Freedom Home Page of the Week Archive Fall 2000

Every morning, when I sit down at my desk, I blearily turn the computer on, open a browser, and set to finding out what's happening with the country. I'll start out simple with the big corporate news sites. You know, "Bla bla Broward, bla bla chads, bla bla Begala." Eventually, I'll need my "wake up": a cup of coffee and a column like "Considering Secession." Yes! Hallelujah! I'm awake. Who wants a piece?

For your morning jolt, consider Lewrockwell.com. Ludwig von Mises Institute President Lew Rockwell collects the best commentary from a select few other Web sites, and combines it with original work by hardhitting thinkers such as Gene Callahan, Ralph Raico, and Paul Craig Roberts, and an occasional prescient essay by Mr. Libertarian, Murray Rothbard. The site is always engaging and provides a good prelude to my next regular morning visit, the Mises Institute itself at Mises.org.

P.S. Has anyone already coined "Bla Bla Begala"? I hope not. I think it's gonna be a hit.

In an October New York Times op-ed, author Linda Monk worried about government misuse of private information collected in the National Census. To drive home her point, she stated her fear that "the government will be well on its way to becoming another Amazon.com, which abruptly and retroactively changed its privacy policy this year."

No, the Federal Government is not considering one-click ordering, or any of the many other conveniences offered by that innovative online company. Ms. Monk's concerns are based on a confused notion of privacy abuses. (See Government and the Private Sector: Fundamentally Different.) She, and anyone else with an interest in privacy issues, would be well-advised to check out Privacilla.org, a sparsely designed, but extensive and thorough, guide to privacy.

Privacilla is designed to be a "permanently revisable set of issue papers." It is loosely based on the model of open source software, which can be created and constantly refined by its users, making it always timely. In addition to Privacy Fundamentals, a crash course on privacy issues which would clarify any op-ed writer's thoughts on the subject, there are two large sections detailing the philosophical and legal issues involved with privacy and government, and privacy and business.

Privacilla is directed at policymakers, but any inquisitive mind will find much to chew on. If you need an understanding of the differences between privacy abuses and useful information sharing, or if you need a detailed rundown of all the privacy laws governing the public sector, you'll find it here.

Along with the rest of the nation, I assumed that by now I would finally have been able to forget the election and move on. But instead, it turns out that this action movie has unexpected fourth, fifth, and sixth acts... and no one's able to leave the theater! The nation continues to stress, and one of my eyebrows continues to go gray at the prospect that the next president may consider saving the environment to be the "central organizing principle" of a good government. So, as long as we're all stuck with this election for awhile longer, I recommend getting your news about it from one of the most consistently informative and entertaining conservative sites on the Web: National Review Online.

I became a regular NRO reader via what continues to be my one of my favorite pages on the Web, The G-File. This regular column by Jonah Goldberg combines a scholar's knowledge of philosophy, history, and economics with the humor and pop-culture literacy of a devoted couch potato. (Goldberg regularly refers to his couch as his in-house research assistant.) If you're like me, and enjoy the type of column where "Carthago Delenda Est" is used in the same column as a quote from The Simpsons, you won't want to miss a single G-File.

And there's also this election thingie. NRO distinguishes itself from many other online magazines by being constantly updated during the day, so you can be sure you won't miss Gore's latest attempt to hijack the presidency. New columns by the likes of Rich Lowry, Deroy Murdock, Barbara Olson, and pseudonymous LA police officer Jack Dunphy are constantly being posted. The feature article at 11 a.m. won't be the feature article at 3 p.m., so you'll want to bookmark NRO and check back frequently.

Next Monday, the Women's Freedom Network is sponsoring a Town Hall Meeting titled "Life After the 2000 Elections" and though I won't be there, I sure can't wait for that life. As I write this, we're all just a little over a day away from being either disgusted by the American people's choice for president, or dismayed by the American people's choice for president. But no, no, NO, I'm not going to fret about the election. No. This week's Page of the Week is dedicated to that half of the population who, if the polls are right, seem hell-bent on electing the greater of two evils. I'm talkin' 'bout the women.

