Roderick T. Long  BUY MY BOOK OR ELSE!

Archives: June 2005

Back to archive list       Back to current page


   

   


Confederate Art

The Confederate flag – noble symbol of resistance to tyranny, or detestable symbol of slavery?

Well, of course it’s both. But apparently it’s also, appropriately enough, a symbol of bureaucratic incompetence. (As I always say, the Confederacy was just another failed government program.)

According to this history, the first official Confederate flag confused soldiers on the battlefield because it looked too much like the U.S. flag. The second official Confederate flag confused soldiers on the battlefield because unless there was a stiff breeze to reveal its upper lefthand corner it looked too much like a white flag of surrender. The butt-ugly third official Confederate flag solved this problem by adding a red stripe and looked like the monstrous offspring of a committee, which presumably it was.


No wonder that none of the official flags ever gets used as the Confederate symbol today. (Nor, contrary to common belief, is the Confederate battle flag the one most commonly used today either. Apparently it’s actually the Confederate naval flag – for what it’s worth.)

In other news, my 10/19/04 blog post The Form of Sound Words is being discussed here and here.


Posted June 20th, 2005

Permalink: praxeology.net/unblog06-05.htm#05

Comment


Juvenilia Jamboree

Sorting through boxes of papers this weekend I came across yet another batch of my old letters to the editor. So here are my latest blasts from the past.

First up is a letter published in the Christian Science Monitor, 19 July 1984:

To the Editor:

The editorial on TV deregulation (July 2) cautiously approves the FCC’s “experiment” of acknowledging television broadcasters’ constitutional rights to freedom of the press, but urges that such freedom be restricted by “concern for public welfare.” The editorial on drinking and smoking (same day) gives an indication of the extent of such a restriction: It demands that “those responsible for governing the country and the airwaves [the public and private sectors are linked here, as if the same kind of ‘governing’ were involved] … have a joint responsibility in protecting society,” and upholds an alleged right “to be free of seductive advertising on the airwaves.” The margin of freedom of speech and press to which broadcasters are to be entitled is apparently quite slim.

 Alexander Hamilton The quotation from Alexander Hamilton (same page) – “civil liberty is founded in [natural liberty], and cannot be wrested from any people without the most manifest violation of justice” – is a shocking reminder of how far our public culture has strayed from the ideals of this country’s founders. The freedoms of American democracy derive their original legitimacy from a concern for justice. We owe these freedoms to a time when man was viewed as a being with inalienable rights whose violation no vested interest, public or private, could justify; a time when liberty was not viewed as a special privilege doled out by state or society on an “experimental” basis, to be retracted arbitrarily. They were held to be the natural legacy of mankind.

Roderick T. Long
Hull, Massachusetts
Three years later, again in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 December 1987:

To the Editor:

I agree wholeheartedly with Curtis J. Sitomer’s conviction that, “In a pluralistic society, it is best for government to leave ethical and spiritual education to the private sector” (“Morals and public money,” Nov. 19).

But why restrict this sentiment to “ethical and spiritual” education?

Surely it is just as dangerous “in a pluralistic society” – such as the American society today – to allow the state to promote governmental orthodoxy in the fields of history, science, medicine, literature, and sociology.

In a democratic polity, the power of government is held in check by a vigilant and independent citizenry; that check is undermined when the citizens who must be ready to oppose the government are dependent on it for the contents of their minds.

 Thomas Jefferson This evil is exacerbated by the tax-supported nature of public education. No matter whether evolutionists are taxed to fund the teaching of creationism or creationists are taxed to fund the teaching of evolution; in either case, such taxation violates Thomas Jefferson’s dictum that “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

Governmental indoctrination is as pernicious in education generally as it is in religious education specifically, and for the same reasons.

Let’s rethink the nature of our commitment to public education in the United States; does it require that the government itself teach our children? One alternative might be an across-the-board tax-credit voucher system.

