David T. Beito
Unfortunately, the faculty senate vote did not carry any legal weight.
King Banaian
See also KC Johnson's attempt to tie several of these stories together.
William Marina
The article mentioned earlier by CHRIS MATTHEW SCIABARRA, Daniel Del Castillo’s,"The Arab World's Scientific Desert," is available to anyone, not just subscribers to The Chronicle for Higher Education. You need to go to the following web site, and scroll down in the extreme right column,"Essays & Opinions," listing some essays, Click Here, where you will find it.
Charles W. Nuckolls
It is sad, but true, that we professors rarely act in concert, even when it is a matter of our own defense, or the defense of the disciplines we represent. That has got to to change. The administrative elite that now runs most of our colleges want to operate them like businesses, which means creating a flexible and pliable workforce that can hired and fired at will.
Forget tenure. It's over, or will be soon, at most public colleges and universities -- at least in all but name. Already low salaries will probably go lower, and as for health and retirement benefits? Forget about it. Think University of Phoenix.
If you, the readers of this blog, do not begin to take action by joining in the defense of your colleagues and disciplines, then should not be suprised to find in a few years that you have neither.
Join the AAUP; join FIRE; join the NAS today!
Steven Horwitz
As Chris noted when he introduced me to this wonderful corner of the blogosphere, among my interests is an almost fanatical devotion to the rock band Rush. It's not just that they are without question the most libertarian rock band of all time, but they are also one of the most supremely talented, both musically and lyrically. They have also largely avoided the rock cliches of sex, drugs, and bad boy behavior - they play rock with the mentality of professional jazz players. This is hard rock for those who appreciate musical complexity and challenging musicianship. The reason I bring this up is that the Volokh Conspiracy's "Sunday Song Lyric" this week highlights one of Rush's best and most libertarian sets of lyrics, those from "The Trees."
What Juan Non-Volokh doesn't note is that the theme of the song, while clearly borrowing from Rand and other anti-egalitarians, is most closely related to Vonnegut's wonderful story "Harrison Bergeron." Check it out. And check out Rush when the 30th anniversary tour rolls into your town this summer.
David T. Beito
Gene Healy
Regarding the drug entitlement, Bill McInturff, a respected Republican pollster, found that 49 percent of those polled had an unfavorable opinion of it. Just 39 percent viewed it favorably. McInturff says recent polling shows the law remains a net negative.
Karen DeCoster
Congress thought they'd better get busy regulating space. I thought this was an Onion-type satire at first glance, but it is clearly serious. The last paragraph is worth the price of admission alone:
Out-of-this-world vacations moved a step closer to reality Thursday with House passage of legislation setting guidelines for the future space tourism industry.
Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Science Committee, said that while he first thought the legislation was"a little flighty," he came to realize that"this is about a lot more than joy rides in space. This is about the future of the U.S. aerospace industry."
Laws already exist to regulate private sector space endeavors such as satellite launches, but there is no legal jurisdiction for regulating commercial human spaceflight.
The House bill, which passed 402-1, gives regulatory authority over human flight to the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
To make it easier for companies to test new types of reusable suborbital rockets, the bill gives the office the authority to issue experimental permits that can be obtained more quickly and with less bureaucracy than licenses.
It also requires the Office of Commercial Space Transportation to come up with regulations for crew pertaining to training and medical conditions. Space tourists would have to be informed of the risks involved in their travel.
The bill also extends for three years an existing law under which commercial space launch companies are required to carry liability insurance, capped at $500 million, with assurances that the government will compensate for losses above that.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., chairman of the Science Committee's space panel and sponsor of the bill, said encouraging private entrepreneurs to develop new space travel technology would have spinoffs for the Pentagon."Our great space entrepreneurs," he said,"are going to be developing aerospace technologies that can be put into our national security."
The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration. The one dissenting vote was Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas.
Karen DeCoster
It's interesting to see the Martha Stewart verdict play out. Watching the TV news today, I saw some of the jurors speaking to the press. Of course, although insider trading or securities fraud were not the crimes brought against her, the background noise from all of that heavily influenced the jury's decision.
