[cross-posted at BHL]
Many Americans who voted for Barry Goldwater in the last election are justifiably concerned that our traditional liberties have been much eroded by the unwarranted growth of the federal government, and especially of the executive branch at the expense of the other branches. As a democrat I cannot help feeling the same deep concern. These libertarian conservatives see all too clearly an evil which those on the left very often fail to take adequate note of.
The tragedy of budget cuts on Doctor Who
Tom Palmer’s tribute to the late Leonard Liggio:
The following two Agents of SHIELD openers – one from last season and one from tonight – seem, at a superficial level, tonally very different. But upon reflection, despite the frenetic explodiness of the first clip and the cheery calmness of the second, they really are doing very similar things: showing us a slice of the daily life of one of our agents, set to disarmingly eccentric pop music, followed by a twist that reveals the opposite organisational logo from the one we expected to see.
On September 8-10 I was in Manchester for a MANCEPT Workshop on the current state of libertarian political philosophy. Organiser Andreas Wolkenstein put an interesting group together; one of the participants was left-libertarian Billy Christmas, who will also be on the Molinari Society’s panel on privilege in December.
My own MANCEPT talk was essentially an historical introduction to left-libertarianism; I’ve posted the abstract previously, and I now post my powerpoint presentation as well.
In honour of Manchester’s industrial heritage (and also because it was cheap), I stayed at a former warehouse converted into a hotel. (It’s industrial! It’s radical!) I also enjoyed dining on the Curry Mile, a section of Middle Eastern and South Asian restaurants; Mughli was especially good.
William Morris woodcut
Touristic informations – Mancunian edition:
To catch a bus, it is not sufficient to stand by the correct bus stop with an expression of expectation. The bus will whiz right by you. You need to flag it down like a taxi.
Also the price for the same ride will be different every day.
In London, vendors are familiar with American credit cards; but they’re a puzzle for vendors in Manchester. They look for the chip instead of the strip.
The Lebanese version of baklava has halvah in it.
After the conference I squeezed in a couple of days in London: caught a beer at the Harp with Sam Bowman and Ben Southwood; visited the William Morris Museum; visited the graves of Herbert Spencer and Douglas Adams at Highgate Cemetery; walked around on Hampstead Heath; and visited Forbidden Planet and the National Gallery.
The Studies In Emergent Order symposium on Gary Chartier’s Anarchy and Legal Order – with contributions by Jonathan Crowe, Aeon Skoble, and Jason Brennan, and a reply by Gary – is now online.