Freedom Home Page of the Week Archive Winter 2000

Today, February 28, is the opening day of Liberzine.com, a new libertarian daily magazine which will feature, a la Suck.com, a new article every weekday.

Created by Cato Institute staffer Jerry Brito, and featuring a stream-lined Web presentation as well as a daily e-mail version, Liberzine already looks very promising. Today's article is from Deroy Murdock. It's a frightening exposé of the Soviet practice of building and burying suitcase-sized nuclear weapons all over the world, and the Clinton Administration's unwillingness to find out where they are.

Liberzine is looking for contributors, so perhaps the next article could be by you.

Since its founding in 1976, The Center for Libertarian Studies has been dedicated to the vision of one of this century's most vocal and uncompromising enemies of statism, Murray N. Rothbard. CLS's Web site, though not yet complete, (a situation you might help to remedy by contributing,) already contains a wealth of scholarly information to keep a reader busy.

The Journal of Libertarian Studies, CLS's twice-yearly periodical is completely archived on the site and available for reading free of charge. The list of authors for the journal reads like a special edition of the Laissez Faire Books catalog: Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises, Randy Barnett, Roy Childs, and Free-Market.Net Members Walter Block and Tibor Machan are all here.

Also archived is Left and Right, the magazine founded and published by Rothbard from 1965 to 1968 and "dedicated to combating imperialism and advancing human liberty." Two more magazines, The Libertarian Forum and the Rothbard-Rockwell Report are coming soon.

P.S. Most of the articles on this site require an Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you don't have one, it's easy to obtain one for free here.

On November 3, the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services' new, proposed medical privacy regulations were published. The period for public comment, which HHS must review and consider, will end this Thursday. Regarding public comment, HHS is as helpful as you might expect: They don't accept FAXes, the e-mail form on their Web Site is buried and hard to find, and anything sent by snail-mail must be sent in triplicate. For this reason, the Liberty Study Committee formed StopBigBrother.org, a Web Site which makes it easy to voice your concerns.

In case you need an update on why the proposed regulations will damage medical privacy, a concise background page is offered, featuring the Institute for Health Freedom's report, "What Americans Need To Know About Medical Privacy Regulations", and Congressman Ron Paul's Dec. 9 letter to HHS. When you're ready to send your comments, a form for doing so is right on the front page. Just fill out your name, address, and the comment form itself, and a copy of your letter will be hand delivered to HHS before the Feb. 17 deadline.

According to the Web Site, as of this writing, you only have 3 days, 11 hours, 48 minutes, and 48 seconds (no, make that 47. 46. 45...) to make your voice heard. Hurry to Stop Big Brother now!

The National Center for Policy Analysis has a new, online Social Security Calculator which, with the answering of 7 multiple-choice questions, will tell you what you will pay into the scheme in taxes, what you will receive in benefits and what you would have received had you invested the same money in a private account. The answers are not good news.

For example, according to the calculator, a 25-year old waitress will pay more than $300,000 into Social Security by the time she retires, but her lifetime benefits will amount to about half that. A 30-year old steel worker can expect to pay $800,000 and receive one-third of it back. What a deal! I got a better deal than that when I lost my wallet. (I got it back, with a 100% return.)

This is a great link to e-mail to your friends. There's no quicker and easier way to get angry at the government than to see the degree to which it is ripping you off, personally, every time you get a paycheck.

Boy, it just never stops looking bad for the feds. The movie "Waco: The Rules of Engagement" made a compelling case that the FBI and the BATF made serious mistakes during the 1993 Branch Davidian standoff, and that responsibility for the deaths of 52 adults and 25 children lies squarely on the shoulders of our federal government. Now, with "Waco: A New Revelation," the case gets even stronger.

The Web site for the movie offers a fine overview of what you will see in the film, as well as a comprehensive timeline of the events, (starting with the 1935 formation of the Mt. Carmel religious community,) leading up to the horrible loss of lives in 1993, and a timeline of New Developments in 1999.

Unlike the previous movie, you don't have to wait to see it. It's out on video now, and you can order it at the site.

I hope that most readers were excited enough to see the words "Human Action Online" that they are not bothering to read this review and have clicked straight to the site itself. The rest of the review is for those of you who need more explanation.

