Todd’s right, Andy Ferguson’s Weekly Standard piece is excellent – whether one agrees with his ultimate take on it or not. The bottom line of the piece, however, is not simply a skepticism about the powers of social science – behavioral economics as the New Social Engineering. It is, rather, a broadly libertarian point, going […]
Archive | Libertarianism
Inside Baseball on Obama Legal Team Deliberations on National Security
By Kenneth Anderson on March 29, 2010 8:05 am in Counter-Terrorism Policy, Libertarianism, Robotics, Targeted Killing, War and Armed Conflict, War on Terror
Over at Opinio Juris, Julian Ku points to today’s front page NYT story by Charlie Savage detailing secret memos and meetings among the leading lawyers seeking to address national security and terrorism issues, including detentions, drone strikes, the question of armed conflict, and other things. In my posts, I have been focused on the question […]
European Libertarians and Federalism
In his post on American libertarians’ support for federalism, which I responded to here, NYU lawprof Rick Hills points out that American libertarian support for federalism may be at odds with the position taken by our European cousins. “European libertarians, to my knowledge,” he writes, “have never liked federalism much.” The divergence between American and […]
Why do Libertarians Like Federalism?
NYU lawprof Roderick Hills, a leading academic expert on federalism, asks why libertarians “care about federalism.” He posits three possible reasons: I have three theories to explain the connection that libertarians draw between federalism and libertarianism, which I’ll label the (a) “feet-voting” theory; (b) “shrink-and-drown” theory; and (c) “insincerity” theory. Hills captures the major libertarian […]
The Books that Influenced Me the Most
Tyler Cowen recently started a meme of asking bloggers to list the books that influenced them the most. Here’s Tyler’s list. Some others that I found interesting are Bryan Caplan, Matthew Yglesias, and Jay Elias. I found it interesting that there is so little overlap between my list, Caplan’s and Cowen’s, even though we are […]
Does Hayek Belong in High School Economics Classes?
At the Freakonomics blog, economist Justin Wolfers criticizes a recent Texas Board of Education effort to include the work of F.A. Hayek in high school economics classes. He sees it as a “conservative” ideological mandate that isn’t justified by Hayek’s scholarly influence: Sunday’s New York Times reported on attempts by the Texas Board of Education […]
Are More Intelligent People More Likely to Be Liberal?
This new article by psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa concludes that more intelligent people are more likely to be politically liberal [HT: Ronald Bailey]. It has gotten a great deal of media attention, for example from CNN and Time. In reality, the article doesn’t actually prove any such thing. It has several significant methodological flaws. I. Conflating […]
“Wait, don’t change the channel! We left Fox News out of the Privacy Assessment.”
By Stewart Baker on February 13, 2010 1:11 pm in Libertarianism, Privacy, Terrorism, Uncategorized, War on Terror
With his usual nudge-and-wink, Matt Drudge invites us to be dismayed that “BIG SIS” — his moniker for Janet Napolitano — is “Monitoring Web Sites for Terror and Disaster Info.” Drudge links to a story saying that DHS will be monitoring social media like Twitter, as well as websites like Drudge, to keep abreast of […]
Debating Ayn Rand’s Philosophy
Cato Unbound has recently completed an interesting debate between several scholars on the strengths and weaknesses of Ayn Rand’s philosophy. All of the contributions are worth reading for those interested in the subject. But I agree most with University of Colorado political philosopher Michael Huemer: What is the best way to defend freedom intellectually? Is […]
Should Libertarians Learn to “Love Government”?
Libertarian policy analysts William Eggers and John O’Leary recently published a provocative article entitled ““Five Reasons Why Libertarians Shouldn’t Hate Government.” The article generated good responses by Bryan Caplan (here and here), and my fiancee. Tyler Cowen and Will Wilkinson have defended Eggers and O’Leary. Eggers and O’Leary make some good points. On balance, however, […]
The Libertarian Vote
David Kirby and David Boaz have published a new Cato Institute study estimating the size of the “libertarian vote.” They conclude that about 14% of American voters are libertarian in the sense of broadly opposing government regulation in both the economic and social realms. As a libertarian think tank, Cato obviously has a strong interest […]
Is Libertarianism on the Rise? (And Should We Thank the President?)
An interesting tidbit from Sunday’s Washington Post about a new Washington Post-ABC News poll: The poll also shows how much ground Obama has lost during his first year of trying to convince the public that more government is the answer to the country’s problems. By 58 percent to 38 percent, Americans said they prefer smaller […]
Three Approaches to Defending Liberty
A standard argument for government regulation or prohibition of private sector activities runs as follows: Individuals or businesses are doing something harmful and/or immoral. Therefore, the government must step in and ban it, or at least regulate to restrict it. A standard libertarian response (also sometimes used by liberals) is that, in a free society, […]
Anne Heller’s Ayn Rand Biography
A few weeks ago, I reviewed Jennifer Burns’ important new biography of Ayn Rand. I have now had a chance to read the other recent Rand Biography, Anne Heller’s Ayn Rand and the World She Made. Heller’s book is very good and gives a thorough account of Rand’s life. On the whole, I found it […]
The Ten Best Pro-Liberty Books of the Decade
Via the Atlas Foundation blog, a rather idiosyncratic list. The top 3 are Bryan Caplan’s Myth of the Rational Voter, Brian Doherty’s Radicals for Capitalism, and Hernando De Soto’s The Mystery of Capital. Atlas also solicits suggestions for books not on the list. Much to my delight, Damon Root of Reason responds: Obviously any such […]