Freedom Home Page of the Week Archive Spring 2000

Unlike any of the other political parties, the Libertarian Party has an immense built-in handicap: The more consistently you apply libertarian ideas, the less likely you are to find any kind of political action conscionable. Hence the most "hardcore" libertarians are rarely members of the party. (Before you get out your complaint-writing keyboard, let me state that I am a member of the party. I do consider myself philosophically hardcore, but still practical enough to think that a.) the party is worthwhile and b.) you don't need a special keyboard just for writing complaints.)

But, whether you like it or not, the Libertarian Party is most people's first exposure to libertarianism. In fact, I can say from experience that there are many out there who think that libertarianism is synonomous with the Party. And the freshly re-designed LP Web Site is a fine introduction. Where the old Web site had a certain rustic grass-rootsy charm, the new one is slick and professional.

An Introduction to the LP gives a friendly look and feel to ideas which, let's face it, can sometimes be misinterpreted as sounding a little... cruel. It's good to remind people, even other libertarians, that libertarianism is a "caring, people-centered approach to politics." If you're like me, words like "caring" and "people-centered" make you duck and look for Hillary. Remember, the difference is that libertarians actually mean it.

Other highlights include the Take Action page, an easy-to-use and timely "to-do" list for activists; and a feature which allows you to customize the LP Web site to keep you up to date with what's going on in your home state. (No link available for this feature, but it's easy to find. It's on the right-hand side of the homepage.)

With the new LP Web site, the LP finally looks like "America's Largest Third Party."

Economist David D. Friedman's simple home page has always been one of my favorite sites on the Web. His giant intellect combined with his friendly sense of humor yield a body of work which is always readable. Among many interesting tidbits, you can find some sample chapters from his seminal work, The Machinery of Freedom, plus his great response to Mike Huben's notorious "Non-Libertarian FAQ". (Friedman is an old hand at Web debate and regularly trounces his opponents on Usenet. Some of his best Usenet posts can also be found archived at his site.)

But, the current highlight of Friedman's site is the complete Webbed version of his brand new book, Law's Order: What Economics Has To Do With Law and Why It Matters. Just published in print last month, Law's Order is an eminently readable economic analysis of our legal institutions. Somehow, Friedman has convinced the publishers, Princeton University Press, to allow him to put the whole thing, cover to cover, on the Web. The online version of the book belies Friedman's fascination with the possibilities of the Web. The book is replete with hyperlinked footnotes, cross-references, and sample problems, making reading it on the Web a richer experience, in many ways, than reading it in print.

Friedman teaches both Economics and Law at Santa Clara University and I, for one, am pretty jealous of his students. He is smart, very funny, and the most prominent living anarcho-capitalist. Plus, I hear his dad is some kind of famous economist too.

If you read Mary Ruwart's "Ask Dr. Ruwart" column in the Advocates for Self-Government's Liberator Online, you recently saw a reader ask whether women were inherently anti-libertarian. The argument was made that collectivism and aversion to risk-taking are part of women's nature and the road to serfdom is paved by "the feminization of society." That argument, and this past weekend's frightening Million Mom March, might leave both men and women who understand freedom to wonder: What's with the women?

The Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute has been formed to counter this trend. The top point in their mission is "to take conservative ideas to young women and to mentor them into effective leaders." Through an effective Campus Speakers Program and events like the upcoming 2000 Conservative Leadership Seminar, the Institute is working very hard to bring sensible ideas to young students and interns.

While the Institute does focus on bringing their message to young women (and countering the radical feminist message ubiquitous on college campuses,) the men will find much of interest here too. Check out the Feminist Follies page for some "(not so) funny facts about today's feminists" and the Papers and Articles page for more entertaining and insightful commentary on such topics as the death of Valentine's Day and the birth of Take Your Daughters to Work Day.

Dr. Ruwart might have quoted Clare Booth Luce in her response to her worried reader: "There are no hopeless situations; there are only men who have grown hopeless about them."

Not only are they located in the GREATEST CITY ON EARTH (no, I don't really mean that, Burma,) they have also been responsible for generating much good attention to libertarianism lately.

For starters, Chicagoans from all walks of Chicago life are daily being exposed to their ads on buses and subway trains. These ads are not only notable for being eye-catching in their style and uncompromising in their content. They also arose controversy when the Chicago Transit Authority rejected two of them for being so, well, uncompromising. (The CTA was eventually convinced to allow the ads with a slight modification of one line.)