Originally published in 1949, "Human Action: A Treatise on Economics" is the masterpiece of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. When Laissez Faire Books first started offering a paperback edition of the book, editor Roy Childs was moved to write in his review that "this is a cause for celebration" and that it was one of the few books which "one can point to and say: 'This work will change the world for the better.'" All this because the book was finally available in an inexpensive paperback.

Now, thanks to the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the entire book is available, online, for free.

Excluding a lack of Web access, there is no longer any excuse for ignorance regarding the nature of money, the market economy, and the division of labor, nor the inherent contradictions and impossibility of socialism. It's all here, and it's all free. Link to it on your Web site and in all your e-mails. Print out chapters and give them to your friends. The sooner everyone reads this, the sooner the world can make that change for the better.

If all this sounds a bit too adulatory, don't take my word for it. Take the word of my employer's namesake, Henry Hazlitt: "[Human Action] should become the leading text of everyone who believes in freedom, in individualism, and in the ability of a free-market economy not only to outdistance any government-planned system in the production of goods and services for the masses, but to promote and safeguard ... those intellectual, cultural, and moral values upon which all civilization ultimately rests." Pretty strong words. Mises does not disappoint.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream was for a color-blind society (not inherently color-sighted affirmative action). The Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) shares his dream. CEO is "the only think tank devoted exclusively to the promotion of color-blind equal opportunity and racial harmony." They do it by focusing on three areas: racial preferences, immigration, and multi-cultural education.

You won't want to miss CEO president Linda Chavez's insightful weekly column. You can also read other commentaries, studies, and congressional testimonies devoted to each of CEO's core subjects, as well as order copies of their in-depth publications. (Most of them are free, but you do have to pay for shipping.)

The fate of Elian Gonzalez remains uncertain, but the fate of his home country was determined the moment Castro took over: steady economic decline and disregard for human rights. Anybody familiar with F.A. Hayek knows that these are the inevitable results of socialist experiments. The Free Cuba Foundation is one organization that understands this and is working to liberate the Cuban people from their tyrannical ruler.

The Free Cuba Foundation is dedicated to, in their words, "Free Markets, Permanent Values, [and] Limited Government." Their nicely-organized Web site offers many articles on topics such as "Cuban History," "Human Rights Violations," and "Cuba's Democratic Opposition." The Foundation's dedication to free markets is evidenced by links throughout the site to the works of Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and other libertarian and conservative heroes.

In his latest column, Thomas Sowell asks, "Will little Elian Gonzalez be the latest of the eggs to be broken to make some despot's omelettes?" We may not know the answer but, before weighing in on the issue, a visit to the Free Cuba Foundation will highlight some of that omelette's bloody ingredients.

Just kidding. We made it into the future without many glitches. And now that we're here in the science-fictiony sounding YEAR 2000, what better time to look to the heavens and wonder why we are so far from the "space odyssies" of Arthur C. Clarke. Many libertarians will agree with the people at The Artemis Project that the reason space exploration is so stagnant is that it is run by the government.

The privately financed commercial venture known as The Artemis Project wants to put tourists on the moon, and they want to do it within the next decade. Skeptics may call it impossible but, whether or not The Artemis Project is the first to create a commercial moon base, they should be noted for taking the pioneering steps. And, keeping with the Project's strategy of making moon flight entertaining, the Web Site is fun to explore, including a fictional account of "Landing Day," an illustrated depiction of "Your Vacation on the Moon," and a virtual "Walk Around the Moon Base."

It's time to bring reality up to date with science fiction. Given the large number of prominent science-fiction writers who also call themselves libertarians, it should be no surprise that private enterprise rather than government will be the catalyst.

As WorldNetDaily Editor Joseph Farah says, "It might be chaos and pandemonium, or it might be one big party." Of course, "it" is Y2K and it gets closer every second. No one knows what's going to happen when the world's computers tick off that last second of the nineteen-hundreds but, if the past year has been an indication, WorldNetDaily will offer the most comprehensive coverage.

With regular reports on everything Y2K-related, and the current Countdown to Y2K page, WND has proven to be the best place to go when you need to know about what's been done to prepare, what you should and shouldn't do when the clock strikes, and what could happen when it does.

