• Hugo Mexicano. Austro-Athenian Empire (2009-10-11). in which Roderick reviews Juarez — one of my stronger memories from high-school Spanish. (Linked Sunday 2009-10-11.)
• Dyer Lum on Mutualism, and a note on Proudhon. Shawn P. Wilbur, In the Libertarian Labyrinth (2009-10-02). I’m working on gathering the pieces for a series of pamphlets documenting the mutualist tradition, and ran across this rather strange, but very interesting piece, but the frequently strange, but always interesting Dyer D. Lum. Tucker’s translation of the first volume of The System of Economical Contradictions was published in… (Linked Sunday 2009-10-11.)
• diveintomark: "Dive Into Python" has now earned me over $10,000 in royalties, despite being Free and online for 8 years. Twitter / diveintomark (2009-10-11). But without Intellectual Protectionism laws, how would anyone ever make a living writing books? (Linked Sunday 2009-10-11.)
• Keene, the Peaceful Civil-Disobedience Apex. James B Schlessinger Jr, Fr33 Agents (2009-10-08). Activists light up a marijuana cigarette in the Keene Police Station James B Schlessinger Jr. October 5th, 2009 Words on paper are not stopping activists and locals from living like free people in Keene, New Hampshire.  Whether it is marijuana consumption on the Commons or a young woman going topless… (Linked Sunday 2009-10-11.)
• The Good Old Days. Jill, Feministe (2009-10-11). This article will make you lose your lunch. The idea is that sex with children is more taboo today than it was in Roman Polanski's era — thanks to victims' rights groups and a family values revival. The evidence? Well, Polanski himself, and this one Woody Allen movie. The article… (Linked Sunday 2009-10-11.)
• Anarchist Elliot Madison wrongfully arrested, robbed. John, Blagnet.net (2009-10-06). In a continuation of law-enforcement agencies' general disdain for and dismissal of our civil liberties, Elliot Madison, a self-described anarchist, was arrested for using Twitter and a police scanner to help G20 protesters coordinate their efforts and avoid police officers. The charges on which he was held don't indicate any… (Linked Monday 2009-10-12.)
• A Shocking Development. Daily Brickbats (2009-09-14). Two Gwinnett County police sergeants have resigned and Cpl. Gary Miles has been arrested after Miles allegedly used a Taser on a Waffle House waiter as a joke. The sergeants reportedly saw the incident and did not report it. The department is investigating claims a fourth officer pointed a Taser… (Linked Monday 2009-10-12.)
• Ending the Cycle. Daily Brickbats (2009-10-12). Green Government in a nutshell. (Linked Monday 2009-10-12.)

(Via a private correspondent.)

Officer Marc Rios. New York Police Department. The Bronx, New York, New York. A few months ago, a New Yorker named John Roperto was leaving a nightclub in Kingsbridge at about 4:20 in the morning. A speeding car almost ran him down, so he smacked the hood of the car and said some unkind words. Normally that would be about it; civilized people understand that when you almost run someone down, emotions run high, and the best thing to do is just say you’re sorry and let the poor guy cool down. But it turns out that, instead of a civilized person, the driver of the car was Officer Marc Rios, a 12-year veteran of the New York City government’s police force. Rios, who cruises the city heavily-armed and looking for trouble, got out of his car, whipped out a baton, and smashed John Roperto so hard in the face that it broke the baton — and Roperto’s cheekbone. Then Officer Marc Rios, as a public servant supposedly paid and legally privileged to Serve and Protect, jumped back into his car and sped off with his buddy-cop — while his victim was still lying in a gutter. Neither of them thought to call it in; Roperto didn’t get any medical attention until a concerned stranger called 911.

Officer Marc Rios’s explanation is that this brutal, unprovoked hit-and-run assault — committed against a man who had every right to be angry, and who had done nothing more than bang on a car hood and shout at a cop — is justifiable as self-defense. I’m not sure what sort of self-defense is supposed to be involved in leaving a man bleeding in a gutter without even calling in an ambulance, but in any case, Officer Marc Rios figures that the original beating was a righteous beating, because he’s a cop, and he (allegedly) gave an order, and John Roperto (allegedly) didn’t immediately snap to obeying it. That may not seem like self-defense, exactly, to you, but you’ve got to keep in mind that government cops like Officer Marc Rios are trained to believe that disregard for their prerogative is tantamount to an assault on their persons, if not indeed a threat to their very lives. So no matter how little physical threat you may pose, any refusal, or even hesitancy, to immediately obey their arbitrary bellowed commands is, just as such, a justification for maximal uses of force against you.

Meanwhile, Rios’s lawyer is telling the press that Roperto ought to be grateful that experienced Officer Marc Rios didn’t just shoot him in the face.

One of the nice things about my recent journey to Alabama is that I got the chance, along the way, to hang out with my folks in Auburn for a couple days, and, before I left, also managed to drop in at my second favorite used bookstore in the world, The Gnu’s Room. (Now both a used bookstore and a café, apparently; also now enjoying the patronage of the Auburn University Philosophy Department.) Here’s what I scored while I was there; I found all but two of these books sitting together in one stack, apparently recent arrivals. The other two came from the Philosophy shelf. And none of them cost me more than $4.00.

