Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, libertarianism, Liberty, Reason
“First and foremost, Austrian economics is not an empirical science as is mainstream economics, but a branch of logic.” As always, Professor Walter E. Block, friend and mentor, explains Austrian economics beautifully.
Here is the full, behind-the-scenes interview Walter did with a local, NBC affiliate, from which too few pearls were culled for the final segment.
A doff of the hat to EPJ for the story.
MORE.
Gender, IMMIGRATION, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Race, Ron Paul, States' Rights
When it comes to playing manipulative politics with social issues—matters of “racism,” “sexism” (blah, blah), with which government should not concern itself—there’s no daylight between left-liberals and left-libertarians.
The loser Libertarian Party is running a gubernatorial candidate (Robert Sarvis?) against one of the most libertarian attorneys general a state has had: Virginia’s Ken Cuccinelli. The latter has an impressive record of achievements and has taken principled positions on the issues.
For instance, Attorney General Cuccinelli’s attempts to nullify federal health insurance mandates in Virgina go as far back as March of 2010, when he launched a legal challenge to “shield Virginians from paying any penalties for not purchasing federally-approved health care.”
By Wikipedia’s telling, the Libertarian Party’s challenger, Sarvis, “supports same sex marriage and says it is a personal issue for him because his own marriage, which is biracial, was illegal in Virginia 50 years ago.”
By the same token, why not support affirmative action, on the ground that it wasn’t the law “in Virginia 50 years ago”?
Left-liberal argumentation! Sanctimonious too.
As one who believes that the state should stay out of marriage altogether, I cringe when so-called liberty lovers join Hollywood dimwits to place this issue at the forefront of the fight for freedom and beat people about the head with it. If you care about liberty, keep the state out of marriage; don’t expand its purview. Go to an attorney and solemnize your marriage through contract law.
Unsurprisingly, this Libertarian Party candidate is for open borders, framing the matter by using more sly, liberal illogic. (Here: I know immigrants, therefore immigration should proceed unfettered.)
Remember that immigration has pitted governors like Arizona’s against the Feds in a heroic fight for the right of state representatives to protect their statesmen from trespass. On immigration, left-libertarians come down foursquare on the side of the federales. You can be sure that the latest Immigration Bill will be Sarvis’s dream-come-true.
Cuccinelli, on the other hand, has ruled that “state law enforcement officers are allowed to check the immigration status of anyone ‘stopped or arrested.'” According to FoxNews, Cuccinelli issued a legal opinion … “extending that authority to Virginia police in response to an inquiry over whether his state could mirror the policies passed into law in Arizona.”
Most telling, Ron Paul has endorsed … Cuccinelli.
Communism, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Hillary Clinton, libertarianism, Middle East, Russia
Dennis Rodman has a road-map to peace: “building trust and understanding through sport and cultural exchanges,” as he put it. It’s slow, laborious and precludes lobbing bombs at North Korea or depriving its poor, long-suffering people of contact with the world.
Rodman says this about his frequent visits to Pyongyang: “I know in time Americans will see I’m just trying to help us all get along and see eye to eye through basketball and with my friendship with Kim I know this will happen.”
These are baby steps, but it’s one man’s way of opening up a closed and cloistered society to outside influence: through positive, voluntary exchanges and interactions.
On the other hand, a woman of war—Hillary Clinton—has just issued forth in support of Barack Obama’s adventure in Syria, while also giving a cursory nod to Russian diplomacy.
Russia has urged Syria to put its chemical weapons under international control for subsequent destruction to avert a possible military strike.
“We are calling on the Syrian authorities not only agree on putting chemical weapons storages under international control, but also for its further destruction and then joining the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,” Lavrov said. “We have passed our offer to [Syrian Foreign Minister] Walid al-Muallem and hope to receive a fast and positive answer,” he added.
… Russia and Syria urged the US to focus on convening a peace conference to end a more than two-year long crisis, rather than launching military strikes.
With Obama seeking Congress’ support for military action to respond to an alleged chemical attack near Damascus, al-Muallem said “the diplomatic channels to resolve this issue have not been exhausted”.
“We ask about the motivation of the US to launch a strike against us”, he said.
Lavrov has reiterated Moscow’s full support for calls by the UN Security Council to bring chemical experts back to Syria to complete their mission.
On a positive note: With this predictable move (not yet online)—Hillary and her Amazons did, after all, orchestrate the war against Libya—she may have damaged her presidential prospects for 2016.
We can only hope.
In any case, Hillary Clinton or Dennis Rodman for public office? I know what my choice would be.
UPDATE (6/7/2017): President Trump will get more from North Korea and its patriotic people, who prefer their own dictator to American-imposed democracy, if he sends as an emissary a man who endeavored to open up that closed and cloistered society to outside influence through positive, voluntary exchanges and interactions, not threats; a man who opted for slow, laborious efforts that preclude lobbing bombs at North Korea or depriving its poor, long-suffering people of contact with the world. That man is Dennis Rodman.
Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Just War, libertarianism, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Republicans
“… And if you’re so dead-set against the killing of children that you are willing to send us into yet another conflict, will you guarantee that the 1000-pound Tomahawk missiles that you will heap on Syria won’t kill children—or are they simply your collateral damage?”
These powerful words were delivered by Judge Jeanine (written, no doubt, by her show’s writers), five minutes and 28 seconds into her weekly Opening Statement.
Judge Jeanine was speaking about the thing no Republican cared about during Iraq: collateral damage.
Let us hope that this wonderful, country wide awakening is no brief jaunt, but a return to an America-First, do-no-harm foreign policy.
Photos: Nine Years of War in Iraq.
UPDATED I (9/8): And “Will the murders of those children be less significant than those we go to avenge?” I failed to transcribe Jeanine’s last clincher. This is the sort of sharp logic missing from most tele-commentary.
UPDATE II: In reply to the thread on Facebook: Other than as an economist, Thomas Sowell is unpersuasive. No serious libertarian should take him seriously on issues of just war. Sowell was full-throttle for the war against Iraq.