David T. Beito
Mark Brady
Way back in December 2002, Cato published Why the United States Should Not Attack Iraq by Ivan Eland (now with the Independent Institute and a contributor to Antiwar.com) and Bernard Gourley. A year later Cato published Charles V. Pena’s Iraq: The Wrong War. Three weeks later Patrick Basham asked Can Iraq Be Democratic?. In June 2004 Cato published the Exiting Iraq: Why the U.S. Must End the Military Occupation and Renew the War against Al Qaeda, the report of a task force sponsored by Cato and directed by Christopher Preble. In January 2005 Preble published an article, How to Exit Iraq, in the National Post of Canada. Unfortunately, Cato’s link to the article doesn’t work but you can get a sense of what it’s about by reading Justin Raimondo’s remarks here. Since then, apart from a commentary on monetary reform, there has been complete silence—at least as far as I can tell.
It’s therefore not unreasonable to ask “Where Is Cato Now on One of the Most Important Issues of the Day?” I can’t believe they’ve run out of things to say. Perhaps someone from Cato reading this post would defend their decision not to say anything since January. May we infer that Cato is deliberately keeping quiet on this issue? And if so, why? Is this part of a grand strategy not to detract from Cato’s other policy objectives? And/or is this silence reflective of divisions within Cato itself? I’m genuinely puzzled and intrigued.
Mark Brady
Interestingly, Ted Heath omitted all particulars of his political career from Who's Who. As W. F. Deedes pointed out here: “He must be the only prime minister in history to expunge all record of his political progress from a principal directory.” The obituary in the Guardian states: “Heath claimed to have visited every country in the world except North Korea, Bolivia and Paraguay. In many countries he was treated rather more respectfully than at home, where his candour was redefined as petulance by his critics.” And, as far as I can make out, Heath was likely the only twentieth century prime minister who died a virgin.
William Marina
American politics also used to be a bit rowdy. Dr. Joseph Warren, for example, the great orator, killed battling the British at Breed's Hiil, used to bait the British officers in speeches during their occupation of Boston, 1768-76.
By all means, let us have no nasty discourse, better none at all. Pity, some are so squeamish.
Sudha Shenoy
1. The real political struggle in Muslim countries between Islamic fanatics & those who are not quite so fervent. This conflict has continued for a long time, & it is purely _political_ . Islamic zealots seek powers of governance over their fellow-Muslims, to impose a specific set of highly restrictive regulations on them. These regulations embody a particular -- narrow, grim, rigid -- view of what Islam is about. From this latter standpoint, obtaining political power is a religious duty; & the field of duty for this purpose is the entire Muslim world -- the ‘ummah’. -- This view is essentially a continuing reaction against the _less_ constricting amongst _Islamic_ traditions. Under the influence of the latter, & of the more liberal amongst ‘Western’ ideas, most Muslims tend to be _relatively_ less ardent in outlook. So far, such Muslims have succeeded in retaining political power in most (not all) of the Islamic world. But the struggle continues.
Thus:- In Pakistan, the growing political power of the zealots led to the enactment of ‘sharia’ -- Islamic law -- into legislation. This allowed bigots to persecute minority Islamic groups such as the Ahmadiyya, reduce the status of women, etc. Islamic fanatics also run an entire network of ‘madrassahs’. These are not just ‘religious’ schools, for simple learning of the Koran. They are also indoctrination centres. In northern Nigeria, the imposition of ‘sharia’ -- Muslim law -- has led to continuing clashes with Christians & other non-Muslims. In Algeria an endemic civil war has continued for years, between the ‘modern’ military, & the main -- Islamicist -- political party. In Egypt, the current rulers continue to persecute more _liberal_-minded Muslims. Nevertheless, the so-called ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ have carried out (inter alia) a number of assassinations over the years -- ranging from President Sadat to (most recently) the Egyptian ambassador to Iraq. The second-in-command in Al-Qaeda is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. The rulers of Saudi Arabia have been dominated since the 18th century, by a particularly narrow & extremely intolerant school of Islam. The Wahhabis therefore dominate in Arabia, persecute the minority Shias (inter alia), &, with lavish official funding, have spread across Pakistan & the Muslim diaspora. Even so, Osama bin Laden has long opposed the House of Saud. He has a list of ‘religious’ grievances of course -- eg, the stationing of US troops on the sacred soil of Arabia. But gaining control over its vast oil revenues is clearly his target.
