Sarah Scrafford has produced a very useful list: The Top 100 Libertarian Blogs. I’m happy to report that my blog, The Voice For Liberty in Wichita, made the cut.
This list is divided into categories, which should make it easier to find just the right blog for your interests.
Thank you to Sarah Scrafford and Kelly Sonora for this useful service.
My friend Eric Odom publishes the Ultimate Libertarian Quote List.
Well, maybe. My quotations book is pretty good, I think.
I just returned from Austin, Texas, attending a conference put on by Americans For Prosperity partnering with Sam Adams Alliance, Heritage Foundation, Leadership Institute, and Media Research Center. Thank you to my friend Erik Telford for inviting me to this conference.
We had some great speakers. Robert Novak is a favorite person of mine. I devoured his autobiography The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington last year. He told us that he believes the Republicans will lose seats in both houses of Congress, but the presidency can be won. Also: “I like Ron Paul (cheers)…but not for President” (Thanks, Nic Hall, for reminding me of this.)
I always like listening to Tim Phillips, president of Americans For Prosperity. He told us it’s important to let the few “good guys” in government know that we stand behind them, and conferences like this are one way to do that.
Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal told us, and it is reported today in the opinion piece Their Fair Share that Americans with income above the median paid 97.1% of all income taxes. Barack Obama doesn’t think that’s enough. This reminded me that we have two classes of people in America: tax payers, and tax consumers. Regarding the death tax: “No taxation without respiration.”
Steve Lonegan of AFP in New Jersey has an inspiring life story about overcoming blindness as a young adult. The state wanted him to become a client and go to vocational training (to be a basket weaver, he said), but instead he earned an MBA degree.
Grover Norquist: “The left are not friends. The are a band of competing parasites.” Also: “Republicans who raise taxes are rat heads in Coke bottles.”
Michelle Malkin is an inspiration to me. Did you know, I believe she said, that Gen. Wesley Clark whines about the “right wing freak machine”?
Bob Barr, the Libertarian party candidate for president, spoke at a reception. One of his topics? How he introduced the articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton. This is inspiring? Although he did say “Libertarianism lies in the heart of every American.”
It’s always interesting to me to see how these speakers are different in person from when they’re on television. My friend Maggie Thurber at Thurber’s Thoughts has some more good remarks on the speakers.
A few things that I learned:
It takes a long time to drive from Wichita to Austin! And, at a time when some are urging a return to the 55 mph speed limit, I saw little observation of the current 70 mph speed limit. Even when I drove for a while at 75 mph, people passed me like I was standing still.
Why is the term changing from “global warming” to “climate change”?
Ask readers to take action on your blog. Then, after taking action — maybe making a telephone call or writing an email — have readers write a comment about it so others can learn what happened.
I learned more about media bias and how to spot it.
One speaker said that the combined circulation of small newspapers is equal to the circulation of large newspapers.
Personally, I reconnected with some blogger friends that I first met at Samsphere in Chicago earlier this year, a friend I had met at Mises University last year, plus some Facebook “friends” who I had never met in person.
I also got a glimpse at the power of Twitter combined with a mobile device like a Blackberry. I may have to get one.
I had thought I would be able to produce an abbreviated Kansas Blog Roundup on Friday, but with all the activity, I didn’t have time.
According to Americans for Tax Reform today, July 16, 2008, marks national Cost of Government Day:
On July 16, Americans mark the national Cost of Government Day (COGD), the date on the calendar year when the average American finishes paying off his or her share of federal, state and local spending, and the regulatory burden. Cost of Government Day falling on July 16 means that you had to work 197 days out of the year just to meet all the costs imposed by government. In other words, the total cost of government – far more than taxation alone – consumes 53.9 percent of national income.
Americans for Tax Reform also calculates Cost of Government Day by State. For each state, the number of days worked for the government is shown, ranging from 172 days for Alaska to 212 days for Connecticut. Kansas is state number 25 in these rankings, right in the middle. We work 192 days for government, meaning our freedom day was July 11, a few days ago.
Later this week I’ll be traveling to Austin, Texas to attend Americans For Prosperity’s Defending the American Dream Summit, also known as RightOnline Summit.