• Raymond J. McCall (1952/1961), Basic Logic: The Fundamental Principles of Formal Deductive Reasoning, 2^nd edition (Barnes & Noble, Inc.). A peculiar and (judging from the Preface) delightfully cranky textbook in logic. The peculiarity comes from the crankiness: McCall is a Catholic Aristotelian who spends the preface railing against the Wolffian perversion of the modern mathematicized logic (which he believes is due to a confusion of material logic and formal logic). He then devotes the entire textbook to a hardcore course in the categorical syllogism with some closing material on the theory of judgment.

• Mary Hartman and Lois W. Banner (eds.) (1974), Clio’s Consciousness Raised: New Perspectives on the History of Women. An anthology with a great title and a pretty good spread of topics from Feminist Studies Inc., published by Harper & Row. The modal topic is, as usual, women in Victorian America and Victorian England, but several other things get covered too.

• Evelyn Reed (1969/1970), Problems of the Women’s Liberation Movement: A Marxist Approach. From Pathfinder.

• Hugh Hawkins (ed.) (1970), The Emerging University and Industrial America. A short anthology of essays — some from participants like Josiah Royce, others from historians looking back — from D.C. Heath’s Problems in American Civilization series.

• Bertrand Russell (1926), Education and the Good Life. A paperback edition from Avon Books, which looks to be a printing from the early 1960s or so, but I can’t find the date of the reprint.

• E. David Cronon (ed.) (1963/1969), Labor and the New Deal. A documents reader from the Berkeley Series in American History.

• Albert A. Blum (1963/1972). A History of the American Labor Movement. An alleged survey of American labor history, published as American Historical Association pamphlets #250, which I read on the plane back from Alabama. It’s actually just a recitation of the AFL-CIO party line on the triumph of state unionism, the wisdom of George Meaney and Walter Reuther, and the glory of the NLRB; any mention of the labor radicals (land-redistributionists, money reformers, the IWW) is only to summarily push them aside in a few opening paragraphs about their utopianism, foolishness, or failure. Blum, remarkably, manages to discuss the big drop-off in unionism from 1919-1929 without even once mentioning either the Palmer Raids or the Red Scare more broadly.

• Is Thomas Friedman "the stupidest man alive" ? noreply@blogger.com (Angus), Kids Prefer Cheese (2009-09-30). Well he certainly has stiff competition (most notably Donald Luskin (see here and here), but this NY Times column puts Sir Thomas directly in the running.His argument is that "Red China has decided to become Green China" and since (according to him) going green is a zero sum game, they… (Linked Wednesday 2009-10-07.)
• Weed Culture Is Boob Culture. Amanda Hess, The Sexist (2009-09-23). Why aren't there more female marijuana activists, Marijuana Policy Project employee Laura Greenback asks in High Times. Ooh! Pick me! I know the answer! It's not that women don't like smoking weed. We do. And it's not that we don't care about the ass-backwards war on drugs—despite Greenback's fears, half… (Linked Wednesday 2009-10-07.)
• On Becoming Ungovernable. Brad Spangler, BradSpangler.com (2009-09-30). "This movement should create a situation in which authorities will control empty stores, but not the market; the employment of workers, but not their livelihood; the official media, but not the circulation of information; printing plants, but not the publishing movement; the mail and telephones, but not communications; and the… (Linked Wednesday 2009-10-07.)
• Closed Border, Closed Economy, Closing Opportunities. John Gruber, Daring Fireball (2009-10-05). David Eaves on the "harrowing experience" of entering the United States as a tourist or visitor.  â˜…  (Linked Friday 2009-10-09.)
• All the President’s Demons. jwalker@reason.com (Jesse Walker), Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2009-09-09). The president has attacked the enemies of ObamaCare as "well-financed forces" and "those who are profiting from the status quo." So Tim Carney of The Washington Examiner put in calls to the White House and to Obama’s group Organizing for America to ask who, specifically, these vaguely defined enemies are…. (Linked Friday 2009-10-09.)
• Obama Is No Radical. jwalker@reason.com (Jesse Walker), Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2009-09-30). The conservative firebrand David Horowitz has declared the Obama White House a "radical regime." For the Republican radio host Sean Hannity, the ousted ex-communist "green jobs" czar Van Jones "signifies the radicalism of this administration." Even Andy Williams, the Branson crooner who sang "Moon River" and "Days of Wine and… (Linked Friday 2009-10-09.)
• New Oklahoma Law Will Put Details Of All Abortions Online – Oklahoma abortion website – Jezebel. jezebel.com (2009-10-09). A new Oklahoma law will require the details of every abortion to be posted on a public website. Proponents say this will prevent abortion — apparently by shaming and burdening women and doctors. (Linked Friday 2009-10-09.)
• Free Talk Live, 10/07/09. Technorati Search for: radgeek.com (2009-10-07). Wage Hurts People / City Police Chiefs Advocate Snitch Program / The Vaccine Controversy Continues / Rascism / Michael Moore and John Stossell / Rosa Parks and Civil Disobedience / Violence vs Peace / Podcast-only Interview with Charles Johnson from RadGeek.com." [MP3] (10/07/09) (Linked Friday 2009-10-09.)