2. Western governments are allies of current governments in the Islamic world, & obviously, very powerful allies. Hence Muslim extremists are also hostile towards these Western governments:- ‘my enemy’s friend is my enemy’. On the 11th September 2001, practically all the terrorists came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Yemen (the last had grievances against the Saudi ruling house.) On the 7th July this year, three out of four bombers had connexions to extremist madrassahs in Pakistan; & all fell prey to extremists in Leeds. The oldest, in fact, is reported to have preached zealously against Western policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Further, the three from Leeds were apparently banned from attending regular mosques. All four were instructed & supplied by an Al-Qaeda operative (also a Pakistani-Briton) who left Britain very shortly before the 7th. Thus they were foot-soldiers -- pawns -- in the larger struggle to gain political power in the Muslim world. Ordinary people in Britain suffered grievously -- because their politicians & officials were allied to other politicians & officials -- in the Muslim world; whom the latter’s political opponents wanted to overthrow. These opponents’ message is clear: ‘We can attack even such powerful allies.’
3. For British politicians & others, this was (naturally) a case of baddies attacking the political unity of Britons. (More on this below.) Michael Howard (Tory party leader) said the “terrorists’ objective [was] dividing us one from another.” Tony Blair (the PM): “We are united…our country will not be defeated by such terror… it is to us & not to the terrorists, that victory will belong….The two minutes silence” on the 14th is “an opportunity for the nation to unite in remembrance.” He also called for “moderate & true…Islam” to be mobilised against the “extreme & evil ideology [rooted] in a perverted & poisonous misinterpretation of Islam.” The Prince of Wales asked Muslims in Britain to denounce those who “preach & practise such hatred & bitterness.” Such ideas were a “perversion of traditional Islam.” “Extremists” (he said) are “offended by…good relations between faiths & cultures”, so they “seek to break up…communities.” -- Now, earlier the PM had said: what the “terrorists” sought to “destroy” was “our values…way of life…tolerance & respect for others.” Prince Charles echoed this sentiment: if people simply condemned all Muslims in general (he said) for the acts of a “tiny & evil minority”, then “the bombers will have achieved their aim.”
In other words, the bombers killed & maimed, & died themselves -- so that _Muslims_ might be blamed. The terrorists wanted non-Muslims to hate Muslims. -- Alternatively, did the terrorists simply demonise the West? That won’t wash, either: three were born in Britain; the fourth spent all his life there; & all had families there. The 11th September terrorists had university training in the West. And the bombers in Britain used ‘military-level’ explosives -- which came apparently from the Al-Qaeda agent who organised them & built the bombs. Tony Blair himself blamed “Islamic extremist terrorists” from the outset, listing the various countries in which they had bombed innocent people. But such terrorist groups, from their very beginning decades ago, aimed at obtaining power in _Muslim_ countries. For these extremists, attacks on ‘infidels’ can only be another means to this _political_ end. So we return full circle: by allying themselves with politicians & officials in the Islamic world, politicians & officials in the Western world have become involved in their allies’ political conflicts: my friend’s enemy also turns his enmity on me. All the waffle quoted above is to divert attention from this reality -- & to rally subjects mindlessly round the flag.
Kenneth R. Gregg
1. The removal of members of the land armed forces from within the continental limits of the United States and the Panama Canal Zone for any cause whatsoever is prohibited.Thomas Woods, who has written on the Bricker Amendment said:
2. The vessels of the United State Navy, or of the other branches of the armed service, are hereby prohibited from steaming, for any reason whatsoever except on an errand of mercy, more than five hundred iles from our coast.
3. Aircraft of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps is hereby prohibited from flying, for any reason whatsoever, more than seven hundred and fifty miles beyond the coast of the United States.
"Today the treaty power poses as grave a threat to self-government as ever before. The voices that speak for American independence are few and far between. As the twentieth century comes to a close, post-Cold War America awaits its John Bricker."I prefer its Smedley Butler, who understands that war is a racket.
Just a thought.
Just Ken
CLASSical Liberalism
David T. Beito
New research highlights a frustrating fact about science: What was good for you yesterday frequently will turn out to be not so great tomorrow.The sobering conclusion came in a review of major studies published in three influential medical journals between 1990 and 2003, including 45 highly publicized studies that initially claimed a drug or other treatment worked.
Subsequent research contradicted results of seven studies -- 16 percent -- and reported weaker results for seven others, an additional 16 percent.