Roderick T. Long
Ithaca, New York
Okay, so I was unsound on the voucher question; but I was on the right track.

Once more the Christian Science Monitor, 23 January 1989:

To the Editor:

Regarding the article “Putting the Mails in Private Hands,” Jan. 6: The Postal Service would undoubtedly be more efficient if it were privatized. But it’s unfortunate that this issue is being discussed only in terms of efficiency, and not in terms of justice.

Insulating the Postal Service from private competition is not merely impractical but, above all, unfair. The most fundamental argument against the US postal monopoly is that it simply has no place in a free society: Grants of monopoly privilege by the government are a relic of 17th-century mercantilism and the absolute state.

If John is willing to pay Mary to deliver a letter for him, what business is it of anyone else?

A society that values individual liberty must not, in political philosopher Robert Nozick’s words, “forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults.”

Roderick T. Long
Ithaca, New York
In World Monitor, September 1989 (this was shortened, and I’ll post the longer original when I come across it):

To the Editor:

 Aristotle Richard Nenneman, invoking the Aristotelian conception of metaphysics as “beyond physics” (July), misleadingly suggests that Aristotle shared “a belief in an invisible world of the spirit as distinct from the material world which we perceive.” [Here I’m sure I originally said something about Plato.] But Aristotle’s approach was radically different. As he saw it, metaphysics deals with the same objects as does physics, but from a higher and more universal point of view, considering those objects insofar as they are pure existences rather than insofar as they are physical bodies with shape, weight, and location. Physics and metaphysics thus deal, not with two different realms, but with the same realm in two different ways.

Roderick T. Long
Ithaca, New York
Next, the Ithaca Times, 26 July 1990 (the brackets mark a passage inadvertently omitted from the Times):

To the Editor:

I sympathize with the temptation to support the Bias-Related Violence and Intimidation Act; but the temptation must be resisted. To impose higher penalties for bias-related assaults than for ordinary assaults is to punish assailants not only for their actions (assault) but for their beliefs (bias). The only difference between a bias-related assault and an ordinary assault is the presence of bias in the assailant’s head. But the assailant’s head is one place the government has no business intruding. Penalizing assault is the government’s business; approving or disapproving of the assailant’s ideological orientation is not. Prejudice, while evil, is not in itself a crime; no one has the right to punish people for their social or political beliefs, even if those beliefs are racist, sexist, or otherwise repugnant. That’s what the First Amendment is all about.

The advocates of the Bias-Related Violence Act are well-intentioned – probably more so than most of the Act’s opponents. But while the Act may seem progressive, it accepts the same fatal principle (fatal to civil liberties, that is) as the recent frighteningly fascistic measures to reduce penalties for assault if the assault is motivated by “indignation” at flag-burning – surely a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s “equal protection” clause. In either case, a law that treats some [assailants more harshly than others on the basis of an evaluation of the] assailants’ political beliefs is itself an instance of bias-related violence on the part of the government!

Roderick T. Long
Ithaca, New York
In Freedom Network News (some time in 1990):

To the Editor:

It is disappointing to find Freedom Network News praising as “humorous” the sexist and unthoughtful remark “The assertion that ‘culture’ explains human variation will be taken seriously when there are reports of women war parties raiding villages to capture men as husbands.”

First, as Drs. Tooby and Cosmides can hardly fail to be aware, human history is full of such “reports.” These have traditionally been dismissed as mythical by historians with androcentric biases, but the historical evidence has yet to be dealt with fully. At present, then, denying the historicity of episodes of female dominance is premature (to put it mildly).

Second, even if we suppose that males have indeed been the dominant and aggressive sex in every age and nation after all, this hardly requires us to postulate a biological basis for such a pattern. Tooby and Cosmides object that: “If cultures are not constrained by innate human tendencies, then they should vary as much in one direction as another.” This would be true enough if human cultures evolved in complete independence of one another; but in fact, every culture is descended from earlier cultures, and so on back to the beginning. All our cultures are mere variants of a common culture established by our remotest human ancestors, and some of our most deeply ingrained traditions (including male dominance?) doubtless arose at that time, perhaps quite by chance. Humans are conservative beasts, and have barely even begun to explore the alternative cultural possibilities open to them.