In addition, LP Chicago members will be causing trouble this Saturday, May 14 at the Armed Informed Mother's March (conveniently located right next to the anti-gun Million Mom March in Chicago.) I happen to have the inside scoop on a particularly amusing stunt planned, but, since it's not mentioned on their Web site, I won't spoil it. You'll just have to show up and see for yourself. And, no, living somewhere other than Chicago is no excuse. (That means you, Burma.)

Bottom line is, the LPC has gotten many lower-case libertarians (including me) excited about what upper-case Libertarians are capable of. For that reason alone, both upper- and lower-cases in any location should take notice.

The Center for Equal Opportunity's innovative and interactive new feature will calculate any student's odds of getting into the University of Virginia based on various criteria.

Why would anyone but a high school student be interested? Because race and ethnicity are among the criteria.

Using the university's own admissions data from 1999, CEO has discovered that there is a surprising (well, maybe not that surprising to us clear thinkers), difference between white or Asian applicants' chances of being admitted and black or Hispanic applicants' chances. For example, a black in-state student with a 600 verbal/600 math SAT score and a 93rd percentile class rank has a 99% chance of being admitted. If that same student has the misfortune to be Asian, his chances are reduced to 55%. And poor Whitey has only a 50% chance.

With a nice flourish, this Web page ends with an exhortation to forward any comments you might have about these statistics to the admissions office of UVa. An e-mail address is supplied.

It would be nice to see this kind of program created for more colleges and universities. Even though I've long since gotten my degree, I'd sure like to see the stats for Harvard, USC, and Malcolm X college. Hopefully, this is just the first in a series for CEO.

After radicals disrupted the WTO meeting in November, a group of agriculture leaders formed the Truth About Trade coalition. According to their Web site, American agriculture is facing some of its greatest challenges in twenty years, including low commodity prices, government-subsidized competition in European markets, and completely closed markets in other countries. Anti-trade protests are not helping.

The Web site explains the position of American farmers with concise articles like The Importance of Trade, Fact and Fiction, and America's Farm Economy. For those more interested in the opponents of trade and where they are coming from, Truth About Trade has extensively documented the names, missions, and financial supporters of many prominent anti-trade groups and come to the conclusion that they are a very loud but very small minority.

Next, many of these protesters intend to disrupt plans to allow China into the WTO. Since China's entry into the WTO would open a huge market for American farm products, it's time they learned the Truth About Trade.

Happy Tax Day everyone! In the spirit of a desire to make our tax system simpler, (preferably so simple it doesn't exist,) this week's Page of the Week is a simple one. Part of Sugi Sorenson's fine personal Web site, The U.S. Income Tax Burden is a homemade analysis of Congressional Budget Office numbers which makes perfectly clear why libertarians refer to the tax system as "legal plunder."

Sorenson and co-author Stephen Cobb have created concise charts demonstrating the extent to which the top earners in this country are being, and have been, bilked out of more and more of their earnings every year since 1977. Sorenson and Cobb are good number-crunchers, but they are also astute commentators. In response to the oft-heard argument that tax breaks will mostly benefit the wealthy, they point out that "the 'wealthy' will receive the majority of any income tax reduction because they pay a disproportionately huge percentage of the income taxes!"

I'm off to do my taxes right now and, depending on how irritated I get while doing it, I just may print out a copy of Sorenson and Cobb's report and stuff it in the envelope with my tax forms.

Today is the official grand opening of SchoolReformers.com, a big step forward in the market-based school reform movement. If you're reading this, you probably already know that the Internet has changed everything by making it easier to disseminate information and to organize people and events from all over the world. SchoolReformers.com is going to bring that power to parents and activists who care about education in America and want to change it for the better.

If you think some aspects of SchoolReformers.com look familiar, like the Breaking News page and the meticulously organized Resource Directory, that may be because it is the school reform Web site you've always pictured in your dreams. Or it may be because it is a joint project of the Henry Hazlitt Foundation, (together with the Heartland Institute, and Citizens for Educational Freedom,) publishers of Free-Market.Net.

However, the most innovative and exciting part of the Web site is the all new Activist Toolbox. Described as "power tools for education activists," the Toolbox contains all the information anyone could need to become an activist for school reform today. There's a simple FAQ for answers to some of the tough questions about market-based reform, plus comprehensive sections on how to give speeches, conduct research, organize allies, and raise much-needed funds.

I think SchoolReformers.com is a grand example of how the Internet can be used for positive reform. You can accuse me of being biased but I'm confident that, once you check it out for yourself, you'll agree.

