Journalist.
Tonight, David Cobb, the 2004 Presidential Candidate for the Green Party, presented a lecture about corporate personhood at Ohio University. His views on corporate personhood, however, weren't terribly interesting. The valuable portion of his lecture centered around the practical structure of the American political system as opposed to the idealistic version endlessly recited and the implications …
Continue reading "A de-centralization alliance (progressives are our friends)"
Small update today: A short draft of a piece I'm currently writing and pondering. a manifesto à la The Sharon Statement and The Port Huron Statement. 1. When a policy requires reformation, we are reformers. 2. If an institution necessitates abolition, we are abolitionists. 3. If tradition or a societal structure preserves voluntary and peaceful action …
Glenn Greenwald has a wonderful post from May 2010 concerning opinions labeled "crazy" and subsequently marginalized in political circles. A good summary of Ron Paul's opinions and quirks, but more importantly, an analysis on why "intense, fixated mockery of marginalized, powerless people has the benefit of distracting attention from the actions of those who are …
Continue reading "Glenn Greenwald: Who are the real “crazies” in our political culture?"
The Search for an Echo by Leonard E. Read is possibly my favorite article he's ever written; unfortunately, no electronic form exists. I found the article in Essays on Liberty, Volume VI, a FEE series where they collected essays published over the course of a year (in The Freeman, pamphlets and other publications) and republished them …
Continue reading "The search for an echo by Leonard E. Read"
With my column for The Post ending soon with the quarter, I wanted to aggregate all of them for future reference. Market must be free of government General Electric, the largest corporation in America, paid no taxes for 2010. According to a recent New York Times article, General Electric claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion. …
Not much original content in this post, but some thins I found to be intellectually advantageous. Deflation, as it is commonly understood, is a confusing concept. The majority of economic thinking presumes it to be universally negative and encourages government action to avert deflation at all costs. However, some economists have noted two distinct forms …
Continue reading "Deflation, Rothbard’s critique of Friedman"
I'll have Socialist Cliché #3 written in a few days, God willing. In the meantime, here is a fantastic lecture by Leonard Read.
This cliché often, but not always, precedes an ad hominem along the lines of the defender of individual liberty being selfish, greedy, callous or worse. However, it fails because of a few assumptions and misunderstandings: it exalts an illusion of security above liberty, presumes individuals cannot save or monitor their financial situations and accuses libertarians …
I've decided to embark on a new project, inspired by a book published by FEE in 1970. As a way to confront economic myths and flimsy political arguments encouraging limits to individual liberty, FEE published a book which addresses 76 "clichés of socialism," in an effort to help liberty advocates answer these claims. In that …
Continue reading "Cliché of Socialism #1: The greater complexity, the greater government control"
Subsidies slow green energy growth Advocates for green energy investment gloss over a few important points: Job creation is not synonymous with wealth creation, government investment is another form of corporate welfare and government investment is usually, if not always, inefficient. I love the false dichotomy of vote or do nothing. It's a fundamental misunderstanding …