The most hideous comment that I saw from one juror was that her conviction"sent a message to the middle investor that these financial scandals were going to have to be stopped." Dangerous comment coming from a juror. Says this juror's mother: Stewart got a fair shake from her son, a churchgoing, married father of two who works for the Social Security Administration."He believes in equality for everybody, rich and poor," Sallie Hartridge said of her Bronx-born son."He's not an investor, but he's very outgoing and fair to all people."
Another rumor is that the jury as a whole may not have even understood the nature of the charges against Martha. The defense is getting all kinds of ammunition post-conviction. Wonder what strategy they'll take.
David T. Beito
I do not think the film is anti-Semitic. Gibson takes the opportunity more than once to underscore Jewish divisions at the time on the trial and crucifixion. For example, he inserts dissident voices in the Sanhedrin. He also adds a highly sympathetic, and explicitly, Jewish cross-bearer who is belittled by the Romans. The Romans soldiers are portrayed as crude, sadistic, and ugly. Pilate comes across as superficially sympathetic but in actuality Clintonesque and opportunistic.
Some of the critics have stressed the"Jewish features" of the persecutors. This is rather silly. If anything, the"Jewish features" of the disciples and other sympathetic characters are just as pronounced.
Having said this, I had a Lutheran upbringing which included heavy exposure to the Gospels from"mainstream" Christians. I may have felt differently if I had come from a different background.
The film has several violent and highly intense scenes but they are no worse than many other (often nihilistic) films praised by these same critics. Gibson shows a director's care in keeping it within certain limits and interspersing flashbacks. The scourging and crucifixion scenes are not for children or the faint-hearted but mainly because of their intensity, not because of the blood and gore as such.
Gibson's use of Aramaic and Latin is effective. It eliminates much of the artificiality and sentimentality which are so common to Biblical epics. For a informative piece on the Jesuit priest who did the translations, see here. Interestingly, the translator drew on ancient Roman graffiti to include elements slang and obscenity in the conversations of the Roman soldiers. None of this was shown in the subtitles. I don’t know enough to comment on the accuracy of the translations. I understand that Roderick Long, who does have such knowledge, takes a more critical view of some of the uses and misuses of Latin in the film.
Robert L. Campbell
Roderick Long continues promoting libertarian alignment with the Left. He expresses concern that
today's libertarians are, too often, all too close to the right in their insensitivity and dismissiveness toward feminism, multiculturalism, environmentalism, and other left-wing concerns.
Sorry, but this doesn’t advance us one smidgen beyond the overgeneralizing groupthink that I complained about a few days ago.
What kind of feminism? What variety of environmentalism? What sort of multiculturalism? As applied to what? Applied how, and under what rationale?Wouldn’t genuine sensitivity require a closer examination of the concerns or positions in question? I hope “sensitivity” isn’t functioning here as a proxy for unquestioning adoption of hulking great slabs of ideology labeled “feminism,” “multiculturalism,” or “environmentalism”?
Don’t “environmentalists” include people who enjoy nature hikes, and want to make sure raw sewage doesn’t get poured into the local body of water? Don’t “environmentalists” also include tree-spikers, and people who believe that everything on Planet Earth would start being just dandy again, if Homo sapiens were no longer around?
Don’t “multiculturalists” include people who believe that the average American would profit from more extensive education in other languages and cultures? Doesn’t the designation also pertain to people who expect eternal struggle for supremacy between ethnic or racial groups, and seek hegemony for members of their favored groups, so long as they qualified for victim status in the past, and exhibit the behavior expected of them in the present?
Of 19th century libertarians, Roderick says:
libertarians were in the forefront of both the women's movement and the labour movement. … And this didn't mean merely that they wanted to abolish governmental interference with the freedom of women and of labourers (though of course they did want that); they also wanted to bring about (through noncoercive/nongovernmental means, of course) a radical social transformation of the power relations between men and women, and likewise between employers and employees.
