Baseball Strikes November 1994 Vol. 8, No.1 $4.00 Out! ~: ..... 'i o . 00><.. · . oiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiliiiliiliiiliiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil I'- ~~"--------------------.. I'- "Liberty for each, for all, and forever" - William Lloyd Garrison ================= o YOU ARE INVITED to attend the Bionomics Institute's 2nd Annual Conference: The Next Economy- An Evolving Information Ecosystem. This two day event brings together leading­ edge thinkers and doers from a remarkable variety of disciplines for fresh insights into the technological, economic, and political implications of the epochal shift from the Machine Age to the Information Age. 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November 1994 Inside Liberty Volume 8, Number 1 4 Letters Our readers gang up on us. 7 Reflections Liberty's editors give metaphors a mugging, take liberties with the licentious, make sense of the disingenuous, disengage themselves from the senseless, inspire the masses, and conspire with National Review and The New Republic. Features 19 Hail to the Wimpl Leon T. Hadar defends Bill Clinton. 22 Trading Away Free Trade Fred L. Smith, Jr. examines the World Trade Organization, and espies a nascent globalized Interstate Commerce Commission. 26 Academic Style Pierre Lemieux channels the sparkling literary flair of a professional academic. 27 Clinton's Disease· David Boaz inspects the distended public sector, and offers a diagnosis. 29 Deep Ecology Meets the Market Gus diZerega unveils the next development in individualist thought: radical environmentalism. 35 Talking Sex, Not Gender Wendy McElroy explores the finer points of pornography. 41 One Strike, You're Outl R. W. Bradford celebrates the baseball strike. 44 The Logic of the Toxic Some regulations are healthiest in small doses. Ben Bolch and Harold Lyons explain. 48 Gotta Sing The compulsion to sing is a personal thing. Greg Jenkins shows what happens when the personal becomes political. Reviews 53 Was There an Industrial Revolution? Probably not, says Jane S. Shaw. And it's just as well. 54 Tyranny Now There's no gridlock when it comes to chipping away at the Bill of Rights. Jonathan Adler reports. 56 Beat the Press Jesse Walker exposes the media watchdogs who play lapdog to conventional wisdom. 59 Science and Sensitivity Linda Seebach warns scientists to consider the dangers of the culture wars. 61 Booknotes on laundry (dirty), gun nuts (wordy), Dan Quayle (nerdy), upstate New York (purty), and the American middle class (not-so-sturdy). 62 Classified Ads We supply the supply side. You, the demand. 65 Index to Volume 7 Where we've been lately. 69 Notes on Contributors The unseen hands behind Liberty. 70 Terra Incognita Where the world's been lately. rev~e o::V::~~:~ Let t ers Jforced to go back and [__ =- tive statements. ..::::::================================================================~ Kosko might object that insuch a Last Dispatch ciano Then he was anti-civil rights until case we do not know which premise to Itwas a nice surprise to find out that he learned that a Democrat had to have reject; therefore, only conjunctions of nor- R.K. Lamb is Bruce Ramsey ("An Ameri- the African-American vote to win the mative judgments are empirically testa- canJournalist in Asia," July 1994). governorship of Alabama. He fought big ble. This is true - but the same restric- Though Mr. Ramsey is kind enough not government in Washington but institu- tion applies to scientific judgments. Ifa 0 to name the publication he was working tionalized it in Montgomery. He op- liquid apparently fails to boil at 100 C, I for, his colleagues like me know he is posed LBJ's Great Society but defends can reject my belief that water boils at 0 talking about Asiaweek. I was a staff writ- FDR's New Deal to this day. 100 C, that this liquid is water, that the er at Yazhou Zhoukan, a Chinese- Without a doubt the most absurd thermometer is working correctly, that I language sister publication; for ten part of Kauffman's review is the asser- am not hallucinating, etc. No belief can months, Mr. Ramsey and I shared the tion that Wallace used a "libertarian, be tested in isolation - normative or de- same office floor. particularist, high-minded" vocabulary. scriptive. Kosko himself recognizes this I left the job in disgust in March 1993. Perhaps Kauffman cannot tell the differ- when he describes what he calls the web What Mr. Ramsey says about Asiaweek's ence between what a libertarian means ofbelief "You test no strand or