What about libertarianism, for example? A libertarian society has never existed on Earth. (Sorry, 18th-century America and medieval Iceland don’t even come close – as their libertarian press agents would swiftly realize if they found themselves living there.) Since culture has never varied in the noncoercive direction, does that mean the human race is somehow biologically programmed for statism? And if so, why are Tooby and Cosmides wasting their time and money by joining Libertarian International?

Finally, I am puzzled by the Editor’s closing suggestion that the biologism of Tooby and Cosmides constitutes some sort of setback for the Objectivists. Surely Ayn Rand, who insisted that man was the metaphysically dominant sex, and who glorified the male’s violent conquest of the female as an essential ingredient in romantic love, would have been delighted by their Paleolithic pronouncements.

Roderick T. Long
Ithaca, New York
My closing comment just above was a bit disingenuous; of course Rand was opposed to biological determinism. My point was that her views on gender nevertheless implicitly presuppose biological determinism.

Finally, in the Libertarian Party News (again, some time in 1990 – why didn’t I date these clippings properly?):

To the Editor:

In his letter in the April 1990 LP News, Kenneth Prazak maintains that the Libertarian Party should refrain from taking a stand on any issue for which there is not a near-unanimous consensus among libertarians. He therefore suggests abandoning the LP platform in favor of a diluted and uncontroversial Statement of Principles, so that “Libertarians would more accurately be represented to the public at large.” What this suggestion amounts to is the demand that Libertarians present themselves to the public at large as adherents of a vague set of principles divorced from any practical applications.

The Libertarian Party would become hostage to whatever minority of libertarians had not rid itself of statist delusions on one issue or another. Perhaps the Platform should contain a statement acknowledging that it cannot speak for all members; but it should make no further concession than that. We have to draw the line somewhere: A Libertarian Party that was not pro-choice and anti-interventionist would be a Libertarian Party hardly worth belonging to at all. The Libertarian Party is the Party of Principle; let’s keep it that way.

Roderick T. Long
Ithaca, New York
Today I would favour a more eirenic proposal (first suggested to me by my friend Phil Jacobson): keep the Platform, but next to each of its provisions indicate the percentage of votes by which it passed. That would both assuage the feelings of the losing factions and give newcomers a more accurate picture of the libertarian spectrum.


Posted June 19th, 2005

Permalink: praxeology.net/unblog06-05.htm#04

Comment


Iraqis, Gays, and Dangerous Things

On May 18th I sent the following letter to the Opelika-Auburn News. (I don’t know whether it was published, since I spent the subsequent week in Paris.)

To the Editor:

In a letter to the editor, John Henderson writes: “Terrorists destroy the twin towers, Bush responds, and he is accused of starting a war.”

I found this remark awfully puzzling. To call Bush’s invasion of Iraq a “response” to the 9/11 attacks is to imply that Iraq was involved in those attacks. But of course Iraq had no connection to the 9/11 attacks, as even the Bush administration admits. So how do Bush’s actions not count as “starting a war”?

I must also take issue with the following remark: “A proposal is made to protect the tradition of marriage between a man and a woman and Nix interprets this as hatred of gays.” Surely a “proposal” has to be evaluated not only in terms of the ends sought but in terms of the means selected; the best end in the world cannot justify the use of immoral means. St. Paul rightly condemns those who say “Let us do evil that good may come.” (Romans 3:8)

Even granting, then, the dubious proposition that the “protection” of heterosexual marriage is a legitimate function of the federal government (though I find no such power granted in the U.S. Constitution), when the means chosen to achieve that end is legislation that recognizes a special right for heterosexuals – the right to marry – and denies that right to homosexuals, thus treating the latter as second-class citizens, how else can this be interpreted if not as an unjust attack on gays’ rights as citizens and human beings?

