Core and Periphery Tom G. Palmer has just put up a very good and full response to the recent spate of positivist/conventionalist attacks on property rights — that is, the view that since property is a social convention both enforced and shaped by the state, there’s no coherent objection to redistribution, since there’s no such […]

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Locked in the Monkey Cage Democracy is the last sacred cow of a nation and a people that normally take great pride in shipping ’em to the slaughterhouse for Big Macs and Bruno Maglis at the first opportunity. It is, as our public high school civics books taught us, one of the things that Makes […]

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D.C. Blogfest Various D.C. cats of the bloggy persuasion will be gathering this coming Thursday (June 6) for an evening of liquor and schmoozing. It’s at Rendevous Lounge (18th Street & Kalorama) around 7pm. I’ll be there, of course, as will my colleagues Radley Balko, Gene Healy, and Brink Lindsey. Eve Tushnet and J.D. Talley […]

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New York Heatwave Reaches Farenheit 451 A clever parent recently discovered that the NY state regents exams have been making use of classic essays and other selections purged of any and all potentially “sensitive” material. This has produced such absurdities as Isaac Bashevis Singer essays with all references to Judaism excised (which is like a […]

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Nothing reaffirms my belief in the wisdom of Social Security privatization quite as effectively as listening to its opponents. As with a number of issues, I would occasionally think to myself: “Well, I hang with a predominantly libertarian crowd, and read mags like Reason a lot more frequently than The Nation or Z… maybe there […]

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Hmm… I’ve been linked this fine day by Eve Tushnet, who mysteriously refers to me as “way too anarchist.” So, just for the record, in case you’re here via that link hoping for a Rothbardian rant: I’m not an anarchist. Anarcho-capitalists are silly, slightly frightening people who make libertarianism sound nuts. Many of them are […]

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Cruel destiny and his one-eyed toothless concubine Verizon have conspired to prevent me from having any Internet access at home. Blogging will resume when I have taken my bloody vengance upon them. By Fafnir’s tooth, this I swear!

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Commodify My Dissent A handy rule of thumb: when the troglodytic right and the apoplectic left find a point upon which to agree, you can rest assured that the doubly blessed idea is a deeply stupid one. I don’t mean merely that it’s very stupid, but rather that it’s likely to be an example of […]

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Foetal Consent In an article on Reason Online, science correspondent Ronald Bailey responds to Francis Fukuyama‘s “consent” argument against genetic engineering. That is, as Fukuyama argues, people can’t give informed consent to the genetic traits they’ve been given, and it’s wrong to tinker with their DNA without permission. Of course, people don’t consent to their […]

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Ya learn something new every day So back when I debated that Keynesian cat, the estimable Harry Layman showed up to provide moral support… and grab me a badly needed Sapphire & tonic before rebuttals. Since protectionism had come up, Harry asked me afterwards about one instance of successful protectionism — the tariffs on Japanese […]

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