statement editorial policy is even worse at Yazhou by liberty and what a populist means by by itself. That is why we may not accept Zhoukan. We dared not offend dictator- liberty, but the difference is profound. a new fact or theory [that] may uproot ships like China, Singapore, or Malaysia. Wallace's populist "liberty" isnoth- more strands than it is worth." We were not doing a journalist's job, but ing more than unbridled majoritarian- But this fact, while showing that mo- a cultural hooker's. We were paid to ism. The right to self-determination Wal- ral beliefs are testable, should also make write whatever our editors told us to. lace invoked in that famous schoolhouse us question the sacrosanct epistemic This kind of self-censorship is get- door said nothing about the right of in- status of empirical testability. Even if a ting more and more popular in Hong dividuals to live their lives as they moral belief does not conflict with the Kong's journalistic circles. Most newspa- please. It had to do with the right of a evidence of our senses, we may reject it pers and magazines will do anything to majority of Alabamians to vote whatev- once we discover it conflicts with a suffi- stay in business. If a story will upset er form of government into power they cient number of other moral beliefs. China, they throw it out. Why rock the desire, even if such a government Hence, moral and scientific arguments boat and obscure the smooth transition? should oppress racial minorities. are identical instructure, and have an I am still working as a journalist, but When Wallace said we should trust equal claim to objectivity. All we have, I believe the battle for press freedom has "the people to make their own deci- in the end, are various beliefs of varying already been lost, even before it starts. I sions," he meant that only as it refers to strength and their complex interconnec- congratulate Mr. Ramsey for leaving the ballot box. That is decidedly not a tions, each one's status depending on Asiaweek and wish him the best in the libertarian vision of freedom. how it fits into the total scheme. U.S. Just don't forget us here. Write more As an Alabamian, I've grown used to Nor do I follow Kosko in assigning about Hong Kong, and speak for us the thoughtless praise some heap upon some kinds of belief to the periphery of when we can no longer do so. Wallace, but I expect betterfrom a the web and other kinds to the core. Kin-ming Liu thoughtful libertarian publication. Why should my perceptual belief that Hong Kong T. Franklin Harris, Jr. the dial on a scientific instrument points VOX Popullars Athens, Ala. toward a certain number have an inher- B 11 Recheek Your Premises ently more privileged epistemic status i Kauffman ("An Independent than my moral belief that slavery is American", September 1994) ,d'ISP1ays a Bart Kosko. (ilL.ibertarian Pragma- wrong? Kosko should consider what fi- stunning ignorance of both George Wal- tism," September 1994) maintains the 11 lace and populist ideology. old saw that "No one has. produced a na y turned the civilized world against . h dl h true or, false statement of value" because slavery: not any empirical argument Wa11ace IS ar y t e man of princi- b pie Kauffman portrays. For Wallace, normative judgments"are not testable a out its economic consequences, but its in prm'Cl·p·Ie " incompatability with moral beliefs to everything is politics. He was pro-civil ,. h h rights until the day he was defeated for Sorry, but itjust isn't true. w ic most people were more firmly bl" fii b Normative judgmentsare testable committed than they were to slavery. pu IC 0 ce y an anti-civil rights politi- b th h Slavery was phl·,losophl·cal'Yfi·n1sifi·ed. ecause ey ave empirical implica- 14 '/ "" tions. Consider the normative statements Kosko proclaims that "Philosophy Letters Poliey "GeorgeBush is a justandvirtuous does not sit above science as some ulti- man" and "Nojustand virtuous man mate tribunal of thought." But it does, We invite readers to comment on articles would order the bombing of unarmed ci- and it has to. Philosophy is the perspec- that have appeared in Liberty. We reserve vilians." These entail the conclusion that tive from which we integrate our entire the right to edit for length and clarity. All letters are assumed to be intended for publi­ Bush would never bomb unarmed civil- web'of belief, adjudicating the compet- cation unless' otherwise stated. Succinct, ians. Once we find evidence thathe has ing claims of various semiautonomous typewritten letters are preferred.