But seriously folks, in spite of the lefty ravings of many prominent activists who claim to speak for all women, and in spite of the makeup of your last local Libertarian Party meeting, the way of truth and light is NOT entirely populated by men. The Women's Freedom Network has been around since 1993, "seeking alternatives to extremist ideological feminism and the anti-feminist traditionalism." Founded by Rita Simon, and boasting a Board of Directors which includes such names as Boaz, Bolick, Postrel, and Hoff Sommers, the WFN has a redesigned Web site and a spanking new partnership with Free-Market.Net.

There is a lot of content at the site but, in spite of its new design, most of it is dated prior to 1999 and hence, has nothing to with the current election. So, why give it the POTW award this week?

So forget about Bore and Gush for a time and, instead, browse through the stimulating articles in WFN's newsletter archives. Here, you'll find Nat Hentoff, Christina Hoff Sommers, Cathy Young, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, and many other enlightened thinkers reflecting on the current state of sexual politics. And, when you're offline and strolling by the bookstore, you'll appreciate WFN's booklist reviewing the best of individualist feminist writing.

The latest organization to join the high-profile list of Free-Market.Net partners is also one of the oldest, most respected, single-issue advocacy organizations in the U.S., and I, for one, couldn't be happier to have them: NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Since 1970, NORML has been the leading voice of sanity against what is variously called "The Insane War on Drugs," "The War on (Some) Drugs," and "McCaffrey's Folly."

NORML's Web site, Norml.org,, is a treasure-trove of information about the third most popular recreational drug: From the history of prohibition, to the medical benefits, to the progress made towards legalization. If you remain skeptical about whether these aren't really just a bunch of crazed and destructive drug-abusers, you'd benefit from reading NORML's fair and balanced "Marijuana Health Mythology" as well as the "Principles of Responsible Cannabis Use." And if you're the preached-to converted, be sure to check out (and contribute to) their very amusing ad campaign ("A pot smoker is busted every 45 seconds. And you wonder why we're PARANOID.").

If freedom means anything at all, it means that our bodies and our brains are our property, to do with as we please. Too many people have been imprisoned or murdered, all for the crime of exercising what should be the most obvious and fundamental human right. For thirty years, NORML has been fighting for recognition of our rights and progress has been definite, if slow. Support NORML, and hope it doesn't take thirty more years before they can finally shut their doors.

Points for Style! Longtime Social Security policy wonks won't find anything they didn't already know at this week's Page of the Week, but for a concise and elegant presentation of a single issue, you can't do much better than Choose Your Future. This may be (next to Free-Market.Net, of course) one of the best-designed Web sites of the classical liberal/libertarian movement.

Much of Choose Your Future takes the form of a Web essay, where you can start on any page and, using hyperlinks, jump from page to page, learning as you go and in the order you choose. The history and meaning of Social Security is fully covered, jumping from topics like the history of con man Charles Ponzi to the story of Bulgarian immigrant Ephram Nestor, whose Supreme Court case ended the question of who really owns the money we put into Social Security.

Concise explanations of why Social Security is both unfair and unfunded are important in exlaining the issue to the public, and the folks at Choose Your Future have provided a fantastic primer for anyone who wants to know more for themselves or to teach others. I understand television commercials are on their way and, if the Web site is any indication, they are sure to be professional and informative. Great. As if Craig T. Nelson and Marg Helgenberger weren't enough, now I have one MORE reason to watch TV!

The oldest, continuously published, conservative weekly newspaper has finally entered the digital age. HumanEventsOnline is the Web site of Human Events, the weekly paper published since 1944. It's not completely libertarian, (especially considering the presence of Legal Affairs Correspondent Ann Coulter, who recently got into a snit about our crazy, drug-legalizing ways), but its overall focus is still good. "Exposing liberal media bias" is one of the magazine's primary tenets, and I can't complain about that, (though I prefer "Democratic media bias." I just refuse to give up that word, "liberal.")

