered separation between church the payment of income the above. Because in the Citizens: Time to Repeal and state that is guaranteed taxes is not voluntary. That arena of peaceful behavior, the Welfare State by Sheldon by the First Amendment. is, the government does not morality and compassion Richman. Unfortunately, Bush and give people a choice of mean nothing when they his critics on both the right paying their income taxes are the product of force.

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Visit our website: Order: www.fff.org One-year (12 months) subscription • More than 2000 essays! and to Freedom Daily • Short Audio Commentaries (FFF~s monthlyjournal • Video Lectures oflibertarian essays) • Free Email Update! at $18 Octoba 2001 bers of the United Nations, or a group assenlbled for some­ compelling and one that nlajor party candidates are afraid to thing like the Persian Gulf War, it is acting multilaterally. enlbrace. So there is no logical or necessary relationship between For the past several years, I have advocated that the unilateralism and isolationism. As Ted Carpenter of the Cato Libertarian Party adopt a strategy of focusing on a single Institute told me, "You could have an entirely imperial, issue in its presidential campaign: ending the War on Drugs. entirely unilateralist policy that would be the antithesis of iso­ Although polls show that about 33% of Americans favor lationisnl." Going it alone (leaving aside the question of legalizing drugs, no nlajor party candidate is willing to get whether that's a good idea) does not necessarily mean with­ near the issue. Among that 33% are surely a fair number of drawing from the rest of the world. people for whom this is a conlpelling issue: At the very least, In recent years nlany analysts have shown a preference drug users and their fanlilies "vould presunlably find this for multilateralism, entering into treaties and acting in con­ issue to be very, very important. cert with other countries nlost of the time. This might be I've nlade this argument in speeches at conferences and because, as Charles Krauthammer put it in a recent Weekly LP conventions and in an article published in the Decelllber Standard article, many in the Anlerican policy elite 1/ saw their 1999 Liberty. I bounced it off Harry Browne a few years ago, mission as seeking a new world harnlony by constraining this and he told llle that he thought it was a swell idea. In fact, he overwhelming Anlerican power within a web of international said, he "vas thinking of nlaking a television cOlll11lercial that obligations." Or it nlight be because they calculate that nlulti­ criticizes the drug \-var. I tried to explain to him that the idea lateral action is the best way to achieve American goals. But is not to nlake drug legalization one of lllany thenles pre­ in practice, however, multilateralisnl means increasing sented to the voter - the LP had been doing that ever since degrees of governance by international boards, comnlissions its first election - but to nlake it the focus of his canlpaign. I failed to convince him, and he ran his 2000 call1paign on exactly the same strategy as his failed 1996 canlpaign, and got Most Americans 'luould like to see feIuer even worse results. This year the LP is searching for a new strategy, by junket­ interventions, bombings and fla'lued "nation­ ing around the country and holding nleetings in airport building" efforts; 'luhether they are done hotels. I anl told that this approach has been talked about at unilaterally or Inultilaterally is secondary. sonle of these meetings. All that's good, but the clock is ticking. The approach has no more hope of working than the failed strategies of the past and comnlittees .that are not elected and not, especially unless it is taken at a tinle \vhen drug legalization is so far accountable to anyone. A trade, environnlental, or weapons frOlll the mainstreall1 that the nlajor parties abhor it. And no treaty alnlost always generates a new agency with broad issue with 33% public support is liable to renlain abhorrent to authority to enforce compliance among signatories and to politicians for very long. nlake decisions when there is disagreement about anlbiguous There are signs that the· tide is turning. Canada's govern­ provisions. This is about as far from democratic governance ment is actually growing its o"vn nlarijuana for medical pur­ as you can get. Insofar as the model is the European Union poses. British Columbia has virtually legalized the drug. Even bureaucracy in Brussels, nlost people in that institution view the leader of Canada's Ill0St conservative party, the Alliance, events like a recent vote in Ireland not to join the unitary cur­ has called for legalization. rency reginle as a nuisance or a sign of reactionary obstruc­ In this, country, the nation's largest serious newsnlaga­ tionisnl, but only a temporary setback. The people are zine, The Economist, has called for legalization. supposed to go along with the grand vision espoused by the When will the LP try this approach? How long will experts, not tell the experts what to do. Libertarians continue to waste nlillions of dollars on the saIne There nlight be circunlstances in which it is worthwhile to strategies that have failed time and tillle again? Will they wait give up a bit of sovereignty, a bit of self-rule, a bit of freedom until the Republicans or Democrats adopt legalization? for a worthwhile goal. But one should be clear that nlultilat­ I hope not. 1'd like to see the Libertarians becollle-a rele­ eral agreenlents and actions always involve these costs and vant part of Anlerican politics. Why they don't is beyond llle. weigh thenl carefully. Even here, where vigorous promotion of their views could Focusing on this essentially pragmatic question as if it win the votes of a significant share of Anlericans, they refuse were a matter of deepest principle draws attention from the to act. nlore important issue: How extenSively does the United Meanwhile, the progress toward legalization continues. States plan to meddle in the affairs of other nations? Most It's a wonderful thing. It's too bad that the Libertarian Party Americans would like to see fe"ver interventions, bombings reolains a sn1all, insignificant part of the movement.

and flawed Ii nation-building" efforts; whether they are done - R. "V. Bradford unilaterally or multilaterally is a secondary question. The day after news - Alan Bock Faith-based initiative·- wires reported that Texas nlon1 Andrea Yates drowned her Another missed opportunity? - If the five children, a self-identified God-fearing Christian nlother Libertarian Party is ever going to make itself visible on the of eight called the Rush Lin1baugh show and sobbed that she political landscape, it is going to have to find an issue to con­ understood exactly where Andrea Yates was coming frolll. vince a significant number of voters to abandon their tradi­ She said she had altnost "crossed the line too," but instead tional support of major parties. The issue nlust be very used to just drive down the high\vay praying that they would 20 Liberty ------Octova200J all be wiped out by a trailer truck. believe that birth control isn't health care either. Tell that to

Rush said the lines were II on fire," but he chose not to take Andrea Yates. anynlore calls on the subject. Though few women engage in Untold numbers of wonlen nlay not be healthy enough, acts as desperate as Andrea Yates', there are many pressured physically or emotionally, to participate in the cult of perpet­ into leading lives of quiet desperation- five or six unspaced ual motherhood put forth by these religions, who, though children, and home schooling them to shield them from the large and nlainstream, have beliefs indistinguishable from world - the ideal state for wonlen advocated by fundamen­ cults. The judge in the Yates case has imposed a gag order on talist religions. family members, so whether these were "faith-based mur­ We have all seen the powers, positive and negative, of ders" we can't know until the trial. Not that it n1atters for religions and cults. Jinl Jones' cult in Jonestown coerced its zombie-like Yates or her dead children, but for the next vul­ adherents into killing their children and themselves with cya­ nerable wonlan who could be ovenvhelmed by the demands nide-laced Fla-Vor-Aid, and the Heaven's Gate cult menlbers of the broodmare-like life of drudgery and isolation that Yates waiting for the Hale Bopp conlet were deluded into killing was coerced into, when you see that nice snliling God-fearing thenlselves on command. Though the Yates' religious beliefs guy who wants you to quit your job, depend on hinl, subnlit are still sonlewhat sketchy, Rusty Yates, Andrea's husband, is your will to his, have six kids and join that nice fundanlental­ an evangelical Christian, 63% of whom believe birth control is ist religion, run like hell. - Sarah i\1cCarthy inlnloral. Their honle was found full of religious artifacts, and RIP: Israel SJzahak - Israel Shahak, the classical­ Yates' nlother said her daughter and Rusty belonged to 'I a national cult." Though women can expect to bear twelve to 15 liberal human-rights activist in Israel, died recently. It is a children over the course of their childbearing years if no birth great loss. I knew Shahak and adnlired hinl greatly. A survi­ control is used, instead of listening to their bodies or their vor of the concentration camps with a Ph.D. in chenlistry, he doctors, sonle vulnerable wonlen are listening to their hus­ becanle one of the most eloquent Israeli voices on behalf of bands or to television evangelicals like Jerry Falwell who pro­ the rights of Palestinians. Long before a younger generation nounce birth control inlmoral, and the insurance companies of Jewish Israeli historians began documenting the brutaliza­ who fund it to be guilty of supporting an imnloral lifestyle. tion and property-rights violations of the Arab residents of Echoing the sentiment of anti-choice bumper stickers pro­ Palestine in 1948 and earlier, Shahak was speaking and writ­ clailning that "Abortion Is Not Health Care," evangelicals ing with powerful understatenlent. He will be missed. - Sheldon Richman Timeline of the Willis-Browne Conspiracy Update & Corrections

Last nlonth, we published a detailed tinleline of what is for information about how he obtained the evidence. He known about how Libertarian Party National Director Perry explains that, contrary to the accusations of Bro\vne staff­ Willis plotted with the Harry Browne campaign to capture ers, he acquired the information in the course of his the LP nomination in 1996 and how the conspiracy came duties as the person charged with maintenance of the LP untangled earlier this year. headquarters' computers. He was routinely sent backup files of its computers so that \vhen the conlputers failed, Update he could restore the data. He discovered the incriminat­ Two important developments have occurred since: ing files"in the process of deleting files from the ~ackup August 16: LP Chair Jinl Lark e-mails members of the party's network system some time in 1998." National Conlmittee summarizing what he had discov­ He also responds to Lark's request for additional evi­ ered in his attempt to investigate. He includes copies of dence by reJerring Lark to a Web site (http://lp2000.com/ written messages he sent and received and summaries of BCl/timeline.htnl) providing documentary evidence that telephone conversations he had with potential \vitnesses. implicates Harry Browne, Sharon Ayres, David Bergland, He reports those within the Browne campaign who con­ Jack Dean, and Michael Cloud in the Willis scandal. (See tinue not to respond to his questions. Many other individ­ story on following page.) uals, he reports, responded to his call for information, and while n1uch of what they said or \vrote was helpful in Corrections: that it provided a feel for what was going on \vithin the Our tinleline \-vas conlprehensive and accurate enough National Committee and at the LP national office at the that LP National Director Steve Dasbach has asked our per­ time Willis was doing his secret work for Browne in viola­ mission to distribute copies of it to members of the LP tion of his contract with the LP, none of it \vas directly National Committee for use in untangling the ,,,/hole ugly relevant. mess. But despite our best effort, three minor errors crept August 19: John Famularo, who provided the evidence that into the timeline of the Willis-Browne conspiracy that we prompted Willis' confession, responds to Lark's request published last month. Liberty 21 Oetol,t'Y 2001

First, we reported that in June 1995, Jesse Markowitz and Jack Dean as webmaster of the 1996 Browne campaign. In Dean Ahmad brought "Dasbach's attention to the fact that fact, Joe Dehn was the campaign's webmaster. It is not Willis and Winter are not only doing work on behalf of entirely clear what Dean's role was in the campaign; neither Browne but also using the computers at LP headquarters to he nor others involved in the Browne campaign will respond do the work." In fact, Markowitz and Ahmad only suggested to our inquiries. The FEC reports for the 1996 campaign list that Willis and Winter may have been using LP computers to payments to Dean of $52,597.04 for"consulting." do the work. Dasbach checked and found out that they had. Third, in our entry for June 19, 2001, we quoted Dasbach In addition, we quoted from the LNC's official minutes that as saying that Jim Lark, chairman of the party, "circulated Dasbach had then"request[ed] that [Willis and Winter] do the draft article among several other LNC members at the not do any further work until the matter could be presented June 9-10 Strategic Planning meeting [and] suggested sonle to the LNC." Dasbach says that the nlinutes were not conl­ changes to Mr. Winter regarding the article [about the Willis­ pletelyaccurate: That he had requested that Willis do no fur­ Browne conspiracy in the LP News], all of which were ther work, but told Winter he could continue because the made." Jinl Lark infornled us that the Strategic Planning work he was doing was trivial in nature. meeting actually occurred on June 16-17. Two readers Second, irl our entry for Decenlber 1995, we identified informed us that LF News editor Winter and Lark had disa- greed about one change and Winter had suggested his professional judgement Breaking News: was being challenged and threatened to resign, at which point Lark had with­ dra\vn his suggested change. Documentary Evidence To check this out, we contacted Dasbach, Winter, and Lark. Dasbach and Implicates Browne, Ayres, Lark told us that Lark and Winter had indeed disagreed about where the article Bergland, Dean & Cloud should appear il'l the LP News. Winter wanted it to appear on page 4, a very unprominent position· in the paper. Lark On Aug. 19, as Liberty was going to press, former Libertarian Par­ thought it was iInportant enough that it ty Secretary John Famularo published a timeline of events he consid­ should appear on page 1. Winter said ered to be relevant to the case, with links to original documents, in­ that he'd do that if Lark insisted but that cluding 29 documents apparently recovered from Willis' computer. he would consider it to be a "a vote of no Several docunlents demonstrate that Browne himself was work­ confidence \vith respect to his profes­ ing with Willis, so obviously he was aware of Willis' work for his sional judgment," though Winter did campaign in violation both of LP rules and his contract, as Liberty re­ not, in fact, threaten to resign. In the end, ported last month. Others show that Campaign Chair (and national Winter and Lark conlpronlised: The story cornmittee men1ber) Sharon Ayres, forn1er LP Chair David Bergland, was nloved to a nlore visible position on and consultants Jack Dean and Michael Cloud were also party to page 3 of the paper, and a small. box Willis' actions. alerting readers to the story was added There is no evidence indicating that Steve Dasbach was party to to page 1.* Our quotation fronl Dasbach the Willis-Browne conspiracy, though there is evidence suggesting was accurate, but what he said was his relationship with Willis and the Browne campaign was uncom­ sonle.what misleading. fortably close. In a letter dated July 19, 1995, Willis advises Dasbach The LP National Committee is sched­ about how Dasbach can protect Willis from mounting evidence that uled to receive Chairman Lark's report Willis had violated LP conflict of interest rules that was getting into on his investigation and to discuss what the hands of the national comnlittee action it should take on Saturday, Aug. In addition, there is an agenda for Willis dated June 19, 1995, that 25, at,12:30 p.nl. strongly suggests that Willis worked on behalf of Browne during his - the Editors of Liberty norn1al work day at LP headquarters, not /I on his own time" as has been suggested. * Curiously, \Vinter was unwilling to answer It also presents the first evidence that Willis showed favoritism to our inquiry about this matter. "I have no Browne in his official capacity as national director prior to Browne's comment on this. \Vhy don't you nlake up non1ination: Fanlularo reports that in June 1996, Willis directed that quotes on this like you do on everything Browne donors \vere to be treated, for membership purposes, as if else?" We were taken aback for a nloment, their donations had been made to the LP itself, thereby inflating then asked him if he could tell us of any occasion on which we had made up a quo­ lnembership figures and Browne support within the party. Accord­ tation. He replied, "No." This seemed to us ing to Fanlularo, Willis obtained approval by the party's executive to be a strange reaction fron1 the LP's committee, though it is unclear whether n1enlbers were aware of the "Communications Director," to whom the significance of what they had approved. LP's \Veb site refers journalists with queries. 22 Liberty Report The People v. the State of Oregon

by William E. Merritt

Oregon voters amended their constitution to stop the state from stealing their land. But then the state's powerful elite took the case to court. The result: A sordid tale of cor­ ruption, bribery, and abuse of power in which the will of the people was subverted and the losing attorney was elevated to a judgeship.

It's been said that if the ~~ll of Rights were put to a vote of the people, it would be defeated. Last. Nov~mber, th~ cItizens of Oregon had an opportunity to vote on one of the least popular aspects of t~e BIll o~ Righ~s: the fInal twelve words of the Fifth Amendment that specify"nor shall private property be taken for publIc use wIthout Just cOlllpensation." For those who advocate greater government power, this billion for local governnlents - every year, if governments If takings" clause is a serious problerll because when govern­ ment regulates the use of land, it plainly takes its utility and want to keep regulating at the same level. Of course, this just value; and the"takings" clause requires that the government means that governnlents will have to start picking up the pay the owner "just compensation." In recent years, as gov­ tab. The cost is still $5.4 billion a year, only now it is the land­ ernments have begun to regulate land on a vast scale, the owners who have to pay. cost of providing that "just cOlllpensation" would be huge. Oregon voters took advantage of this rare opportunity to So legislators have done what legislators do, and passed reg­ protect the Bill of Rights' from legislators and the courts. The ulations on the cheap by ignoring the"takings" clause. And measure passed comfortably, with about 54% of the votes courts have done what courts do and provided elaborate cast. rationales explaining that the Fifth Amendlllent doesn't This didn't sit well with the politicians in power. Having lost at the b~llot box, they did just what you'd expect - they mean what it says, in much the same fashion that legislatures ignored the First Amendment's prohibition of regulation of filed a pair of lawsuits challenging its constitutionality. The speech in the 19th and early 20th centuries and courts challenges were brought by the \vidow of a popular former governor, along with a consortium of local governments and worked up elaborate explanations of the First Amendment government officials that reads like a lobbyist's private not meaning what it plainly says. So a group of Oregon citizens proposed an amendment to Rolodex of movers and shakers. Secause they asked for the same relief from the same defendants, the court combined the state constitution that"requires state, local governments the challenges into a single case before the trail. pay landowner amount of reduction in market value if law, regulation reduces property value."* For Christ's Sake The estimated direct financial impact, as set out in the At the time they were brought, these challenges didn't Oregon Voters' Pamphlet, is $1.6 billion for the state, and $3.8 seem like much more than the typical stunts people in power pull when democracy threatens to intrude into their preroga­ * This description is taken from the Official 2000 General Election Online Voters' Guide. The full text of the constitutional amendment is tives. In hindsight, they seem much \vorse. Once the trial reproduced on page 27. court declared Measure 7 unconstitutional and his side had Liberty 23 October 2001

won, Thomas M. Christ, the lawyer who challenged Measure Association's Disciplinary Rule 5-105(A)(1): "An I actual con­ 7 in court, was entitled to be paid his attorney's fees by the flict of interest' exists when the lawyer has a duty to contend state. So, he sent in an affidavit setting out the details of just for something on behalf of one client that the lawyer has the what he'd done. Taken along with rumors that had been cir­ duty to oppose on behalf of another client." culating through the Oregon legal community about less­ Actually, after reviewing Christ's time records, the sug­ than-competent arguments in court, unexplained meetings gestion that the attorney general's office faced a potential between the people challenging Measure 7 and those conflict of interest seems like a major understatement. Nine entrusted to defend it, political payoffs, and the anti-ballot­ days after Measure 7 passed, Gov. Kitzhaber kicked off the measure bias of the lawyer heading the defense, the entries in very suit in which he was to be named as a defendant by Christ's time record suggest something went very wrong in having his staff attorney, Chip Lazenby, call TOlll Christ to the way the state government handled the challenge to set up a meeting. Meas\lre 7. . You can see ho\v strange this looks. Defendants don't After carefully reviewing what happened, it is difficult to ordinarily initiate things - especially when they don't yet avoid the conclusion that the governor and various attorneys have any reason to believe they are going to be defendants. conspired to have the measure undone in the courts and, when they succeeded, the governor rewarded the deputy attorney general who botched the defense with an appoint­ ment to the Oregon Court of Appeals. Having lost at the ballot box, the politicians 'Conflict of Interest? did just zvhat you'd expect - they filed a pair of One of the weaknesses of Oregon's initiative system is ' lazvsuits challenging it in court. that the duty to defend ballot measures in court falls primar­ ily upon government officials. So when a ballot measure is enacted that limits the power of government officials, those same government officials are charged with defending the In explanation, Lazenby said that he called Christ because measure in the courts. the governor needed to know how the Measure 7 challenge This is how Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber found himself in was going to be handled in order to begin working on a legis­ the curious position of being the lead defendant in a proceed­ lative response. ing he wanted to lose. The state is required by law to defend Although this may explain the initial contact - assuming with vigor ballot nleasures once they have been passed. As Lazenby had SOllle way of knowing that a legal challenge chief executive of the state, Kitzhaber was thus required to was going to be filed and that Christ would be the lawyer fil­ defend the measure. But as the state's most powerful politi­ ing it - it does not address the purpose of the meeting. At cian, Kitzhaber had led the campaign to defeat Measure 7, the time, Christ had not begun preparing his case - which asserting that it would bankrupt the state. meant he couldn't have had anything to tell the governor. On a Portland radio show, Attorney General Hardy And a two-and-a-half-hour nleeting does not sound like the Myers stated that he did not see any ethical problellls with kind of fornlal get-together in which a lawyer lays out his position. What it sounds like is a strategy conference in which the participants take off their jackets, kick back, and It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the \vork out how to solve a mutual problem. When the meeting was over, Christ returned to his office governor and various attorneys conspired to and began working on the complaint. Again, this makes it have the measure undone in the courts, and look very much like he, Lazenby, and the governor all partic­ zuhen they succeeded, the governor relvarded the ipated in deciding how the complaint was to be framed. And once the meeting was over, Christ rushed back to his office deputy attorney general zuho botched the filled with fire and vinegar and missionary zeal to prosecute defense. zuith an appointment to the Oregon the case. Court ofAppeals. . Three days later, on Nov. 20, Lazenby called Christ a sec­ ond tinle - to discuss "TIMING OF SUIT AND VENUE/, as Christ's time sheet puts it. Again, this is a highly unusual, if not unheard-of, thing for a plaintiff's attorney to discuss with defending Measure 7. When I asked hilll to walk me through the defense. Again, this suggests the two were collaborating his reasoning, he told me that the Measure 7 scenario is typi­ on mutually agreeable strategy for handling the challenge cal of situations in which his office is called upon to defend a a ballot measure. Kristen Grainger, spokeswoman for the attor­ to Measure 7. ney general's office, elaborated a bit by saying that whatever Fox in a Hen House the governor may personally feel on the matter is irrelevant Of course, the governor isn't expected to actually show because"the state is the Department of Justice's only client" up in court and defend sOlllething like Measure 7 himself. In and"there is no conflict." the first place, he wouldn't be very good at it. He's a doctor, But the governor is the named defendant when a ballot after all, not a lawyer. In the second place, he's got a perfectly llleasure is challenged and his presence has to be accounted good attorney general's office to do that for hin1. In the case for. Together, these facts appear to create a conflict of interest of ~'1easure 7, the defense \vas personally conducted by for the lawyers at the attorney general's office. Under the Bar Deputy Attorney General David Schunlan. 24 Liberty October 2001

The fact that Schuman personally defended a ballot meas­ make are equally predictable: that plaintiffs won't be harmed ure was somewhat unusual. As deputy attorney general, he and that they aren't likely to prevail at trial. In the case of the was responsible for managing, coordinating, and overseeing Measure 7 defense, these argunlents should have been easy all the legal work of the department's 200 lawyers. to make. Ordinarily, a court appearance would have been handled by The irreparable harm argument is as close to a slam dunk one of the many fine career litigators in his shop. Moreover, as any attorney ever gets. All that will happen - all that Schull1an's expertise is not in litigation at all, but in theory. could possibly happen under Measure 7 - is that a govern­ Prior to cQmingJ