If you plan to be online for Y2K, (personally, I'm expecting my computer to either blow up or spring arms and legs and begin chanting "Kill all humans",) you should know that WND will be joining forces with Talk Radio Network to offer 48 hours of live coverage. If you want to join in on the fun, there is even a toll-free phone number to call with tips on developments in your community.

It's been an interesting century, friends. We'll see you on the other side. Peace.

P.S. Any e-mails pointing out that it's not the end of the century will be met with the online equivalent of a slack jaw and a blank stare.

This season of giving can sometimes be a stressful one for libertarians and free-marketeers because our political adversaries are not afraid to label us "scrooges" and "grinches." Of course, these labels are usually derived from misunderstandings about the nature of freedom and free markets, misunderstandings which have been reinforced throughout the media ever since Dickens.

This Christmas, Freedom Home Page of the Week invites you to visit several sites offering content to help free-marketeers counter the faulty arguments coming their way.

The Ludwig von Mises Institute has a special section titled Christmas at Mises.org. Articles like "Scrooge Defended!" and "The Economics of Christmas Movies" provide cutting insights into the traditionally capitalist villains of Christmas stories. You'll never look at old Ebenezer or Henry Potter in the same way.

At the Cascade Policy Institute, Peter Weissbach tells adults to stop believing in the Santa State in his "Christmas Commentary."

At the Lincoln Institute, Albert Paschall, in his "Somedays" column, dreams of a future Christmas of worldwide nuclear disarmament and hails the three wise men of the new millenium.

Dan Flynn turns the tables on the liberals by dubbing them grinches (and makes his case by showing how they are, literally, stealing Christmas) in Accuracy in Academia's "Christmas 'Scrooged' on Campus."

And on a more humorous note, radio talk-show host Lowell Ponte imagines what would happen if today's political leaders had beliefs about Santa Claus consistent with their politics.

Leftist friends of mine are often surprised to find that I'm a belligerent and quick-to-complain consumer, to which I reply that being a fan of capitalism doesn't mean being a fan of all capitalists. Perhaps this misunderstanding derives from the fact that most consumer advocacy organizations are saddled with an anti-capitalistic (and hence, ultimately anti-consumer) point of view. But, since 1977, Consumer Alert has been serving the interests of consumers while understanding that government intervention in the free market is almost never the answer.

For example, see Consumer Alert's current campaign against the marketing techniques of Whole Foods. Their open letter to Whole Foods CEO John Mackey (a self-proclaimed libertarian and one-time Free-Market.Net member, but that won't protect him), boldly defends the mostly squishy-liberal customers of the organic health food store from a "public climate of fear-based misinformation that allows [Whole Foods] to charge consumers significant premiums for products that provide no greater safety or nutritional benefits than do conventional products."

Through their monthly column, "Commonsense Consumer," their newsletters "Consumer Comments," "On the Plate" (evaluating food issues), and the monthly update on the activities of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, "CSPC Monitor," Consumer Alert presents refreshingly level-headed analysis of the conflict and cooperation between consumers, capitalists, and the government.

A free market, while being the best economic arrangement, is not utopia. Lies may still be told, force may still be used. Consumer Alert is the consumer advocacy organization that understands all this. Somebody please send Ralph Nader here.

The Occasional is a new Web magazine combining original content with "Arts & Letters Daily"-style links to interesting articles elsewhere on the Web. The Elsewhere section is updated daily, but new original content appears only "occasionally." (So far, "occasionally" seems to mean "once or twice weekly," but "The Often" doesn't have quite the same ring.)

The focus here is on politics and culture, and much of it has a libertarian perspective. For me, the test of a Web site's "bookmarkability," (a word I think I just coined), is whether it can generate interest in a subject I'd never much considered. The Occasional passed that test on the first day by introducing me to my new favorite author: Richard Mitchell.

It is so refreshing to see a magazine devoted to politics which engages ideas rather than personalities, as well as one devoted to culture yet which I'm pretty certain will never offer a defense of the National Endowment for the Arts. This is a site you will want to visit more than just occasionally.

Correction: Al Gore has just announced that he coined the word "bookmarkability." My apologies.

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