Well, doesn’t it matter what kind of social transformation we’re talking about? Some environmentalists envision a world in which people living in Maine eat strawberries only when they are in season locally—no growing them in Florida, or in Mexico, then shipping them to Maine. Sticking to what’s grown or produced in one’s “bioregion” would be a significant change from what we are accustomed to today. Is it the kind of transformation that’s worth pursuing? Could it be accomplished without coercion and compulsion?
Some multiculturalists fear that children will lose their cultural identity if American schools teach them in English, instead of the language of their parents (or the language of their ancestors further back). So they want these children enrolled in “bilingual education” programs in public schools (really, programs that start out monolingual, in a language other than English)—whether their parents want that for them or not. And of course the public school monopoly must be preserved, so as to minimize the chance that children in certain designated groups will avoid being assigned to “bilingual” classes. All of this is obviously being done coercively.
We all know that some of the things that just about every environmentalist wants can be achieved without coercion. There would be less logging, and consequently less environmental damage, in relatively dry or rugged areas of the United States if the forests in question were privately owned. Some of the things that multiculturalists want (or at least, say they want) could be achieved without coercion—for instance, by setting up foundations to promote private instruction in Arabic or Chinese or Navajo or Yoruba. But there are a whole bunch of things that some environmentalists want—or that some multiculturalists want—that cannot be achieved without massive compulsion (or, when it comes to the desires of the anti-Homo sapiens crowd, a massive asteroid impact).
The same goes for the different varieties of feminism. But I’ve kept examples out of this post, because I’ll be taking them up in a later one.
Everything I’ve said here ought to be seen as obvious, commonplace, surface-scratching. It’s an extremely mild effort to make relevant distinctions. What frustrates me so about the recent exhortations to align with the Left (whether from Roderick, or from Gus diZerega) is that they haven’t gone even this short distance.
Gene Healy
Roderick T. Long
I call the question strange because I would have thought that the answer was obvious -- namely, no.
Haven't I, in this very forum, recently criticised the eco-terrorist faction within the Sierra Club? Likewise in this very forum last fall I wrote, inter alia:
"One can criticise Columbus, and the European colonisation of America generally, without either denying the existence of some admirable qualities in the colonisers or rejecting Western civilisation per se."and
"I'd have liked to see a question that distinguished between labour unions per se, which are as legitimate as any other voluntary enterprise, and labour unions as recipients of government-granted privileges, which are as illegitimate as government-granted privileges to any other enterprise."Aren't these precisely the sorts of"relevant distinctions" that Campbell claims I"haven’t gone even this short distance" to make?
As for my own blog, I've recently noted there that"the environmentalist movement includes a number of people who are quite properly classified as enemies of civilization" (though I also observed that they"hardly constitute the majority of environmentalists"). And in a piece I've linked to more than once from L&P, I wrote that"a great deal of silliness and even downright evil has been perpetrated in the name of political correctness," and that left-wingers'" concerns about hegemony and domination ... melt away when the hegemony and domination are being exercised by the state for politically correct purposes." I also accused many feminists of taking their complaints to"absurd extremes," and of defending policies that"involve an increase in state violence."
In short, I don't think the charge that my attitude to the left is uncritical can possibly be sustained. Portraying me -- or Gus diZerega, or Steve Horwitz -- as indiscriminate apologists for all things left-wing would admittedly make it much easier for many libertarians to dismiss the criticisms we've actually been making; but it would not be accurate.
There is of course no shortage of libertarian comment on the many defects of the left. What there is a shortage of is libertarian recognition of, and sensitivity to, many of its legitimate concerns.
Gene Healy
Creating a"family partnership" under federal tax laws, which allows you to divide business income among family members.
Receiving Social Security, Medicare, and disability benefits for spouses.
Receiving veterans' and military benefits for spouses, such as those for education, medical care, or special loans. Receiving public assistance benefits.
Consenting to after-death examinations and procedures.
Filing for stepparent or joint adoption.
Receiving equitable division of property if you divorce.
Receiving spousal or child support, child custody, and visitation if you divorce.
Suing a third person for wrongful death of your spouse and loss of consortium (loss of intimacy).
Claiming the marital communications privilege, which means a court can’t force you to disclose the contents of confidential communications between you and your spouse during your marriage.