General is not going to provide any substantive defense of (TWO CALLS)." Ballot Measure 7 ..." Forms of proposed orders are what lawyers present a When I asked Tom Christ about Schuman's unusual judge once the judge rules in their favor. You cannot write a defense, Christ, whose clients had the most to gain if proposed order in advance when you cannot predict the Schuman lost, claimed that it did not make any difference terms of a ruling. Yet Christ, and his counterpart in the attorney how Schuman defended the preliminary injunction because general's office, discussed this very thing almost a week before the fact that the plaintiffs prevailed at trial proved the injunc,­ Judge Lipscomb ruled on the motion. tion was proper. To reiterate: It looks very much as if someone at the This is an odd argument A.G.'s office called Christ to discuss what to put in the order In the first place, it suggests that an attorney is, somehow, granting the motion the attorney general was supposed to relieved of his duty to zealously represent a client as long as he loses the case in the end. More important, it ignores the obstacle that losing the injunction put in the way of winning the underlying case. You'd think after something like this Oregon Since injunctions deprive real people of real rights, before he tuould be flooded 1.vith federal prosecutors, local issues one, a judge has to satisfy· hinlself that plaintiffs really district attorneys trying to rnake names for are likely to win. Then, having issued the injunction, the judge is committed to that view of the case and it's difficult themselves, and Dan Rather in his tailored, for him to rule defendants right - and himself wrong ­ Great-White-Hunter khakis. But none has later. sholvn up, yet. There's a third argument Schuman did not raise - and it's important because Judge Lipscomb gave every appear­ ance he would have taken it very seriously. Schuman should have questioned what difference stopping the. votes from oppose - at a time neither could have known what the order being certified would have made. Under the Oregon would be. At the very least, both sides were so confident the Constitution, ballot measures go into effect 30 days after judge would rule in favor of the plaintiffs - and that they being passed by the voters. The Constitution doesn't say knew the exact terms of that ruling - that they were already word one about having to wait around for votes· to be certi­ collaborating on the language of the order. This course of fied - which means it's quite possible that Ballot Measure 7 action seenlS absolutely inexplicable to anybody familiar has been in effect for months, and the injunction stopping the with the \-vay hearings are conducted. votes from being counted didn't nlean anything - which In the end, as he almost had to do in the circumstances, would be embarrassing. Something courts try never to do is . Judge Lipscomb ruled Measure 7 unconstitutional. A few issue meaningless orders. That kind of thing undermines weeks later, Gov. Kitzhaber appointed David Schuman to the their authority. vacant seat on the Oregon Court of Appeals. A fair reading of the transcript of the preliminary­ Now you'd think after something like this Oregon would injunction hearing shows Judge Lipscomb fairly crying out to be flooded with federal prosecutors, local district attorneys trying to make names for themselves, and Dan Rather in his tailored, Great-White-Hunter khakis. But none of these char­ In the end, as he almost had to do in the cir­ acters has shown up, yet. The reason is pretty clear. This is a scandal that threatens the people sitting on the lid. And they cumstances, Judge Lipscomb ruled Measure 7 have been piling on harder and harder to keep their goings­ unconstitutional. A fetu tueeks later, Gov. on away from public notice. And they've done it pretty well, Kitzhaber appointed David Schuman to the so far. Until t~e second week of July, the only thing to come out vacant seat on the Oregon Court ofAppeals. of this whole, sorry swindle was a complaint for unethical conduct filed with the .Oregon State Bar against' Chip Lazenby, TOlll Christ, and David Schulllan. The governor is immune to bar complaints for the same reason he would the deputy attorney general to raise this argument. Time never personally defend a ballot measure in court. He's a after time he asks about the propriety of issuing an injunc­ doctor, not a lawyer. tion. Time after time David Schuman fails to suggest there is Still, he seems to take the charges seriously enough to trot a problem. At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Lipscomb out the usual disnlissive slander politicians always trot out is still concerned about this question and refuses to give any when they are found with their hands under somebody else's indication of how he plans to rule on the injunction. Instead, wife's skirt. As Chip Lazenby explained to me, the \vhole he tells the lawyers he will issue a ruling six days later. bar-conlplaint issue is nothing 1110re than"one of those cyni­ Shady Deals cal political snlears that makes it so hard for people of good The day after the hearing - five days before the lawyers will to govern these days." The part Lazenby did not explain had any \\'ay to know how Judge Lipscomb would rule ­ to me was why the lllan who filed the ba~ cOll1plaint, Bob Christ made the strangest entry of all in his time records: S·wift - a lawyer of almost 40 years standing and a regis­ "TELEPHONE CALL FROM STATE'S ATTORNEY RE tered Denlocrat - would want to make it hard for good peo­ FORM OF PROPOSED ORDER GRANTING MOTION ple of his o\vn party to govern. 26 Liberty October 2001

None of us outsiders can tell at this point what all of this very long time to come, the rest of the government \Nill con­ means. To me, there's so much quacking and waddling and fess their sins and retire to monasteries, and sweet reason snuffling of bills through the water that there's got to be a will descend upon the land. duck around, somewhere. But I don't know for sure. And I One can always hope. .J won't know until somebody finds out what was discussed in the private meeting between Christ, Lazenby, and the gov­ ernor. And what was really going on in Schuman's office when the defense was going down? None of us are going to Appendix: Text of Measure 7 have a handle on that until somebody comes in armed with a Be it enacted by the People of the State of Oregon: the subpoena and the will to use it. Constitution of the State of Oregon is amended by adding The Bar Association can get subpoenas for just this sort of the following subsections to Section 18 of Article I: thing. But, so far, they haven't sho\\/n much will. vVhich, (a) If the state, a political subdivision of the state, or a when you think about it, is just what you'd expect from such local government passes or enforces a regulation that an establishnlent operation. restricts the use of private real property, and the restriction A Compromising Solution has the effect of reducing the value of a property upon Meanwhile, the state legislature has swung into ponder­ which the restriction is imposed; the property owner shall ous, conlical motion in a way that only a state could aspire be paid just compensation equal to the reduction in the fair to. The first thing they did was to try to work out a legisla­ nlarket value of the property. tive "compromise" to the Measure 7 "mess." The theory on (b) For purposes of this section, adoption or this one was that, because the state's minions had forgotten enforcement of historically and conlmonly recognized to campaign vigorously enough against Measure 7 to defeat nuisance laws shall not be deemed to have caused a it, we citizens didn't really know what we were voting for. reduction in the value of a property. The phrase To protect us from the consequences of our ignorance, the "historically and commonly recognized nuisance la\vs" legislature proposed to work out a "compromise" for us. shall be narrowly construed in favor of a finding that just What nobody has explained is, in a situation where the compensation is required under this section. voters have spoken, what is there to compromise? More to (c) A regulating entity may impose, to the minimum the point, who are the voters supposed to compromise with? extent required, a regulation to implement a requirement of Who is on the other side with other interests that the voters federal law without payment of compensation under this have to take into consideration? It used to be we had to com­ section. Nothing in this 2000 Amendment shall require promise with those inbred Georges and their gaggle of pow­ compensation due to a government regulation prohibiting the use of a property for the purpose of selling dered-\vig fops who tried to call our shots from London ­ pornography, performing nude dancing, selling alcoholic until the better angels of our nature rose up and got rid of beverages or other controlled substances, or operating a thenl. Still, one supposes, present-day government people casino or gaming parlor. think the voters ought to compromise with the government itself to get \vhat they want. Anybody who believes that ... (d) Compensation shall be due the property o\-\·ner if the \vell, I've got a left-over gulag I can let you into for cheap. regulation was adopted, first enforced or applied after the current owner of the property becanle the o\vner, and The second way the legislature tried to deal with the continues to apply to the property 90 days after the owner problem was to try to slip by, on the closing day of the ses­ applies for compensation under this section. sion, an obviously pre-arranged deal to make it much harder to get initiatives on the ballot in the first place. (e) Definitions: For purposes of this section, "regulation" shall include any law, rule, ordinance, Both of these snatch-backs would have been a lot scarier resolution, goal, or oth~r enforceable enactment of if it hadn't been a bunch of legislators doing the snatching. government; "real property" shall include any structure But one of the glories of our system is that legislators run the built or sited on the property, aggregate and other legislature, and, being legislators, they're too busy nleddling removable minerals, and any forest product or other crop to get anything done on time. In this case they became so dis­ grown on the property; "reduction in the fair market value" tracted over whether Oregonians should be able to sell chick­ shall mean the difference in the fair market value of the ens to ruffians in other places who enjoy cockfighting, that property before and after application of the regulation, and they lost track of time and the session expired. Now with the shall include the net cost to the landowner of an affirmative doors to the capitol slammed shut, the rest of us are reason­ obligation to protect, provide, or preserve wildlife habitat, ably safe in our persons and property for another year and a natural areas, wetlands, ecosystems, scenery, open space, half. . historical, archaeological or cultural resources, or low This may mean that by the time they conle back into ses­ income housing; and "just compensation" shall include, if a sion in January of 2003, President Bush's new federal prose­ clainl for compensation is denied or not fully paid \vithin cutor will have conle into office, Dan Rather will be sniffing 90 days of filing, reasonable attorney fees and expenses around the state capitol building, Oregon will have a ne\v necessary to collect the compensation. governor, the new governor will have a new staff attorney, (f) If any phrase, clause, or part of this section is found the attorney general will have a new deputy, the Court of to be invalid by a court of con1petent jurisdiction, the Appeals will have a suddenly vacated seat for the new gov­ remaining phrases, clauses and parts shall remain in full ernor to fill and, under minimum sentencing guidelines, the force and effect. federal corrections system will have four ne\v residents for a Liberty 27 Reparations

Injustice Compounded

by Edward Feser

Today arguments for reparations look a lot like "the mirage of social justice" exposed by Hayek a generation ago. And from the looks of things, it may take just as long for it to die out.

Conservative activist David Horowitz has gained notoriety in recent months for his campaign against"reparations" for slavery. The claim of reparations advocates is that the United States government owes black Americans trillions of dollars for the slavery of their ancestors. Horowitz res­ ponded to this claim in an advertisement he placed, or atten1pted to place, in college ne\vspapers around the coun­ try, "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery Is a Bad Idea utterly totalitarian in its implications. - And Racist Too./1 Some of his arguments are that white To understand how this is so, we can begin by briefly Americans alone were not responsible for slavery - there summarizing Hayek's analysis of social justice. Hayek con­ were also Arabs, black Africans, and even sonle black tended that the very idea of social justice is meaningless. Americans who traded in slaves; that the racial preferences First, the notion that the distribution of wealth in a n1arket and trillions of dollars in transfer payments that came in the economy is either just or unjust presupposes that there is wake of the Great Society already constitute all the repara­ some agency that determines that distribution. But justice tions anyone could reasonably demand; and that the move­ and injustice are attributes of individual conduct, the overall ment for reparations can only serve to inflame racial tensions distribution of wealth is determined by these market forces, and foster a self-destructive mentality of victimization not by the governmenr and certainly not by society. The among blacks.* overall ,distribution of wealth, however equal or unequal, is Horowitz's campaign has been controversial - at least neither just nor unjust, and there are no grounds of justice an10ng can1pus radicals and a few civil rights leaders - hut for redistributing incomes to fit some desired pattern.. it should not have been. His arguments are compelling. If Second, even if wealth distribution could be just or anything, they do not go far enough; Horowitz has made a unjust, government could not possibly redistribute ,"vealth po\verful case, but he has not exposed just how incoherent according to some principle of justice. There are no agreed and dangerous the reparationist positionis. The demand for upon criteria of social justice, nor is there any ,"yay for gov­ reparations is a demand for social justice, and its inherent ernment to acquire the knowledge of individual circum­ theoretical and practical problems can best be understood in stances that such distribution would entail. light of F.A. Hayek's classic critique The Mirage of Social Finally, any attempt by governn1ent to realize social jus­ Justice. The notion of reparations might seenl to some to be tice will inevitably become totalitarian. For outcomes to be an extension of current redistributive policies; even a couple plausibly attributable to its actions, the state "vill have to of conservatives, Charles Krauthammer and Jonah Goldberg, increase its control over the econon1y; and since these inter­ have toyed \.yith the idea of a one-tin1e reparations payn1ent. ventions will lead to unsatisfactory results, there will be an But Hayekian considerations show reparationism to be inclination for the state to increase its control even further. The lack of agreen1ent on criteria of justice "vill require the *The full text of the ad, and Horowitz's essays on the subject of repara­ state to impose some criteria on all citizens, and the difficulty tions, are available on-line at www.frontpagemag.com. of acquiring knowledge about individual circunlstances will 28 Liberty October 2001 require it to probe further and further into citizens' lives. of anyone, and those other ancestors also passed on certain And since individuals are unequal in talents, abilities, and gains. So which part of a living individual's wealth was won motivation, they will have to be treated unequally for the by an ancestor's shives? It is impossible to tell. It is also results of their actions to be fitted into the desired pattern of impossible to tell how different the lot of Jones' descendants distribution. The result of all this will be a progressive deteri­ would be had Jones not been enslaved. For their lots also oration of the rule of law and a degeneration of politics into a depend on what benefits or harms they accrued from having war of special interests vying to game the system in their been descended from others who were not enslaved by favor. Such, in a nutshell, is Hayek's account of the problems inherent in social justice. Every one of these problems would also afflict a scheme for making reparations for slavery. Reparations would clearly require the state to Consider first that, unlike in the cases of reparations paid to take resources ·from entirely innocent citizens victims of the Nazi genocide and to Japanese-Americans and give them to others who are not, by any rea­ interned during World War II, there is no single agency responsible for slavery. While the U.S. government did pro­ sonable standard, entitled to them is not tect the "property rights" of slaveholders, its role ,in slavery "roughly just" but thoroughly and blatantly was largely passive. American slavery was the fault of innu­ unjust. merable individual slave traders, slaveholders, and the like. This fact is obscured by reparations advocates, who typically speak, as Randall Robinson does in the subtitle of his book Smith, and it depends 'on their own actions and other present The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, in muddled abstrac­ circumstances that have nothing to do with what Smith did tions. It makes no sense to speak of America either owing or to Jones. So, which portion of Jones' descendants' present sit­ not owing blacks (or anyone else) anything; what we ought uations are attributable to Jones' having been enslaved by to speak of is what particular slaveholders owed particular Smith? Settling such questions is necessary to make a claim slaves (or what the descendants of those slaveholders owe against Smith's descendants. Just asserting that a living per­ the descendants of those slaves). Horowitz and others have son is descended from a slave won't suffice, we need to made the point that there are whites whose ancestors had know who owes him how much. And the problem is only nothing to do with slavery and blacks whose ancestors came compounded by the fact that there are many blacks who to America after the end of slavery. But the correct way to have prospered even though they had slaves as ancestors, think about these matters is not in terms of a subset of whites and that there are many others whose forebears were victims collectively owing something to a subset of blacks, but in of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, or Castro yet whose current terms of what individual whites owe to individual blacks. situations are as good as those of other persons whose ances­ Central to the cause of reparations is a dangerously collecti­ tors were more fortunate. The connection between a person's vist conception of responSibility, one at odds with a free soci­ present situation and the suffering of his ancestors is by no ety. Reparationists use abstractions like "white America," means clear. So we have another Hayekian problem with reparations: Just as government cannot have the knowledge to apply a If Smith is a slaveholder and Jones his slave, principle of just distribution, neither can it have the knowl­ it is fairly easy to determine who owes what to edge to determine who pays reparations, how much they whom. But after nearly a century and a half pay, and to whom. And this brings us to the last and most serious Hayekian problem with any reparations scheme, have passed since Smith wronged Jones, it is not which is that carrying it out can only be done in a way that is at all clear that there's anyone left who owes contrary to the rule of law. Since there is no way to deter­ anything to anyone else. mine how much each individual owes to whom, government would have to determine who pays reparations and who receives them on purely political grounds. It would mean imposing onto the entire citizenry the sort of intimidation "black America," and "victims of slavery" as if they were and extortion that was pioneered by certain civil rights lead­ quasi-personal entities who owe or are owed something, but ers against hapless corporations whose board members they this merely obfuscates the real nature of the individual accused of boorish language or of failure to fill racial quotas. offenses at issue. Nor is it likely that reparations would end at a one-time The next problem with reparations is that it is impossible payment, however large. Among the justifications given for to determine which whites owe what to which blacks. If reparations is that the African-American population has high Smith is a slaveholder and Jones his slave, it is fairly easy to rates of such social pathologies as illegitimacy and incarcera­ determine who owes what to whom. But after nearly a cen­ tion and that these are lingering effects of slavery. This sort tury and a half have passed since Smith wronged Jones, it is of consideration would likely provide the main basis for not at all clear that there's anyone left who owes anything to determining of the amount of reparations to be paid, so as anyone else. Smith may have many descendants, and those long as those pathologies continue there would be precedent descendants might have profited from his ill-gotten gains; for further reparations. but then, those descendants are also descended from many other ancestors who had nothing to do with the enslavement continued on page 41 Liberty 29 Report An Encounter with Harry Browne

by R. W. Bradford

The Libertarian Party's two-time presidential nominee meets an oldfriend and political ally, who has lately been less supportive of his political efforts.

Early this spring, I was invited to speak at this summer's Eris Society meeting. The topic of my talk, as I understood it, was "The State of the Libertarian Movement." The Eris Society is an informal group of entrepreneurs, investors, scientists and writers that meets every year in Aspen in early August. I've only ~issed a couple Eris Society ~eetings since 198~ and ~.~~~~~~, have spoken at the~ several ti~es, so naturally I accepted and began ~aking an outline and notes for ~y talk. I protested to the conference organizers; they changed the A couple of ~onths later, the conference organizers sent topic of ~y talk. But as I drove to Colorado, I got to thinking. out a flyer on the conference, which I didn't bother to read. It My fellow Erisians were co~ing to Aspen expecting ~e to listed the topic of ~y talk as "Why the Libertarian Party criticize the LP, and the LP had taken that to be so serious a Should Be Allowed to Fail." But one person who did read it threat that it had spent substantial resources to dispatch was, apparently, Harry Browne. In any event, he called the Dasbach to counter ~e, even after Browne had apparently conference organizer and asked to be given an opportunity invited hi~self for the sa~e reason. to speak on "A Huge, Untapped Market for Liberty," which, It occurred to me that while I could not in good con­ I would eventually discover, was not really his topic. science speak on "Why the Libertarian Party Should Be Another person who read it was ~y friend Ti~ Peterson, Allowed to Fail," I could speak on "Why the LP Should Be an Eris regular. A week before the conference, he called and Allowed to Succeed." So I began to rework ~y notes so ~y . infor~ed ~e that he had forwarded the schedule to LP head­ talk would focus on this subject. quarters, where, he said, it was decided that so~eone should All three talks on the LP were scheduled for the ~orning be dispatched to the ~eeting to counter what I ~ight say. It of the final day ofthe conference, so I had ti~e to prepare for was suggested that Browne could take care of anything i my new topic. I also had time. to have dinner with Harry and ~ight say, but party leadership concluded that Browne's other friends on Friday night. agenda ~ight not be their own, so so~eone else should be dispatched. There followed so~e you-do-it-no-you-do-it dis­ I Have My Say cussion, in which first National Chair Ji~ Lark would go, At 10:45 the next morning, I gave my talk. After briefly then Political Director Ron Crickenberger, and finally explaining the chain of events that led me to speak on the National Director Steve Dasbach. Libertarian Party, I stated my thesis: The reason that the LP You might think I'd be flattered by·all this: the idea that had never succeeded as a political party is that it had never party leadership thought that both the party's chief executive tried to be an effective political party. "During its 30 years and its presidential no~inee were needed to counter what I the LP has never really tried to be an effective. political ~ight say. But ~y reaction was shock and surprise: So far as party," I said. "Real political parties focus on winning elec­ I knew, I was speaking on the state of the libertarian move­ tions and imple~entingpolicy. They learn which strategies, ~ent, not on the LP at all. And I do not believe that the which tactics, and which tools actually win votes." The LP "Libertarian Party Should Be Allowed to Fail." I have been a has done none of these things and has learned nothing about loyal party activist for 29 years and I a~not about to aban­ how to accomplish them. The only skills it has developed are don it now. how to raise ~oney fro~ libertarians and how to hire fir~s 30 Liberty October 2001

to collect the signatures needed to get the party on the ballot. The unimportance of actually trying to get votes. "I thought

