For a giggle, check out this critique (CHT Brandon) of my recent immigration post, by a “John J. Ray, M.A., Ph.D.” (Yes, he’s one of those.) The best bit is when the guy infers my deranged mental state from my picture. Yes, this picture. René Allendy, move over!
Tag Archives | Antiracism
Jim Crow Returns to Alabama
This past Thursday the Alabama legislature put on their white hoods and enacted the harshest anti-immigrant regime in the country, one even more tyrannical than Arizona’s ethnic-cleansing laws.
As in Arizona, the new edict “allows police to arrest anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant if the person is stopped for some other reason”; but it also “requir[es] schools to find out if students are in the country lawfully,” “requires all businesses to check the legal status of workers using a federal system called E-Verify,” “makes it a crime for landlords to knowingly rent to an illegal immigrant,” and in a flourish of pure petty malice, “mak[es] it a crime to knowingly give an illegal immigrant a ride.”
The old Jim Crow laws enforced discrimination based on the colour of a person’s skin; the new Jim Crow laws enforce discrimination on the basis of a person’s birth on the wrong side of an imaginary line. Though of course racist motivations are not exactly absent.
To make sure that racism and misogyny continue to march hand in hand, the legislature also passed an abortion ban on the same day. Well heck, if the state can treat immigrants as second-class persons, why can’t it do the same to women, and force them to use their bodies as incubators for unwanted fetuses?
If only we could get some Republicans in power! They’re for smaller government, you know.
Well, There’s Spam, Egg, Sausage, and Spam; That’s Not Got MUCH Spam In It
Kevin Carson, in the new Freeman, on European “socialism” versus American “capitalism”:
[S]ocial democracy treats privilege as normal and leaves it intact – then regulates it to make it bearable to the subordinate classes without altering its fundamental nature as privilege. But most of the positive aspects of the European model simply duplicate what could be achieved by dismantling privilege altogether.
(Celý piroh.)
In the same issue, see John Blundell on the Grimké sisters and Stephan Kinsella on IP. There’s other good stuff too.
Travelin’ Man
This semester is shaping up to be the most conference-intensive I’ve had. In January I had a double conference in La Jolla (a Liberty Fund on contemporary classical liberal thought, followed by a workshop on John Tomasi’s forthcoming book Free Market Fairness) and an IHS conference in Fredericksburg. Then this past weekend was my department’s annual conference (schedule here). As for what’s coming up:
1. Austrian Scholars Conference, Mises Institute, Auburn AL, March 10-12. Our Molinari Symposium on Spontaneous Order, originally scheduled for the Eastern APA in Boston last December, has been resurrected at the ASC thanks to the Mises Institute’s gracious rescue (despite the panel’s being, as Charles notes, “rather different fare from that normally offered at the ASC”).
Also at the ASC, Molinari Institute Research Associate (and Alford Prize winner) Gil Guillory will be presenting a paper on “The Structure of Production of Free Market Adjudication” earlier on Friday, and I’ll be chairing a panel on “Socialism, Racism, and Method” on Saturday; for details, see the schedule.
2. Prague Conference on Political Economy, CEVRO Institute, Prague, Czech Republic, March 25-27. I’ve organised a panel on free-market anarchism with Ed Stringham; see the schedule here and abstracts here. This’ll be my third trip to Prague (making the Czech Republic the first European country I’ll have visited more than twice).
3. Future of Free Cities Conference, Roatán, April 3-5. Roatán is an island off the coast of Honduras, though the conference is sponsored by Guatemala’s Francisco Marroquín University. This’ll be a new southernmost point for me. I’m not making a presentation, just participating in general discussion. Talk of seasteading is to be expected.
4. Mises Circle: Strategies for Changing Minds Toward Liberty, Chicago IL, April 9. I’ll be speaking on what I used to call “outreach to the left.” Here’s more info.
5. Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) conference, Nassau, Bahamas, April 10-12. I’ll be chairing a sequel to last year’s Free-Market Anti-Capitalism panel; this time around we’ve got Steven Horwitz on “Banks as the Anti-Capitalism at the Heart of Capitalism,” Sheldon Richman on “The Gilded Age: No Golden Era,” Darian Worden on “Capitalism, Free Enterprise, and Progress: Partners or Adversaries?,” and Charles Johnson on “Markets Without Commercialism; Commerce Without Capitalism.”
Unfortunately, our session conflicts with a session on Anarchism featuring, inter alia, Dan D’Amico and Bruce Benson – argh! Maybe next time we do a FMAC panel we should stick “Anarchism” in the title to make the organisers less likely to schedule such conflicts.
6. Pacific APA, San Diego CA, April 20-23. I’ll be a commentator on a panel on “Exploitation and the State” on the afternoon of the 20th, and then our other snowed-out Molinari Symposium, the Author-Meets-Critics session on Gary Chartier’s Economic Justice and Natural Law, is being resurrected on the evening of the 23rd; schedule details here.
When we had to cancel in Boston, Charles suggested inquiring whether the Pacific APA might accept us as refugees. I thought the odds were low, as the Pacific’s schedule was already posted. And the national APA office confirmed my pessimism, telling me there was no way. But then the Pacific graciously said yes! (Charles also suggested asking the Mises Institute about having the other symposium at the ASC. So thank you Pacific APA, thank you Mises Institute, and thank you Charles.)
Our session was added too late to be listed on the APA’s online program, but I’m told it will be in the printed program. (Yes, I thought it’d be the other way around too.) Unfortunately, the exploitation session conflicts with a session critiquing the work of my friend Elizabeth Brake (so I won’t be able to play the role of Brake claque), and the Chartier session conflicts with the Ayn Rand Society (that fact plus the late hour means turnout may be low); but on the plus side, Gary Chartier, who would have had to miss the Boston meeting because he’s boycotting air travel, will be able to attend the San Diego meeting (as it’s within driving distance). In any case, April in San Diego is a lot nicer than December in Boston!
I’ve got other stuff scheduled for beyond this semester – but that’s surely enough for now.
R.I.P. Dwayne McDuffie
I’m saddened to learn of the (evidently sudden and unexpected) death of comic-book and animated-film author Dwayne McDuffie.
A longtime writer for both DC and Marvel Comics (among others), McDuffie also played the chief role in developing the “Milestone” line of characters and situations created by black artists and licensed (rather than sold) to DC Comics; the most famous of these is the teenage superhero Static.
McDuffie was also a chief writer for DC’s series of animated tv shows and videos, including the Justice League series and the recent followup, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, and he served as producer, editor, and writer for Ben 10: Alien Force. By odd coincidence, his video adaptation of Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman was released just today.
Only a few months ago he was expressing his hope to script adaptations of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing or Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns; I suspect the (now posthumous) project he refers to as “scripted … but I can’t say what it is for about a year” is that Batman: Year One film that people are talking about.
McDuffie was a terrific writer, and an inspiring and effective spokesperson for a greater minority voice in the comics industry. He will be missed.
2012 Addendum:
Actually the scripted project was Justice League: Doom.
A Slightly Less Unknown Ideal, Part 2
Sheldon’s American Conservative article on left-libertarianism is now online.