Note that some of these would be around even in a nightwatchman state, so the libertarian answer,"get the state out of marriage," doesn't settle the issue. Tax reform and privatization would get around the family partnership and survivors' benefits issues. But there would still be civil and criminal courts and questions of child custody even in a minarchist utopia, so the state by necessity would have to decide what counts as a marriage for those purposes.
Steven Horwitz
Grant is quite right in saying that the education of women, and the resulting higher wages available to them in the market, has made the dual-working family an increasing reality. It also creates the wealth that enables families to solve the problem posed by two working parents: how to accomplish the tasks of household production? Who is going to cook, clean, raise children, etc? The answer, of course, is that families now purchase those services on the market in increasing numbers compared to years past. People eat out more, they use dry cleaners more, and they use day care more.
In language I use elsewhere, families have certain functions they need to perform, and they can either apply their own labor directly to meeting those goals, they can purchase market substitutes for them, or they can rely on social networks/civil society institutions (as David's wonderful book points out). What's happened over the 20th century is that some of the functions of the family have shifted from"domestic labor" to the market, while other functions have shifted toward the state, as David and Grant acknowledge. However, I would argue that even had the 20th century been a libertarian one, many of the shifts in the family we've seen would have taken place. In fact, I'd argue that a libertarian society would have accelerated them because a) we would have been that much wealthier; b) state-created barriers to female education and employment would not have existed; and c) various government policies (e.g., the tax treatment of secondary earners, various subsidies that artificially enhance the demand and supply of"suburbia") that support the so-called"traditional" family would not have existed.
The last century saw the shrinking of many of functions families perform with their own labor. Some of that shrinkage has been good, on the assumption that substitutes for direct labor are no worse than direct labor (and I'd argue that's the case). Some of that shrinkage has been bad, to the extent the state is an inferior substitute for direct labor, civil society, or the market. The upside of this shrinkage is that it has opened up space for families to devote more of their time and energy to some of the psychological/emotional needs of their members. Rather than being predominantly economic units, as they've been through most of history, families are now spaces for love and emotional satisfaction. This also helps to explain the increased visibility of homosexuality in society - one need not be connected to a"traditional" family to be able to survive economically. It also relates to the same-sex marriage debate in that once marriage becomes predominantly about emotional satisfaction, rather than economic survival or procreation, the demand for inclusion by same-sex couples is a natural, and understandable, consequence.
It also shows one of the odd aspects of modern conservativism: the very same people who rhapsodize about how marriage should be about love and commitment between partners, and deride the quickie meaningless heterosexual marriage, can't seem to see why homosexuals might ask for the same thing. But the bigger irony for conservatives is that the reality of marriage as predominantly about romantic love, and the corresponding demand for same-sex marriage, is the product of the forces of capitalism. The Right has to recognize that the forces of the market cannot be"firewalled" off from cultural change. The wealth created by capitalism and the resulting dynamism of the market inevitably spillover to the culture. Ultimately, the attempt to defend the"traditional" family is an attempt to stifle the market.
Having said all this, I do not believe the family will ever, or should ever, disappear. Families cannot be replaced, and expecting the"village" to raise children will have roughly the same results as we've seen when"the village" runs agriculture or industry. Parents have, in Hayekian terms, the knowledge and incentives it takes to raise their children, and no other institution can do better. Yes, other institutions can help or hinder that process, and families can't do it all themselves, but the family is ultimately irreplaceable. Yes, it will continue to evolve, but that makes it no different from any other social institution.
David T. Beito
He is right that many of the current trends in family development would exist in a libertarian society and perhaps be accelerated. Increased wealth and diminished regulations, for example, would open up many new options for working families in areas of schooling, day care, etc. Much of this"shrinking of many of functions families perform" in the last century has been worthwhile and liberating.
My point was to lament the negative byproducts of the state's involvement in this"shrinkage" (somehow I keep thinking of a Seinfeld episode). I think Steve would share many of these concerns. I fear that increased state provision of social welfare, such as day care, will also undermine the family as a source of"emotional satisfaction," one of Steve's hallmarks of the modern family.