Roderick T. Long

Posted June 14th, 2005

Permalink: praxeology.net/unblog06-05.htm#03

Comment


Aiming to Misbehave

The latest issue (#51) of the Green Arrow comic book features the return of my favourite superhero, Anarky (for more about him, DON’T CLICK HERE) – his first appearance since 2001, unless I missed one. (I wonder if he’s still the son of the Joker or whether that’s been erased in all the recent retconning.) Alas, he doesn’t say or do anything particularly anarchistic in this particular adventure, but at least he makes the point (still in need of making out there in darkest America) that one can be an anarchist without being a terrorist.

In other news, Wally Conger has blogged about my blogging about Firefly. And now I’ve blogged about his blogging about my blogging. All this cross-referential iteration can mean only one thing. I wonder what it is.


Posted June 9th, 2005

Permalink: praxeology.net/unblog06-05.htm#02

Comment


My Father the Chair

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

I just got back from a delightful week in Paris, city of many of my philosophic heroes – Abélard, Aquinas, Voltaire, Bastiat, Proudhon, Bellegarrigue, Hugo, Sartre, Foucault. (Okay, so I’m eclectic.) This trip was much more successful than my previous trip (since on my previous trip, in 2003, I was mugged on the first day and so for the rest of the week had very little money for food or museums – though that trip was nevertheless delightful on balance as well).

Once again I stayed in my favourite neighborhood, on the border between the 5th and 6th arrondissements. This time I saw the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Panthéon, Sainte-Chapelle, the Eiffel Tower, the Marais, the Arab Institute, and Versailles. (With apologies to my colleague Hans Hoppe, the arrogant, tacky, and grotesque extravagance of Versailles does little to inspire confidence in monarchy as a curb on time-preference.) I also revisited Notre-Dame, the Jardin des Plantes, the Lutetian Arena, the Rue Mouffetard, and the Musée Cluny (where Isabel Paterson used to sit in the garden); took a bateau up and down the Seine; and enjoyed the two absolutely most delicious desserts I have ever tasted: an apricot chocolate crêpe, called a “Lorraine,” at La Crêpe Carrée (42 Rue Monge), and a grapefruit sorbet at Berthillon (31 Rue St.-Louis-en-l’Île). In addition, I found a bookstore near the University (Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 6 Place de la Sorbonne) that carries nothing but philosophy books – both new and used, both French and English (I was pleased to see my friend Dave Schmidtz’s Nozick anthology on the shelf). Didn’t get to the Champs-Elysées, Arc du Triomphe, Montmartre, or Jardin de Luxembourg this time, but I did those two years ago. (Unfortunately still haven’t gotten to the Opéra Garnier, despite my enthusiasm for its most famous inhabitant.)

One of my favourite visits was to the elaborate and haunting Père Lachaise cemetery (take an online tour here) to visit the grave of Gustave de Molinari, founder of market anarchism. Molinari’s grave isn’t on the official maps, but thanks to Hervé de Quengo’s website I knew that it was right next to that of another hero of French liberalism, Benjamin Constant; and Constant is on the maps – on the Chemin du Dragon, where divisions 27, 28, and 29 come together: see the red circle. (Jean-Baptiste Say’s grave, which is also – scandalously – not on the official maps, is supposed to be “some ten meters away,” but alas, I couldn’t find it.) In retrospect I should have bought flowers to lay on Molinari’s grave (there are flower shops near the cemetery entrance for such purpose) – well, next time.

While I long to be still strolling along the Seine, browsing the bouquinistes, or sipping Lavazza at a sidewalk café, I guess I’d better turn my thoughts to the many tasks awaiting me this summer. Au revoir, Paris.


Posted June 5th, 2005

Permalink: praxeology.net/unblog06-05.htm#01

Comment





Back to archive list      Back to current page