The LP is overwhelmingly oriented toward fundraising. we were going to get a million votes," he admitted, 'Iand I Even the analyses of election returns it offers are really fund­ wanted to get a million votes. I thought we were going to raisers. Both the Browne campaign and the LP itself have beat Pat Buchanan and I wanted to beat Pat Buchanan blamed their abysmal showings by citing the "why-waste­ because he had about 50 times the press coverage that we your-vote" argument, without offering any evidence that had and yet we were running neck-and-neck with him in the this explanation holds water. In fact, three different empiri­ polls throughout the entire campaign and I really thought cal analyses of the 2000 election and one of the 1996 election that come election day more Buchanan supporters would undermine this widespread, though comforting, belief. By give in and vote for Bush at the last minute than Browne blaming their failure on voters rather than on anything they supporters or Libertarian voters might do. It didn't turn out . did or failed to do, they make it easier to continue to raise that way. We almost beat Buchanan, came close but didn't funds. do it, and we were far short of the million votes that I had I digressed about how the Browne campaign in 1996 had hoped and wanted to get. spent only $8,840.50 to purchase advertising, according to its "But I also realized that to a certain extent these goals reports to the Federal Election Commission, and how a care- were a case of personal vanity," he added, "I wanted to achieve those things. I wanted to be able to say that we had done that. But it wouldn't have made a difference to the future of the country if either one of those goals had been According to its reports to the FEC, the 1996 reached. ... It's important to realize, contrary to what Bill Browne campaign did not spend a single cent said, that the number of votes you get at the national level is buying 'television time (its entire expenditure of really meaningless. We are not going to win the presidency under the present system. And ifwe are not going to win the $8,840.50 went for radio advertising). presidency, then we have to realize that the number of votes at the presidential level is not going to be the object. Not the next time, the time after that, not until the system itself changes. Most people don't realize what a third party is up ful examination of the FEC reports for the 2000 Browne cam­ against. We are faced with a two-party system." paign revealed it had spent less than $120,000 to buy ads, The amount his campaign had spent on advertising. "We despite its repeated claims to the contrary, a fact confirmed spent Jar more on advertising than Bill let on," he said. "But by his press secretary. I pointed out that even if LP expendi­ the advertising was not that important because we knew tures were included, the campaign had spent only a bit less from the outset that we weren't going to be able to do as than $360,000, or about 6% of their total funds, to purchase much advertising as we wanted to do.... All that's impor­ advertising. tant is lare you happy with the campaign?' You're not happy I recapitulated how the party's much-heralded Project with the campaign? Fine. That's your opinion. Other people Archimedes, ostensibly designed to recruit 200,000 new are happy with the campaign the way it was run and those members, could not possibly have achieved its stated goal, people are satisfied." and that party leadership had to have been aware of it. The desirability of establishing a libertarian church. "It is so Archimedes was misrepresented by the party leaders ­ much better to deal with libertarians than non-libertarians. even to members of the LNC - to maximize fundraising. I concluded that the party needed to refocus its goals. It needed to discover what issues win votes, what techniques win votes, and what strategies win votes. It had to do market Archimedes was misrepresented by party testing and serious analysis of election returns. It needed to focus on its stated goal. leaders - even to members of the LNC - to I suggested that the LP was well on its way to becoming a maximize fundraising. church rather than a political party, that its principal activi­ ties were fundraising, supporting a well-paid bureaucracy, and providing a place where libertarians can meet their fel­ lows and bemoan the sinful state of the world. I closed with Wouldn't you rather do business, for instance, with [here he a very few words about the Willis-Browne conspiracy that is listed several individuals in the audience], than with, say, currently embroiling the party. George Soros or David Rockefeller, no matter how successful Harry Strikes Back they seem ~o be? Wouldn't you rather have as friends people Harry Browne was up next. He opened, like the profes­ like [here he listed some other people in the audience] rather sionally trained public speaker that he is, with the usual than most of the people who live on your block? Wouldn't after-dinner-speech jokes intended to loosen up an audience. you rather be at a gathering like this rather than at the But he quickly got on to his real subject, which turned out Rotary Club or the Chamber of Commerce or whatever it is? not to be "A Huge, Untapped Market for Liberty," but rather Really. We take it for granted to a certain extent, but the fact "What Was Wrong With What Bill Bradford Said," with a of the matter is, life is easier in these circumstances because leavening of passages from his standard stump speech. we don't have to explain ourselves. We don't have to cope Leaving aside the stump-speech portions, he addressed with the most mundane ideas about life because the people five issues: we're around, the people we're dealing with, look at life Liberty 31 October 2001 somewhat realistically, as we do. I don't mean by that that anyone wants to look at it, including you, right now I invite every libertarian is a paragon of virtue or that every libertar­ you to do so. I've got the data. You've got an assertion." ian is an intelligent, really exciting person to be with. No, He responded: "I understand that, Bill," he said. "And I there are some even sleazy people that go around bearing the understand also all the things that you have written, all the label of 'libertarian.' . things that you have imagined, all the things that you have "The fact of the matter is that your chances are far greater invented, all the things that you have decided must be the of meeting the kind of people you want to be with when way it is even though you have no ability to know those you're among libertarians," he observed. "Bill Bradford things and I understand that any time you make a statement spoke of the libertarian church very deprecatingly, if there is that somebody calls you on you say 'Well,I didn't mean it lit­ such a word. I would speak of it very enthusiastically. I'm erally' and I also understand that you have these unimpeach­ glad to belong to this church. If you've got somebody in the able anonymous sources that so often provide you things and hospital you want me to visit, just ask. But really, it is that I also understand that you want to be the William Randolph church aspect of the libertarian movement that is such a Hearst of the libertarian movement, stirring up controversy wonderful part about it." wherever possible and perhaps starting another Spanish­ His new foundation was a good idea. "Its mission will be to American War if you're fortunate enough." produce libertarian television ads and run them on national I challenged him to produce so much as "a scintilla of evi­ television ... ads showing people that it doesn't have to be dence" to support anyone of these charges, reiterating that this way, that there is a better way to live. We will run ads on "If you've got any evidence for any of those statements, the gun issue, for instance, showing people that guns save present it to me." . lives far more than they cost lives. Ads on the drug issue He didn't produce any evidence on any of the accusations showing that while drugs can ruin a family, drug laws can he had just made, but he promised to produce evidence ruin a nation. We'll run ads on various kinds of issues, one at against some other alleged wrongdoing on my part. "On my a time. Clusters of ads that deal with a single particular issue. Web site in another couple of weeks I will have a report on It's a very exciting project to me because of the fact that we the articles that you wrote last year about the Libertarian are not going to be running these ads on CNN and FOX Party, about the campaign and so on, pointing out numerous News channel, we are going to be running these ads, we errors that you made in reporting all of these issues." He hope, eventually on ESPN, MTV, Ally McBeal, Seinfeld went on to describe how he'd sent me an e-mail challenging reruns, places like this, where people are not. hardened in some of what I'd said and that I hadn't responded to it. I their views but sitting on the couch watching this and their allowed that, yes, he'd sent me e-mails complaining about coverage of his campaign in Liberty's pages - he even called one of his ghostwriters a liar for his reporting on the 1998 LP I really didn't want. to confront myoId convention - and that I'd be happy to discuss any such friend, especially when he is embroiled in a claims in public but that I didn't think responding point-by­ point to his comments in private e-mails had m~ch p~int. . nasty scandal. But I was a bit annoyed that he Then I tried to get to a more important pOInt: hIS claIm had called me a liar. that he· had spent more on advertising than his press secre­ tary or his reports to the FEe claim. "You didn't offer any evidence for your assertions," I said. "I mean it's not enough to say that 'you shouldn'tlook at the numbers.' The numbers mind may be far, far more open to a better life that might be matter. The facts matter. The evidence matters." available to them." "The numbers matter to you," he said. "And you are enti­ The possibility hemight teach some courses. "I'm considering tled to your own opinion about them. But you're not entitled the possibility of starting some courses that will explain liber­ to your own set of facts." tarian ideas. Not just from a political standpoint but how "Well,'~ I responded, "are the statements that your cam­ libertarian ideas can help you to be more successful in life, paign made to the FEC [Federal Election Commission] true how libertarian ideas can help you to show people how their or false?" self-interest might be furthered by what you want." "Those statements are true, but they are meaningless in Time for Questions many ways. The FEC asked for reports in a certain way and Then he called for questions. I really didn't want to con­ you file those reports and after the '96 campaign the FEC front myoId friend, especially when he is embroiled in a complained, I believe, about some of the ways that we had nasty scandal. But I was a bit annoyed that he had, in effect, provided information. So in 2000 we provided it in a way called me a liar. I raised my hand. When he called on me, I that we thought the FEC would be satisfied with. But the commented briefly on what he'd said about a libertarian important thing in all of this is that it is not a question of how church. "My objection wasn't to there being a libertarian we spend our money. ... All that's important is 'are you happy church," I pointed out, "it was to there being a libertarian with the campaign?'" church that presents itself as a political party." Then he got a little defensive. "We gave more financial Then I went on to more important business. "You said information," he went on. "We gave more activity informa­ that you spent far more for advertising than I let on. I have tion on our hopes, our dreams, our goals, our successes, our [here on my computer] a complete list of all the checks that failures than any presidential campaign in the history of the your campaign wrote, the dates, the stated purposes. I inter­ party. We provided all of this information. I had a daily jour­ viewed your press spokesman extensively on this subject. If nal that people could read. 18,000 people on the Internet 32 Liberty small government is beautifulSM Will Carla Howell's Libertarian Campaign for Governor of Massachusetts be the Surprise Story of the 2002 Elections? Carla Howell earned What's special about Carla 308,860 votes against Senator Howell and the Massachusetts Ted Kennedy just 10 months Libertarians? ago. 1. In 1996, there were 3,065 registered Libertarian voters in Campaigns and Elections Massachusetts. Today - 5 years Magazine called Carla later - we're nearing 18,000. Howell's "small government 2. Carla Howell by the numbers: SM is beautiful " campaign in • 308,860 votes for U.S. Senate Massachusetts the most • 40% name recognition successful third party U.S. • 726 campaign volunteers Senate effort in 2000. • 5,106 campaign donors carla howell • $821,362 raised. Now Libertarian Carla Howell Massachusetts is the place. Carla 3. Gun Owners' Action League is running for Governor of Howell is the candidate. endorsed Carla Howell for U.S. Massachusetts. Senate. 30,000 Gun Freedom Carla Howell's "small SM What's special about the activists. NRA affiliate (MA). government is beautiful " political terrain in Massachusetts? Libertarian campaign for Governor 4. Carla Howell in the Media. The could catch fire. 1. "Tax-achusetts." Bone-crushing O'Reilly Factor. Front Page taxation. Strangling regulation. Sunday Boston Globe. Her small government Ballot Big Government social Nationally Televised C-SPAN. Initiative to End the Massachusetts engineering. The state that gave PBS campaign documentary. Income Tax and her campaign for us Michael Dukakis and Ted Boston-area ABC, CBS, and small, limited government may Kennedy. Where's the organized NBC nightly news. capture major media attention. political opposition? 5. Carla Howell has worked for 25 TV and Radio Ads. Major 2. The Massachusetts Republican years in the private sector in high Boston & National News Coverage. Party is weak and divided. tech and health care. She has a Your contribution is our budget. Barely 13% of the voters are BS in Math/Computer Science, Your donation may make the registered Republicans. They are and an MBA from Babson. difference. Please donate now. divided into 3 factions: the Big Government Republicans, the www.carlahowell.org y - - - i Ifiiieauiiflii';--- O$~50 Social Conservatives, and the smai government "0-$50,; - -0-$i50--0$-85 --ci$65-- Fiscal Conservatives. 0 Other: $ I'll Pay By: 0 Check carI a h0 weDII Visa 0 Mastercard 0 Discover 0 AmEx 3. Over 51 % of Massachusetts -b rt - .# G You may donate up to $500 in 2001. voters are registered LI e arlan ,or overnor You may donate an additional $500 in 2002. independent. Neither Republican nor Democrat. Free to vote their : NAME CREDIT CARD # conscience. · : ADDRESS SIGNATURE EXPIRATION 4. The Republican and the Democrat parties abuse and ·; CITY STATE ZIP OCCUPATION EMPLOYER neglect gun owners. 1.5 million ·!PHONE EMAIL : Donate to: Carla Howell for Governor· 6 Goodman Lane· Wayland, MA 01778· Note: Massachusetts law requires political registered gun owners! • committees to report the name, mailing address, and occupation and employer for each individual whose contributions total $200 or more. •...... : No corporate checks. _-_._-Paid for by...... •....•.Carla Howell for Governor,--_ R. Dennis Corrigan,_-_Treasurer...... •.•....••LMIO/OI October 2001 were able to access this information and get it from us all the erally favorably disposed toward churches. This contrasts time." with the situation of political parties, which are severely I pointed out that my other source of information was his restricted in how they can spend the money they raise, and own press spokesman ... but it was quickly becoming plain donations to which are not tax-deductible. that the audience did not want us to go on endlessly, so I But Browne went further, coming preciously close to say­ didn't pursue matters further. ing that libertarians should try to deal exclusively with other A Conflict of Visions libertarians. This seems to me to be a mistake, for many rea­ Even so, I found what Browne had said to be, well, unset­ sons. Unlike Browne, I spent a good many years as a busi­ tling. His belief that votes don't matter and that the party and nessman, and I did a great deal of business with non­ its campaigns should focus only on fundraising and recruit- libertarians. I cannot say that they were in general any less honorable or pleasant to deal with than libertarians have been. Further, if we are going to deal mostly or exclusively with libertarians, we are likely to become rather culturally I challenged him to produce so much as "a isolated. Certainly, doing outreach would be much more scintilla of evidence" to support anyone of his difficult. And of course there is the question of whether we want to charges against me. Harry responded that he'd accept one critical characteristic of religions: their reliance on have something up on his Web site "in a couple faith. Most libertarians, whether they are religious or not, ofweeks." believe that their political beliefs are rationally derived. It is not a coincidence that the two leading libertarian magazines are called Reason and Liberty. There has been a tendency of some libertarian intellectuals and leaders to behave like they ment of members seems to me a good way for party profes­ are running a cult and to require that their followers accept sionals to earn very good livings, but a very poor way to every jot and tittle of their beliefs, sometimes on faith, and influence politics. Since December 1996, using Browne's excommunicate those who do not. I'm speaking of Ayn Rand approach, party membership has grown at a rate of 6.19% and Murray Rothbard, but there are signs of this elsewhere. per year. At this rate, to reach its goal of 200,000 members, so Indeed, I saw some of those signs in Browne's talk: He it will be able to raise the $50 million Browne figures is expected listeners to believe his mere assertion that his cam­ needed to run a competitive race, the LP will be able to be paign had spent more to purchase advertising than I had competitive for the presidential race in 2036 - except for the reported without offering the slightest evidence, and to fact that by then the U.S. population will have presumably ignore the hard evidence thatI had presented. grown considerably, making the total membership needed to So while I appreciate the potential advantages of a be competitive even higher. church, I am not too crazy about its reliance on faith and the What's troubling about this strategy, which has also been inclination of religious leaders to treat their followers like advocated by past Party Chair David Bergland and, with a flocks of sheep who must agree on faith with their assertions few caveats, by National Director Dasbach, is not that it takes even in the face of evidence to the contrary - or face so long. If we could be confident that it would work, many excommunication. libertarians (including me) would be happy to pursue it. The And his new business, the American Liberty Foundation? problem is that it requires aU the resources of the Libertarian Well, it sounds nice in theory. But based on how Browne Party for another 35 years. That means 35 years of LP acti­ vists and members donating an average of $150 per year to the party, 35 years of running presidential campaigns with­ we could be confident that Harry's out trying to get votes, 35 years of devoting all our political If resources to a plan that has no real assurance of success. approach would work, many libertarians Browne's claims about advertising trouble me also, and (including me) would be happy to pursue it. not just because he expects party supporters to accept his The problem is that it requires all the resources view that the figures his campaign provided to the FEC under penalty of perjury are not, in his belief, accurate - and of the Libertarian Party for another 35 years. that we cannot trust the figures that his own press secretary provides. Television is the one way that has been proven to get votes. The 1996 Browne campaign spent not a single cent spent the $4 million he raised for his political campaign, I buying television time (it spent its entire $8,840.50 on radio would be reluctant to support it. time). And the 2000 Browne campaign spent less than His plan to teach some courses in libertarianism intrigued $120,000 on buying time. If the LP is trying to win votes ­ me, especially his course on "how libertarian ideas can help which it must do if it is ever to become a force in American you to show people how their self-interest might be fur­ politics - it has to spend more than trivial sums on televi­ thered by what you want." My life would be easier if I could sion advertising. convince others it was in their self-interest to pursue my self­ In the original business plan for this magazine, I sug­ interest. Right now, I want my lawn mowed. But it's hot and gested that one of the topics we'd like to discuss in our pages I would rather spend the afternoon lounging around my is the creation of a libertarian church. Doing so has a lot house reading a detective novel. If I take Harry's course, going for it. Churches have extraordinary latitude in how maybe I can convince my neighbor that his self-interest they spend their tax-exempt dollars, and Americans are gen- might be furthered by mowing my lawn for me. I-.J 34 Liberty Statistical Analysis Learning from the 2000 Defeat by Michael New

What helped, what hurt, and what just didn't matter when it comes to the Browne 2000 campaign vote totals?

In the months following the 2000 presidential election, Libertarian Party observers put forth a variety of hypotheses that attempted to explain LP presidential nominee Harry Browne's disap­ pointing performance. The prevailing consensus among the LP's own spinmeisters is that the closeness of the 2000 presidential election hurt Browne because it motivated potential Browne supporters to vote for a major party candi­ date instead. R.W. Bradford and Andrew Chamberlain in the ballot in 2000 were scored a one (Arizona), other states Liberty have challenged this view, arguing that the decline in scored a zero. Browne's vote total was no greater in close states than it was GOP Change: The change in vote share between 1996 and in states where one of the two major party nominees had 2000 for the Republican Party's presidential nominee for substantial or even commanding leads going into the elec­ each state. tion. Others have argued in Liberty that the strong third party Green Change: The change in vote share between 1996 and candidacy of Ralph Nader attracted many voters who were 2000 for the Green Party's presidential nominee for each anti-drug war, anti-defense buildup or simply anti­ state. establishment - voters who otherwise would have sup­ Reform Change: The change in vote share between 1996 ported Browne and the Libertarians. and 2000 for the Reform Party's presidential nominee for This debate, in my judgment,·stands to benefit from more each state. analytical rigor. A regression analysis allows us to test some Table 1 of these competing hypotheses simultaneously. Additionally, Close -.07229 it provides further insight into why Harry Browne's 2000 No Ballot -.93643* campaign failed so badly. I decided to take on this task and Reform Change .02773* collected the relevant data for the 1996 and 2000 presidential GOP Change .01327* elections. My regression equation and results are as follows: Green Change -.01303 The dependent variable is: (Constant) .05810 Liberty Change: The change in vote share between 1996 and 2000 for Libertarian presidential nominee Harry Browne Interpreting the Results (for each state). Analyzing the regression results gives us some insight The independent variables are: into what happened to the Harry Browne campaign in 2000: Close: States where the margin of victory at the presiden­ • In states where the presidential election was close, tial level was less than five percentage points were scored a Harry Browne's vote share decreased by an average of one, other states scored a zero. No Ballot: States where Harry Browne did not appear on * Indicates statistical significance Liberty 35 October 2001

0.072% between 1996 and 2000. get its message through. • For each 1% change in the Reform Party vote between However, it seems to me that most people who voted for 1996 and 2000, Harry Browne's vote share changed by .027% Perot in 1996 fall into one of three groups: in the same direction. 1) Moderate to conservative voters who would ordinarily • For each 1% change in the Republican Party vote vote Republican, but sought an alternative in 1996 because of between 1996 and 2000, Harry Browne's vote share changed Bob Dole's anemic campaign. by .013% in the same direction. 2) Disaffected voters who sought an alternative, any alter­ • For each 1% change in the Green Party vote between native, as a vehicle to express their dissatisfaction with the 1996 and 2000, Harry Browne's vote share changed by.013% two major parties. in the opposite direction. 3) Reform Party partisans. Looking at the first group of Perot voters, it is clear that The Reform Party Surprise in 2000, Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush The most surprising finding from this analysis is that the was a stronger candidate than Bob Dole was in 1996 and coefficient for the Reform Party is both positive and statisti­ overall the Republicans ran a stronger campaign in 2000 than cally significant. This means that in states where the Reform they did in 1996. This might have persuaded some of the Perot voters who fell into the first group to vote Republican in 2000. Indeed, Republican gains at the presidential level in Harry Browne's decline in vote share 2000 correlate strongly with the Reform Party losses, indicat­ between 1996 and 2000 was the greatest in ing that Bush likely received a number of votes from people states where the Reform Party showed the great­ who voted for Perot in 1996. Perot voters who fell into the second group were likely to est decline. be disenchanted with both of the major party presidential candidates in 2000 as they were in 1996. However, in 2000 the most visible third party candidate was not Ross Perot, but Party lost votes between 1996 and 2000, Harry Browne also Green Party presidential nominee Ralph Nader. Conse­ did poorly. Harry Browne's decline in vote share between quently, it seemed likely that many of these former Perot vot­ 1996 and 2000 was the greatest in states where the Reform ers would express their disenchantment with Bush and Gore Party showed the greatest decline. by voting for Nader. There is statistical evidence to support 'This was contrary to my expectations. It seemed that this, as the Reform Party's decrease in vote share between Browne might actually have a chance to increase. his vote share in states where Ross Perot did well. Many people who voted for Perot in 1996 demonstrated that they were unsatis­ fied with the alternatives offered by the two major parties. The closeness -of the 2000 presidential elec­ Since the Reform Party ended up nominating an unpopular tion was not as detrimental as Browne cam­ candidate - Pat Buchanan - in 2000 it seemed plausible paign spinmeisters have argued. that many former Perot supporters might be willing to con­ sider voting for another third party candidate, possibly even a Libertarian. However, the numbers 'do not lie. A simple correlation 1996 and 2000 correlates positively with the Green Party's (excluding Arizona) shows that Harry Browne's decline in increase in vote share during the same time span. This indi­ vote share from 1996 to 2000 positively correlates with the cates that Nader's vote share increased most in states where Reform Party's decline in vote share over the same election the Reform Party's decline in vote share was the greatest. cycle. The correlation coefficient is a relatively small 0.23, but Finally, some people who voted for Perot in 1996 are it does approach conventional levels of statistical signifi­ Reform Party partisans who chose to stay the course in 2000 cance. This means that although the impact of the Reform and vote for Buchanan. Indeed, the correlation between Party wasn't decisive, it was real nonetheless. Perot's vote share in 1996 and Buchanan's vote share in 2000 There are a few reasons why Browne could have fared so is over 0.6 which is again statistically significant. poorly in Perot's strongest states. For instance, it is possible From this we can conclude that Perot's supporters in 1996 that the major parties, realizing that Buch-anan would be an largely split their votes among Bush, Nader, and Buchanan, unacceptable and all but ignored Harry Browne in this election. Still, the alternative to fact that Browne's vote share declined in these states as many former much as it did is surprising. It is possible that increased turn­ Perot voters, out in these states in 2000 might have reduced Browne's vote share. It is also conceivable that the states that were the most stepped up eager to support third party candidates in 1996 might have their cam- been less willing to do so in 2000. Finally, as I mentioned ear­ paign efforts lier, if the major parties stepped up their campaign efforts in in states where these states, that might have been detrimental to Browne as Perot did well, well. making it "For years I cried out in the wilderness, more difficult The Republican Factor and then CNN offered me a contract." for the LP to Another surprising result comes from the influence of the 36 Liberty October 2001

GOP on Harry Browne's vote totals. Looking at the regres­ identify an intuitively appealing reason as to why Browne's sion results, we see that the coefficient for GOP Change is vote share fell so dramatically in Perot's best states in 1996. positive and statistically significant. This tells us that Harry Yet from this analysis one can reasonably assert that: Browne's performance in 2000 was best in states where • The Libertarian Party would benefit from being Amer­ Republicans made the greatest gains between 1996 and 2000. ica's most visible third party because they would gain a This is again surprising. If Republicans were taking away lion's share of the protest votes. votes from Libertarians, we would expect Harry Browne to • The Libertarian Party would benefit from increased dis­ do poorly where Republican vote shares increased. enchantment with the status quo. However, that is not the case. A simple correlation shows • The Libertarian Party would benefit from more skepti­ that increases in Republican vote share between 1996 and cal attitudes toward the state in general. 2000 correlate positively with increases in Libertarian vote Unfortunately, one could have arrived at these conclu­ share during the same time period. Additionally, Table 2 sions without running a regression analysis on election data. shows that for seven of the eight states where the Libertarian Even worse, these objectives are by and large out of the con­ Party's vote share increased between 1996 and 2000, the trol of Libertarian Party officials and activists. Republican Party's gain in vote share exceeded the national In closing I will add that these regression results should average. Table 2 Gains in Vote Share 1996-2000 Harry Browne's performance in 2000 was State Libertarian Party Republican Party best in states where Republicans made the 1) Georgia .62 7.66 greatest gains between 1996 and 2000. 2) Virginia .18 7.27 3) North Carolina .13 7.29 4) Oklahoma .08 12.05 hardly be considered the last word on Harry Browne's per­ 5) South Dakota .07 13.81 formance in 2000. A close examination of survey data would .6) Iowa .06 8.30 add a great deal of strength to this analysis. Additionally, 7) Idaho .02 14.99 there were a number of factors that might have affected the 8) Alabama .01 6.35 Libertarian Party's vote share that I was unable to properly Overall Republican Vote Share Increase 7.19 consider. It is possible that extensive campaigning in certain Indeed, it seems plausible that the same factors that are regions of the country may have influenced Browne's vote motivating people to vote for Republicans are also, to a totals. Likewise it is possible that in some states, Browne lesser extent, motivating people to support Libertarians. may have benefited from strong Libertarian campaign efforts Now, considering only this past election, it is not clear what at the local and state level. However, I lacked the data to these underlying factors are. It is possible that in states properly analyze these factors. 1-.1 where people became most disenchanted with the status quo, the Democratic Party, or government intrusions in gen­ eral, lots of people voted Republican, as well as a smaller Glossary number who voted Libertarian. Regression analysis: A statistical technique used to describe relationships among two or more variables. Regression Other Variables involves calibrating a mathematical equation to fit data The other variables in this model are either negligibly on inputs and outputs. This equation is then used to pre­ small or aren't statistically significant. Obviously, Harry dict the value of one variable on the basis of other Browne's inability to get on the ballot in Arizona in 2000 hurt variables. his performance in that state. Additionally, the coefficient for Independent variable: The "input" variables in a regression the variable Close is negative, but isn't statistically signifi­ equation. Independent variables are assumed to have cant. This point was well documented by Bradford and some impact on the"dependent" variable. Chamberlain in past issues of Liberty, so I won't discuss it Dependent variable: The"output" variable in a regression further here. equation. The dependent variable is assumed to be influ­ enced by the"independent" variables. Finally, the coefficient for Green Change is negative but Statistical significance: A way of measuring whether statisti­ not statistically significant, indicating that the performance cal relationships between variables are likely to be real, of the Green Party had little impact on Browne's vote totals. or are due to chance. A statistically significant variable is What Are the Lessons? one that has a systematic, measurable impact on the model's output variable. Variables that are not statisti­ The statistical analysis I have done suggests that Browne cally significant may have an impact, but it can't be dis­ did poorly in states where Perot performed well in 1996; and tinguished from normal randomness. to a lesser extent, states where Ralph Nader made the great­ Correlation coefficient: A measure of the strength of the rela­ est gains. Conversely, the regression shows that Browne did tionship between two variables. Correlation coefficients well in states where Republicans made the greatest gains (denqted "r") range between -1 and +1, with r = 0 denot­ between 1996 and 2000. ing no relationship. Variables with strong positive rela­ At the same time, this statistical analysis was less success­ tionships will have an "r" close to +1, while those with ful in explaining why Browne's vote share declined in many strong negative relationships will have an "r" close to -1. states and improved in very few. For instance, I have yet to Liberty 37 Invitation

Bay State Tea Party

by Carla Howell

Fomenting tax revolt for fun and political profit. And you are invited to participate!