There will be many excellent speakers, including a favorite person of mine, Robert Novak, whose recent autobiography The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington I highly recommend.
Naturally, I’ll be blogging from this event. It’s possible that the weekly Kansas Blog Roundup might be delayed.
Also taking place in Austin at the same time is the Netroots Nation Convention (formerly known as YearlyKos), so hopefully this gathering of the “nutroots” will be balanced by the concentration of conservative and libertarian activists at the event I’ll be attending.
A writer in the Wichita Eagle’s WE blog recently wrote this cautionary note about what our country would be like if libertarians were in charge: “… you can HOPE that the acid factory down the road didn’t taint your well water and the food you buy isn’t disease ridden.” This writer seems to believe that under libertarianism, one can do whatever one wants, and to heck with the consequences.
The most important principle to libertarians is the non-aggression axiom. As Walter Block explains in the article The Non-Aggression Axiom of Libertarianism: “The non-aggression axiom is the lynchpin of the philosophy of libertarianism. It states, simply, that it shall be legal for anyone to do anything he wants, provided only that he not initiate (or threaten) violence against the person or legitimately owned property of another.”
Isn’t ruining someone’s well water with acid a violation of that person’s property? Of course it is. And if property rights were properly respected, that person could seek damages from the polluter and force him to stop. But governments often don’t let people enforce their property rights in this way. So the government we have contributes to the problem by not holding polluters responsible for the damage they cause.
With regard to government food inspection being the only thing stopping the spread of disease through food, which I believe is what the writer claims: in the recent article The Wichita Eagle’s Preference For Government I wrote about how government food inspection failures occur frequently. Then, what is the difference in the motivations of government inspectors and private inspectors? When government inspection or regulation fails, politicians ask for more money for the agency that has failed. When private inspectors fail, they are held liable, or perhaps are forced out of business. There’s quite a bit of difference in the motivations between the two.
Some commentary regarding Wichita’s half-passed smoking ban that I received.
University of Kansas School of Medicine professor Dr. Rick Kellerman is on the front page of the May 30 Wichita Eagle. Kellerman is upset that a complete ban on smoking is not expected to be adopted by the city council at their June 3 meeting.
Who appointed Dr. Kellerman to be Wichita’s doctor? The doctor’s elitist and authoritarian statement in today’s Wichita Eagle indicates that he is either trying to become the 21st century version of the Prohibition era’s Carrie Nation or the 20th century’s version of the infamous Nurse Ratched (see Ken Kesey’s classic One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) for improper behavior. The arguments that Kellerman uses could also be used to ban everything from firearms, cars, risky behaviors from hang gliding to bungee jumping, and a host of activities that free people exercising their freedom in a responsible way may decide to engage in performing.
While it is a common leftist trait to call their political opponents “fascists” it is a historical fact that the most famous anti-tobacco and anti-smoking advocate in the first half of the 20th century was Adolf Hitler, who was happy to use his tyrannical powers to impose his will upon his subjects. This was (and is) part of the authoritarian elitism that underlies all totalitarian ideologies.
Dr. Kellerman’s desire to follow in these footsteps here in Wichita as part of his campaign to destroy individual liberty, property rights for individuals and business owners, as well as broadly restrict human freedom. Dr. Kellerman knows better than the peasants what is good for us.
Obviously this arrogant professor has never read Thomas Sowell’s the Vision of the Anointed, a book that describes Kellerman’s ideology and elitist arrogance perfectly. The same issue of The Wichita Eagle has a small story about how California’s state senate has passed a ban on smoking within one’s own apartment. Friendly fascism of the nanny state elitists like Dr. Kellerman are active all across this country.
Craig Bolton writes with these additional recommendations:
Bob’s recommendations are great. But here are several more [with my evaluation of the “level” you should be at before you tackle them and how centrally or tangentially important they are in developing an accurate understanding of libertarianism].