HumanEventsOnline features the best of each week's issue, as well as brief summaries of everything you'll find in the print issue. This week's cover story addresses a point about Al Gore that is often overlooked: his warlike foreign policy. ("Want War? Vote Gore") Referring to last week's presidential debate, the article states, "Gore revealed a foreign policy vision that could potentially get many young Americans killed, squander the hard-earned tax dollars of American families and, yet, do nothing to secure the vital interests of the American nation."

Other highlights from this week include a story about how Ted Kennedy spiked an upcoming NBC miniseries about the Kennedy women, some details on how it happened that taxpayers from Oregon to Maine are helping to pay for the restoration of a statue of Vulcan, the fire god, in Birmingham, Alabama, and of course, plenty more reasons why Al Gore sucks.

At times, you'll find yourself talking to someone who says that raising the minimum wage will raise the living standards of the working poor without any negative effects. In those cases, it's easy enough to correct that person by pointing him to the evidence. But at other times, you'll find yourself talking to someone who describes himself as an anarchist, is voting for Ralph Nader and says things like "Property rights are an ideological construct deliberately designed by the founders to oppress the poor, the gay, and the trees." In those cases, you'd be excused if you simply laughed and walked away. But, if you're feeling magnanimous, you might try to help the benighted fool by taking him back through the fundamentals of reason and critical thinking (which also happen to be the fundamentals of liberty.)

OnLiberty.net is a simple, friendly, well-designed site featuring the Fundamentals of Liberty Self-Study Course. This course is a series of digestible lessons, beginning with the nature of objective reality (and our subjective perceptions of it), and following a chain of reasoning (ala Austrian Economics) through the fundamentals of human action to the true nature of freedom. Obviously, to get a full understanding, one would want to read von Mises. But the Fundamentals of Liberty course is a very good introduction. Another highlight of OnLiberty.net is View from the Road, a collection of reflections about freedom by Christopher Jeffers, a Wisconsin truck driver. If your impression of Wisconsin truck drivers can be summarized by the phrase "I'd let the vultures take you", then Jeffers' astute commentary and wide range of knowledge will surprise you.

So the next time you encounter someone whose political manifesto begins with the equivalent of "'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves...", point him towards OnLiberty.net where he can get a quick education.

In 1835, Mexican dictator general Santa Anna attempted an act which, even today, should seem daunting: to disarm the people of Texas. Naturally, Texas didn't take to this idea and the Texas Revolution of 1835-36 followed. The battle flag which Texans rallied behind featured a lone star, a cannon, and the provocative words "Come And Take It."

The people at Battle Flags, Etc. have updated that flag to show a Colt AR-15/M-16 rifle instead of a cannon, and it is the centerpiece of a Web site where you can buy just about any kind of flag you could want: State Flags, Historical Flags, Flags of the World, etc.

But the best part of this site is a library of articles about the totalitarian nature of disarmament and various other ways in which the government, (and a few peculiar monsters of government assistance such as labor unions,) have used violence and police power to crush dissent. This list of travesties reads like the best of James Bovard, and is sure to get your blood boiling. For example, did you know that, in 1997, the Houston Police Patrolmen's Union urged its members to support the UPS strike by arbitrarily pulling over any "scab" UPS trucks? You can read about that, and many more such incidences, at Battle Flags, Etc. And after you're finished reading, you may be inspired to fly ole' "Come And Take It" yourself.

Thirty years after Jim Morrison proclaimed himself the Lizard King, nobody yet knows just what he meant. But we live in less ambiguous times, and when Garry Trudeau recently crowned Republican Congressman George Nethercutt "The Weasel King", the charge is clear: He is a weasel, a welch, a person whose word ain't worth the paper it's written on. And he's the King because, not that long ago, he attached a lot of importance to his word.

In 1994, Nethercutt made a big campaign issue out of his pledge to limit the number of terms he would serve, if elected, to three. Six years, and three terms later, that promise suddenly doesn't seem so important to him anymore. And, let's face it, voters are notoriously forgetful. But Weaselking.org isn't going to let them, or Nethercutt, forget. They've been sending a man in a weasel costume to Nethercutt's every public appearance, and the weasel/Nethercutt animation on the Web site isn't too flattering either.