Massachusetts has been a high-tax, high-regulation state for so long that locals-have taken to calling it "Taxachusetts." Ballot initiatives here are likely to favor things like $20 minimum wages, bansonS~V~orproh~itionsondogracing. ~.~~ But all that may be about to change. In July, the Committee for Small Government, a group of On this same 2002 ballot will likely be my name as candi­ local libertarian activists that Michael Cloud and I formed, date for governor, an LP candidate for the· U.S. Senate, and filed a ballot initiative for .the November, 2002 election to other Libertarian statewide, congressional, and legislative repeal the Massachusetts income tax. And since we get to candidates. If there were ever a year for a tax-cutter to go to name our initiative, we're calling it the Small Government the polls in Massachusetts, 2002 is the year. Act. New Tax on the Block Currently, income tax rates are five percent on wages, The Small Government Act is one of the largest percent­ five percent on passive income (interest and dividends), and age slashes in government and taxation proposed in the zero to twelve percent on capital gains (depending on how United States since the end of World War II. Why are we long assets are held). attempting it through an initiative? If the Small Government Act wins, those rates will be cut, Since most legislators cannot bear to see state revenues respectively, to zero, zero, and zero. After the last tax is col­ decrease, legislative tax cuts are almost nonexistent and are lected for fiscal year 2003, no one will be required to pay a never meaningful. Until we get Libertarians elected, the only single dollar in state income tax. way we'll get a meaningful tax cut is if we put it on the ballot Ending the state income tax not only allows us to keep ourselves through the initiative process. some $9 billion of our own money each year, it deprives the Initiative petitions are placed on the ballot by the people. ever-whining Massachusetts state legislature of that money But many are initiated by advocates of big government, who - money they use to take away our guns, foster illiteracy, use them to increase taxation, increase spending, and gov­ ruin our health care, increase poverty and dependency, and ernment regulation. And many of these tax cut initiatives generally trample our rights. only attempt to slow government by cutting a small tax or As bold as it is, our tax cut still leaves the· state budget fee. Even when they succeed, state budgets still go up. bigger than Gov. Dukakis left it in 1990. Ending the income Most of these"tax cuts" are so small they are offset by ris­ tax would drop the state's operating budget to about $14 bil­ ing incomes, rising sales tax revenues, rising local property lion (down from about $23 billion as of fiscal year 2001). taxes, complicated tax formulas that cut deductions, and a Remaining revenues come from general sales tax, selective continuous flow of new and increased fees and taxes on sales tax, corporate tax, license tax, and other sources. everything under the sun. Government always gets a bigger 38 Liberty October 2001 take - which is the reason Democrats and Republicans 1. We draft an initiative that passes legal muster. sometimes support a "tax cut." Libertarian attorneys Peter Kuntz, Ed McCormick, and The Reagan "tax cut" of the 1980s is a prime example. It Hugh High, along with a research team headed by Andy cut income tax rates, but overall tax revenues went up any­ LaRocco, worked for months to navigate the Massachusetts way because incomes were rising and some deductions were General Law, the state constitution, and the labyrinthine eliminated. Most people don't realize that Bill Bradley co­ Massachusetts budget to arrive at our final initiative. sponsored Reagan's bill. His reason? To increase tax With guidance from Michael Cloud, manager of my revenues! Senate campaign against Ted Kennedy in 2000, and several The George W. Bush "tax cut" is another example. It will leaders of past Massachusetts tax cut initiatives, our team expand federal tax revenues by hundreds of billions of dol­ crafted initiatives that have the best chance of being legally lars. One of the ways it offsets lower rates is by greatly qualified. Several drafts authored by Peter Kuntz were sub­ expanding the number of taxpayers subject to the mitted and discussed at length with the attorney general's Alternative Minimum Tax, which currently applies to only office to get a preliminary assessment as to whether they will 1.5 million Americans. When the Bush plan phases in, 35 mil­ certify our petitions. lion of us will be paying higher taxes because of Bush's mas­ 2. We submit the final petition to the attorney general by sive expansion of the Alternative Minimum Tax. Aug. 1, 2001. In contrast, the Small Government Act is so big it will 3. Attorney General Tom Reilly reviews petitions and cer­ demand that the state take less of our money. It is specifi­ tifies those that he believes abide by the laws governing ini- cally aimed at forcing the legislature to shrink government. . There's yet another benefit if the Small Government Act wins: it cuts hidden welfare. The Massachusetts Department Many tax cut initiatives only attempt to of Revenue, like the IRS, has become a welfare agency. Repealing income taxes means repealing tax credits - like slow government by cutting a small tax or fee. the ones our Republican Gov. Jane Swift is trying to increase. Even when they succeed, state budgets still go Ending tax credits means removing a major source of up. welfare. Bolder Is Better Some argue that the Small Government Act is too aggres­ tiatives. He issues a ruling around Labor Day. We must sive to pass. But a bold initiative is much more attractive respond to legal questions that arise during his review. than a timid initiative. Boldness works because it offers 4. If the Small Government Act is certified, we gather huge, immediate benefits to voters. No more state income 57,101 certified petition signatures from mid-September to tax! This is exciting for voters who are usually lulled into mid-November. These can be disqualified for a number of apathy by complicated, boring proposals that hardly make reasons. For example, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts any difference to their lives. ruled that a mere coffee stain would invalidate an entire A bold initiative gives meaning to politics and gives vot­ sheet of petition signatures. Therefore, we will aim to collect ers a reason to get involved. It mobilizes the disenfranchised over 100,000 raw signatures to ensure we clear 57,101 with voter who thinks government is too big but who never had a enough extra to sustain a challenge. compelling reason to go to the polls. Hundreds of thousands 5. If sufficient signatures are certified, the legislature may vote for the first time in their lives. Some of them will must take a vote on whether to enact the initiative into law get involved and become activists. by May of 2002. By aggressively marketing small government, we take 6. If the legislature votes against the Small Government control of the agenda. We change the debate from "big­ Act (we expect a whopping zero "yes" votes from Democrats government option A vs. big-government option B" to "big and Republicans in the state legislature), then another 9,517 government vs. small government." This way, we can build certified signatures must be gathered during May and June support, get people to take our views seriously, and set the of 2002. stage for libertarianism to emerge as a major force in 7. Opponents can then challenge our initiative in court. American politics. Challengers can argue that our initiative is flawed and vio­ Friends of big government attack timid tax cuts just as lates the constitution or other legal requirements or they can shrilly as bold ones. The teachers' unions cry "apocalypse" challenge the validity of petition signatures. If they do, the and demonize even the most timid, most modest tax cut. We Supreme Court of Massachusetts will issue a ruling some­ gain nothing by being timid. time next year, probably in the summer of 2002. Some argue that a modest tax cut is more likely to win. 8. Finally, after we stave off challenges, the Small Govern­ But campaigns for modest tax cuts cost as much as bolder ment Act will appear on the ballot in November. If our initiative wins, the income tax will be repealed as initiatives, and usually end up increasing government reve­ soon as the then-current fiscal year ends on July 1, 2003. By nues, spending, and abuse. Therefore, we lose nothing by April 2004, Massachusetts income earners will have filed being bold. their last state tax return. Getting Over the Hurdles The state constitution gives the legislature the power to Getting an initiative petition on the ballot is no small feat. repeal an initiative, but it is considered very bad form. They Here are the steps we must take: are hard-pressed to conform to the will of the people

Liberty 39 October 2001 directed by ballot initiatives. They will likely be forced to government agencies, social workers - and especially the comply - while they yell and scream that their beloved big teachers' unions. government is being starved. Massachusetts' teachers' unions spent several million dol­ Plan B: Sales Tax Repeal lars opposing last year's modest initiative to cut the income tax rate (5.85% down to 5% phased in over a three-year Although we've wgrked vigorously. to ensure that our period). They will spend millions more opposing us. Their initiative will qualify, we have no guarantee that it will sur­ attacks will publicize the Small Government Act and·mobi­ vive either our attorney general Tom Reilly or court chal­ lize our supporters even more. lenges. The advice we received from the attorney general's Some people will take our side simply because the teach­ office, while very helpful, is non-binding. He could strike ers' union opposes it. By making the right enemies, we make down the Small Government Act even though his office gave us initial indication that it would be certified. For this reason, it is common practice for. initiative com­ mittees to submit more than one initiative to better ensure The Small Government Act is so big it will that at least one will survive the attorney general's certification. demand that the state take less of our money. It So, in addition to the income tax repeal initiative, our is specifically aimed at forcing the legislature to Committee for Small Government submitted Plan B: a sec­ shrink government. ond initiative called the Small Government Act to Repeal the Sales Tax. While the sales tax accounts for only about $4 billion in state revenues, it is still far bolder than most initiatives, and the right friends. For this reason, we look forward to being it will still force spending cuts. (At the time of this writing, a viciously attacked. third bold tax cut initiative is being considered as well for How· Likely Is a Win? submission by the Aug. 1 deadline.) We don't know, but we have some clues. If more than one initiative is certified, we will petition for During the past 20 years, there have been a host of tax cut the income tax repeal or whichever one would result in the initiatives on the ballot in Massachusetts. The. lowest vote boldest tax cuts. that any received was 39%, and the most successful got 72%. Who's For and Against? These were all modest tax cuts, so some of these voters may Since the Boston Globe and Boston-area TV stations are shy away from an outright tax repeal. likely to be hostile to our cause, we plan to raise enough On the other hand, we may get a pleasant surprise. money to run TV and radio ads. We'll sell the big benefits of Voters may turn out in record numbers because they finally ending the income tax: have something to vote for that offers a huge, direct benefit. • The average taxpayersaves over $2,000 every year. We hope the excitement will catch on and. we'll mobilize a • No more filing state income tax! Save time and keep the huge corps of volunteers to help publicize and rally for our state out of your personal finances. initiative. • If you need to sell stock, you no longer need to move Big government supporters may turn out in higher num­ out of Massachusetts to avoid capital gains. bers to oppose it, but they also may sit it out since Democrat • If you're living on annuity income, you don't have to voter turnout plummets in non-presidential election years. move away from your grandchildren to another state to If the Small Government Act wins, it will be the shot avoid paying the five percent passive income tax. heard 'round the world! We will turn Massachusetts politics Because elected RepUblicans tend to vote unanimously in on its head. favor of raising. government budgets each year, we expect But what if we lose? Even if We Fail, We Succeed Even a vote total as low as 20% in favor of repeal would Massachusetts' teachers' unIons will spend signify an enormous vote of confidence for dramatic cuts. It millions more opposing us. would shatterthe claims of big government advocates who'd like us to believe that a bold, libertarian agenda is supported by only a small, single-digit percentage of the population. When we give voters a choice to end the income tax in both the legislature and Republican Gov. Jane Swift, who is 2002, it will be just the beginning. People will start to get expected to run for re-election, will oppose this bold tax.cut used to the idea of making government small. We'll open initiative. minds. Voters who aren't ready for dramatic cuts in 2002 Republican and Democrat policies in this state are virtu­ might be ready for bold initiatives and candidates in 2004 or ally indistinguishable. Both vote for and support big govern­ perhaps 2006. We set the stage for bigger and bigger vote ment and high taxes. Both will claim that the Small totals in Massachusetts every year. Government Act goes way too far. With myself as the Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Everyone who loves big government will hate our tax and other Libertarians rallying for the Small Government cut: beneficiaries of the Big Dig construction project in down­ Act, we'll establish ourselves as serious tax-cutters and advo­ town Boston, beneficiaries of the latest convention and sta­ cates of small government. Any hope that Republicans can or dium welfare, Gov. Jane Swift's tax credit welfare recipients, will make government small will be buried once and for all. 40 Liberty October 20m

It will become clear that the Libertarian Party is the only love gun rights and gun owners love us. Many of them will party willing to offer meaningful tax cuts. support the Small Government Act. Our initiative serves as an important prototype. By We'll do polling to ensure our message is effective and to investing in this bold experiment, we are creating huge monitor our progress. If we hit 20%-40% in the polls, the upward potential for growth - much like an entrepreneur Small Government Act could draw national attention and creates the possibility of a Microsoft. We may tap into a large heighten excitement even more. expanse of bold tax-cutters willing to go to the polls and Massachusetts has one of the strongest Libertarian parties vote. in the country. Our 2000 Carla Howell for U.S. Senate cam­ If we get a healthy vote total, we could inspire copycat paign won 308,860 votes and activated over 726 volunteers. initiatives across America - just as California's Proposition We expect to mobilize thousands in 2002. 13 did for property tax cuts in 1978, and later initiatives did Over the years I've built strong ties to the state's activists, for term limits and medical marijuana. coalitions, and media. On June 29, I was a guest on Fox News' Twenty-four states allow initiatives. Imagine the poten­ "O'Reilly Factor" talking about the Big Dig. As spokes­ tial of a bold tax cut movement catching on in every one of woman for our initiative, I will campaign for it all over them. Massachusetts. Michael Cloud, our fund-raiser, has raised over $6 mil­ How to Succeed lion for Libertarian campaigns. In the small state of During our 1998 and 2000 campaigns, we developed the Massachusetts, where it's easier and cheaper to reach voters knowledge and expertise needed to navigate the difficult than in large states, we'll be able to spend over $1 million to petitioning and filing requirements in Massachusetts. These buy advertising on Boston's CBS, ABC, and NBC stations vital skills will help us stay on track. and reach virtually every voter. There's a nonpartisan majority in Massachusetts. More Ballot initiatives in Massachusetts have no contribution than 50% of registered voters are not affiliated with any limits. Donors can donate as much as they want. Companies party. Many of these independent voters, coupled with can donate as well. This makes a bold tax cut petition less untold numbers who may register for the first time, could difficult to fund. vote for repeal. We look forward to an exciting year as we unveil the Massachusetts' gun owners lean libertarian and strongly Small Government Act and rally for the benefits of small oppose big government and high taxes. As libertarians, we government. I~

"Injustice," from page 29

All of this would clearly require the government to treat become reality, its essential arbitrariness will, without a citizens unequally, applying different rules to different doubt, provoke a backlash that would dwarf the racial ten­ groups. For the state to take resources from entirely innocent sions of the past. citizens and give them to others who are not, by any reason­ Nor will these new tensions merely be between blacks able standard, entitled to them is not"roughly just" but thor­ and whites, but between all racial groups. Any reparations oughly and blatantly unjust. scheme, since it would be funded by general taxation, would Also, in granting reparations only to the descendants of be seen by those whose ancestors had nothing to do with African slaves, the government would be affording special slavery as the illegitimate taking of their own resources for benefits to blacks that it affords to no one else. Although the special benefit of blacks. This would make for tensions African-Americans, as a group, are the only citizens most of between these groups and both blacks and other, Anglo­ whose recent ancestors were slaves, they are not the only citi­ Saxon, whites, especially Southerners, who would be zens whose ancestors suffered grave injustices, injustices resented for "putting us all in this fix." Also, the floodgates whose repercussions echo down the generations. Two centu­ would then be open for any and all individuals and groups ries ago Smith took Jones as a slave, which was unjust; but to demand reparations for their own past injustices. This across town, Johnson swindled Miller out of his inheritance could only be stopped arbitrarily, with one group being and never paid for his crime. This too was an injustice, one allowed to impose its claims on the losing groups. All I can that undoubtedly had severe consequences for Miller's predict about what would come next is that it would. be descendants - so shouldn't government also require that disastrous. reparations be paid to Miller's descendants, and to the An application of Hayek's insights shows that repara­ descendants of everyone, black or white, whose forebears tions for slavery would be, not an approximation of justice, have ever suffered debilitating injustices? Slavery was a but a conceptual muddle and a practical catastrophe. unique horror in American history, but why are the injus­ Another political ,philosopher, Robert Nozick, famously tices suffered by black ancestors more worthy of government argued that redistributive taxation is on a par with forced action than those suffered by white ancestors? labor, a kind of "slavery lite." No one claims that the taxation The answer is that it is simply impossible for government existing today approaches the evil of the slavery suffered by to settle accounts between parties long dead. "What's done is the ancestors of black Americans. But redistributive taxation done," we say in all cases of this sort - all cases, that is, for the purposes of funding a bogus reparations scheme except for slavery. But there are no rational grounds for mak­ would nevertheless be an injustice. And adding that wrong ing an exception in the case of slavery. If reparations ever to the wrong of slavery would not result in a right. U Liberty 41 History The Economic Roots of the Civil War

by Donald W. Miller Jr.

"Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils. The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel." - Charles Dickens