The Southeastern Legal Foundation, which successfully sued to prevent the Clinton Administration from using controversial "statistical sampling" in the 2000 Census, is now causing more trouble for the Census Bureau by calling for its complete dismantling. In a special report released today, "Census 2000 Crisis: The Response Gap & A Blueprint for Reform" SLF calls for the establishment of two new agencies to handle the decennial census, restricted to the purpose prescribed in the Constitution: a head count.

Since 1976, SLF has been a conservative voice in the legal system, defending free enterprise and economic freedom. One of their most high-profile cases, Lucas vs. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992), resulted in a landmark Supreme Court decision which showed that environmentally-minded laws preventing development of beachfront property legally constitute "takings" and require the owners of such property to be compensated. You can read about this case in the "Property Rights" section of the SLF Web site, which is complemented by similar sections on topics like "Gun Litigation" and "Taxation."

If you like signing petitions, you'll love the SLF Web site. There are two petitions currently running, one to end Affirmative Action in Atlanta, and the other to disbar Bill Clinton. If you prefer your politics live and in person, you might be interested in SLF's Celebrate America, an event they are sponsoring at the end of April which will feature keynote speaker Ken Starr, and FOX News broadcaster Sean Hannity.

Have you ever sat in a deli, enjoying a sandwich, when you notice a poster on the wall which would seem to indicate that, at the end of the day, the owner of the deli gives some of the money he made off of you to the Socialist Workers Party? Ever wonder whether your support of your chiropractor assists him in his support of Ralph Nader? Well, when you do business with the businesses listed on FreeMarketopia.com, you don't need to wonder.

FreeMarketopia's goal is to assist advocates of the free market to do business with each other. It is described as a virtual "Yellow Pages", where all the businesses listed are capitalist and proud of it. As you might expect, there are investment advisors, tax planners, and brokerage houses listed here, but there are also a few surprises: It's nice to know that there are libertarian grills, music shops, commercial voice actors, and yes, even chiropractors out there.

Getting listed with FreeMarketopia easy and free, so if you have a business, sign up and let other libertarians know that a dollar exchanged for your product or service won't be a dollar supporting statism.

The NRA's recent critiques of Clinton have typically been dismissed by the White House and many media outlets as the ravings of a "sick" person. Gun manufacturers like Colt and Smith & Wesson have bowed to pressure from the federal threat of lawsuits. Things have seldom looked worse for the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

Happily, The Second Amendment Foundation is working to preserve our rights. SAF was instrumental in organizing the recent boycott of Citibank, prodding the company to drop their policy of refusing accounts of firearms businesses. At their Web site, the current top feature is the headline: "SAF Launches Anti-Clinton Media Effort!" Who doesn't like the sound of that? Two print ads and one radio ad are available for your review here.

Another notable feature of the SAF Web site is a page showing the texts of the 2nd Amendment and all 44 State Constitution provisions enumerating the right to keep and bear arms. Particularly lucid and concise is Connecticut's Article I, Section 15: "Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state." If only the federal version had been worded so.

The issue of gay marriage, and whether states should recognize it, has been a hot one lately. West Virginia will soon join the list of states to formally ban gay marriage, with a bill that would add to marriage license applications the phrase "Marriage is designed to be a loving and lifelong union between a woman and a man."

Clarification of the issues can be found at the Web site of the Independent Gay Forum. Author Jonathan Rauch, in particular, has done a lot of thinking on gay marriage. In his article, The Right Approach to Gay Marriage, Rauch argues that while gays should ultimately have the right to marry, the federalist approach of leaving it to the states is the most realistic way of making it happen. Meanwhile, contributor David Boaz wonders, as I do, why government, state or federal, has any place defining marriage at all.

The Foundation for Economic Education -- FEE -- is constantly making it easier and easier to debunk big government arguments against the free market. For years, their magazine "The Freeman" (recently retitled "Ideas on Liberty") has offered some of the best information and commentary on why capitalism works and socialism doesn't.

FEE's new Web Site, Clichés of Politics, is a masterpiece of design and organization.

This is a great site to bookmark both for your own use ("How does the market preserve the environment better than the government, again?") and for sending your friends to when they need a good dose of economic education.

Cliches.org is designed to appeal to a young audience. The current essay contest requires entrants to be 25 years old or younger. (What if you're older but only opened your eyes to the real world relatively recently? Ah well. Can't go back, can't go back.) But no matter your age, unless you are a walking encyclopedia of free-market arguments, this site is sure to be of great use.

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