1. Here’s Chris Moody, quoting (with approval) from a post by Doug Mataconis, in his own post entitled Where the Libertarians and Socialists Agree:

   There's a distinct difference between the free market and the state-aided corporate capitalism that we live with today. …

   Many on the right make the mistake of thinking that believing in capitalism means that you're obligated to defend the actions of the capitalists, but when those actions involve using the state to evade the discipline of the market, you're no longer defending the market, you're helping to destroy it.

   — Doug Mataconis, quoted in Chris Moody (2009-10-08): Where the Libertarians and the Socialists Agree

   Right on, I say. Exactly. (Although, as a libertarian socialist, I can’t work up much surprise at finding libertarians and socialists agreeing on something. After all, I agree with myself all the time. Anyway.)

2. Here’s Chris Moody, in his comments on the pull-quote:

   There is a vital difference between a government that acts as a referee to ensure rights are preserved so that everyone can compete, and a gang of bureaucrats who prop up well-connected citizens so that they can unfairly compete with everyone else

   — Chris Moody (2009-10-08): Where the Libertarians and the Socialists Agree

   … Wait. Hold up.

   I mean, yes, certainly there’s a problem with gangs of bureaucrats propping up the well-connected, and the more activist the government gets in promoting some players at the expense of others, the worse. But what’s this about a government that acts [only] as a referee to ensure that rights are preserved so that everyone can compete? Any government that is a government will always fail to preserve the right to compete in at least one area — since government claims a sovereign right to write, rule on, and enforce the laws, that means that nobody can effectively compete with a government, no matter how limited the government may be, in a very important market — the market for rights-protection. Moreover, since any government will always not only require you to subscribe to their services, and not anyone else’s — but will also force you to pay for those services at a rate determined by the government, in the form of taxation, that also means that in any politically governed market, competition is always skewed by the fact that market agents are not permitted to freely choose what kinds of security to put in for, or how much to put in for security in the first place — meaning that government has every reason to seize more and more wealth away from productive purposes, and to put it towards forms of security that mainly serve government’s own prerogatives, rather than the actual rights of their captive clients. Government itself is an instance of the exact problem in question — beating out competing uses for individual or common wealth by means of monopoly and brute force.

   Government as such can’t fairly referee competition because any government, just as such is a coercive, anti-competitive, market-distorting entity. (If not strictly limited government, what’s the solution? No government, of course: a free market in everything, including a genuine free market for personal defense, the abolition of legal privileges for agents of the state acting under color of law, and an unconditional individual right to bargain down prices for, or simply to exit, any particular arrangement supposedly for her own defense.)

3. Here’s Chris Moody, a bit further down in his commentary, in which he tries to cash out his earlier talk about the (mythical) notion of a government strictly limited to fairly protecting people’s rights to compete, with a supposed real-world example to guide future political action:

   Instead, we should follow the roadmap that was agreed upon more than 200 years ago and strike down laws that allow well-healed citizens the ability to use government force to gain advantages over others through in the marketplace.

   — Chris Moody (2009-10-08): Where the Libertarians and the Socialists Agree

   Dude, WTF? The United States Constitution? Really?

   A paper Constitution which was specifically crafted in order to increase, not decrease, the power of the central government to seize taxes, parcel out land titles, and pass fugitive slave laws, all for the benefit of well-heeled merchants, industrialists, bond-holders, speculators, and plantation masters? And to increase, not to decrease, the central government’s power to take control over what Madison lamented as the present anarchy of our [sic] commerce, and so to regiment and redirect it towards the forms of commerce (and to the particular commercialists) that Madison favored? That’s your roadmap?

   I mean, sure, given that part of the motivation was to coercively finance the internal improvements that were seen as necessary for the economy of a great nation, I suppose that this particular map did call for a lot of roads. But at whose expense?

   If your concern is government suppressing competition and picking favorites, then you’ll find that the only way to get rid of that is to get rid of government entirely. As soon as you slip from the necessity of no government interference to the myth of a government which does not interfere — as soon as you try to bring in a little bit of limited government, you’ll find that it is always going to end up rigging the game. And if you slip from the imaginary notion of an ideal limited government, to appeals to the alleged principles of some romanticized past government — if you try to bring in past constitutions and schemes for government, as the sort of limited government you’re looking for, you’re going to find that they never were all that limited anyway, even to begin with. The whole damned thing was rigged from the start.

   It’s not that the power of government has been perverted or abused to suppress competition and favor the well-heeled. The thing itself is the abuse. And the solution ought to be obvious.