In the schoolbook account of the American Civil War Abraham Lincoln rose to the p~esidency and led the country in a great Civil War against the sla~eholdingstates that had seceded restorIng these states to the Union, and ending slavery. ' Acrilld~~~h~~riamr~eAbrnhamL~c~n~one~oill ~l greatest presidents. government. Although it freed 4 million slaves into poverty, Well-intentioned, right-thinking people equate anyone it did not bring about a new birth of freedom, as Lincoln and who thinks that the South did the right thing by seceding historians such as James McPherson and Henry Jaffa say. For from the Union as secretly approving of slavery. Indeed, the nation as a whole the war did just the opposite: It ini- such thinking has now reached the point where people from tiated a process of centralization of government that has sub- both sides of the political spectrum, notably from the stantially restricted liberty and freedom in America, as NAACP and Southern Poverty Law Center on the left and j:tistorians Charles Adams and Jeffrey Rogers Hummel have the Cato Institute on the right, want to have the Confederate argued.* battle flag eradicated from public spaces. These people argue The term "Civil War" is a misnomer. The South did not that the Confederate flag is offensive to African-Americans instigate a rebellion. Thirteen southern states in 1860-61 sim- because it commemorates slavery and thus should be prohib- ply chose to secede from the Union and go their own way, ited from public display. like the 13 colonies did when they seceded from Britain. A , In the standard account, the Civil War was an outcome of more accurate name for the war that took place between the our Founding Fathers' failure to address the institution of northern and southern American states would be the "War slavery in a republic that proclaimed in its Declaration of for Southern Independence." Mainstream historiography Independence that "all men are created equal." But was it presents the victors' view, an account which focuses on the really necessary to wage a four-year war to abolish slavery in issue of slavery and downplays other considerations. the United States, one that ravaged half of the country and Britain heralded the end of slavery, in the Western world destroyed a generation of American. men? Only the United at least, with its Bill of Abolition, passed in 1807. This bill States and Haiti freed their slaves by war. Every other coun- made the African slave trade (but not slaveholding) illegal. try in the New World that had slaves _ Argentina, Bolivia, Later that year the United States adopted a similar bill, called Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, the Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves, which prohib- Uruguay, and Venezuela _ freed them peacefully. ited bringing slaves into any port in the country. Congress The war did enable Lincoln to "save" the Union, but only in a geographic sense. The country ceased being a Union, as * Adams in.his book, When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the it was originally conceived, of separate and sovereign states. Case for Southern Secession (2000); and Jeffrey Rogers Hummel in his Instead, America became a "nation" with a powerful federal book, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men (1996). 42 Liberty October 2001 strengthened this prohibition in 1819 when it decreed the Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Tennessee, and parts of slave trade to be a form of piracy, punishable by death. In Virginia and Louisiana occupied by Union troops were 1833, Britain enacted an Emancipation Law, ending slavery exempt from the edict. Slaves in the Confederacy would be throughout the British Empire, and Parliament allocated 20 "forever free" on Jan. 1, 1863, - 100 days after the million pounds to buy slaves' freedom from their owners. Proclamation was issued - but only if a state remained in This happened peacefully and without any serious slave "rebellion" after that date. Rebel states that rejoined the uprisings or attacks on their former owners, even in Jamaica, Union and sent elected representatives to Congress before where a population of 30,000 whites owned 250,000 slaves. Jan. 1, 1863, could keep their slaves. Such states would no The rallying call in the North at the beginning of the war longer be considered in rebellion and so their sovereignty was "preserve the Union," not "free the slaves." Although regarding the peculiar institution would be restored. As the certainly a contentious political issue, in 1861 slavery was London Spectator put it, in its Oct. 11, 1862, issue: "The princi­ not a major public one. Protestant Americans in the North ple [of the Proclamation] is not that a human being cannot were more concerned about the growing number of Catholic justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is immigrants than they were about slavery. In his first inaugu­ loyal to the United States." ral address, given five weeks before the war began, Lincoln Regarding slaves in states loyal to the government •or reassured slaveholders that he would continue to enforce the occupied by Union troops, Lincoln proposed three constitu- FUgitive Slave Act. After 17 months of war things were not going well for the North, especially in its closely watched Eastern Theater. In At the time, only seven states had seceded. the five great battles that were fought there between July 1861 through Sept. 17, 1862, the changing cast of Union gen­ But when Lincoln announced his intention to erals failed to win a single victory. The Confederate army bring these states back into the Union by force, won three: First Bull Run (or First Manassas) on July 21, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and 1861; Seven Days - six major battles fought from June 25 to July 1, 1862, during the Union army's Peninsular Campaign Arkansas seceded and joined the Confederacy. that, in sum, amounted to a strategic Confederate victory when McClellan withdrew his army from the peninsula; and Second Bull Run (or Second Manassas) on Aug. 29-30, 1862. tional amendments in his December 1862 State of the Union Two battles were indecisive: Seven Pines (or Fair Oaks) on message to Congress. The first was that the slaves not freed May 31 to June 1, 1862, and Antietam (or Sharpsburg) on by the Emancipation Proclamation be freed gradually over a Sept. 17, 1862. In the West, Grant took Fort Donelson on Feb. 37-year period, to be completed by Jan. 1, 1900. The second 14, 1862, and captured 14,000 Confederate soldiers. But then provided compensation to owners for the loss of their slave he was caught by surprise in the battle of Shiloh on April fr­ property. The third was that the government transport freed 7, 1862, and lost 13,000 of his 51,000 men. Sickened by the blacks, at government expense, out of the country and relo­ carnage, Northerners did not appreciate at the time that cate them to Latin America and Africa. Lincoln wrote that Shiloh was a strategic victory. Then came Antietam on Sept. freed blacks need"new homes [to] be found for them, in con­ 17, the bloodiest day in the entire war; the Union army lost genial climes, and with people of their own blood and race." more than 12,000 of its 60,000 troops engaged in the battle. For Lincoln, emancipation and deportation were inseparably Did saving the Union justify the slaughter of such a large connected. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Wells wrote in his number of young men? The Confederates posed no military diary that Lincoln"thought it essential to provide an asylum threat to the North. Perhaps it would be better to let the for a race which he had emancipated, but which could never southern states go, along with their 4 million slaves. If it was be recognized or admitted to be our equals." As historian Leone Bennett Jr. puts it, "It was an article of faith to him [Lincoln] that emancipation and deportation went together The rallying call in the North at the begin­ like firecrackers and July Fourth, and that you couldn't have one without the other." ning of the war was "preserve the Union, II not Congress refused to consider Lincoln's proposals, which "free the slaves. II Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune labeled whales' tubs of "gradualism, compensation, [and] exportation." None of the Confederate states took the opportunity to rejoin the going to win, the North needed a more compelling reason to Union in the 100-day window offered and the war continued continue the war than to preserve the Union. for another two years and four months. Eight months later Five days after the Battle of Antietam, on Sept. 22, 1862, the 13th Amendment was ratified, and slavery ended every­ Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. where in the United States (without gradualism, compensa­ The Emancipation Proclamation was a "war measure," as tion, or exportation). Lincoln put it. Foreign correspondents covering the war rec­ Black and white Americans sustained racial and political ognized it as a brilliant propaganda coup. Emancipation wounds from the war and the subsequent Reconstruction would take place only in rebel states not under Union con­ that proved deep and long-lasting. This was partly because trol. The president could not abolish slavery; if not done at the freed slaves were confined, with little support, to the sec­ the state level, abolition would require a constitutional tion of the country that had been devastated by war. amendment. Slaveholders and their slaves in Missouri, Northern abolitionists wanted southern Black slaves to be Liberty 43 October 2001 freed, but certainly did not want them to move north and Dickens' views on the subject were typical: live alongside them. Indiana and Illinois, in particular, had Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; laws that barred African-Americans from settling. Healing secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. the wounds was also slowed by the twelve-year military The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils. occupation and "Reconstruction" that the South was forced The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, to endure after the war. At a gathering of former confederate solely a fiscal quarrel. soldiers shortly before he died, Robert E. Lee said: Karl Marx seconded this view: If I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of The war between the North and the South is a tariff war. their victory, there would have been no surrender at The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at sovereignty. Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in my right hand. The South fought the war for essentially the same reason Why were business and political leaders in the North so that the American colonies fought the Revolutionary War. intent on keeping the southern states in the Union? It was, to The central grievance of the American colonies in the 18th paraphrase Charles Dickens, solely a fiscal matter. The prin­ century was the taxes imposed on them by Britain. Colonists cipal source of tax revenue for the federal governmentbefore particularly objected to, the Stamp Act, which required them to purchas'e an official British stamp and place it on all legal documents for them to be valid. The colonists also objected to the tariff that Britain placed on sugar and other goods (the The Emancipation Proclamation was a "war Sugar Act). measure, 1/ as Lincoln put it. Foreign correspon­ After the enactment of what was called the "Tariff of dents covering the war recognized it as a bril­ Abomination" in 1828, promoted by Henry Clay, the tax on imports ranged between 20-30%. It rose further in March liant propaganda coup. 1861 when Lincoln, at the start of his presidency, signed ,the Morrill Tariff into law. This tax was far more onerous than the one forced on the American colonies by Britain in the the Civil War was a tariff on imports. There was no income 18th century. tax, except for one declared unconstitutional shortly after its Lincoln coerced the South to fire the first shots when, enactment during the Civil War. Tariffs imposed by the fed­ against the advice of most of his cabinet, he dispatched ships eral government not only accounted for most of the federal carrying troops and munitions to resupply Fort Sumter, site budget, they also raised the price of imported goods to a of the customs house at Charleston. Charleston militia took level where the less-efficient manufacturers of the northeast the bait and bombarded the fort on April 12, 1861. After could be competitive. Former Vice President John C. those first shots were fired, the pro-Union press branded Calhoun put it this way: Southern secession an "armed rebellion" and called for The North had adopted a system of revenue and disburse­ Lincoln to suppress it. ments in which an undue proportion of the burden of taxa­ Congress was adjourned at the time and for the next tion has been imposed upon the South, and an undue three months, Lincoln ignored his constitutional duty to call proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the North ... the the legislative branch into session during a time of emer­ South, as the great exporting portion of the Union, has in real­ gency and assumed dictatorial powers. He shut down more ity paid vastly more than her due proportion of the revenue. than 300 newspapers that disagreed with his war policy. In 1861, the New York Evening Post editorialized on this Although the exact number is not known, Lincoln may well point: That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the port must be closed to importa­ tions from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these Emancipation would take place only in rebel things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; states not under Union control. the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carryon the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe. There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the have arrested and imprisoned more than 20,000 political army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the sal­ opponents, Southern sympathizers, and people suspected of aries of public officers; the present order of things must come being disloyal to the Union and suspended the' privilege of to a dead stop. habeas corpus, something only Congress in a time of war has Given the serious financial difficulties the Union would the power to do. Lincoln's soldiers arrested civilians without face if the Southern states were a separate republic the Post any charges being filed; and, if trials were held at all, they urged the Union to hold on to its custom houses in the were conducted by military commissions. He permitted Southern ports so that they could continue to collect duty. Union troops to arrest Baltimore's mayor, chief of police, and The Post goes on to say that incoming ships to the "rebel a Maryland, congressman, along with 31 state legislators. states" that try to evade the North's custom houses should When Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote an be considered as carrying contraband and be intercepted. opinion that said these actions were unlawful and violated Observers in Britain looked beyond the rhetoric of "pre­ serve the Union" and saw what was really at stake. Charles continued on page 60 44 Liberty Short Story

The DEA Trials

by Bart Kosko

"The caller had a point. how he was doing. They did not seem mandatory sentencing and now the How does it feel to be under to care. The host had joked with him bastards give us pot parties and designer smart drugs and sex boosters. investigation?" and told him to relax before the first What kind of man needs a sex booster? "It's a travesty," Eddy Shaw said. eight-minute segment. Now Shaw I don't need a pill or a wire to get a "Scared?" the host said. wondered if they would still pay for his hotel room that night. He would good nut. That little producer bitch in "I'm more angry than scared." pay for his own taxi back to the hotel. black would work just fine. "Think someone is trying to make The plane ticket back to LA was what Well shit happens. In the old days an example of you?" mattered and it sat in the vest pocket of they did a lot more than turn a blind "Sure they are. I was just doing my his suit. eye when we had to plant to make a job." Shaw tried not to think how he bust. They were all on our side. "Want to name names?" would find a good lawyer and how he Fucking liars. Now they act like they "Not on the air." would pay for it. He blocked that with never knew. "Ever think we would legalize a worst-case thought. His training at And now I'm the fall guy. I'm the drugs? Ever think you could just walk Quantico had taught him that. Cut to bad guy on TV. Bureaucrat bastards. into a liquor store and buy peyote the end game. Wonder if it stops with me or starts chocolates?" Fuck it. I can dump the house in with me. I should just come out and "Not in a million years. It's crazy." Culver City and move back in with tell them how many hundreds of "We'll be right back for our Dad in Stockton. Fuck the house and plants we all made. See how the remaining moments with former DEA fuck the job search and fuck the early agency likes that. Special Agent Eddy Shaw." pension. I could make payments on the But fuck it. They can never pin this The old host of the talk show did house for a few more months anyway. Ringer plant on me. Ringer can't even not talk to Shaw during the break. The Forget the house. The house is gone. be sure I was the one who did it. host talked instead to a young female It's too late to change the title. Maybe "Ready?" the host asked Shaw with producer with long black hair and a let the ex have it. Fuck that too. a fresh smile. black leather jacket. She told him that Bastards can't squeeze child support "Yes." Sen. Rawlings would appear on the from a bankrupt. "Good. Watch the clock. We've got show the next night only if the host Who would have thought things only about a minute." would let Sen. Trueblood appear with would change so fast? First Germany The first cameraman gave them the him. The two senators from Nevada and Colombia legalized small amounts on-air sign with his ring finger. Shaw had just written a bill that would allow of pot and coke in 1994. Then came the tried to look at the host and not the adults to buy most medicines without Dutch and the rest of those European second camera lens. a prescription. She said the senator scumbags. One day the Democrats go "We're back for our remaining seemed afraid to go one on one with from upping our raid budget to moments with former DEA Special the president of the American Medical passing"prohibition reform." Reform Agent Eddy Shaw. Eddy. How many Association. The host rubbed his eyes hell. Just caving into the big tobacco drug cases did you work on in your with his palms and agreed. firms and the biotech lobby and career?" Eddy Shaw stared at the host and listening to those crazy fucking "Quite a few." the girl and hoped they would tell him libertarians. First they gave us "Over a hundred?" Liberty 45 October 2001

/lMaybe indirectly. I testified at "No. He tried to sell it to me." enough to put 100 people in jail or on only a few dozen trials." "You're sure?" probation. You were sure then but you

/I Any complaints against you?" "Yes." are not sure now?" /lEvery agent gets complaints," "Yet on the videotape we watched "That's right," Eddy said. Shaw said. you said you had never met Mr. Eddy tried not to look at the twelve /lEver take a bribe?" Ringer. Now you don't just say you jurors to his left. But he could feel the

/I Never." met Mr. Ringer. You say he tried to sell heat of their stares. "Ever plant evidence?" drugs to you. Which is it? Were you Cocksuckers. They made up their "No." lying then or are you lying now?" minds six months ago when they saw "Then why you first? Why did the Eddy glanced at his lawyer at the my first run on "Hard Copy." Now Justice Department suspend your brown oak table. they get five bucks a day to watch pension?" Skinny bastard. That gray suit had trash TV live. Dumb bastards don't /lWho knows? Society needs a to cost twice what I paid for this even care that they can't take notes or scapegoat. DEA agents are easy pinstripe thing. Should never have ask questions. Jury is God. Shit. Cash is targets." called that number for lawyer referrals. God. Can't profit from a crime. They "Think the special grand jury will Could have done just as well as my all profit from it. The state killed my book deal but they are all making indict you?" own lawyer and stayed out of debt. money off this. I bet half the jurors "No. Criminal allegations come Could have paid a temp who had been have already cut book deals of their down to evidence. And here there's no a paralegal to make sure I got the right own. This whole fucking trial is a case because there's no evidence." forms and filed them at the right time. media production. Everyone is just /lWhat if the witness worked for the Any jerk can pay $20 and get a copy of playing out the script. They should pay DEA too?" the court's "local rules." me for playing the bad guy. "I don't believe it." Little fucking weasel. He wants me Skullfuck these cocksuckers. I "Ever take drugs during to twist on this one. Perry Mason should just stand up now and walk prohibition?" would bejumping up right now with a out. Let them grab me and get it over "Never. Still don't." good objection or two. His incentive to with. Ten years ago when I had not yet "Thirty seconds. Eddy. Did you win this case ran out with my savings. grown this gut for cover I would have He knows I will stiff done something like that. And sure him on fees. He's a would have taken that fucking lawyer Sellout coward. Wants me to plea bargain lawyer. Maybe he can prick with me. before he halts the trial to look at the FBI beat them out of part of "No more questions," the my house. Shit. Imagine prosecutor said. tape. Won't even tell me what they really them hitting me with Eddy looked at his lawyer again. said back there. asset forfeiture. The lawyer gave a faint shake of his "Mr. Shaw. Which is head. The judge told Eddy to step the truth?" down. Eddy knew something was plant the LSD paper on Mark Ringer?" "Answer the question," Judge wrong when the young prosecutor /lNo. I don't know the man." Kaufmann said. turned to face the judge to call one of "He says you did." "I met hundreds of people in the the state's FBI witnesses. "Then he's lying." field when I worked the concerts. I "Your honor. The state now asks to "Ever meet him?" could have met Mr. Ringer. I think I call its last witness. He works as a "Never." did. I think he tried to sell me special agent for the Federal Bureau of "A Deadhead fan has turned in an something. It's been a few years. I can't Investigation and has agreed to testify. enhanced photo of a Grateful Dead be sure." To minimize his exposure the state concert with you in it. Have you seen "You can't be sure?" asks your honor to clear the courtroom it?" "No." of all nonessential personnel." "What photo?" Eddy Shaw said. "Yet you worked 14 years for the "The court agrees. Bailiff." "Look at it. That sure looks like you Drug Enforcement Administration. In The crowd waslargely reporters sitting with Mark Ringer." that time how many drug dealers did and drug convicts. They spokein .:. you help convict?" whispers as they left Eddy did not "Do you know Mark Ringer?" "I don't know. It depends on how turn to watch them leave. He looked "I believe we met at a Grateful you count them. Most busts were team down at the notes his lawyer had Dead concert in the summer of 1994." jobs." scrawled on the yellow legal pad and "Did you speak with him?" "Mr. Shaw. How many busts did tried to read them to fight down the "I may have. I can't recall." you make? How many people did you fear. "Did you smoke hashish with help convict?" Shit. Which one was Special Agent him?" "I don't know. Maybe a few over Ronald Sutton? Which FBI fuck in a "No," Eddy Shaw said. 100." suit wants to knife me now? They "Did you offer to sell him LSD?" "Over 100. Your recall was good tripped us up enough times before. 46 Liberty October 2001

