Books

It's a sad day in the libertarian world. Laissez Faire Books has just closed its doors. We here at from Reason to Freedom will miss Kathleen and all she stood for. And she stood for more than most in our incestuous libertarian world. As it's not enough to believe in the libertarian and non-aggression philosophies, one must at least try to make a difference on our fellow mankind; that fascism, communism, collectivism, dictatorships, the right of kings, and all other methods of thieving the rights from people is a crime and should not be accepted.

But a new approach is as necessary today as it was in the day of Machiavelli, for the current crop of academics are almost universally blinded by the current winds of political correctness. They have been seduced by intellectual conceits that we will reveal in this book to be based more on emotion than on reason, and this seduction has created a demand for economic interpretations that support only prevailing notions and preconceived conclusions. This book goes against the grain, rejects current agendas, and presents a new theory of history. As Machiavelli observed, "Since my intention is to write something of use for those who understand it, it seemed more suitable to go after the effectual truth of the matter than after an imagined one.

American teens have long been in chaos, suffering high rates of depression, suicide, crime, substance abuse, pregnancy, and other serious problems. Until about a century ago, however, the teenage years were relatively benign, and adolescence as we know it barely existed. Through most of human history, young people were integrated into adult society early on, but beginning in the late 1800s, new laws and cultural practices began to isolate teens from adults, imposing on them an increasingly large set of restrictions and artificially extending childhood well past puberty. New research suggests that teens today are subjected to more than ten times as many restrictions as are most adults, and adulthood is delayed until well into the twenties or thirties. It's likely that the turmoil we see among teens is an unintended result of the artificial extension of childhood. Between a quarter and a third of young people who enter our school systems never graduate from high school, and for blacks and Hispanics, the proportion is closer to one-half.

From the beginning of my legal education, law for me has been intertwined with wine. Fittingly, my first U.S. Supreme Court argument was about the beverage that is the sublime joint product of nature and human ingenuity. The case of Juanita Swedenburg, a proud woman, a farmer and entrepreneur who asks nothing of her government but to be left alone to mind her own business, is emblematic of the debate over the role of the judiciary in a free society. For when all else failed in Mrs. Swedenburg's quest to pursue her livelihood free from arbitrary government interference, she did what many Americans do when their basic rights are violated: she turned to the courts for justice. Whether the courts should help ordinary Americans like Juanita Swedenburg or should leave them to the mercy of democratic politics, even when politics are dominated by powerful special interests, is at the heart of the debate over what is pejoratively called "judicial activism."

In the years after World War II, America crossed a great historical threshold. In all prior civilizations and social orders, the vast bulk of humanity had been preoccupied with responding to basic material needs. Postwar America, however, was different. An extensive and highly complex division of labor unleashed immense productive powers far beyond anything in prior human experience. As a result, the age-old bonds of scarcity were broken. Concern with physical survival and security was now banished to the periphery of social life. To employ, with all due irony, the terminology of Karl Marx, America left behind the "realm of necessity" and entered the "realm of freedom."

The Earth is warming but physical evidence from around the world tells us that human-emitted CO₂ (carbon dioxide) has played only a minor role in it. Instead, the mild warming seems to be part of a natural 1,500-year climate cycle (plus or minus 500 years) that goes back at least one million years. The cycle has been too long and too moderate for primitive peoples lacking thermometers to recount in their oral histories. But written evidence of climatic change does exist. The Romans had recorded a warming from about 200 B.C. to A.D. 600, registered mainly in the northward advance of grape growing in both Italy and Britain. Histories from both Europe and Asia tell us there was a Medieval Warming that lasted from about 900 to 1300; this period was also known as the Medieval Climate Optimum because of its mild winters, stable seasons, and lack of severe storms. Human histories also record the Little Ice Age, which lasted from about 1300 to 1850. But people thought each of these climatic shifts was a distinct event and not part of a continuing pattern.

Consider the following policy proposals that have been floating around Washington in the months leading up to the 2006 election: (a) creating a new cabinet-level federal Department of Families; (b) giving every child $2,000 at birth; (c) having the federal government fund 70,000 new math and science teachers; and (d) requiring every American to purchase health insurance. One might expect that those proposals were made by liberal Democrats, perhaps Ted Kennedy or Hillary Clinton preparing for their Senate majority. In fact, every one of them was made by conservative Republicans. Or consider President George W. Bush. Bush was the first Republican since Eisenhower to run for president without calling for cutting or abolishing a single government program. Since his election, Bush has presided over the largest expansion of government spending since Lyndon Johnson initiated the Great Society. Domestic spending has increased by 27 percent during his presidency. More people now work for the federal government than at any time since the Cold War. Not a single federal program has been eliminated.