At Weaselking.org, you can read articles about Nethercutt's broken promise from the National Journal and The Washington Times, (as well as the Doonesbury cartoon which coined the Weasel King moniker), and enter your name and address to receive a free poster featuring Nethercutt in his other secret identity--Pinocchio.

As a libertarian, and often forced to defend capitalist business practices in a free market, I sometimes overlook the pernicious ways that business operates in our mixed-economy world of perverse incentives. This is why conservative columnist Michelle Malkin's new Web site, Porkwatch.com, has earned both its place amongst my bookmarks, and this week's Freedom Home Page of the Week award.

Designed as a "comprehensive and up-to-date resource for liberals, conservatives, and libertarians", Porkwatch.com will keep you posted on the new and different ways that the Orren Boyles and Wesley Mouches of the world have found to spend your tax dollars. (And reading CEO of Cypress Semiconductors T.J. Rodgers will remind you that there are Hank Reardens out there too.) At Porkwatch's home page, you'll find the latest on corporate welfare for any and all industries, but the site is further divided into Farm Piggies, Mall Piggies, Medical Piggies, Sports Piggies, Tech Piggies, and coming soon, Timber Piggies.

Critics of capitalism too often make the mistake of thinking that this, a situation where federal and state tax dollars support the so-called capitalists, is capitalism. We know that it's not. Jeff Jacoby calls government subsidies for milk farmers "Dairy Socialism", and that's what it is. Socialism. Defenders of the free market should be as vocal in their condemnation of corporate welfare as of the drug war, anti-gun lawsuits, and the latest Galbraith screed. So the next time you pass by your local tax-funded sports complex or shopping mall, name it for what it is and yell out a good "Soooo-EEEEEEE!" for me.

"Every year you are taxed one-eighth of your salary to pay for someone else's retirement." So says Edwin Thompson, the president of Free-Market.Net's newest partner organization, the Personal Retirement Alliance at iOptOut.org. It's a point familiar to anyone familiar with our Social Security program, and it's one worth repeating. One-eighth. That's one and a half months out of every year.

Of course, it is not yet legal to "opt out" of this system (beyond being unemployed.) You're a part of it whether you like it or not. But the Personal Retirement Alliance's simple idea is that we should have the option of taking at least part of our FICA taxes and putting that money towards our own privately managed personal retirement accounts (PRAs.) It's not full privatization, but it's a healthy start.

iOptOut.org is an attractively designed Web site full of, but not overwhelmed with, important information. A complete summary of why making Social Security optional is a good idea is available at the FAQ, and a separate page of Articles contains some of the best work on the subject by some of the best minds in the libertarian movement: Milton Friedman, Paul Farago, and our friends at the Cato Institute.

With EEE-vil cigarette smokers finding themselves unwelcome in the office and even unwelcome in California bars, the term "Smoker's Lounge" has gone the way of "Water Closet". But smokers, take Heart. Specifically, take the Heartland Institute. The libertarian think-tank has opened a new Web page, The Smoker's Lounge, for both smokers and non-smokers to learn the truth about the anti-tobacco war.

The Heartland Institute, about to celebrate their 16th year, is one of the best places on the Web to find uncompromising and informative policy studies. The Smoker's Lounge is the newest addition to a series of issue-focused portal sites, joining SchoolReformers.com and The Common Sense Environmentalist's Suite. One page, In Defense of Smokers, features the best commentaries on the subject by Reason Senior Editor Jacob Sullum and Heartland President Joe Bast. Other pages, like Under-aged Smokers, Tobacco Litigation, and Smoking Bans feature news items and articles from many diverse sources. And, in keeping with a libertarian commitment to fairness, there's even a page of links to the "Tobacco Nannies", to get the other side of the story.

Commenting on the Clinton Administration suit against the tobacco industry, conservative Judge Robert Bork said, "Is there no judge who will call this case what it is: an intellectual sham and a misuse of the courts to accomplish through litigation what cannot be won through legislation?" It seems that there was no such judge, and the intellectual sham that is the anti-tobacco movement continues unabated. Spend some time at Heartland's Smoker's Lounge to fuel up on intellectual ammunition for the continuing war.

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