It is no accident that someone with an abolitionist background wrote such a work because the modern paternalistic ethos, which infects all levels of government, has much in common with the ante-bellum pro-slavery ideology that Spooner so opposed.

Today, many defenders of reparations are socialists and race-baiters, who want a pretext to empower the welfare state, attack free markets, and create perpetual dependence and animosity.

This was not always true. In the post Civil War period, many advocates for liberty called for giving land to the ex-slaves through proposals such as “forty acres and a mule.” They drew on a Lockean tradition that stressed that the slaves had earned just title by “mixing their labor” with the land.

But the practical objections to “forty acres and a mule” were also powerful. Critics raised difficult questions: Who would enforce land distribution to the freed slaves and how? What if Southern whites violently resisted? Would breakup of the big plantations ultimately undermine the property rates of other Americans?

Yet these obstacles were not quite as insurmountable as many claimed. Much “unowned” land was potentially available in both the South and the West. The Mississippi Delta, for example, was still largely an unoccupied frontier at the end of Civil War.

One of the more intriguing proposals along these lines came from ex-slave Sojourner Truth. Although she never learned to read and write, she won fame during the antebellum period for her forceful and down-to-earth abolitionist oratory. From the 1860s until her death in 1883, Truth campaigned tirelessly for a proposal that Congress reserve land in the West for the freedman.

Truth was no socialist. She had no patience for “lazy” freedmen who refused to work, lacked ambition, or tried to live the taxpayer. Here is a selection from one of her speeches:

"'Now, here is de question dat I am here to-night to say. I been to Washin'ton, an' I fine out dis, dat de colud pepul dat is in Washin'tun libin on de gobernment dat de United Staas ort to gi' 'em lan' an' move 'em on it. Dey are libin on de gov'ment, an' dere is pepul takin' care of 'em costin' you so much, an' it don't benefit him 'tall. It degrades him wuss an' wuss. Therefo' I say dat these people, take an' put 'em in de West where you ken enrich 'em. I know de good pepul in de South can't take care of de negroes as dey ort to, case de ribils won't let 'em. How much better will it be for to take them culud pepul an' give 'em land? We've airnt lan' enough for a home, an' it would be a benefit for you all an' God would bless de hull ob ye for doin' it. Dey say, Let 'em take keer of derselves. Why, you've taken dat all away from 'em. Ain't got nuffin lef'. Get dere culud pepul out of Washin'tun off ob de gov'ment, an' get de ole pepul out and build dem homes in de West, where dey can feed themselves, and dey would soon be abel to be a pepul among you. Dat is my commission. Now adgitate them pepul an' put 'em dere; learn 'em to read one part of de time an' learn em' to work de udder part ob de time.”

Having asked the question, I can provide a better answer than those who write obscenity laced emails under pen names as acts of moral courage. The task is not difficult, I admit. One answer I could advance: given the harm that 'bad' ideas have caused to real and innocent human beings -- e.g. racism 'caused' slavery or Friedan 'caused' the breakdown of the American family -- how can a decent, caring human being NOT feel rage when encountering such 'bad' ideas? Is not the recognition of any worth or the expression of any human connection toward the adovcate of such ideas actually an act of support for that advocate?

In a word"no." There are so many ways in which my answer is NO that I have to pick and choose the ones to expand upon or else I would blog all day. First of all, I rarely"hate" ideas. Even bad ideas -- as long as they are well presented -- can be fascinating. Indeed, one of the most intellectually interesting experiences I've ever had is to find out exactly where Foucault and I begin to disagree: the starting-gate idea where we part ways and never meet again. At no point in the discovery process did I hate Foucault as a person even though I believe his impact on the world has been horrible.

Several factors contribute to my response. For one thing, I am firmly committed to meeting ideas with ideas and this commitment makes me focus on the truth or falsehood issue rather than upon emotion. Moreover, I don't believe it is fundamentally wrong to say or ask anything; indeed, the progress of knowledge requires us to consider and discuss every possibility. If you express certain ideas, then we will not be friends and I may assiduously avoid your company. But this is different than hating you. And, yes, I extend this principle even to very 'bad' ideas.Take racism or sexism. I reject both but I actively support a world in which there can be active discussion on whether Asians are racially superior to whites, men to women, dogs to cats... I don't fear the truth and I don't think free speech endangers our understanding of what is true -- quite the opposite. If someone says something patently false or derogatory, then the way to meet it is a knock-down argument. Those who revert to attacking the person rather than the argument are usually a) not up to the task or b) wrong on some particular.