Bastards would never smoke dope or Eddy. prosecutor before he announced the grow their hair long. That fooled no But the worst was which federal recess. one. Thought they were too good to judge had approved the Title-III .:. hang out with us. They should have wiretap. Eddy now learned that it had Eddy followed his lawyer through stuck with bank robbers. Preppy little been Judge Richard Kaufmann himself. the empty courtroom to the judge's shits. A lot of good they get from those The Justice Department had now chambers. He had waited less than five fucking college degrees in history and managed to hit a forum-shopping minutes for the lawyer to meet with political science and bullshit like that. home run by getting Eddy's case the prosecutor and the judge behind If they would have left me alone then I before Kaufmann. But he had seen this the large brown oak doors. Now he would be finishing up my degree now kind of thing before. in criminal justice at USC. I will get had to trust his lawyer again. The prosecutor let the agent speak back in the program and finish it when Fucking sellout coward. Wants me I get some money. They can't stop that. for ten minutes. to plea bargain before he halts the trial The bailiff swore in a thin man in Then he asked if the FBI planned to to look at the FBI tape. Won't even tell his 40s who wore a crew cut and a arrest Eddy in the near future. Eddy's me what they really said back there. dark blue suit. Eddy's lawyer wrote lawyer objected but the judge Fuck his fees. I can do worse than that. "Have you seen him before?" on the overruled him. Agent yellow pad. Eddy raised his eyebrows Sutton said he could to say "I don't think so" because he did not comment on the Who would have thought things would not know. Eddy breathed deeply to try details of the case. The to slow his pounding heart. He knew court would have to change so fast? First Germany and. Justice had watched him but that was make do with the tape Colombia legalized small amounts of pot and through his old office. Eddy tried to and transcript. coke in 1994. Then came the Dutch and the catch the FBI agent's eye and place his "What's on the face. tape?" the lawyer wrote rest of those European scumbags. FBI Special Agent Ronald Sutton to Eddy. Once more did not look at Eddy as he explained Eddy raised his his investigation. He looked back and eyebrows to say he did notknow. He When this ends I will file against him forth at the district-court judge and the wanted to say it was bullshit but he at the California Bar. state prosecutor. The FBI had run the could not speak. Eddy walked in the judge's career data on all DEA agents through Wish the fuck I knew. Stupid chambers and heard the soft orchestral the National Security Agency's fucking lawyer. music that came from a CD player on computers at Fort Meade. Each agent Everyone knows a FAG is the the judge's desk. He did not know or fit each of the hundred of good-guy common cold of FBI charges. The state care that it was a Bruckner symphony. and bad-guy "profiles" to some fuzzy might as well pile that one on with its Judge Kaufmann sat behind his neat degree. Eddy had fit some bad profiles 18 counts of extortion and racketeering oak desk with his black robe draped enough to put him under active FBI and mail fraud. I have seen this a around the back of his black-leather suspicion. The computers ran neural hundred times. Pile on the charges and chair. He gave Eddy his full attention. programs based on how brains make the fuck fight the whole stack. The prosecutor sat at a large recognize patterns. They matched Perjury is next. This skinny bastard mahogany table and marked up the patterns well but could not explain wants to cut a deal with them. The FBI FBI transcript. He did not look up until themselves. So the FBI had to assign scares him and he thinks it scares the Eddy stood before him. field agents like Sutton to investigate jury too. But what the fuck do they "Eddy," the judge said. "Sit down. high-risk DEA agents like Eddy. have on that tape? Sure the fuck hope We are here to try to get this thing over Sutton thought Eddy and two of his it's not real agent talk. Has to be John with. Do you want that?" DEA friends might have committed a and Chavez. Who knows what those "Yes," Eddy said as he sat with his fraud against the government or a two guys said. lawyer across from the prosecutor. FAG. The FBI tapped their home and The lawyer then pushed the yellow "Good. Notice the door is closed. . office lines and got daily updates on all pad in front of Eddy. It said "Let's talk So this is all off the record. I want the their credit-card and banking actions. before the jury hears this." Eddy three of you to speak freely." Agent Sutton held a tape in his right thought that meant he and the lawyer "Thanks," the prosecutor said. hand of portions of phone calls among would talk. So he shook his head yes. "Eddy. I don't believe a fucking word the three friends. He said the FBI had He saw his mistake when the lawyer you said on the stand. I have only just declassified this tape and its jumped to his feet at Sutton's first skimmed this FBI transcript but it transcript. The FBI still had much more pause. looks like we can nail you on at least data that it could not declassify "Your honor?" Eddy's lawyer said two fresh counts of perjury alone. without revealing FBI sources and as he stood up. "In light of this new Remember the U.s. Code? It says each techniques. The FBI had reopened the testimony and evidence the defense count can get you five years in prison FAG investigation when new sources asks for a meeting in chambers." and $10,000 for the privilege." came forth with evidence against Judge Kaufmann looked at the "That's bullshit. No one prosecutes Liberty 47 October 2001 perjury charges any more." "Look," the prosecutor said. "Eddy. This was it. Prison. He was going to Judge Kaufmann raised his You're right. I don't need your fucking fucking prison. eyebrows. plea bargain to win this case. We all Cocksuckers. They did it at last. "Let's wait," Eddy's lawyer said. know that. So I'll tell you why the state And it's my good pal John. John told "My client has come here on good will give you a break. It's for the me about some DEA clown they faith." reason you just said. The only thing caught in Mendocino skimming his "He wants to cut a deal," the worse than a bad cop is a lot of bad buy money. The stupid bastard is still prosecutor sa~d. cops. And we know you know who in Leavenworth. John should know. "I didn't say that," the lawyer said. they are." Now he'd put me in Leavenworth just "We just want to explore all the "You want me to narc," Eddy said. to keep his name out of the papers. options." "Can you guarantee my client will Spineless son of a bitch. Knew I should "He wants to cut a deal because he serve no time?" Eddy's lawyer asked. never trust him. And that fucking was a corrupt cop and now he knows "Shut the fuck up," Eddy said. Mexican Chavez. But Jesus. Think we have proven that to the jury. This "Listento him," the prosecutor what the kids will have to go through morning I thought we could convict said. "It's the right question to ask. in school. Their dad a con and a stool him on at least half of the 18 charges. What's left of your career and your pigeon. Now thanks to Special Agent Sutton future turns on it. But the answer to it But I have to make the right move we can get convictions on more like 15 is no. You will taste prison. The only now. This cocksucker is right. We can or 16 of the 20. Eddy. Did you follow question is how many years." knock off years here in the next few that math? You are going away for at "I won't talk." minutes. Someday in a cell that will least 30 years. Plus what the FBI gives "Eddy. I've read the transcript. You mean the world. I'll be there because of you. Plus restitution fees. Plus the and I know what's on the tape. The what we do here now and no one will punitive damages you get from the three of you made jokes about setting remember it. Even the kids will grow civil suits of Mark Ringer and a dozen up Mark Ringer." up to forget me. Wonder if what John other young men and women you "That's a fucking lie. Who knows heard was true or crap. Wonder if they ruined. Lose one case and then lose how the FBI doctored those tapes for really put contracts out on cops in them all." you." prison. They gut you on the field or "I don't have to listen to this," "You know better than that. The punk you in the shower. Fucking AIDS Eddy said. Bureau boys followed all the federal gang rape. Maybe I can join one of "You are in no position to issue rules of evidence in this plain-vanilla those gangs for protection. No way. edicts. You'll listen and you'll do the Title-III electronic surveillance. The Too many there from drug busts. I'll right thing because youare not as tapes are solid evidence. And in a few find a way to deal with it. But fuck. stupid as you are scared." hours I will be having this same talk Hate to think I may have had my last "Then why waste your time?" with at least two of your ex-DEA good glass of cold Dutch beer or my Eddy said. "You think the jury will friends. You know John Monroe and last piece of pussy. hang me? Let them." Jose Chavez. Don'tyou? They'll talk if "Eddy," the prosecutor said. "Will "I'd love to. I hate crooked cops." you won't. And frankly we can offer you testify?" "Fuck you. I saw you before. You them a better deal. Don't be the "How many years and where?" prosecuted your share of drug busts. sucker." "I don't know where.. We'll shoot You fucking hypocrite." The music on the CD player had for a parole option at seven years. "Eddy," the judge said. "Knock it swelled and ended in an abrupt That's the best we can do." off." orchestral chord. Eddy wanted to hear "Will I be secure?" "Sorry," Eddy said to the judge. what came next in the Bruckner "Eddy. Come on. Did you ever "That's right," the prosecutor said. symphony. Right now it was all that study physics?" "I prosecute those who break the law. mattered. "No." The drug laws changed. The laws you "Eddy. Will you testify for the "Me neither. But I do know there is broke have not changed." state?" something in it called the Schrodinger "Shit. You played the game like the "Do I have to plead guilty?" wave equation. It describes how all the rest of us. Back then it was always a "Of course. That's the"first step. matter in the universe flows. They tell wink and a nod. You sucked up to us You know that." me if you look at it right it has a like we were your best fucking friends. "What about the witness protection solution: What goes around comes Anything to·win a case. You lying program?" the lawyer asked. around. You threw a lot of motherfucker." "No chance. Besides. Eddy is a boomerangs when you were on top. "Eddy," thejudge said again. celebrity. Where would he hide? The Now some of them are still out there "Sorry. But it's the fucking truth. safest place for him will be prison." spinning in the dark and building You guys knew goddamn well that Eddy had felt the brief relief of momentum. You will have to deal with sometimes we had to plant shit to knowing that it was over. Now that them." make a bust." had passed to fear. Eddy saw for the "Can you guarantee parole in seven "Really?" the judge said. "I didn't first time what he would now become years?" the lawyer asked. know that." and how he might even come to die. "The state will do its best." 1--1 48 Liberty The New Dealer's War: FDR and the War Within World ing Japanese codes, and believed that leaking the "Rainbow Five" plan might War II, by Thomas Fleming. Basic Books, 2001, XII+628 pages. provoke Hitler into declaring war on the United States (Germany had a mutual defense pact with Japan, but was not required to enter any war with the United States that Japan had Country Squire in started). "Unconditional Surrender" Roosevelt The meat of Fleming's book is an the War Room account of FDR's disastrous conduct in trying to obtain Germany's uncondi­ tional surrender. At the Casablanca L 1938 election season, Roosevelt fool­ meeting with Churchill in January of Clark Stooksbury ishly attempted to purge the 1943, Roosevelt made reference to Democratic Party of his politicaloppo­ "Unconditional Surrender" Grant, and It would be a gross understatement nents. He failed in this effort and the announced that that would" be the only to call The New Dealer's War a revision­ Republicans rebounded strongly that terms under which the Allies would ist history of World War II. Thomas year, almost doubling their numbers in cease hostilities with Germany, Italy, and Japan. It was a plan that had a host Fleming has not "revised" the FDR the House of Representatives. / myth, he has entered the Roosevelt A bigger concern for the president of critics among the military and diplo­ Wing of the American Pantheon with a in the late 1930s was how to involve matic leadership in the United States sledgehammer and reduced it to the United States in the brewing and Britain. Gen. Eisenhower thought shambles. European war when public sentiment it would unnecessarily cost lives and FDR's optimistic, jovial demeanor, in the wake of World War I was make the war much more difficult for best exemplified by the smile with the strongly isolationist. As one Cold War­ the United States; arguing that"if you upturned cigarette holder, concealed era historian stated, Americans of the were given two choices, one to mount a scaffold, the other to charge twenty an arrogant and sometimes vindictive 1930s If wished to evade all responsibil­ political leader. But a great many ity for the world outside their bor­ bayonets, you may as well charge Americans, including the family of the ders." A less tendentious way of twenty bayonets." Joseph Goebbels, on young Thomas Fleming, held stating it is that in the wake of the the other hand, was thrilled. He called Roosevelt in high esteem. "Every time Great War, Americans were once bit, it "world historical tomfoolery" and I walked into the vestibule of my fam­ and twice shy. asked, "how can any German, whether ily home in Jersey City in the 1940s," Roosevelt had his work cut out for he likes it or not, do anything but fight Fleming writes, "I saw Franklin D. him. He set out preparing war plans on with all his strength7" Eisenhower Roosevelt's face on the wall, where and trying to provoke Germany and and Goebbels used the same logic to many devout Irish-Catholic families Japan, instructing the U.S. Navy to come to their conclusions. hung a portrait of the Sacred Heart of commit numerous acts of war against One tragic consequence of Jesus. FDR was the hero of my youth ..." each. On Dec. 4, 1941, the Chicago Roosevelt's policy was that it almost Franklin Roosevelt's reputation in Tribune and Washington Times-Herald destroyed internal German resistance American history comes from his tow­ carried stories about a War to the Nazi regime. The timing of his ering achievements of "saving capital­ Department plan called "Rainbow announcement was particularly inaus­ ism" during the 1930s and saving the Five" that would have had 5 million picious, coming. just as the German world in the 1940s. In the 1930s U.S. troops invade Europe by 1943. On army was suffering a crucial defeat in Roosevelt took advantage of the near the surface, this was a tremendous Stalingrad, a defeat that might other­ total destruction of the Republican embarrassment to the Roosevelt wise have led German officers to sup­ Party to carry out what Garet Garrett administration, but Fleming speculates port a coup against Hitler - but as called a "revolution within the form." that FDR was behind publication of the German resistance leader Adm. But by the late 1930s his act was wear­ report because he knew that a Japanese Wihelm Canaris said, "unconditional ing thin. His attempt to pack the attack on the United States was immi­ surrender, no, our generals will not Supreme Court was a disaster. In the nent, thanks to U.S. intelligence break- swallow that. Now I cannot see Clny Liberty 49 October 2001 solution." Losing the opportunity of side of the Axis leadership? Fleming ures from the 1940s - Vice President working with anti-Hitler elements of attributes it in part to his mistaken Henry Wallace and the 1940 the German officer corps apparently belief that Gen. Grant demanded and Republican presidential nominee, did not bother Roosevelt, who received the unconditional surrender Wendell Wilkie - perhaps two of the squelched one inquiry from Office of of the Confederacy. What Grant actu­ biggest buffoons of the 20th century. Strategic Services head William ally received at Appomattox Wallace set the tone early in his tenure Donovan by saying that he did not Courthouse was the conditional sur­ as veep by closing the saloon that his want to negotiate with "these East render of the Army of Northern predecessor, John Nance Garner, had German Junkers." Virginia. Grant got his reputation for established and replacing it with a As British historians Peter insisting on unconditional surrender gym; announcing his intention to Calvocoressi and Guy Wint wrote in two years earlier, when he demanded remove "an inch off the waist of every their book Total War: (and got) the unconditional surrender senator whose girth is above 40 and The German conspirators against whose "age is below 60." Aside from Hitler were the natural allies of being a laughingstock, Wallace was anybody fighting Nazism but they Why did Roosevelt adopt a FOR's moralist-in-chief.. Repeatedly, were not ... allies of a state at war Fleming quotes Wallace promising with - or contemplating having policy that had virtually no some sort of global New Deal after the to fight Germany. The common support outside of the Axis war or denouncing his domestic politi­ ground between the German anti­ leadership? cal opponents as fascists or Nazi sym­ Nazis and the enemies of the pathizers. Once, during the 1944 German state was not as large or campaign, Wallace stated that every as open as it seemed to those for vote for Dewey would be "applauded whom the struggle was about of Confederate forces at Fort Donelson. in Berlin." Eventually Wallace proved righteousness rather than terri­ Fleming also attributes Roosevelt's to be a liability, especially to insiders tory.... The conspirators failed to policy to his experiences from World find outside allies because, who knew that Roosevelt was dying, War I, when he was an assistant Navy and the Democrats replaced him with besides being anti-Nazi, they were secretary under Wilson. In those days Harry Truman to the great disappoint­ also German. anti-German hysteria was so advanced Why would Roosevelt adopt a pol­ ment of the remaining New Dealers. that some states banned teaching Wendell Wilkie was nearly as bom­ icy that had virtually no support out- German and a prominent Protestant bastic and moralistic. In his contempt minister advocated .sterilizing the for members of his own party and Are you disillusioned with entire German army and talked of the United States' "duty of simply extermi­ nating the German people." AYN RAND Although Roosevelt was unable to FDR repeatedly allowed and see any good in the German people, he himself to be manipulated· by had a glowingly positive opinion of Stalin, even to the extent of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet state, per­ Objectivism? haps because of the influence of the agreeing to force the repatria­ many Soviet agents serving in his tion of Soviet refugees, whom Then call the administration. In any event, FOR Stalin promptly transferred to repeatedly allowed· himself to be Forgiving Objectivist. ma"nipulated by Stalin, even to the the gulag. extent of agreeing to force the repatria­ I've been through it. If I can tion of Soviet refugees, whom Stalin promptly transferred to the gulag. repeated pandering to the opposition, forgive Objectivism, then Roosevelt also repeatedly ignored he foreshadowed John McCain. He anyone can. Now I provide emerging evidence that Soviet troops repeatedly denounced isolationism counsel to disillusioned massacred 10,000 Polish officers in the and on one occasion told his and alienated Objectivists. Katyn Forest in 1940. Since it was ini­ Republican audience that, "if you had tially reported by the Nazis, the crime been half as smart as President was easy to dismiss. But Roosevelt con­ Roosevelt, the Republicans would have Read my story: tinued to blame the massacre on the advocated the legislation that brought www.chrisbaker.netlforgive.html Nazis, even after hearing eyewitness the New Deal to power." Not surpris­ accounts of the Soviet slaughter, and ingly, Wilkie was the favorite an admission by the head of the Soviet Rt!publican of The New York Times, Chris Baker secret police. which proclaimed him to be "head and 614-267-0328 Like a novel, The New Dealer's War shoulders" above other potential has numerous subplots to accompany Republican presidential candidates in [email protected] the main narrative. It even has comic 1944. He met his Waterloo in the relief, exploits of two prominent fig- Wisconsin primary in 1944, finishing 50 Liberty October 2001 dead last and getting no delegates. by Christopher Hitchens. Verso, Shortly thereafter, he unexpectedly The Trial of Henry Kissinger, withdrew from the race with a state­ 2001, 159 pages. ment that "castigated both the Republican Party and the citizens of Wisconsin as moral midgets who failed to respond to the great crusade for international peace to which he sum­ moned them." Franklin Roosevelt was a moralist The Crimes of who, like many crusaders, was capable of ignoring the tremendous evil that accompanied his effort. The most obvi­ ous flaw in FDR's moral veneer on the Henry Kissinger home front was his decision to move 120,000 Japanese-Americans into internment camps - a move Fleming reveals that even J. Edgar Hoover which had occurred at the same time. opposed. Fleming reports another Stephen Berry "War Crimes" there had been aplenty. racist episode that involved a federal Yes, unrestricted submarine war­ housing project built in Detroit's heav­ In the mid-1960s Bertrand Russell fare by the German navy would be ily Polish-American Hamtramck sub­ and friends decided to set up a war scrupulously examined. No, the oblit­ urb. Twenty percent of.the units were crimes tribunal on the Vietnam War. eration of German cities by the Allied set aside for black workers and their Russell's original idea of a tribunal of air forces was not relevant. "Crimes families, but when whites protested, disinterested judges was quickly against Humanity" would be treated in the feds caved, setting aside the whole thrown overboard, and the tribunal the same way. The mass killing of sub­ housing project for whites. Fleming limited its interest to allegations of ject races by the Germans would come writes that, "black Detroit seethed. A American and South Vietnamese war under the microscope, but not the federal housing official told presiden­ crimes. Amongst those on the tribunal Katyn Forest massacre or the dropping tial assistant Marvin McIntyre that the were Jean-Paul Sartre, Isaac Deutscher, of the atomic bomb on Japan. agency ... followed local recommen­ and Simone de Beauvoir, all 24-karat But you would be wrong if you leftists whose anti-American creden­ dations, even if they clashed head-on thought that the obvious double­ tials were impeccable. A statement was with racial equality. McIntyre blandly standards of the original trials had issued demanding the trial of war dulled the appetite for these one-sided agreed, telling black protesters that it criminals Johnson, Rusk, McNamara, charades. Slobodan Milosevic has was important to avoid I an open fight' and Lodge. The one-sided nature of recently found himself in the dock at lest it interfere with the war effort." Russell's tribunal managed to unite in The Hague, where Western authorities Ironically, the housing project, which condemnation The New York Times and will be looking in detail at alleged was later integrated with considerable New Leader in the United States and Serbian atrocities, while the activities ' difficulty, was called the "Sojourner Peace News and the Daily Mail in the of the drug-peddling KLA will scarcely Truth Homes." United Kingdom. figure. Ethnic cleansing by the Serbs The New DeaLer's War is a timely What the newspapers could see will be under the spotlight. But the contribution to the study of World War with perfect clarity when confronted biggest single example of ethnic cleans­ II, coming in time for the 60th anniver­ by the Russell tribunal is unaccounta­ ing in the recent Balkan wars, the sary of the U.S. entry into World War bly lost when the war crimes trials at expulsion of hundreds of thousands of II. Fleming makes a solid case that FDR Nuremberg, Tokyo, and The Hague Serbs from the Krajina region by the was not merely a bad war president, are examined. People overlook that Croats, backed by their western allies, but a disastrous one. He covers the Russell and his supporters had will barely merit a mention. often grotesque details of the uncondi­ adhered to the Nuremberg model in its With everyone having fun accusing tional surrender policy, the terror entirety. As with Nuremberg, the their enemies of war crimes, it would bombings of civilians in Japan and judges would be openly biased against be churlish to deny the odd journalist Germany, the attempts by Roosevelt the defendants. As with Nuremberg, his day. Christopher Hitchens pro­ and his allies to demonize political only one side of the story would be poses to put Henry Kissinger on trial opponents at home and many other looked at. for war crimes. It was always bemus­ facets of America's role in World War The Nuremberg Indictment set the ing to an outsider to see the extent to II that contradict the "Good War" standard. "Crimes Against Peace" had which journalists in the United States myth. In doing so, Fleming accom­ clearly occurred. Yes, we would look at wanted to hang Richard Nixon> out to plishes what he calls the "historian's the German invasion of western dry for doing the sort of things that chief task ... to separate history from Poland. No, we would not look at the other U.S. presidents commonly did. memory." I...J Soviet march into eastern Poland Unfortunately, "Tricky Dick" spoilt the Liberty 51 October 2001 party by dying and Henry Kissinger administration." When Nixon entered Imagine further that some of his work­ had to be appointed to take over the office, American troop numbers in ers commit a robbery· whilst working Nixon mantel. Vietnam stood at 525,000. By 1972 they for the firm. Would it be fair to hold It has to be said that the case had been reduced to 25,000. him responsible for their behavior? I brought by Hitchens against Kissinger Hitchens is shocked at Nixon's suggest that the robbers and any is rather w~ak. "colluding with a foreign power" (12). immediate supervisors who knew "There exists, within the political Goodness gracious, does Hitchens about the robbery should be held class of Washington, D.C., an open know nothing of history? The House of responsible. Similarly, I believe that secret that is too momentous and too Stuart sought the help of France in its the troops in Nanking and their offi­ awful to tell" (p. 6), Hitchens warns attempts to recover the British crown. cers should be held responsible, but ominously. Thankfully, Hitchens is In the Russian civil war, the Whites not those who opposed it or did not eagerly sought the help of Western know it was taking place. powers in their fight against the Reds. Hirota had no control over troops If I were to number all the opposition in the battle zone and demonstrated Hitchens charges Kissinger groups in Third World countries which that he disapproved of their misbehav­ with war crimes here. He is have solicited the help of the United ior. Kissinger was in the same not charging him with failing States since 1945 to overthrow the situation. existing government, I· could draw up And it really would be strange if a to be a boy scout. a list the length of my arm. Why representative of the administration should American politicians thirsting which did the most to end the war in for state power be denied what has Indochina should be put on trial for made of tough stuff and bravely lets been allowed to those in similar straits the horrors that went on there. I would the cat out of the bag. During the 1968 the world over? At least when Nixon's be more inclined to lay the blame on presidential campaign, Kissinger, at entourage colluded with the South the administrations of Kennedy and that time a Democrat, was working for Vietnamese, it was with a friendly Johnson, who both expanded the Lyndon Johnson, assisting with the power. Is this the stuff of which war American presence in Vietnam. One peace talks taking place with the North crimes are made? might add that the Kennedy White Vietnamese. According to Hitchens, Hitchens quotes approvingly the House mounted a successful coup Kissinger told Nixon that Johnson was claim of Gen. Telford Taylor, a chief against the South Vietnamese govern­ contemplating a bombing halt to help prosecutor· at Nuremberg, that if the ment in which the president, Ngo Dinh the campaign of Nixon's opponent, standards of Nuremberg and Tokyo Diem, was killed. One might point out Hubert Humphrey. Nixon's supporters had been applied to the American that Lyndon Johnson used a trumped­ in turntold the South Vietnamese gov­ statesmen and bureaucrats involved up naval incident to fool Congress into ernment that a Nixon government with Vietnam policy, "there would be would offer a better deal than any that a very strong possibility that they could be offered by the Democrats. The would come to the same end he South Vietnamese promptly withdrew [General Yamashita] did" (25). In his Kissinger in government from the Paris talks, damaging the rush to establish the culpability of behaved as one might expect a "peace plank" on which the Democrats Kissinger, Hitchens mentions the trial student of Metternich and were contesting the election. Four of Koki Hirota, the Japanese foreign years later Nixon struck a deal sub­ minister between 1933 and 1938. When Bismarck to behave. stantially the same as that which was Hirota heard of the Rape of Nanking on offer in 1968, but in those interven­ by Japanese forces, he demanded and ing years 20,000 Americans and a large received assurances from the War passing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, number of Vietnamese, Cambodians, Ministry that any atrocities would be thereby widening the war. In the hunt­ and Laotians lost their lives. stopped. The Tokyo tribunal however, ing of Henry, .Hitchens seems to be There are a number of problems to found Hirota guilty because he was missing the real culprits. be faced before we can bring in the "derelict in his duty in not insisting Hitchens may be on firmer ground guilty verdict on Henry, even if we before the Cabinet that immediate when he considers the American gov­ accept this story. The fact that the deal action be taken to put an end to the ernment's behavior toward Chile after struck in 1972 was similar to that on atrocities" (29) and duly sentenced him 1970. Hitchens seems to subscribe to offer in 1968 does not prove that to death. What holds for Hirota, many of the fairy stories that surround Kissinger believed in 1968 that a better Hitchens maintains, should hold for the Allende government. For instance, deal for the United States could not Kissinger. he stresses the measures the U.S. gov­ have been struck later, under Nixon. But fair-minded people might ques­ ernment took to destabilize the Chilean Kissinger himself has pointed out that tion the judgement against Hirota. government (66) but fails to mention a of the 20,000 American troops··killed in People are fond of group guilt because much greater destabilizing influence in the Nixon period, ·12,000 died in the it makes convictions easier. But is it Chile - Salvador Allende himself. first year of Nixon's administration, right? Suppose that a person is the Perhaps it was the examples of Fidel before the change of policy could take head of a firm and makes it clear that Castro and Che Guevara that tragically effect - "clear legacies of the previous he thinks the law should be obeyed. inspired Allende with the notion that 52 Liberty October 2001 with 36% of the vote he would be able have contemplated, would it make have happened to him had he been to remake.Chile from top to bottom. sense to threaten Carter with a war foolish enough to return there. It's But Hitchens' specific charge crimes tribunal? pretty thin stuff and the link with against Kissinger is that as head of the Hitchens also suggests that Kissinger highly tenuous indeed. I so-called 40 committee, he was Kissinger was involved in the might also mention that involved in covert action to assassinate attempted assassination of Greek jour­ Demetracopoulos did not return to the head of the Chilean army, Gen. nalist Elais Demetracopoulos, a Greece and did not die in a Greek Rene Schneider, who was maintaining Washington-based critic of the military prison. the traditional refusal of the Chilean junta that ruled Greece in the late Would Henry Kissinger be con­ military to intervene in the political 1960s and early 1970s. Hitchens pro­ victed of war crimes on the basis of process. Hitchens claims that machine duces a statement saying the journalist Hitchen's charges? The history of war guns were sent from Washington, D.C. had died in prison in Greece, intimat­ crimes trials shows us that if his ene­ to coup plotters in a diplomatic pouch. ing that this is precisely what would mies were judge and jury - and in Schneider was eventually kidnapped and murdered, though not with the guns from the United States. This is a --The IndependentReviewis excellent. ~ matter that plainly needs further - GARY S. BECKER, Nobel Laureate in Economics investigation. ranscending the all-too-common superfici­ Hitchens also criticizes Kissinger ality of public policy research and debate, for lack of intervention on a number of TThe INDEPENDENT REVIEWis the widely occasions: acclaimed quarterly journal devoted to individ­ ualliberty and excellence in the critical analysis • Kissinger failed to caution the of government policy. Edited by Robert Higgs, Greek government which had links The INDEPENDENT REVIEWis superbly with coup plotters in Cyprus in 1974. written, provocative, and based on solid peer­ • Kissinger did nothing to prevent reviewed scholarship. the Pakistani government's violence in Probing the most difficult and pressing of its eastern province (which later broke social and economic questions, The INDEPEN­ away to become Bangladesh). DENTREVIEWboldly challenges the politiciza­ tion and bureaucratization of our world, featur­ • Kissinger made no attempt to ing in-depth examinations of current policy prevent the Indonesian government questions by many of the world's outstanding from invading East Timor in 1975. scholars and policy experts. Unique, undaunted I could mention the Cold War real­ and uncompromising, this is the journal that is politik that governed Kissinger's pioneering future debate! actions here. For instance, Pakistan "The Independent Review is the most exciting new journal in many •• Feature Articles was his link to China and was impor­ years and one ofthe few with a profound commitment to liberty." • Debates - WILLIAM A. NISKANEN, Chairman, Cato Institute tant for the subsequent rapprochement • BookReviews "The Independent Review is ofgreat interest. II .. SpecialFeatures - the major foreign policy initiative of - C. VANN WOODWARD, Pulitzer Prize-Winner, Yale Univ. • Figures and Tables Nixon's first administration. But there "The Independent Review is excellent in both format and content, • 160Pages per Issue and is a most important undertaking for the cause ofliberty. II is no need to analyze in detail what .. March,June, Sept. & Dec. many people consider to be the rather - RALPH RAICO, Professor of History, SUNY Buffalo "The best thing about The Independent Review is that it is by a • AnnualIndex distasteful subject of great power wide margin the most intellectually interesting, libertarian, ScllOl­ .. Plus more ... diplomacy. Remember that Kissinger is arly journal around today. II Individual·Subscriptions: - R. W. BRADFORD, Editor and Publisher, Liberty Magazine charged with war crimes here. He is $28.95/1 year, $54.95/2 year not charged with failing to be a boy "The Independent Review is distinctive in badly needed ways. II InstitutionalSubscriptions: - LELAND YEAGER, Professor of Economics, Auburn Univ. scout at every possible opportunity. To $84.9511 year, $159.95/2year In Recent Issues: International Orders: fail to carry out a good deed may be The Therapeutic State: The Tyranny ofPharmacracy Add $281subscription shipping reprehensible, but it most definitely is - THOMAS S. SZASZ not a crime. People would do well to A Free Market in Kidneys: Efficient and Equitable Order Toll-Free (U.S.) remember that intervention in the - WILLIAM BARNETT, MICHAEL SALIBA AND DEBORAH WALKER Taxation, Forced Labor, and Theft 80.0..92.7..8733 affairs of other countries often pro­ - EDWARD FESER Phone: 510-632..1.366 duces the opposite results from those Libertarianism Against Economism Fax: 510..568;"604;0 desired. Jimmy Carter followed the - BRYAN CAPLAN [email protected] Hitchens recipe in Iran. But the pres­ Just War? Moral Soldiers? http://www.independent.drg - LAURIE CALHOUN sure on the Shah to improve human Eeo-Industrial Parks: The Case for Private Planning rights may have weakened his govern­ - PIERRE DESROCHERS a ment and paved the way for a theo­ Watching You: Federal Surveillance ofOrdinary Americans 2.111.. · INSTITUTE cratic regime and subsequent misery - CHARLOTTE TWIGHT e...:n:ENDOO Liberty and Feminism for the Iranian people. If Carter's pol­ •- RICHARD A. EpSTEIN icy played a part in success of the The Agony ofPublic Education 100 Swan Way, Dept. A31 Mullahs and subsequent human rights - JAMES L. PAYNE Oakland, CA 94621·1428 USA abuses far worse than the Shah would October 2001