That means nearly one-third of the original results did not hold up, according to the report in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Steven Horwitz
This is a question that I find to be particularly fascinating. In a recent contribution to a symposium on"Ayn Rand Among the Austrians" in The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, I tried to argue that Hayek's work suggests that the organizations of the micro-cosmos (like firms or families) not only are, but in some sense should be, organized along collectivist, altruistic lines. This differs from Rand's belief that the principles of individualism and self-interest should go"all the way down."
Another recent contribution along these lines is a fascinating article by the economist Donald Wittman, entitled"The Internal Organization of the Family: Economic Analysis and Psychological Advice" that was published in the journal Kyklos in February 2005. Here's the abstract:
This article shows that therapeutic advice for behavior within the family is to create a functioning property-rights system and to emulate voluntary transactions within a competitive economic market. The optimal organization of the family requires that relations are structured so that non-cooperative game playing is minimized and transaction costs are reduced. The article employs economic analysis to explain why 'setting limits' is preferred to punishment (Pigouvian taxes). It also explains why there is conflict between children and their parents even when the parent's utility is the present discounted value of the child's utility function.That abstract undersells how good this article really is. I read this article and said"Yes!! This perfectly articulates my own tacit understanding of why I parent the way I do." Wittman's running example is the middle school kid who keeps forgetting his lunch every day. The"punishment" parenting strategy is to yell at the kid or take something away, but only after bringing that lunch to school for him. Wittman argues that a more efficient and effective solution is to simply say"you forget your lunch, you don't eat," which internalizes the cost back on the child and relieves the parent of having to bear the costs of bringing the lunch and enforcing the punishment, all of which are deadweight losses in comparison to the"Coasean" solution. It should be noted that more"libertarian" sorts of parenting strategies are more effective the older the child is. The"Coasean" solution requires children of an age to understand the costs and benefits of the choices in front of them.
Tying it to Tom's lecture, Wittman is arguing that the libertarian political also works in the personal. To be clear, Tom is not saying that it is always the case that the political works in the personal, but that we should at least think about the ways in which it might and might not.
Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Camille Paglia, who contributed to the anthology Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand, which I co-edited with Mimi Reisel Gladstein, has raised her voice in defense of women philosophers who were marginalized by a recent BBC-Radio 4 Greatest Philosopher poll that placed Karl Marx at the top. Paglia writes in The Independent:
For most of history, the groundbreaking philosophers have all been men, and philosophy has always been a male genre. Women had neither the education nor the time to pursue the life of the mind. ... Now that women have at last gained access to higher education, we are waiting to see what they can achieve in the fields where men have distinguished themselves, above all in philosophy. At the moment, however, the genre of philosophy is not flourishing; systematic reasoning no longer has the prestige or cultural value that it once had. ... Today's lack of major female philosophers is not due to lack of talent but to the collapse of philosophy. Philosophy as traditionally practised may be a dead genre. This is the age of the internet in which we are constantly flooded by information in fragments. Each person at the computer is embarked on a quest for and fabrication of his or her identity. The web mimics human neurology, and it is fundmentally altering young people's brains. The web, for good or ill, is instantaneous. Philosophy belongs to a vanished age of much slower and rhetorically formal inquiry.
Paglia is spot on with regard to a number of points here. Systematic reasoning is clearly at a disadvantage in a culture that embraces atomizing and dis-integration as the preferred mode of analysis.
But there are a number of women thinkers, says Paglia, who merit our attention. Among these: Simone de Beauvoir and Ayn Rand. Paglia writes:
Both Simone de Beauvoir and Ayn Rand, another favourite of mine, have their own highly influential system of thought, and therefore they belong on any list of great philosophers. Rand's mix of theory, social observations and commentary was very original, though we see her Romantic sources. Her system is broad and complex and well deserves to be incorporated into the philosophy curriculum. Simone de Beauvoir's magnum opus, The Second Sex (which hugely influenced me in my youth), demonstrates her hybrid consciousness. It doesn't conform to the strict definition of philosophy because it's an amalgamation of abstract thought and history and anthropology—real facts. The genre problem is probably why both these women are absent from the list. But Plato too was a writer of dramatic fiction—so that it is no basis for dismissing Rand.
It's a worthwhile read.
Hat tip to David Boaz.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Mark Brady
And here’s another, rather sanguinary, quote for Bastille Day from the great Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot (1713-1784):"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."
Whatever your views on the French Revolution—and mine are mixed—I suggest that readers open a bottle of good French wine and drink to the memory of that great classical liberal Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794), who perished during the French Revolution.
