Good news! Laissez-Faire Books, whose imminent demise I’ve previously lamented, has been rescued by the marvelous International Society for Individual Lliberty.
In response to my original announcement, Jack Ross had commented: “As I recall Laissez-Faire Books had gone basically pro-war Randroid in recent years, so not a huge loss.” If so, ISIL’s takeover is doubly a good thing, since ISIL has been fairly consistently antiwar.
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
The Mises Institute has posted a PDF of a 1945 issue of American Affairs featuring articles by, inter alia, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Garet Garrett, and Isabel Paterson. I’ve posted an HTML version of the Paterson piece, a book review, on the Molinari Institute site (not because it’s an especially interesting piece, but because hey, it’s Paterson). I’ve also posted a 1900 review of a book about French semi-anarchist Charles Dunoyer. (Check out the delightful put-down in the last paragraph.)
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
Because Ron Paul sponsored a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning, some critics have inferred (not unreasonably) that he supports bans on flag-burning. In fact he doesn’t; he was simply trying to make the point that such bans would presently be unconstitutional, and so that those who do favour making flag-burning illegal are obligated to amend the Constitution.
It was for similar reasons that Paul introduced a declaration of war against Iraq – not because he supports such a war (nobody who’s followed his campaign even slightly could suppose that), but because he wanted to make the point that a war is unconstitutional unless Congress declares it – so that if his colleagues take the Constitution seriously they should show it by, um, doing their wrong deeds the right way.
Okay, I get it; but I don’t much care for the strategy.
What’s my objection? Well, I’m not making the criticism that his introducing these proposals is risky because Congress might actually vote for them; if the mood of the Congress were such that they had a chance of passing, someone else would already have introduced them, so I don’t think it was especially risky (though it is disconcerting to see a loaded gun being tossed around to make a political point, even if the safety is on).
No, my complaint is that this strategy focuses unduly on the unconstitutionality of Congress’s misdeeds rather than their wrongness. Paul clearly doesn’t think that aggressive wars and flag-burning bans would be unobjectionable if only they were constitutional; but his strategy could encourage that belief.
Of course as an anarchist I don’t regard the Constitution as having any authority; but I don’t think my criticism depends on that point. Assume the truth of minarchism; or assume the correctness of Barnett’s case for the anarcho-compatibility of the Constitution; or even just assume (and this much is definitely true) that a federal government that kept itself within constitutional bounds would be enormously, staggeringly preferable to the one we have now – and I still think my criticism holds. However objectionable a law’s unconstitutionality is (and I do think, as things stand, that a law’s being unconstitutional is a serious ceteris paribus objection to it), such a law’s being inherently unjust is surely a more serious objection to it. As a political strategy, introducing resolutions encouraging Congress to pass unjust constitutional amendments in order to render other unjust actions constitutional (thus making the Constitution more unjust – as though whatever legitimacy the Constitution possesses could be independent of its content!) can only foster the misleading impression that unconstitutionality is a more serious problem than injustice. I’m not saying that Paul believes that; I don’t think he does. But I do think he has been trying to serve two masters – constitutionality and natural justice – and this particular strategy I fear serves the lesser master at the expense of the greater.
In 1849, Thoreau famously wrote:
I heartily accept the motto, – “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, – “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.
But it turns out that the French classical liberal Charles Dunoyer essentially beat him to it, if less clearly and less eloquently, by more than three decades:
In a well-ordered state, it must be the case that the greatest possible number of individuals work, and the smallest possible number govern. The height of perfection would be for everyone to work and nobody to govern. (“Considerations on the Present State of Europe,” Censeur Européen II, 1817.)
Governments progress in proportion as they make themselves less felt, so that the best-governed country would be one in which, security no longer requiring the intervention of a special and permanent force, the government would in a sense disappear, leaving the inhabitants in the full enjoyment of their time, their income, and their liberty. (Review of Say’s Observations on Men and Society, Censeur Européen VII, 1818.)
Okay, not really. But click here if you want to read some MAJOR SPOILERS for the new Star Trek movie. Otherwise, don’t.
What a beautiful commercial! (Be sure to click fullscreen, if you have the bandwidth.) I wish this were an entire movie. And I wish mainstream animated films would explore styles a bit further outside the conventional ones more often. This might be the right way to adapt some of the more dreamlike fantasy works.
Addendum:
Here’s a much sharper version.