The identification of libertarians with conservatives seems never ending. At the recent International Students for Liberty conference Justin Amash equated the two. Many leftists make similar equations with the intent of demonizing libertarians as right-wingers. What is the truth of the matter? We’re most definitely not conservatives. Liberty is a radical and revolutionary idea. One…
Norman Solomon recently published a piece about Amazon.com’s connection to the CIA. The CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, claims to be a libertarian, but what kind of libertarian contracts with the CIA? A faux one. It’s not possible to be a libertarian and support one of the most odious agencies of the American state. An…
One of the books I’ve been reading is titled The KGB Plays Chess: The Soviet Secret Police and the Fight for the World Chess Crown. It’s a fascinating read that provides copious detail on the inner workings of the KGB with respect to not only chessplayers but Soviet athletes in general. I’ve just finished the…
One of the virtues of Jacob Huebert’s Libertarianism Today is that it provides ample evidence for the high literacy rates of Americans prior to the introduction of compulsory education laws. The moral and the practical come together beautifully here. Not only is it unethical to initiate force for the purpose of compelling children to attend…
I recently finished reading the second edition of Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s, Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. It was a fantastic read and is highly recommended. There is a comprehensive review in the works, but I want to use this blog post to touch on a particular quotation from We the Living. Kira is quoted thus:…
James Tuttle alerted me to an appendix discussing Hayek’s conception of coercion in Murray Rothbard’s, The Ethics of Liberty. It serves as the jumping off point for a broader discussion of what constitutes coercion. Let us begin by contrasting the definitions of coercion employed by Hayek and Rothbard. Rothbard defines coercion thus: the invasive use…
Libertarians are used to being accused of racism. This is often due to their position on civil rights legislation. The basis for that particular stance is to be found in the libertarian conception of property rights, freedom of association and non-aggression. Uninformed critics will miss this and attribute the libertarian position to racism. That having…
Accusations of cruelty are often leveled against Ayn Rand. How accurate is this charge? The answer is a complicated one. One can find traces of both kindness and cruelty in her life/work. Both deserve consideration in formulating a clear perspective. Let’s examine a case of cruelty first: “[The Native Americans] didn’t have any rights to…
Jacob Huebert has penned a very informative introductory text to libertarian philosophy called Libertarianism Today. It was a pleasure to read, but this left-libertarian market anarchist has some qualms to raise. A detailed review is in the works, so this will be a brief exploration. Quotations from the book will be provided for the reader’s…