As the notable British political philosopher
H. B.Acton (1908-1974) wrote: “Wholly a man of the Enlightenment, an advocate of economic freedom, religious toleration, legal and educational reform, and the abolition of slavery, Condorcet sought to extend the empire of reason to social affairs. Rather than elucidate human behaviour, as had been done thus far, by recourse to either the moral or physical sciences, he sought to explain it by a merger of the two sciences that eventually became transmuted into the discipline of sociology.”
Steven Horwitz
* the transformation of family life (from being a political/economic unit to an emotional one)
* the shift from a "Christian civilization" to a civilization with a lot of Christians in it
* the shift from agriculture to industry
This lecture nicely brings together a number of themes from Steve's previous lectures as well as ones by the other faculty here.
Steve is wrapping up with some of the implications for our current global situation. Right now, he's addressing the sort of conservative critique of modernity (money is icky, there are no chances for true "heroism", etc.). This resistance to modernity also characterizes fundamentalist Islam, and Steve has just sketched the connection between the historian Werner Sombart (one of those opponents of modernity) and that Islamic tradition.
He's now nicely pointing out that "modernity" does not equal "the west." Or better yet, "modernization" does not equal "westernization." Having said that, he notes that there are elements that are necessary to modernity, while others may be optional. Specifically, any attempt at modernization must include these three elements:
* rule of law
* personal liberty
* critical rationalism
This is, to me, a crucial point. As we talk about the "spread of western ideas" and as libertarians talk about a desire to see other parts of the world enjoy the freedoms we aspire to in the US and elsewhere, we need to walk a careful line in distinguishing the sine qua nons of a free society from those elements that can vary. It is when libertarians come across as trying to make every other society look just like the west (even when not through military force!) that we might find our message falling on deaf ears. If we can find ways to clarify what is needed and to also encourage local/indigenous variations on those themes, I think our ideas will be more successful.
Steven Horwitz
If you want to follow the live-blogging of my colleagues here, you can follow the whole show (including their thoughts on MY lectures) over at Agoraphilia.
Gus diZerega
We see the same kind of dishonest behavior from people having the temerity to call themselves 'conservatives" though all they seem to want to conserve is their own power. They went from universal condemnation of the leaker to universal condemnation of those the leaker attacked, and the ONLY change in the known facts of the matter was who the leaker likely was. The similarities between the two are amazing. Nothing more completely exposes the vacuousness of their babble about patriotism and values.
Today's Republican operatives and allies offer a good study of the totalitarian mentality trying to take over a democracy. If dead communists reincarnated, they must have done so as members of the GOP.
Steven Horwitz
My own view is that a substantial subset of libertarians are" contrarians." Whatever the"mainstream" view of a topic is, they take the opposite, somehow justifying the way in which their heterodox view of the topic is the"real" libertarian position. I will provide examples if requested. I find this"Libertarian Contrarianism" to be both trememdously annoying and horrifically bad strategy, not to mention frequently wrong about what is and is not"libertarian." I keep meaning to write a long essay on it, but just never seem to find the time.
Jason Kuznicki
Another commenter in effect recommended heading for the hills by choosing properties that the government was unlikely to seize. He scoffed at my suggestion, saying in effect,"Oh, and how's that been going?"
Knowing the admirable slowness of most legislation, I replied,"I'll let you know in a couple of years."
It turns out that we didn't have to wait that long: The Connecticut legislature has already declared a moratorium on Kelo-style development projects while they rewrite the law.
Governor M. Jodi Rell is quoted as saying,"This issue is the 21st-century equivalent of the Boston Tea Party: the government taking away the rights and liberties of property owners without giving them a voice. But this time it is not a monarch wearing robes in England we are fighting; it is five robed justices at the Supreme Court in Washington... When government intrudes on our homes, it must have a defensible reason. In the New London case, the reason was not defensible."
I could not be more pleased.
[Hat tip: The ever-resourceful Ed Brayton. Crossposted at Positive Liberty.]
Kenneth R. Gregg
Civil Disobedience begins with his Jeffersonian statement of faith:
"I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto,—"That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,—"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient."Thoreau was willing to accept a government which
"must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual."Walden, or Life in the Woods is a testament to nature, to humanity and to self-discovery, as is his essay, Life Without Principle. Thoreau had a natural affinity for the land, and working as a surveyor fit his personality, for it allowed him the opportunity and time to explore nature. What it would bring to him, and to those who would read Walden (1854), Walking (1862) The Maine Woods (1864) and Cape Cod (1867) would be an abiding love of the natural wonders of the land.