war crimes trials this usually is the Rather cleverer than most perhaps, he Cuba and the drug war with a select case - the· answer would be a pursued those policies which he few institutional·. reforms. Indeed, if resounding yes. But I shall be a little judged would maintain America as a someone in Congress would lead the more discriminating. Kissinger in gov­ world power. It's hard to see that charge to make just one institutional ernment behaved· as one might expect someone else in his position would change - like mandating term limits a student of Metternich· and Bismarck have behaved very differently. or removing the feds from state issues to behave. He had little taste for If you think he was a war criminal, - we might just get the ball rolling in Wilsonian idealism but even less for you are making a pretty damning the right direction. Moreover, if mem­ , the use of brute force favored by the statement about the present world bers of Congress ever get· the courage political gangsters of this world. m~~ U to actually defend the Constitution, Cato suggests that they will have an Cato Handbook for Congress: Policy Recommendations for opportunity to check the power of the executive and the judiciary branches. the 107th Congress, edited by Edward H. Crane and David Boaz. Cato Want to reclaim the war power from Institute, 2001, 680 pages. the executive branch? Cato proposes that Congress either withhold funding for the numerous illegal troop deploy­ ments or simply impeach the president on grounds that undeclared wars qual­ ify as high crimes and misdemeanors. Practical Likewise, it is also Congress' duty to clarify the Constitution where the judi­ ciary has failed to do so, Because the courts have failed to develop a princi­ Libertarianism pled approach to property rights and regulatory takings, Roger Pilon explains, "Congress needs to enact retirement payouts notwithstanding general legislation on the subject of Brian Glazer Sen. Tom Daschle's empty praise of takings that might help to restore Social Security's performance in 2000 respect for property rights.... There is Underscoring the debate about the compared to the return on the nothing in the Constitution to prevent future of libertarian activism is a larger NASDAQ. Tanner explains Social Congress from exercising the responsi­ issue: In which direction should liber­ Security's failure and outlines the ben­ bility entailed by the oath of office" tarians proceed if they're serio,us about efits of shifting retirement savings to when the Supreme Court fails to creating an America with more indi­ private accounts. But Tanner doesn't secure the rights of citizens. Of course, the Cato Handbook is vidual liberty and less government? ignore practical politics, and allows written for members of Congress, so it One answer comes from the Cato that individuals could not withdraw has as much political strategy as it Institute's latest blueprint 'for liberty, their funds before retirement age, that does philosophy and principle. Make the Cato Handbook for Congress, which government would "establish regula­ no mistake about it: This book is not provides a wide array of practical tions on portfolio risk," and there aimed at codifying another libertarian political tools for those who want to would still be a guaranteed minimum utopia; its goal is to foment serious change government from inside the pension benefit. A transition to a pri­ change. There are no articles about the 107th Congress. vate plan would still cost nearly $7 tril­ inherent immorality of taxes, or calls The thinkers at Cato never shrug lion to fund current recipients, and for a tax-free America. Instead, there from claiming the moral high ground, Tanner suggests that foregoing tax cuts are plans for switching to a flat tax and but they differ from most libertarians is the best option for funding this com­ eventually a national sales tax. The in their willingness to deal with politi­ mitment. Are other libertarians pre­ authors of the chapter on tax reform cal realities. Early on in the book, pared to deal with that imperfect offer up political compromises like a Roger Pilon makes the crucial observa­ trade-off and others like it in order to 25% MAXTAX that gives individuals tion that, "As programs are reduced or open the doors to radical reform? the choice of staying in the current sys­ eliminated, then, care must be taken to Doesn't it make sense to trade the tem or switching to a far simpler tax do as little harm as possible" to those present health-care system for medical system that limits combined income who have contractual relationships savings accounts in exchange for a few and payrOll taxes to 25% of income. with the federal government and those regulations, or a bloated $300 billion The choice is designed to avoid the ire who support reform efforts. Not only military for a less-bloated $185 billion of those special interests that benefit is this morally justifiable, it's the politi­ military? from the current system. cally astute thing to say and do. What is so striking throughout.the If you boil the book down to one On that note, Michael Tanner book is the way that it addresses issues sentence what you get is: "It's the presents suggestions for Social Security ranging from telecommunications and Constitution, stupid!" Most of its argu­ reform that would boost everyone's agricultural policy to relations with ments ~ including the argument for 54 Liberty eliminating the Department of Education and a host of other pro­ grams - are constitutional ones. The JOIN COSTA RICA'S Department of Education must be razed because there is no constitutional authority for its existence. That is true, CAN-DO LIBERTARIANS! and abolishing the Department of Education is also moral, practical, and what's best for families, but in a gov­ CAN-DO: elected ONE of the country's 57 legislators in our first electoral run in ernment primarily consisting of legisla­ 1998, attorney Otto Guevara, a Harvard graduate. Also gained permanent tors who believe the Constitution is nationwide ballot access. In the US and elsewhere the road to liberty is long and simply another vehicle for dispensing difficult. But through your financial contributions you can join the worldwide pork and accumulating power, how team that is making it happen in Costa Rica. CAN-DO: For the third consecutive year Otto has been chosen best Congressman by 80% of news media people. And we average 3.9 newspaper citations daily. The The Cato Handbook has libertarian position is now part of EVERY political debate in Costa Rica. no articles about the inherent CAN-DO: Otto was named best Congressman in all six nationwide polls since 1998. A projection of the latest one shows that libertarians have a good chance of immorality of taxes, or calls electing 6-8 out of 57 Congressmen. for a tax-free America. Instead, CAN-DO: in that poll, even before declaring his imminent candidacy or doing any there are plans for switching publicity, Otto got 7.5% of the presidential preference. The top-rated candidate only to a flat tax and eventually a got 22.5% after 3 years of a costly publicity campaign. national sales tax. All this indicates great_potential for the February 2002 elections. But our openly libertarian educational and electoral campaign must be media-intensive, which is costly everywhere, and as libertarians we don't accept government fund~. With a strong campaign we have an outside chance of winning the Presidency in 2002. much weight do constitutional argu­ But we certainly will by 2006 if we can elect many Congressmen next year. ments carry? When so few people give Costa Rican law allows contributions from foreign individuals and entities in any the Constitution any authority, these amount (see our website). At long last let all the world's libertarians join hands to arguments are as useless as a substi­ achieve the libertarian dream in one country, so it can spread everywhere! tute teacher in a middle-school band class. Legislators that actually believe Yes! I want to financially support making the libertarian dream come true in in the Constitution are caught in a Costa Rica so it can spread everywhere. Sign me up as a proud worldwide vicious circle: To lend more clout to the member of Costa Rica's CAN-DO libertarian team! Constitution, it needs to be invoked Contribution Check more often, yet there's not much politi­ __I have enclosed my check for $ _ cal advantage to invoking it when so many people don't recognize it. (Make checks payable to: Movimiento Libertario, SJO 1410, P.O. Box 25216, Although sometimes no other option Miami, Florida 33102-5216) remains but to eliminate an agency on Credit Card Payment constitutional grounds, additional political considerations consisting of __VISA__MasterCard__American Express (check one) mutually beneficial approaches would __Please charge $ ~- certainly help the cause for downsizing __I pledge $ to be charged in (check one): government. __monthly__ quarterly installments of $ _

Throughout the Cato Handbook, one CredilcMdoom~~ ~ senses a thirst for old-time politics Expiration date: _ when one might have stepped into the Signature: _ Capitol and seen congressmen lectur­ ing each other while waving around Or contribute through our website www.libertario.org the Constitution. Today, it's difficult to Name and Address imagine a debate on the necessity of Name: _ NASA where someone asks that all­ Address: ___ important question: "Does the Consti­ Phone: Fax: _ tution allow for its existence?" That's Email: ~ exactly the question that Cato asks most often. Privacy More important are Cato's attempts __Please do not exchange my name wilh other organizations. to inject some new ideas into the woe­ Email newsletter: contact us at [email protected] ful state of present discourse. Gradual Odober 2001 solutions are proposed that would do ical roots of our government and the comes away from Ayn Rand wonder­ just that. For example, as a compro­ realities of politics would be useful for ing what she means. Objectivism has mise to eliminating the executive libertarians and non-libertarians alike. its complexities, and they have been branch's .numerous regulatoryagen­ Libertarians have a way of mixing phi­ addressed very ably by a number of cies such as the EPA and the FDA, losophy and politics that often neglects authors. My own favorite is Ronald Congress could pass a law requiring the utility of each. Philosophy rarely is Merrill's Ideas of Ayn Rand, which I that it approve major regulations practical, but even when it is, the IRS is think remains the best single-volume before they can be implemented. This still standing after the buzz wears off. commentary; it has the drawback, option has the advantage of promoting The Cato Institute toes this line coura­ though, that one must read all of debate about the limits of government geously, and has published in its Cato Rand's books before reading it. while effectively limiting the power of Handbook for Congress one of the most I distrust "basic introductions"; regulatory agencies. In the tax realm, comprehensive reconciliations of they're written for people who don't Cato argues that Americans should be present-day politics and principled want tq take the time to actually read sent· an annual disclosure showing philosophy that we have. How suc­ the books they introduce. With a novel their complete tax burden. Since many cessful its efforts will be remains to be the size of Atlas Shrugged, such reluc­ of Cato's proposals won't occur with­ seen, although Congress' repeal of tance may be understandable, but out popular support, providing a real­ OSHA's ergonomic regulations and CliffsNotes-izing Ayn Rand is not a world civics lesson may do a lot to for­ Bush's nascent discussion of Social task I would want to undertake. It· is, ward their cause. Security privatization hint that, maybe, however, one that the Objectivist An understanding of the philosoph- somebody is listening. I.J Center has undertaken, with the help of Edward Herrmann, who narrates The World of Atlas Shrugged on two "The World of Atlas Shrugged," narrated by Edward Herrmann compact· discs. (Herrmann, you will and Lynn Redgrave. Two compact discs. recall, narrated the abridged Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead books on tape.) The timing of the release is meant to allow people to have it read­ ily available when TNT unveils its miniseries version of Atlas Shrugged. Being a snobbish reader, I instinctively Atlas Plugged look down on this kind of soft­ pedaling. I suspect much more is to be accomplished by reaching out to those people who are willing and able to read a thick and challenging book. But George H. Smith, and Nathaniel then again, Rand herself produced Timothy Sandefur Branden, and a series of actual many user-friendly philosophical CliffsNotes edited by The Ayn Rand pieces, in her Los Angeles Times col­ Introductions to Ayn Rand are a Institute's golden boy Andrew umns, her screenplays, and For The growth industry. First Hollywood took Bernstein. New Intellectual. The writer who once rebuked an editor with "Would you two characteristically tangential looks All of this has fueled talk of an edit the Bible?" has been edited and re­ at her life, in the hagiographic Ayn Objectivist renaissance (or naissance). edited many times already. Rand: A Sense of Life and in Showtime's There has been a recent boom in schol­ As introductions go, The World of mindlessly sleazy "Passion of Ayn arly discussion of Rand's work as well. Atlas Shrugged has the advantage of Rand." Then Alan Gotthelf published The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies is in its being more convenient as a· CD set an officially authorized introduction to fourth issue; books on Rand as a femi­ than a book would·have been. But its her for Penguin Books' series on phi­ nist and on her aesthetic theories were limited length makes it hard for it to be losophers, which was promptly de­ recently published, and her name con­ fair to the book's wealth of subjects. I authorized. (At first, the gang in tinues to appear in unlikely places ­ suspect that most people, upon first Marina Del Rey cheered, but then it including a postage stamp. In October, encountering Atlas Shrugged, are· more revoked its cheers in a characteristi­ she will be featured in a C-SPAN docu­ often piqued by Rand's ethical and cally public way; Second Renaissance mentary series on American authors. political theories than by her·consis­ Books is still printing Leonard But how much good do "basic tency of characterization, or the sophis­ Peikoff's dissenting review in its cata­ introductions" to Ayn Rand do? As tication of her plot and theme styling. logue as a di~claimer.) Then Tibor philosophers go, she's extremely Yet the CDs spend a lot of time on Machan produced a short and decent accessible. Atlas Shrugged has a wealth these subjects, and not much on poli­ introduction, followed by a collection of meanings, and deserves repeated tics or ethics. Rand's writing has of edited Rand bits called The Ayn study and discussion, but it's not always appealed primarily to idealistic Rand Reader. There are "basic introduc­ exactly The Critique of Pure Reason or and intelligent youths, seeking an tions" by Chris Matthew Sciabarra, even Thus Spake Zarathustra. One rarely alternative to the nihilism and dogma 56 Liberty October 2001 they see around them on a daily basis. Odysseus "polytropos," the "many Some other aesthetic assertions in They thrill to see the power and turning" - until the very end, the "The World of Atlas Shrugged" are a majesty of great theoretical systems, poem consistently emphasizes bit questionable as well. Herrmann and the' passion of revolutionary fig­ Odysseus' cleverness and his ability to . recites the routine conclusory asser­ ures who are so different from the wor­ think through the many challenges fac­ tions that Rand was "brilliant" and a kaday people surrounding them. ing him. It is one of the great triumphs "genius" but he also calls her"subtle." Rand's characters can be inspiring on of ancient Greece that its heroes were I admire Rand a great deal, but I've these grounds, but many kids who intellectuals as well as strongmen. never noticed her mastery of subtlety. read her books in school are probably Odysseus has more in common with So much for the drawbacks. On the more interested in learning about capi­ an Ayn Rand hero than any other char­ plus side, "World" is generally good at talism and selfishness than about the acter of ancient literature, except per­ explaining Rand's ideas simply, and benevolent universe premise. haps Aeschylus' Prometheus. To view without patronizing the listener. The "World" also presents another him as little more than an athlete is an second CD, much better than the first, obstacle to effective contact with embarrassing error. is patient at explaining "self-irtterest young readers: its occasional corniness. The CD begins with a paraphrase of Atlas' opening scene, told in an unduly sinister voice, with dramatic music ris­ ( Notes on Contributors ) ing in the background, and climaxing with a voice choking out "Who ... is BaLoo is a nom de plume of Rex F. Richard Kostelanetz has entries in ... John ... Galt" like the last words of May. Contemporary Poets, Baker's Biographical a man on the gallows. If I recall that Dictionary ofMusicians, and the scene correctly from the book, the bum Stephen Berry has written numerous Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of actually tosses off the phrase "Who is articles for libertarian and chess Literature. magazines. Sarah J. McCarthy is co-author of David Boaz is a senior fellow at the Mom and Pop vs. the Dreambusters. Atlas Shrugged has a Cato Institute and author of wealth of meanings, and Libertarianism: A Primer. Wendy McELroy is the author of The Reasonable Woman: A Guide to deserves repeated study and ALan Bock is a senior columnist for Intellectual Survival. discussion, but it's not exactly the Orange County Register. The Critique at' Pure William E. Merritt is a senior fellow R. W. Bradford is the editor of Liberty. at the Burr Institute and lives in Reason or even Thus Spake Portland, Ore. Zarathustra. Scott Chambers is a cartoonist living in Arizona. DonaLd Miller is a great-great­ grandson of Capt. Louis Thomas Stephen Cox is a professor of litera­ Hicks,and is a cardiac surgeon in John Galt" with dim resignation. Atlas ture at the University of California Seattle. is, after all, supposed to be shrugging, San Diego and the author of The not having a coronary. This overdra­ Titanic Story. MichaeL New is a Data Analyst and matization presents an uncomfortable Research Assistant at the Center for moment for those who take Ayn Rand Edward Feser teaches philosophy at Representative Government at The seriously. Loyola Marymount University in Los Cato Institute. Equally troublesome, though more Angeles. philosophical, is "World"'s example of SheLdon Richman is editor of Ideas on "primitive" art. In a comparison of Brian GLazer teaches high school in Liberty. Rand's intellectual heroes to the more San Diego. physical heroism common in ancient Timothy Sandefur is a law student at literature, "World" uses the Odyssey's CarLa Howell ran as a Libertarian for Chapman University in Orange, Calif. hero Odysseus as its example of primi­ U.S. Senate against Ted Kennedy. tive literature's emphasis on physical Jane S. Shaw is a senior associate at strength. But this is to choose precisely Barry Loberfeld freelance writer who the Political EconomyResearch the wrong example. Just about any lives on Long Island. Center. other hero of ancient literature would have worked; the hero of BeowuLf, for David Kopel is the author of The Tim Slagle is a stand-up comedian instance, or maybe The Epic of Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy. living in Chicago whose Web site is Gilgamesh; perhaps even the heroes of www.timslagle.com. The Iliad were "mere" epigones of Bart Kosko is a professor of electrical physical strength. But from the first engineering at USC and author of Clark Stooksbury is a freelance writer line of the Odyssey - which calls Heaven in a Chip. living in Knoxville, Tenn. Liberty 57 October 2001 properly understood" and the com­ interest you in some stock in a Mexican thing,. Mr. Rearden!" - and already mon misrepresentation of Objectivism copper mine? The state has already the blackouts have begun. Come to as hedonism. And in assessing Rand's gone to court repeatedly to force elec­ think of it, perhaps "The World of At­ characterization, "World" is honest in tric companies to create and sell las Shrugged" should come with a free its discussion of common criticisms of energy to the state - "You'll do some- set of batteries for the CD player. LJ Rand's style. "The more stylized por­ traits of evil characters in Atlas Shrugged," Herrmann says, "don't offer as much psychological variety as those in [Dostoyevsky's] The Possessed, or Booknotes even as much variety as Rand provides in her earlier masterpiece, The Fountainhead. That book explored Down and 'Out in Key West you read a "dynamist" paean to its many variations on the theme of psy- - Although my outlook has always virtues. been solidly middle-class, there have Barbara Ehrenreich is a socialist, been times when I pinched every and she focuses most of her criticism on our capitalist economy and neglects Herrmann calls Rand /Isub­ penny and the source of my next meal wasn't always obvious. I thought of serious issues - such as taxes. When I tle. II I admire her a great deal, my poverty days often while reading look at my pay stub, I see that Uncle but I've never noticed her mas­ Barbara Ehrenreich's, Nickel and Dimed: Sam takes nearly 20% off of the top. I tery ofsubtlety. On (Not) Getting By in America, know that I will eventually get most of (Metropolitan Books, 2001, 221 pages).. that back, but that does me little good Ehrenreich is a feminist and in the short run, where low-wage democratic socialist with a Ph.D. in workers must live. I know I will never get a cent back on the 8.25% sales tax chological dependency. But in Atlas biology. Generally speaking, she is not where I live. Ehrenreich makes no Shrugged, what Rand loses in diversity someone you would expect to find mention of how much is withheld from and complexity, she gains in depth and scrubbing floors in Portland, Maine. To her paycheck by the feds, or how much clarity. We get to probe the dominant investigate the predicament of the each state that she worked in taxed motives of three major villains ... unskilled worker in the wake of her. But, I found it easy to forgive these down to their very roots." Quite true. welfare reform, Ehrenreich waited on tables and cleaned hotel rooms in Key minor shortcomings when I was "World" adequately confronts the laughing so hard. The words common complaints that Rand's char­ West, worked as a maid and as a dietary aide in Maine and served as a "feminist" and "socialist" are usually acters are too talkative, or too stark, or synonymous with turgid and Wal-Mart "associate" in Minneapolis. too unbelievably idealistic. humorless. Ehrenreich is a happy I hope that popular analyses such What she discovered is that it is - no surprise here extraordinarily exception to this rule. as "World"'s will attract more readers . - Clark Stooksbury to Ayn Rand's novels. We certainly difficult to live on $7 an hour, need them. California is now bleeding especially when paying upwards of Apocalypse, -A.-gain - I hope the its way through an energy crisis that is $500 a month in rent. re-release of Apocalypse Now will A big part of the modern employee reminiscent of sequences from Atlas encourage people to read the book on selection process is testing. The Shrugged. The state's attorney general, which it was partly based, Joseph personality profiles Ehrenreich took Bill Lockyer, recently expressed his Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Conrad is a were presented as having no right or desire to "personally escort" Kenneth remarkable author, who had five wrong answers. But, as she says, "the Lay, chairman the energy company books on the Library of America's 1/ top 'right' answers should be obvious to 100 novels of the century." Like Mark Enron, "to an 8-by-10 cell that he could anyone who has ever encountered the share with a tattooed dude who says, Twain, Conrad has fallen on hard principle of hierarchy and times lately, thanks to political 'Hi, my name is Spike, honey.'" One subordination. Do I work well with has visions at such moments of John correctness. others? You bet, but never to the point Like Twain, Conrad's prose style is Galt being tortured in a dark room. where I would hesitate to inform on wholly unique, and it takes a while to And Gov. Grey Davis is doing his best them for the slightest infraction...." become used to it. Out of context, it to sound like James Taggart: "If you're Wal-Mart almost decided not to hire can sound meaningless and forced, but looking for a culprit, I'll give you a cul­ Ehrenreich because she only read as part of a whole, it is incredibly prit," he says. "The culprit is the "strongly" agreed with the proposition effective at evoking the tension of a Federal Energy Regulatory that "rules have to be followed to the jungle hunt. Take this passage from Commission. They've consistently letter at all times." Wal-Mart also Heart of Darkness: turned a deaf ear to my pleas.... So if expects new hires to take a drug test. The earth seemed unearthly. We are there is a villain, it is clearly the That Wal-Mart is such an eager partner accustomed to look upon the shackled Federal Energy Regulatory Com­ with Uncle Sam in the drug war form of a conquered monster, but mission." Mr. Davis, perhaps I could should give you pause' the next time there - there you could look at a 58 Liberty October 2001

