Two more Cato Unbound posts from me, one a reply to Mike’s latest on whether it’s conceptually incoherent to be indifferent to one’s own interests, and one a belated response to Doug’s earlier question about religion.
Archive | 2010
Bleg for Arthur Silber
Looks like I missed this before my trip, but Arthur Silber needs help. He’s a terrific libertarian writer with devastating health problems and very little money; please help if you can. (You can donate via a PayPal button on his blog.)
The Kids Are Alright
A blast from the past: going through old papers I find the following letter, sent to the Christian Science Monitor on 16 May 1990. I have no record of whether it was published, but my guess would be no.
To the Editor:
Among the high school survey results Rushworth Kidder finds disturbing [“Children’s Moral Compass Wavers,” 5/16/90] is the fact that a high percentage (47% according to Kidder, 45% according to the chart) place their own experience above parents, religion, science, and the media as the “most believable authority in matters of truth.”
I am far more disturbed by the fact that Kidder finds this statistic disturbing. Surely we want to raise a generation of independent thinkers, not of sheep who passively accept the dictates of authority; so we should find this statistic heartening. Thomas Jefferson would certainly have been pleased.
As for the willingness of high school students to cheat in an exam, it’s difficult to know whether this is a bad sign morally. After all, students are legally compelled, often against their will, to attend high school and to take exams there. In this context, it’s morally problematic to claim that students have an obligation not to cheat. (Do slaves have a moral obligation not to disobey their masters?)
As long as our nation, defying the Constitution’s ban on involuntary servitude, tolerates the institution of compulsory education, high school exams will be given in an atmosphere that is morally tainted from the start.
Roderick T. Long
Ithaca, New York
Macro Rap
The best rap song ever written about the dispute between Hayekian and Keynesian explanations of the business cycle! (Though presumably also the worst rap song ever written about the dispute between Hayekian and Keynesian explanations of the business cycle.)
(CHT Elizabeth Brake.)
Howard Zinn R.I.P.
We’ve lost a great enemy of the state in Howard Zinn.
And, y’know, if François Tremblay and Lew Rockwell both like the guy, how can he not be good?!
See also Kevin Carson, Anthony Gregory, Butler Shaffer, and Gary Chartier.
Our Wise Leader and the Wise Pundits Who Comment Upon Him
While in San Diego, I tragically missed our President Incarnate’s State of the Union message. But I think I got all I need from Jon Stewart’s coverage of the coverage.
Y’know, listening to Chris Matthews I almost forgot he was white until he mentioned forgetting Obama was black ….