Why do Thoreau's ideas continue to echo throughout the radical community? Laurence Rosenwald commented:
"...Thoreau also sees what Emerson does not, namely, that with regard to paying taxes, it is impossible not to act, in one way or another. One can pay the tax, and thereby support the state, or refuse the tax, and defy the state. Thoreau's civil disobedience, then, is the choice he makes when he has no choice but to act; it is not only action, but necessary action, unwilling action, action that is thrust upon the actor. The tax collector comes to the door, and Thoreau has to choose whether to pay. What he does has much in common with what Rosa Parks did in 1955, when she refused to give up her seat to a white bus rider in Montgomery, Alabama... Rosa Parks... committed civil disobedience without going a single step out of her way; in fact, she committed it precisely by trying to proceed along her way, seeking not to be arrested but simply to go home."Thoreau, although supporting non-violent action, was not a complete pacifist and supported John Brown's actions:
"It was [Brown's] peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him... I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me unavoidable." ("A Plea for Captain John Brown," Reform Papers (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1973. pp. 132-3)Thoreau has been an icon for environmentalists and ecologists of all stripes, for libertarians and anarchists of all stripes, and for all of humanity. His writings and ideas will outlast us all. We are certainly the richer for it.
Just a thought.
Just Ken
CLASSical Liberalism
Wendy McElroy
Some background on the Finkelstein/Dershowitz fracas... Wikipedia provides an overview of the origin,"Shortly after the publication of the book The Case for Israel, Norman Finkelstein accused its author, Alan Dershowitz, of 'fraud, falsification, plagiarism and nonsense.' Specifically, Finkelstein noted that in twenty instances that all occur within about as many pages, Dershowitz's book excerpts the same words from the same sources that Joan Peters used in her book From Time Immemorial, a book about the history of Israel that several critics have accused of distortion, and which Finkelstein had labeled a 'monumental hoax.' Several paragraph-long quotes that the two books share have ellipses in the same position, Finkelstein pointed out; and in one instance Dershowitz referenced the same page number as Peters, although he was citing a different edition of the source, in which the words appear on a different page... Finkelstein demonstrated in an October 3, 2003 letter to the Harvard Crimson that Dershowitz reproduced exactly two of Peters' mistakes, and made one relevant mistake of his own. Quoting Mark Twain, 'Dershowitz cites two paragraphs from Twain as continuous text, just as Peters cites them as continuous text, but in Twain's book the two paragraphs are separated by 87 pages'."
(The Wikipedia entry also offers extensive back-and-forth between Finkelstein and Dershowitz, as well as analysis of the possibility of plagiarism. For more on Finkelstein's critique of Dershowitz, see the former's homepage, which seems to be devoted to that subject. See also the subpage The Dershowitz Hoax.)
Dershowitz has gone to great lengths to try and kill the upcoming Finkelstein book. The Los Angeles Times explains,"Governors are asked by members of the public to do lots of things, but the request Arnold Schwarzenegger got from Alan Dershowitz in December was unique: to intervene with the University of California Press' plans to publish a book. Why does Dershowitz care? Because the book in question -- Norman Finkelstein's 'Beyond Chutzpah,' due out next month -- is harshly critical of Dershowitz... But Dershowitz's campaign against the book went beyond his letter to Schwarzenegger. He had his lawyers send belligerent letters to dozens of people who might have power over the process."
Good news: the University of California Press is going ahead with the book and hopes to meet the original publication date of August 28th. Over the last few months, however,"Beyond Chutzpah" may have become the most vetted book in history. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports,"Beyond Chutzpah" [has] been through several rounds of legal vetting. The University of California retained several outside lawyers, including American and British legal experts, to examine the manuscript along with its in-house counsel. Mr. Finkelstein said that the book had been through some 15 drafts in the past eight months." The University of California Press apparently took Dershowitz seriously when he said he would own them if they called him a plagiarist or claimed he did not write his own books. (Indeed, Finkelstein has claimed elsewhere that Dershowitz does not even read his own books.) In response, Dershowitz has launched his own vilification campaign against Finkelstein. For example, on July 5th the right-wing FrontPageMagazine published "Why is the University of California Press Publishing Bigotry?" by left-wing Dershowitz.
Meanwhile, the left-wing may well be deserting its former super-star lawyer. An article in the July 11 issue of The Nation asked, ''Why would a prominent First Amendment advocate take such an action?" -- referring to the attempt to bar"Beyond Chutzpah" from publication.