thing monstrous and free. It was noble genius whom the main character just as Huckleberry Finn, with its back­ unearthly, and the men were - No, has been sent up the Congo River to ground of racism among the villagers they were not inhuman. Well, you find, quietly whispers on his deathbed, along the Mississippi River is an indict­ know, that was the worst of it - this "The horror! The horror!" The entire ment of American slavery - and, inci­ suspicion of their not·being inhuman. book is an indictment of colonial rule, dentally, just as Coppola's Apocalypse It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity - like yours - the thought . of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it the woman who thought of herself as "the was ugly enough; but if you were Business world's greatest political philosopher." Send $4 man enough you would admit to Life, Liberty and Property - That was the credo to Liberty Publishing, P.O. Box 1181, Port yourself that there was in you just the of the age of reason and the American Revolution. Show your support for liberty and Townsend, WA 98368. faintest trace of a response to the terri­ wear this beautifully inscribed pewter BADGE ble frankness of that noise, a dim sus­ OF FREEDOM depicting an American revolu­ Check Out the New Liberty Marketplace picion of there being a meaning in it tionary soldier. www.badge-of-freedom.com Catalog- Liberty's entire collection ofaudio and which you - you so remote from the video tapes, books, and backissues is now availa­ ble! Send catalog requests to: Liberty, P.O. Box night of first ages could Hands on my silverheart. handsonmysilver 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368. comprehend. hearUripod.com (212) 768-8883 In reading this, or any paragraph in ABORTION AND RIGHTS: APPLYING Heart of Darkness, one can practically Charity LIBERTARIAN PRINCIPLES CORRECTLY ­ feel the heat of the Congo atmosphere, REQUEST: Help for project - Hospital con­ explaining prenatal personhood and the libertar­ or hear the tribal drums in the dis­ struction & equipment for underprivileged peo­ ian foundation of parental obligation.·Online: tance. Conrad's prose is perfectly ples of Nampula, Mozambique and enviorons. www.L4L.org. Paper: $3.00. Libertarians for Life, Cost: $350,000 (estimated for construction and 13424 Hathaway Drive #B, Wheaton, MD 20906, matched to the tension he seeks to equipment. Size: Forty (40) beds. Administrator: [email protected] build, slow but constant, like jungle Charles Woodrow, M.D., surgeon and chief med­ heat. Unfortunately, it's impossible to ical officer. Sponsor: Auspices of Grace Missions The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult by Murray capture this unique prose on film. Lord Mozambique, Inc. Donations: 100% (donations N. Rothbard. Published in 1987, this essay is one Jim, which is even better, was turned utilized only for equipment & construction). of the most important scholarly works on Ayn Inquiries: Grace Missions Mozambique, Inc., P.O. Rand's inner circle. Rothbard was there, and into a middling film in the mid-sixties Box 101893, Fort Worth, Texas 76185. only because it allowed itself some what he offers is an unflinching, critical look at " cult that "promoted slavish dependence on the freedom from the novel, much like Employment guru in the name of independence." Send $4 to Coppola did in Apocalypse Now, only Liberty magazine offers full-time, paid intern­ Liberty Publishing, P.O. Box 1181, Port about a half-hour of which has much ships at all times of the year. We seek intelligent, Townsend, WA 98368. in common with Conrad's novel. highly motivated individuals who want to learn Unfortunately, as with Twain's more about writing and editing. Responsibilities War of the Werewolf by Gary Greenberg and are flexible according to demonstrated abilities Jerome Tuccille. A political thriller about moral Huckleberry Finn, Conrad's Heart of conflicts. Read an excerpt at Darkness has become a target of accusa­ and interests. For more information, w.rite: R.W. Bradford, Editor, Liberty, P.O. Box 1181, Port http://ggreenberg.tripod.com/werewolf/ tions of racism. African novelist Townsend, WA98368. Chinua Achebe among others has denounced Conrad for II celebrating the Literature SunriseView.com dehumanization" which occurred in SINergy: Imagine Freedom from Governments Inspired by Thomas Paine, this unusual the 19th century Belgian Congo ­ and Churches. www.stormy.org polemic, The Return of Common Sense by Eric which serves as the novel's setting. Szuter, reveals a surprising solution to the statist But, as with the accusations against The Titanic Story by Stephen Cox. Truth is more chokehold. Visit our Web-site or call (504) 734­ Twain, nothing could be farther from fascinating than myth. This readable and enter­ 1795 the truth, and anything mote than the taining new book cuts through the myth of the "arrogance" of capitalism and modern technol­ Personals most superficial reading of the text ogy and gets to the real story - the drama of indi­ Gay libertarian man - 41, HIV negative, non­ should make clear that Heart of viduals coping with the risks of human life. Send smoker, seeks friends. E-mail: Darkness is an emphatic denunciation $9.95 to Liberty Book Club at P.O. Box 1181, Port mdf196

Now uses the background of wartime Russia] that they believed (however than what Duberman puts into print? terror to indict the cruelties of mistakenly, we might feel today) stood, Why are the Bunkers terrible bigots Vietnam. As David Denby put it in alone among the great nations in the and the Dubermans well-meaning ide­ Great Books, Conrad "captured with 1930s and '40s, for antiracist, anticolo­ alists? And when it comes down to such devastating force the peculiar hol­ nialist principles (gleeful crowds in the Archie and Martin, who should take low triviality of the colonists' ambi­ American South were still enjoying the the prize for sheer, outright ignorance tions, the self-seeking, the greed, the community spectacle of a burnt, and stupidity? pettiness, the lies, and evasions. The lynched black body)?" (This is from Consider another question. If we ambivalence of Conrad is precisely his Martin Duberman's July 16 Nation put aside idealistic fervor, we might glory." - Timothy Sandefur review of Ronald Radosh's Commies.) dare raise a broad question that 1 was reading Duberman's review Duberman, the zealous leftist, refuses Commies-simps - Okay, here it in the wake of Carroll O'Connor's to go near: Why don't "we" have any is: "[I]f we put aside nationalistic fer­ death and so had already imbibed a compassion. or understanding for peo­ vor,. we might dare raise a broad ques­ great deal about the significance of his ple who gave their allegiance toa tion that Radosh, the zealous patriot, portrayal of Archie Bunker. Now 1 ask country [in this case, Nazi Germany] refuses to- go near: Why do we seem you: Which should be viewed as the that they believed (however mista­ unable to feel some compassion and greater evil - America's Archie kenly, we might feel today) stood, extend some understanding toward Bunkers or its Martin Dubermans? Are alone among the great nations in the those who chose, often at enormous we to believe that a real-life Archie's 1930s and '40s, for anti-Communist, personal sacrifice, to give primary alle­ armchair pronouncements are a anti-Stalinist principles? giance to a country [in this case, Stalin's greater wound to the commonwealth - BarryLoberfeld

"Civil War," from page 44 the Constitution, Lincoln ignored the ruling. Union by force, four" additional states - Virginia, North Lincoln called up an army of 75,000 men to invade the Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas - seceded and joined the seven Southern states that had seceded and force them back Confederacy. Slavery was not the issue. The issue was the into the Union. By unilaterally recruiting troops, without very nature of the American union. If the president intended first calling Congress into session to consider the matter and to hold the Union together by force, they wanted out. When give its consent, Lincoln made an error in judgment that cost these four states seceded and joined the Confederacy rather the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. At the than send troops to support Lincoln's unconstitutional time, only seven states had seceded. But when Lincoln actions, the Confederacy became much more viable and the announced his intention to' bring these states back into the war much more horrible. From the time Lincoln entered politics as a candidate for the state legislature in .1832, he championed a political At last. A scholarly journal agenda known as the"American System." First advocated by his idol and mentor, Henry Clay, it was a three-part pro­ dedicated to gram of protective tariffs, internal improvements, and cen­ tralized banking. This program "tied economic development the study of to strong centralized national authority," as Robert Johannsen puts it in Lincoln, the South, and Slavery. Lincoln AynRand's believed that import tariffs were necessary, at the expense of consumers. The"internal improvements" he advocated were thought and simply subsidies for industry, Le., corporate welfare. Abraham Lincoln was the first president to give us central­ influence. ized banking, with paper money not backed by gold. The Journal ofAyn Rand The Constitution of the Confederate States of America Studies is the first scholarly forbid protectionist tariffs, outlawed government subsidies publication to examine to private businesses, and made congressional appropria­ Ayn Rand: her life, her It work, her times. tions subject to approval by a two-thirds majority vote. Welcoming essays from enjoined Congress from initiating constitutional amend­ every discipline, JARS is ments, leaving that power to its constituent states; and lim­ not aligned with any advocacy ited its president to a single six-year term. When the South group, institute, or person. It welcomes lost, the stage was set for the United States to become an scholarly writing from different traditions and perspectives, facilitating respectful exchange of ideas on the legacy of one of the American Empire ruled by a central authority. In starting his world's most enduring and controversial philosophers. war against the Confederate States, Lincoln was not seeking One year subscriptions are $25 (individuals), $40 (institutions). Please the "preservation of the Union" in its traditional sense. He send check or money order to Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, 1018 Water sought the preservation of the Northern economy by means Street, Ste. 201, Port Townsend, WA 98368. of transforming the federal government welfare-warfare­ police state. I-.J 60 Liberty Letters, from page 6 Howlo ruption" within the 1996 Browne cam­ I think the LNC quite rightly paign. But usually corruption has a real believes (a) that the LP's nominating Subscribe point. Like, well ... a police captain process should be open to all on a fair who releases a mafia hit man in and equitable basis, and that if its paid to exchange for $50,000. Usually the payoff staff is working for one particular candi­ for corruption is some substantial per­ date, it would not be; or at minimum it sonalbenefitunearned. would have a chilling effect on competi­ What makes this scandal seem trivial tion; (b) that it is important to avoid is that I haven't yet seen the big "pay­ even the appearance of favoritism, off." What exactly did Browne or Willis which is inevitable if the party's boss is get? The presidential nomination of the working part-time for a candidate for Liberty takes individual LP? The right to schlep around the coun­ the nomination. freedom seriously ... and try working small crowds and backwa­ You note that corruption has a "real the status quo with more ter radio shows after sleepless nights point ... [in the form of] some substan­ eating crummy food? tial personal benefit unearned" and that than one grain of salt! Was the payoff a second paying job you cannot see anysuch benefits accru­ (for Willis) so he could work two jobs ing to Browne or Willis here. It seems to Every issue of Liberty brings rather than one? What exactly is the big me the"personal benefit" each received you news you can't miss, benefit unearned? Until that's publi­ is substantial and obvious. opinions you won't find cized, I think a lot of people will con­ The payoff for Willis was that he got anywhere else, and the best tinue to respond to all this with a big $4,000 for what he did on behalf of the libertarian writing in the world. yawn. campaign in February 1996, plus what­ J. Mills ever he was paid for his campaign You won't want to Tacoma, Wash. efforts in the other five months in which miss a single issue! Bradford responds: I don't believe that he was violating both the terms of his the rationale for the party's rules prohib­ contract and his public promise. Simple iting employees from working for peo­ extrapolation suggests he received Act Today! ple seeking the party's presidential $24,000. Liberty offers you the best in nomination has anything to do with Browne got Willis' help obtaining individualist thinking and writ­ "state-sponsored religion" rationale. I've his party's nomination, which involves ing. So don't hesitate. You have read the minutes of National Committee more than"schlep[ing] around the nothing to lose,· and the fruits meetings and discussed this with many country working small crowds and of Liberty to gain! backwater radio shows after sleepless LNC members, and cannot find a hint Use the coupon below or call: that anyone accepted this rationale. Nor nights eating crummy food." Winning do I think the"spirit" of the rules is the the party's nomination is presumably of right way of evaluating what's hap­ considerable value, or else so many peo­ 1-800-854-6991 pened. The rules are explicitly written, ple wouldn't invest so much to do it. , And its value is pretty obvious: It brings r­ ------­Please enter my subscription and what Willis did was violate both his promise and the rules as they were fame (which has a cash value, or else to Liberty immediately! why would so many people pay for I I written. I 112 issues (One Full Year) $29.50 So why did the party establish its publicity?) and fundraising opportuni­ I I 124 issues (Two Full Years) $56.00 I conflict of interest rules? ties (which also have a cash value), both Add $5 per year for foreign subscriptions. of which Browne has taken advantage I I of. Take Back your Privacy Willis, Dean, Browne, and perhaps I name I others within the LP or Browne's cam­ There is an outrageous infringement on our paign conspired to violate LP rules and I address I freedom going on from the Government who the terms of Willis' contract with the LP wants to monitor and computerize us-they and to cover up having done so. They I city state zip I want to get us bagged-tagged and under did it in order to assure that Browne their thumb. Stop them! Gain the real I[ II enclose my check (payable to Liberty) freedom to do as you well please. Now get would win the 1996 LP presidential I [] Charge my 1·1 VISA r 1MasterCard real privacy today from those power-seekers nomination. In the process, they cor­ in Washington who preach compassion by rupted the party's nomination process I I day and conspire to steal our privacy by and left many party members disen­ I signature night. Write for our complete- chanted. As an LP activist of 29 years, I I Free details, to: account # expires see this as something more than a "big The PassWord yawn." I Send to: Liberty, Dept. L96, I PO.Box 13689-c Dayton,OH.45413 ..• P.O._-----_Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368..• San Francisco, Calif Coquitlan, British Columbia When unions extend a helping hand to the working Perils of international travel, reported by the man, discovered in The New York Times: . Vancouver Province: Rick Davis was arrested after robbing at least nine banks. Judy and John Taylor rented a car for a vacation to the Davis, who was president of the air-traffic controllers union at United States. After they had driven it across the border twice, the San Francisco airport, has been an employee ofthe Federal Mr. Taylor discovered about eight grams of cocaine hidden Aviation Administration since 1986. Davis' lawyer said the under the car's center console. The rental company explained arrest would end his career. A spokesman for the FAA said, that people leave. all sorts of things in cars after renting them, "Mr. Davis still had his job." .and offered the couple another car. Keyes, Okla. Washington, D.C. Curious attempt to escape fJerra Incognita Further evidence that gov­ the penitentiary, from Prison ernment is a careful steward of Legal News: resources and a uniquely compe­ During a work detail, pris­ tent protector of public secur'" oner Ronald Thomas stole a ity, from the 107th Congress van and drove it approxi­ mately 150 miles before Critical Issues Legislative becoming hopelessly lost. Agenda Survey: He called 911 and asked to Among the listings of be taken back to prison. examples of government waste was a "lost or mis- Oregon placed surface-to-air missile." Protecting the public from excessive exposure to United States nature, seen atwww.oregonlive.com: Making crowd control kinder and A judge has ordered "state wildlife agents to police Sauvie gentler, as reported by Wired: Island's nudist beach to ensure that sunbathers don't stray from A new material for riot gear is "protein foam ... a sludgy the beach's boundaries." brown foam made from whipped hooves, horns, and cartilage that sticks to surfaces and then hardens." It is described as "envi­ New Zealand ronmentally safe, but disgusting." Updating New Zeala~d's progressive tax code, from CNSNews.com: Seattle, Wash. Officials are evaluating imposition of a "flatulence tax" in Political conflict from the Emerald City, reported in response to a warning from the International Energy Agency "to The Seattle Times: do something about the methane gas produced by some 50 mil­ Officials from the u.s. Department of Agriculture are captur­ lion livestock." ing some of the area's "25,000 Canada geese that have lost the instinct to migrate." The geese are then killed in "'euthanasia Seattle, Wash. chambers'" in the back of pickup trucks since "no food banks here are accepting urban geese." The officials are opposed by New frontiers in standardized testing, from a dis­ members of the "Goose People," who put on bird masks, honk patch in The Seattle Times: horns, and stakeout possible areas they think might be next. A recent Washington Assessment of Student Learning test given to 10th-graders featured a math question regarding the United Kingdom order of towns on a highway. The correct answer sounds similar Advance in the science of public safety, from the to the name of the state's most infamous child rapist: Mary K. Letourneau. Terry Bergeson, the state's superintendent of public estimable Law and Order: instruction, sent an e-mail to all state high schools ordering them "Strathelyde Police - Scotland's largest police service ­ to not have children answer the question and, if they do, for it said officers would take DNA samples from anybody arrested, not to be scored. even ifthey were accused of minor offenses. Senior officers said they believed the move would increase crime detection rates by Port Townsend, Wash. 25%." The thin blue line that protects us from chaos, Ottawa, Canada reported in the Port Townsend Leader: Progressive new service available to citizens of A man was arrested for Driving Under the Influence of Canada, reported by Reuters: Alcohol after succeeded, after six hours in a grocery store park­ Canada's Ministry of Finance established a new service "to ing lot, in convincing a passerby to blow into his ignition inter­ guess what people have trouble understanding," according to lock so he could start his car. Claude Henault, a finance ministry spokesman.

Readers are invited to forward news clippings or other items for publication in Terra Incognita, or e-mail [email protected]. Thanks to Russell Garrard, Mark Villa, Christine Jesinger, and Randal O'Toole for contributions to Terra Incognita.

62 Liberty G R E A T E s T • L 1 e r ty H I T s ,.,

Liberty's Editors' Conferences have always showcased the best individualist minds ofour time. Now hear the pro­ ceedings for yourse~f!

The Liberty Group - Join R.W. Bradfor4~)!Tim Slagle, Making Terror Your Friend - In a world overrun Fred Smith, Durk Pearson and Alan Bock as theypresciently with authoritarian creeps, Doug Casey highlights the at- analyze the current political madhouse and slaugl1J~t s.acred d techniques that set him apart from the con- CO\VS with abandon. This is a fast-paced jou~~(;!Y'bf.l.i;~~ttar­ es. (audio: A418; video: V418) ian commentary that explores th~iss~)~8ft~;,Q.<·:···· .. diets outcomes for the elections oftomorrow;:'- : g War or Forget About Freedom no video available) . urneys to the heart of darkness in Amer­ effort at drug prohibition. The casualties of the The Liberty Pr· ar, says Bock, are a lot of harmless people and your civil Smith, David E' . rights. (audio: A419; video: V419) issues of t Why the Great Q ~sion Lasted So Long - .Future?­ Robert Hi· vemment, not free markets, he LP is failing ca~~~"ii'...... ep. how the New Deal prolonged toa ersial new ap­ it, i1'\~~~a:>' curing it; and why World War II didn't bring proac rough. Judgefor the Depression to an end.·(audio: A216; video: V216) youtsel e outlines will propelth 08; video: Searching for Liberty Around the WorI4\!::))'~·.i V408) Whether you're fed up with encroachments on your liberty, Sellingti or just intereste '. opportu' 'es raq~i~gtf9Il]~jcafagua (!) to Hong Kon 0 Zambia, '.sis.~~.~~~~·\r9frRu.Hear Smith offersarev0 Bi~~r~~;i\\\~~tm?

Th~Biggest, Boldest A bold first step to make government Great News: Michael Cloud, the Goverrl1tzent Spending Cut small. $6,000,000 Libertarian Rainmaker, has found Challenge Grant Donors to since the end ofWorld War II. Carla Howell and Massachusetts match every dollar you donate. Libertarians have formed The This Ballot Initiative would cut the Committee for Small Government. Every dollar you donate will be Massachusetts state budget from Individual Liberty. Personal doubled. $23 Billion to $14 Billion, and leave Responsibility. Small government. $9 Billion in the hands of taxpayers. 100% Libertarian. A personal requestfrom Carla Howell: What will The Boston Globe say? Extraordinary Opportunity USA'Today? The Wall Street Journal? "We'll match every dollar you The Washington Post? Newsweek? There are less than 47 days left to donate. Time? National Review? collect over 100,000 raw petition How about Nightline with Ted signatures. In the rain. In the cold. In "Will you donate $5,000 and put over Koppel? Face the Nation? Meet the 'Tax-achusetts.' a half-dozen petitioners on the street? PLUS our Challenge Grant Donors will Press?Hardball? Crossfrre? Volunteers will collect some ofthe Politically Incorrect? John Stossel on match your $5,000 donation, and put signatures. But trained, professional another half-dozen petitioners on the ABC's 20/20? p~titioners are critical to success. street. Does this go too far? The Committee for Small Government "Will you donate $1,000 for petition Ending the Massachusetts Income is hiring the best professional petitioners processing? PLUS have our Challenge at the best possible pay rates. Tax,;would cut the state budget back to Grant Donors match your $1 ,000? Republican Governor William Weld's frrst term. Early 1990's. Still more The Committee for Small Government "Will you donate $500 today to pay is thrifty and frugal. As careful with than Governor Michael Dukakis' for 208 signatures? Our Challenge bloated 1980's Massachusetts budgets. your money as you are. Grant Donors will match your $500 and The Committee for Small Government bring in another 208 signatures. Your "Spending rises to meet income," $500 donation will make a difference. says Parkinson's Second Law. needs your donation to hire trained, professional petitioners. Government spending rises to meet "Or $250. Or $150. Or $85. All government income. High Taxes feed Good News: There are no limits to matched. Every dollar. Big Government. how much YQY can donate! "Give us the tools. We'll do the The only way to make government Very Good News: No limits to how work. Thank you. Please donate small is to dramatically reduce much your business can donate! today." government income. Dramatically ...... __ ...... • reduce all taxes. Or remove the biggest $5,000 Cl$2,500 Cl $1,000 Cl $750 Cl $500: taxes. The Small Government Act ci · th ITo$2500 $150 0 $850 Other: $ to --!LE d e ncome ax --- Reduced taxes always grow back. ClCheck: The Committee for Small Government Sometimes slowly. Usually quickly. No Limits to how much Y.Q!! can donate! No Limits to how much your business can donate! Cl Visa Cl Mastercard Cl Discover Cl AmEx But when you pull up a weed by the roots, it can't grow back. When you NAME CREDIT CARD # end a tax, it doesn't grow back. ADDRESS SIGNATURE EXPIRATION Libertarian Ballot Initiative CITY STATE ZIP OCCUPATION EMPLOYER No tax on wages. No tax on interest or dividends. No tax on capital gains. ffiO~ EMAa Mail to: The Committee for SmaU Government· 6 Goodman Lane· Wayland, MA 01778· Note: Massachusetts law requires us to No Income Tax. report the name, address, occupation and employer ofeach individual whose contributions total $200 or more. Paid for by The Committee for Small Government, R. Dennis Corrigan, Treasurer, Carla Howell, Chair. www.smallgovernmentaetorg LMIO/OI .------_.------._-._------._------..

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