Another reason I don't hate those with whom I disagree is that words are words are words are words. I believe that a mugger who attacks someone in an alley has committed more wrong than anyone who merely says anything. Perhaps partly because of political correctness, which views ideas and words as acts of violence (e.g. sexual harassment), society seems to have lost all sense of what childhood wisdom once taught us: sticks and stones may hurt my bones but words can never hurt me. Unless someone acts to implement and impose vicious ideas -- or uses law and government through which to act -- then they have done no harm. They may be offensive and I may devoutly wish his/her mouth was a radio so I could change stations. But that is a different matter than hating them.

Aha! I hear the reaction. Friedan did use government to implement her ideas and, so, shouldn't hatred be the appropriate response? After all, she crossed the line I've just drawn. Well, you'll get no argument from me about Friedan using the law as a gun. But, evenly so, I don't feel rage. Much or most of the reason is that I find it difficult and exhausting to go through life with rage storming within me at every word and act. So many people use the law to impose awful and self-serving principles that I could easily be hate-filled 24/7. That wouldn't stop the injustice but it would ruin my life and my ability to take any pleasure. I wouldn't be more effective in countering the injustice; arguably, I'd be less effective. But I suppose it would convince the"let's hate" contingent of my sincerity. But I am not attracted to doing so even if it means being taken off mailing lists. I mean, can you imagine how much fun a"let's hate" conference would be with its penciled-in 'shooting-the-bile' coffee klatches, its scheduled 'who do we hate most?' panel discussions and its 'why we are right to hate' late night bull/beer sessions?

Rage is like a drug to some advocates of X or Y or Z. It is not enough to say to them"I agree with your position and I will argue my agreement to the best of my ability BUT I don't share your emotional response." It is not enough because what is important to them is not the truth or falsehood of the position but the rage it inspires. Thus, my agreement is irrelevant. My lack of rage is the entire point because their rage is the entire point to them. They advocate X or Y or Z in order to feel the surge of adrenaline that comes from wanting to bash in the face of whoever disagrees. What is the origin of their sanctimonious hatred? I don't know. I think some people are so filled with anger that they naturally gravitate toward the political causes that allow them to express hatred as moral imperative. I think others are so embittered by their experiences that hatred develops. There are probably a thousand other explanations and shadings of explanations at work.

Whatever. The bottomline remains: I don't hate easily. Part of the reason is my personality; part is ideological. I remain convinced that an individual who raises his/her hand against another commits an act that is different in kind than an individual who raises their voice. An idea doesn't 'cause' anything. Words are not actions. If I have anger toward Friedan it is because she promoted laws that constituted acts of violence against innocent people. Using this guideline, however, I am equally angry at Christian zealots, advocates of the war in Iraq, politically correct pundits...hell, I may as well be angry at everyone.

Only, I'm not. I know that's a hanging offense.

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Schumpeter wrote on a wide range of economic and social subjects, and is best known for Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy and History of Economic Analysis. One of his claims to fame is the phrase" creative destruction," by which he indicated the dynamic entrepreneurial element at the heart of the market economy. (Actually, I've never been crazy about that phrase; I prefer Israel Kirzner's Misesian/Hayekian emphasis on entrepreneurial coordination.) Curiously, Schumpeter thought the state socialists had won the economic calculation debate against the Austrians, and he expected capitalism to be replaced one day. Yet, in the free-market economy (" capitalism") Schumpeter saw a force for peace and worldwide cooperation through the division of labor. However, in his view various precapitalist influences eat away at the system, especially the wish for protectionism, setting a country on the path to imperialism and war. He stressed that these influences are not inherent in the market economy. (Note the similarity with Ludwig von Mises's thesis in Omnipotent Government.) With the U.S. government fighting in the Middle East and possibly more battles on the horizon, it is fitting to contemplate what Schumpeter had to say about capitalism and war. Here is an excerpt from his paper"Imperialism and Capitalism" (1919) reprinted in his posthumous book Imperialism and Social Classes (1951; all emphasis in the original):

