BUY MY BOOK OR ELSE!  Roderick T. Long

Archives: August 2006

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Good-bye Forever

My blog is moving to a new location! The new address is praxeology.net/blog and the new RSS feed is praxeology.net/blog/feed.

Barring unforeseen problems with the new version, this will be my last post here at the old. Old posts will continue to be archived here, but new ones will be archived at the new version. So good-bye, but only sort of.

Posted August 31st, 2006
Permalink: praxeology.net/unblog08-06.htm#06
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Journalist Grows Spine!

Keith Olbermann brings it:

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable comments to the Veterans of Foreign Wars yesterday demand the deep analysis and the sober contemplation of every American. For they do not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence, indeed the loyalty, of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse still, they credit those same transient occupants – our employees – with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve. ...

That about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: this is a democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely. And as such, all voices count, not just his. Had he or his President perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience – about Osama Bin Laden’s plans five years ago; about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago; about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one year ago – we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their omniscience as a bearable, even useful, recipe of fact plus ego. But to date this government has proved little besides its own arrogance and its own hubris. Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire fog of fear which continues to envelop this nation – he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies, have inadvertently or intentionally profited and benefited, both personally and politically. And yet he can stand up in public and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emperor’s New Clothes. In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America? ... The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: the destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City so valiantly fought. ...

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a “new type of fascism”? As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that – though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.

Read the rest of Olbermann’s response to Rumsfeld’s speech. Better yet, watch the video. (For some reason I can’t link to it from this page, but you can get it here.) Olbermann’s historical digression on Chamberlain and Churchill is, alas, mostly mistaken,* but the rest of it is great stuff.


* Olbermann, like Rumsfeld, buys into the old myth that Neville Chamberlain was naïve about Hitler’s intentions. In fact Chamberlain was perfectly aware how dangerous Hitler was – but he was also aware how poorly prepared the British military was, and so was quite sensibly unwilling to challenge Hitler until he had first built up Britain’s military power – which he directly proceeded to do. It’s been said that diplomacy is the art of saying “nice doggie” while looking for a rock – which is a pretty good description of what Chamberlain was doing. Churchill’s plan for immediate confrontation, by contrast, was like attacking the dog barehanded while hoping that someone else with a rock will happen along. The prospects for success of Churchill’s policy depended crucially on American entry into the war; otherwise it was suicidal. Since America did ultimately enter the war, Churchill’s policy may look sensible in hindsight, but given the antiwar sentiment in the U.S. at the time it was hardly something that could reasonably be counted on. Churchill gambled with his country’s freedom and got lucky.

Posted August 31st, 2006
Permalink: praxeology.net/unblog08-06.htm#05
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Beirut Update

Today I’m pleased and relieved to learn that my friends Jeremy and Lucy Koons made it out of Lebanon safely during the recent unpleasantness.

I hope to get back to more regular blogging soon – things have just been über-hectic here of late.

Posted August 23rd, 2006
Permalink: praxeology.net/unblog08-06.htm#04
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Tuscaloosa Countdown

Deadlines are looming for the Alabama Philosophical Society conference:

See the APS website for more info.

Also, undergrads – don’t forget the student essay contest.

Posted August 23rd, 2006
Permalink: praxeology.net/unblog08-06.htm#03
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Anarchy in D.C.

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

The Molinari Society will be holding its third annual Symposium in conjunction with the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in Mordor, I mean Washington DC, December 27-30, 2006. Here’s the latest schedule info:

GVIII-4. Friday, 29 December 2006, 11:15 a.m.-1:15 p.m.
Molinari Society symposium: “Anarchist Perspectives”
Virginia Suite C (Lobby Level), Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, 2660 Woodley Road NW

Session 1, 11:15-12:15:
chair: Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)
speaker: Matthew MacKenzie (Muhlenberg College)
title: “Exploitation: A Dialectical Anarchist Perspective”
commentator: Charles W. Johnson (Molinari Institute)

Session 2, 12:15-1:15:
chair: Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)
speaker: Geoffrey Allan Plauché (Louisiana State University)
title: “On the Myth of the Founder-Legislator in Political Philosophy”
commentator: Charles W. Johnson (Molinari Institute)

Posted August 3rd, 2006
Permalink: praxeology.net/unblog08-06.htm#02
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JLS 20.2: What Lies Within?

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

The latest issue (20.2) of the Journal of Libertarian Studies is out. Catch the action:

Valentin Petkantchin argues that Adam Smith’s “third duty of the sovereign” is less interventionist than traditionally thought; B. K. Marcus defends the privatisation of the airwaves; Bob Murphy and Gene Callahan challenge Hans Hoppe’s argumentation ethic; Jeff Hummel criticises Tom Woods’ take on American history; Sam Bostaph praises Tom Woods’ account of the Catholic Church’s relationship to Progressivism and to Austrian economics; and Rob Bass critiques Tibor Machan’s book on Ayn Rand.

Read a fuller summary of 20.2’s contents here.

Read the articles themselves (already online) here.

Read summaries of previous issues under my editorship here.

Read back issues online here.

Subscribe here.

Posted August 3rd, 2006
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Posted August 3rd, 2006
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