The libertarian vision is all in Jefferson. Read your Declaration of Independence: We are all created equal; no one ought to have any special rights and privileges in social relations with other men. We have, inherently, certain rights—to our life, to our freedom, to do what we please in order to find happiness. Government has one purpose: to help us protect those rights. And if it doesn't do that, then it has to go, by any means necessary.

Hard to imagine a more libertarian document; and there it is, one of the nearly sacred founding documents of the United States of America. Of course, not everything about the American founding meets complete libertarian approval; lingering affection for the antifederalist cause is one of libertarianism's many interpretive peculiarities in the modern American context. The antifederalists saw in the U.S. Constitution a dangerous return to the sort of tyrannical powers on the part of the national government that we had fought the British to free ourselves from. Antifederalists were particularly alarmed by Congress's power under the Constitution to tax almost without limit, to alter the time and manner of elections, and to raise and support armies. And they understood, as does the modern libertarian, that state power is always trying to overwhelm political liberty, and that defending it requires the unwavering diligence of free citizens. But overall, the modern American libertarian, if so inclined, can feel unambiguous stirrings of patriotic fervor when contemplating the covenantal purpose of this nation.

Specifically, I will document and discuss the significance of two foundational principles embodied in the U.S. Constitution: limited government and residual individual sovereignty. I will explore how these twin foundational presumptions evince a morality of American law itself, a set of higher values by which to gauge the legitimacy of ordinary laws. Subordinate to the Constitution are ordinary laws, enacted by a legislative majority, that tell citizens what specific actions are punishable. These ordinary laws often reflect "public morality"—i.e., the passions, prejudices, and moral beliefs of a portion of the citizenry. But are they legitimate exercises of governmental power? Should we restrain our neighbor's liberty because she engages in an activity we consider icky, gross, or just plain wrong? This book will argue that the answer is no because public morality—based laws are immoral exercises of governmental power, inconsistent with the morality of American law.

Welcome to the Grave, as this place is known to the inmates of a global network of prisons.

The Grave received its name because the cells are little larger than coffins. Pay close attention, because this is a key destination in the war on terror. Admittedly, it is not where President George W. Bush would take visitors on a showpiece tour, and yet here in this dungeon, on this day, December 17, 2002, are at least seven prisoners who claim to have arrived courtesy of the United States.

In charge of the center is a man named George Salloum, an officer of the Syrian military intelligence, dressed in a pair of pressed pants, a golf shirt, and a pair of fine leather shoes. He might seem an unlikely ally for the United States. By profession he is the head of interrogation of suspected terrorists at the Palestine Branch. In short, a torturer. The vice or virtue of his methods, and whether, in the war on terror, such methods may regrettably be necessary, will be examined later. But suffice for now to say Salloum extracts information, or at least confessions, by extreme force, both physical and psychological. The Palestine Branch is a house of confession.

Theodore Roosevelt believed that if only politicians had enough power, they could solve the world's problems. Heralding the era of big government, he urged "far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country." Although Abraham Lincoln dramatically expanded the power of the federal government during wartime, the peacetime expansion of federal power began with Theodore Roosevelt. Disregarding the dismal history of arbitrary and oppressive government, he declared, "I think [the presidency] should be a very powerful office, and I think the President should be a very strong man who uses without hesitation every power the position yields." At another point he said, "I believe in a strong executive. I believe in power."

The latter seems more consonant with the reality of human nature. We are, at the most basic organic level, individuals. Our place in society is not analogous to that of the cells comprising our bodies, which have no meaningful existence apart from their role in the larger organism. Neither are we like computers hooked up to others forming a network. For such computers, as well as for cells, participation in the larger whole is nonconscious and nonvolitional, whereas we humans have our own motivations, thoughts, and feelings—a sense of self.

Another set of easy to digest tidbits for groovy living

Easier Than You Think...
because life doesn't have to be so hard
Richard Carlson, Ph.D.
Harper SanFrancisco, 2005
195 pages

Richard Carlson achieved notoriety from Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, a blend of storytelling and therapy that offers simple advice for dealing with the complexities of modern life.  Though Carlson has no doubt been steadily working his way toward psych celebrity status for many years, I discovered Sweat in the late 90s.

Pass the joint and hand me the ammunition

The Last Free Man in America
Gatewood Galbraith
Outskirts Press, 2004
287 pages

The autobiography of a real American hero, or at least a real American character.  No, Hero, with a capital H.  This is the real McCoy, a man who has dedicated "his life, his fortune, and his sacred (and unsacred) honor" to reclaim American freedom.

A Renaissance of consciousness?

The Celestine Prophecy
James Redfield
Warner Books, 1993
246 pages

The Celestine Prophecy hails from the early 90s as a classic #1 New York Times bestseller about self-discovery.  The book has sold more than ten million copies worldwide.  It continues to appeal to readers on both sides of the spirituality divide.  (This site has touched on some of the connectedness concepts in Letting the Hard Times Go.)