For more commentary, please see McBlog.`
Jason Kuznicki
To those of you who used my post as an opportunity for name-calling: Imagine in place of each comment where you insulted someone or made unjustified insinuations, instead you had written a single letter to a legislator about the issue of eminent domain.
They take roughly the same amount of effort. And which one do you think would do more to advance the cause?
No comments on this post either. Go find somewhere else to snipe at each other.
Steven Horwitz
Wendy McElroy
The reason?
On July 1st, new laws regarding e-mailed newsletters went into effect in Utah and Michigan; other states are close behind. Anne P. Mitchell, President/CEO of the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy and a law professor, calls those laws"a legal quandry in which every sender of commercial email is about to find themselves." (See Groklaw for more information. And please note: non-commercial emailers seem to be included if their newsletters contain URLs that link to commercial sites or products.)
Both Utah and Michigan have created a" child protection registry" for email addresses that belong to children or to which children have access. It functions like a"no call list." Spamfo.co explains,"Once an email address is on the registry, commercial emailers are prohibited from sending it anything containing advertising, or even just linking to advertising, for a product or service that a minor is otherwise legally prohibited from accessing, such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling, prescription drugs, or adult-rated material." In short, e-newsletters (such as ifeminists.net) are not permitted to send to registered email addresses if those newsletters include URLs to news sites that, in turn, link to child-inappropriate commerical information or products such as casino or viagra ads, tobacco or alcohol for sale.
Many credible news sources -- especially British ones, it seems -- offer links to adult-themed sites or products. These links can change constantly, which means that it is impossible to check a URL and" clear" it of so-called objectionable links or ads.
Moreover, e-mailing to registered addresses is illegal even if the newsletter was requested, and the legal penalties for doing so are imposed without notifying the offender so that he/she can rectify the situation. What are those penalties? To quote Prof. Mitchell again,"Under these laws...that email sender faces strict liability which can include up to 3 years in prison, and fines of $30,000 or more. In addition, ISPs and the individuals whose email addresses are on the registry have a right of action against the sender, as does the state attorney general."
The only protection is for the emailer to make sure that a particular address is not"illegal" by matching his/her mailing list against the registries. That process requires at least two things that I am unwilling to do: 1) turn my mailing list over to the government; and 2) pay a per-address fee for the matching process. Moreover, since I cannot easily ascertain whether a hotmail or aol address has a final destination within Utah or Michigan, I'd have to turn over and pay for virtually every address on a monthly basis to two state governments. (There now are two; there will soon be several more and I would have to keep up with the variations in law in each state.)
Being charged under the new laws may seem to be a remote possibility. And I would not suspend publication were it not for two factors.
First, the enewsletter includes links to news and commentary on sexual issues such as pornography and prostitution, abortion and gay rights. It includes URLs to such discussion and, in turn, those URLs are more likely than many to point to sites the child registries would consider inappropriate. And, according to the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy, you could be in trouble if your email contains"unpermitted materials, links to unpermitted materials, or even links to sites which have information about the unpermitted materials". The law is *that* broad and *that* vague.
Second, it is difficult to over-state the viciousness and dishonesty of some of the people who attack father's/men's rights advocates. Some have crusaded to destroy the careers, lives, and even harm the families of those who advocate positions like the presumption of shared custody. Given that no notification of an inappropriate address is necessary before penalties can be imposed, I believe it is likely that one of these malicious feminists will subscribe to the ifeminists.net newsletter under an inappropriate address and, then, file a complaint when the e-newsletter arrives.
I won't take that risk. Nor will I turn over addresses to the government, let alone pay for the privilege.
I have enjoyed publishing the newsletter. I hope you have enjoyed receiving it and that will continue to follow the ifeminists.net news and commentary by clicking on our website at your convenience. To repeat: The newsletter content that you have received each week by email will now be available on a web page. This web page will give you the week's headlines. As other options, you can visit our main index page for daily updates, or subscribe to our RSS news feed. All three options give you the same news items. Choose the form that's most convenient for you.
Best wishes, as always,
Wendy McElroy
P.S. These laws won't stop foreign spam (our ISP is American) or spam from"zombie" PCs. They will mean cash from the large email marketers; and will simply stop small companies and non-profit organizations from distributing email newsletters. Read Declan McCullagh's article for just some of the ramifications.
For more comentary, please read McBlog.