A protectionist policy, however, does facilitate the formation of cartels and trusts. And it is true that this circumstance thoroughly alters the alignment of interests. . . . Union in a cartel or trust confers various benefits on the entrepreneur—a saving in costs, a stronger position as against workers—but none of these compares with this one advantage: a monopolistic price policy, possible to any considerable degree only behind an adequate protective tariff. Now the price that brings the maximum monopoly profit is generally far above the price that would be fixed by fluctuating competitive costs, and the volume that can be marketed at the maximum price is generally far below the output that would be technically and economically feasible. Under free competition that output would be produced and offered, but a trust cannot offer it, for it could be sold only at a competitive price. Yet the trust must produce it—or approximately as much—otherwise the advantages of large-scale enterprise remain unexploited. The trust thus faces a dilemma. Either it renounces the monopolistic policies that motivated its founding; or it fails to exploit and expand its plant, with resultant high costs. It extricates itself from this dilemma by producing the full output that is economically feasible, thus securing low costs, and offering in the protected domestic market only the quantity corresponding to the monopoly price—insofar as the tariff permits; while the rest is sold, or"dumped," abroad at a lower price, sometimes (but not necessarily) below costs.

What happens when the entrepreneurs successfully pursue such a policy is something that did not occur in the case discussed so far—a conflict of interests between nations that becomes so sharp that it cannot be overcome by the existing basic community of interests.

Thus we have here, within a social group that carries great political weight, a strong, undeniable economic interest in such things as protective tariffs, cartels, monopoly prices, forced exports (dumping), an aggressive economic policy, an aggressive foreign policy generally, and war, including wars of expansion with a typically imperialist character. Once this alignment of interests exists, an even stronger interest in a somewhat differently motivated expansion must be added, namely, an interest in the conquest of lands producing raw materials and foodstuffs, with a view to facilitating self-sufficient warfare.

But what a red herring when you consider their view that the president needs no authorization whatever to launch a war whenever he feels its necessary. They're not really saying Congress added to his power with the AUMF. Congress couldn't have added to his power. The AUMF has all the legal effect of a hortatory resolution from Congress declaring it international nurse's week. In their theory, the president already had the power to go to war with whomever he wanted. The president's leading theorist of the war power writes unabashedly of "the president's right to start wars." So these powers are incident to wartime. And the president gets to say when it's wartime.

Walter McDougall says:

Verne’s pioneering science fiction (as it would later be called) inspired Robert Goddard, Wernher von Braun, and virtually all the other pioneers of the space age. Indeed, his book From the Earth to the Moon Direct in 97 Hours, first published in 1865, not only anticipated the Apollo program, but also foresaw that it would be done by Americans, that they would quarrel bitterly over the best technological means, that Florida and Texas would compete for the program, that three astronauts would make the journey in a cone-shaped capsule, that they would use rockets to steer and escape the moon’s gravity, and that they would splash down in the Pacific Ocean to be recovered by the U.S. Navy. More impressive still was Verne’s anticipation of the American culture of technology: a mixture of boundless enthusiasm, private initiative, militarism, and P. T. Barnum commercialism.

“In social matters my taste is order; in politics my hope is to create within the present government a reasonable party that balances respect for justice and religious belief with consideration for people, the arts, and life itself."

in 1978 Crowell published ... a complete new translation of From the Earth to the Moon, with annotations and appendices to show the errors and distortions in [previous] versions... I demonstrated that, properly and completely rendered, this genuine space novel was also an anti-war classic on a level with Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.

[Verne] also foresaw the collapse of colonialism, the emergence of new attitudes about gender and androgyny, the industrialization of China, the smoldering of French separatism in Canada, the rise of the American Goliath, the prostitution of science by new power elites: by private financiers and the military-industrial complex... Verne ...explored all varieties of nonconformism, from vagabondism to guerrilla war to philosophical anarchism...[and] gave a voice in his books to every shade of social and political opinion, from utopian socialism to anti-semitism to proto-fascism. Indeed, the great French scholar Jean Chesneaux ranks Jules Verne with H.G. Wells as a major writer of political fiction.