Once the state takes over through"free" provision, it also detracts from the family's role (or, for that matter, the role of each individual in it) as a promoter of such values that help to define"emotional satisfaction" such as responsibility, vigilance, and foresight. Sweden is the most glaring example of how a welfare state has speeded the disappearance (not evolution) of the family unit (traditional, modern, or otherwise). I am pessimistic that despite the positive examples of family adaptability mentioned by Steve that we too are headed in this direction.
Pat Lynch
Second, even if we relax that assumption it's bizarre how afraid conservatives are of letting states make these choices for them. I actually agree that courts should not be creating these rights out of thin air like Thomas Sowell's column in the"Moonie" Times. But clearly if a state wants to pass a law legalizing it that's federalism folks.
Third, I think we need put this all in an international perspective. For those of us who complain about the decline of freedom in the U.S., it's important to remember that these debates just can't happen in some countries, a fact that Christopher Hitchens reminds us of in this sort of mushy but otherwise good column from yesterday's Opinion Journal.
Finally, let's assume that the Constitutional amendment on gay marriage fails, which seems like a safe bet. What states are most likely to move towards legalizing civil unions? I'd spectulate it's those with the most to gain from even a small scale gay migration from nearby states, like Oregon, Wisconsin, and of course the only state with a truly legal union Vermont. It's a sort of interesting variation on welfare politics in my mind.
Pat Lynch
Gene Healy
What's more interesting than Wolf's motives, though, is the fact that the reaction to her charges -- from other women -- has been uniformly negative. So far, Wolf has been lambasted by Meghan O'Rourke in Slate, Zoe Williams in The Guardian, Margaret Wente in The Globe and Mail, and Anne Applebaum in The Washington Post. The general consensus is that Wolf is giving feminism a bad name by using a petty charge of sexual harassment for a vendetta and perpetuating an image of women as helpless victims reduced to panic at the first sign of male piggery.
It’s pretty apparent from what she writes that Young inclines toward that view. (Is Reason--which listed Dennis Rodman and Madonna among its 35 heroes of freedom--getting its cultural marching orders from the Right these days?)
Not all women have cut Wolf loose, of course. Andrea Dworkin’s sticking with her. But for Andrea Dworkin, this is pretty tepid--I suspect her heart’s not in this one.
I'm up in the air as to the left-or-right question. There was a time when I was an"opening to the right" guy. Lately I incline toward an"opening to the left." But in any event, the fact that I think Naomi Wolf is--ah, how to put this gently?--overly dramatic and insincere--shouldn't be taken as evidence that I've been assimilated into some sort of right-wing hivemind. It's a conclusion that plenty of other reasonable people, thinking for themselves, have come to as well.
Roderick T. Long
Reason magazine in general, probably not. But Cathy Young? She's a perfect example of what I've been complaining about, and her piece on Wolf is particularly shabby.
Let's look at what she writes about Wolf, and compare it with what Wolf actually wrote:
Now she claims in a New York magazine cover story that some 20 years ago when she was a student at Yale, Bloom, her mentor, came over to her apartment to read her poetry over a nice glass of amontillado, and ended up groping her thigh.This misleadingly suggests that Wolf invited Bloom to come over to her apartment alone, thus cueing the reader to send some blame Wolf's way. You'd never guess from Young's account that there were other people invited to the dinner.
The incident ended there, but Wolf says that it destroyed her self-esteemWolf says nothing of the kind.
and is very upset that Yale did not pursue her recent complaint (even though the deadline for filing a formal harassment charge expired years ago, and it's not entirely clear from her account what it was that she wanted the university to do).Wolf says what she wanted to Yale to do. Did Young and I read the same article?
While Wolf claims that she was motivated by a sense of duty toward other women at Yale, a cynic might be forgiven for thinking that her coming forward was a publicity ploy from a former mini-celebrity with a flagging career.In other words, Young baselessly insinuates that Wolf is lying about her motives. (And the title “Crying Wolf” further insinuates that Wolf is lying about more than that.)
"A cynic might be forgiven ...?" Sorry, no.
