Blogs

In this DFW Alliance of the Libertarian Left video, Professor Robert Long answers a few basic questions about the left-libertarian philosophy.

The story broke this week of a treasure trove of modern art, in Munich.
 
In the 1930s, the Nazi government of Germany stole its paintings from Jews, against whose right to live and work it had written laws.
 
In about 1935 it also fired Hildebrand Gurlitt from his job as art director of a museum in Zwickau, because one of his parents was Jewish. However Hildebrand was a smart cookie; he negotiated a commission to sell these Modernist paintings to foreigners, because the Nazis thought they were “degenerate.” So they hired what they called a filthy half-Jew to sell filthy pictures for filthy lucre. Which they did want, so as to shore up their revenues.
 
Hildebrand sold some, and survived the war; but when the victorious Americans asked him about the residue, he said he'd stored them in Dresden for safe keeping since that cultural haven had no military significance. Therefore the USAAF had destroyed them all.
 
However, that was a fib; he had kept them safe. Hildebrand, and later his son Cornelius, lived for the next 65 years by selling a few off, one at a time; until a “random cash check” at the border in 2010 triggered a raid on his apartment and the confiscation of the trove. Hence...
 

• One German government stole the paintings from their rightful owners, all now dead
• Hildebrand stole them from the thief, but after it had ceased to exist
• Successive German governments stole money from taxpayers to compensate the Holocaust survivors, to an agreed extent
• The current German government stole the paintings back again

 
When property rights are not respected, see how far knickers can get in a twist; and say, with reasons, to whom the paintings now belong :-)
 

Professor Adam Martin explains the potency effect, in this Learn Liberty video.

A prerequisite for embracing market anarchism is to think rationally; a theme emphasized in the Freedom Academy. Once one abandons myths like that of government, the journey there is nearly over.
 
Strictly, it's not essential to abandon other myths, like the widespread one of religion - but it helps. Otherwise, one's mind is bifurcated; rational regarding the State, irrational regarding other superstition. And that's not a slur (well, not much); one of Francis Schaeffer's final books was Escape from Reason. He knew very well that reason sounds the death-knell of faith and tried to steer followers away from it.
 
Bifurcated minds are highly uncomfortable, so last month I wrote a short e-book to ease folk away from religion and towards rational thought. It's designed for people - young ones, often - who are considering joining a Christian church – for example, confirmation candidates. It tries to give a fair account of the religion and its denominations, but at each stage encourages critical evaluation of its claims. Members of other religions (eg Muslim refugees) would also find it an informative, objective and concise introduction to Christianity. And then to rationality.
 
It's called "Which Church (if any)?" and is offered here for a mere $3 per copy.
 
Anarchism gets an important mention, but only one since the book's focus is as advertised. So it's a kind of preparatory work; I hope it will get minds better prepared to consider a zero-government alternative.
 
If you have 17 nephews, nieces, children and grandchildren in their teens, consider making each a gift (that would be $3 for your own copy, plus $3 for each of them, total $54 - hey, I do have to eat) because a prepared mind will make further persuasion that much simpler.

Peter Klein, in this misesmedia video, discusses a true healthcare free market.

Zombie apocalypse economics are more complicated than you imagine, as described in this Learn Liberty video.

Having a healthy thirst and a slim wallet, I surfed today to an informative site that explains in detail how to produce one's own spirits. Not just rot-gut moonshine, but high-purity vodka and even whiskey and liqueurs. Once the kit is installed and the learning curve scaled, such beverages can be made for peanuts.
 
Under its “Wiki” tab however I learned that to do that even for one's own consumption is illegal in all major countries except New Zealand. Here therefore is another racket in which government has favored a cartel of producers with protection from low-price competition. The quid for that quo is the punitive rate of tax it collects on each bottle sold. Distillers win, politicians win, real people lose.
 
One more, 100-proof proof that government has to go; root and branch.

"SNL" skit mocking Obamacare website correctly predicted only six people would sign up for insurance on the first day.  This after the federal government spent at least $500 million on it.  Remember, these are the same people who want to control the life-and-death decisions about your health care. 

With the ongoing Fukushima disaster already poisoning the Pacific and the world as a whole -- and with indications that this assault may soon accelerate dramatically -- anonymous (or perhaps non-existent) industry sources are saying Apple is planning to one-up the competition with a device that will monitor radiation levels, calculate various metrics for biological harm from those levels in real time, and to some extent protect users FROM the radiation by means of a yet-undisclosed technology that may create a "zone of quantum calm" around the user.
 
These technologies, under the moniker "iLive", will be incorporated into the iPhone 6, sources tell us, scheduled for release late in the Spring of 2014 or sooner if possible. Apple CEO Tim Cook is said to have told the iPhone engineering team that "We want to get this on the market while most of our user base is still alive. The CFO confirmed to me yesterday that our stock price WILL take a major hit if our users are, for the most part, dead or dying."
 
Exactly how the new technologies will work is a closely guarded secret, but one source suggests tachyon-based targeting of individual beta and gamma particles deployed in a method not unlike that seen in the arcade games Space Invaders and Missile Command. An alternate technology under consideration involves the direct manipulation of space-time, which would simply route incoming radiation around the users but which might cause issues with close interpersonal contact.
 
[The topic isn't actually funny, but sometimes the only way I can handle something truly horrible is with my warped sense of humor. Now  -- cringe -- back to reality]

My least favorite member of PBS' News Hour team is Gwen Ifil; she likes to be Queen Hen. But this week, she met her match when trying to interview Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY.)  It was a pleasure to see.

He was confident and emphatic, very much in control. And though not associated with even the Tea Party, he predicted total failure for Obamacare - possibly for reasons similar to those in Glen Allport's recent STRticle. Referring not to the web-site fiasco but to the whole scheme, McConnell said

           "I don't think Albert Einstein could make this thing work. It can't work. It won't work."

This puts him right out on a limb. Pols don't normally climb there, so he must be very sure. Let's assume he is right. Why would Obama insist on pushing this forward, when it's so credibly predicted to fail?

One answer, that looks more believable every day, is that by design, it was never meant to work; that it is meant to be such a huge failure that the Sheeple will plead instead for a Euro-Canadian style "single payer system" such as the Left really want.

Another chance for us to promote instead a system with 300 million payers and zero government participation.