At some point, if you haven’t done so long ago, you should read some of the principal “classics,” such as:
John Locke, Second Treatise On Government [elementary and essential]
Baruch Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise and Political Treatise [intermediate and recommended]
Thomas Paine, Common Sense and The Rights of Man [elementary and essential]
Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth of Nations [advanced and requires a prior knowledge of Smith’s terminology; absolutely essential at some point]
Herbert Spencer, The Man Vs. The State [elementary and recommended]
Then you might try:
(1) Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. [Intermediate and recommended]
(2) Jim Powell, The Triumph of Liberty [Elementary and essential]
(3) Frederic Bastiat, Economic Sophisisms and Selected Essays On Political Economy [two different books] [Elementary and essential]
(4) William O. Reichert, Partisans of Freedom [advanced but marginal]
(5) Pierre J. Proudhon, The General Idea of the Revolution In the 19th Century [Proudhon was certifiable, but a very interesting writer] [intermediate and marginal]
(7) Jeffrey R. Hummel, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men [Intermediate and highly recommended]
(8) Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism [Elementary and essential]
(9) Ludwig von Mises, Socialism [Intermediate and essential]
(10) F.A. Hayek The Road To Serfdom [new critical edition edited by Bruce Caldwell] and Individualism And Economic Order. [Intermediate and important]
(11) F.A. Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order [Intermediate to Advanced and essential]
Rothbard, Murray: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto
An absolutely awesome book. If you are interested in liberty and how we could thrive with less or even no government, this is, in my opinion, the most important book to read. I think Lew Rockwell, who I recently had the pleasure to meet at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, says it best about this book:
Once you are exposed to the complete picture — and For a New Liberty has been the leading means of exposure for more than a quarter of a century — you cannot forget it. It becomes the indispensable lens through which we can see events in the real world with the greatest possible clarity. … Its logical and moral consistency, together with its empirical explanatory muscle, represents a threat to any intellectual vision that sets out to use the state to refashion the world according to some pre-programmed plan. And to the same extent it impresses the reader with a hopeful vision of what might be. … He never talks down to his readers but always with clarity. Rothbard speaks for himself. … The reader will discover on his or her own that every page exudes energy and passion, that the logic of his argument is impossibly compelling, and that the intellectual fire that inspired this work burns as bright now as it did all those years ago.
And finally, from Lew again:
The book is still regarded as “dangerous” precisely because, once the exposure to Rothbardianism takes place, no other book on politics, economics, or sociology can be read the same way again. What was once a commercial phenomenon has truly become a classical statement that I predict will be read for generations to come.
Learn more about this book and read it at http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newliberty.asp.
Read, Leonard: I, Pencil
I, Pencil is one of the most important and influential writings that explain the necessity for limited government. A simple object that we may not give much thought to, the story of the pencil illustrates the importance of markets, and the impossibility of centralized economic planning.
From the afterword to I, Pencil by Milton Friedman:
Leonard E. Read’s delightful story, “I, Pencil,” has become a classic, and deservedly so. I know of no other piece of literature that so succinctly, persuasively, and effectively illustrates the meaning of both Adam Smith’s invisible hand — the possibility of cooperation without coercion — and Friedrich Hayek’s emphasis on the importance of dispersed knowledge and the role of the price system in communicating information that “will make the individuals do the desirable things without anyone having to tell them what to do.”
Link to a pdf of I, Pencil: http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/I,%20Pencil%202006.pdf
Link to Leonard E. Read reading I, Pencil: http://www.fee.org/events/detail.asp?id=6239
Friedman, Milton: Capitalism and Freedom
Friedman, Milton, and Friedman, Rose: Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
James Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, and Dwight Lee: Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity
See my review.
Callahan, Gene: Economics For Real People: An Introduction to the Austrian School
Click to access econforrealpeople.pdf
Hazlitt, Henry: Economics in One Lesson
http://www.fee.org/library/books/economics.asp
A very important book that has inspired several generations of thinkers. See review at http://wichitaliberty.org/economics/economics-in-one-lesson-50th-anniversary-edition.
Boaz, David: Libertarianism: A Primer
http://www.libertarianism.org/
Doherty, Brian: Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement
http://radicalsforcapitalism.com
This huge book is more about the people and the movement rather than the principles of libertarianism.
Murray, Charles: What It Means to be a Libertarian