Freedom Home Page of the Week Archive Fall 2001

Some of the best freedom-loving websites might seem self-contradictory or strange at first glance, at least in the context of the popular national dialogue. ("Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership?? What the--??") To that list may be added this ground-breaking site: Netfamilies.org, the website of Families Against Internet Censorship.

Naturally, we wacky libertarians are used to the ideas of liberty seeming strange to the average network-news-watcher on the street. To us, the idea that families with children would be against government-dictated censorship isn't strange at all. In fact, with a little thought, anyone could see that it makes perfect sense. The institution of the family is meaningless when government acts as parent to all.

Understanding this, some families wish to preserve the family's function by deciding for themselves and their children what can be seen and read. The goal of Netfamilies.org is to spread this idea to more families who, being families, often lack the time to investigate ideas contrary to the pro-government ideas saturating our culture. It's a fairly simple site, functioning primarily as a networking tool for like-minded families to find their strength in numbers. But it's worth a visit, and if you have children in your household, you'll want to sign on and show your support for an often overlooked idea about the responsibilities of family.

Boy howdy, does he! Sometimes I don't know how, as the news is rarely good from a libertarian perspective, but he does. And we're the better for it because after he reads, he highlights interesting points and comments on them.

FYI, This is gonna be a short review because the site is pretty simple and one thing I've learned from it is this: Why say more than you need to?

He, the libertarian of the title, is named Andy Kashdan. He is a former equity trader, a currency analyst, and an excellent writer. His website is nothing more nor less than a daily (and sometimes several-times-daily) log of observations about the day's news. It could have been like many other sites, those personal diaries of long-winded gripes about whatever. But the quality of the writing, it's lucidity, it's conciseness, plus it's frequency and the streamlined design of the site itself, make this a page any in-touch libertarian will want to bookmark. Now go see for yourself.

If you haven't yet seen Reason magazine's new design... well, what's taking you so long? It's been on the newstands for a week. But it's not just the magazine that's gotten a nice, new re-upholstering. Reason Online is also new and fancy, and worth checking out right now.

Regular readers of Reason will have noticed that since editor Nick Gillespie sat in the driver's seat, the magazine has gotten subtly hipper. Sure, it was hip before. (It's a libertarian magazine. How could it not be?) But cover stories about the Beatles and reviews of snarky Broadway shows are a new trend for libertarian journalism, and Reason's new look is the latest step forward. Gillespie openly asks for feedback regarding the design and Nick, if you're reading, here's mine:

I love it. The old Reason was expertly produced, no question. It looked professional and it looked mainstream. But, let's face it, libertarianism isn't mainstream (yet), and nothing mainstream is hip (yet). The new design looks decidedly un-mainstream. It looks alternative. It looks hip. It looks like a bunch of talented college students, weaned on Factsheet 5 and the 'zine movement, somehow got ahold of some real dough and put together the best 'zine ever.

The web site still has all the archives and articles. The fantastic Reason Express is still there. (If you don't subscribe to Reason Express, you're behind.) So far, it's mostly the same site with a cooler look. But make sure to keep checking in over the next couple of months because there are still many changes to come, including printer-friendly articles, and the ability to instantly e-mail those articles to friends. Kudos to Nick. A great magazine has just gotten better, and so has a great web site.

Those who are prone to wearing black and marching through the streets with red flags often attack what they call "the free market" for being an idea which benefits only the rich. This is a grave misunderstanding. It is correct only to the extent that, in a totally free-market system, more people would enjoy the benefits of being rich. This is, of course, a good thing. It's good for the rich and good for the poor, who would be richer and thus, less poor.

Then again, the black clad aren't really attacking the free market at all. They're usually focused on the specific matters of the world as it currently exists. They attack the United States economic system, which is more socialistic than it is capitalistic, but they call it "free-market capitalism" or some such so that they can continue to wear black and raise a fist for socialism, the very idea that causes the problems they complain about in the first place. Heh heh. Yeah, it's a confused and hairy moral world that our college students live in.

A new web site is dedicated to clearing up some of this confusion regarding the nature of free markets. It's called The Grassroots Free Market and its goal is to demonstrate two truths: That it is the poor who benefit most from free markets, and that truly free markets will not develop in the real world without the strong participation of poor entrepreneurs.

Thankfully, since the hard core Left is primarily a movement of bourgeois kids from the suburbs, many actual poor people already understand the nature of markets quite well. Check out the Examples page to see some pertinent examples of how street vendors, farmers, hair dressers, and other typically low-income professions around the world have fought to free up their respective markets and enjoy more prosperity as a result. Grassroots Free Market is also filled with informative essays on the more heady economics of private property, as well as an extensive Bibliography for further reading. Why not take something from this site and drop it off at your nearest university's Young Socialist's Club? If it gets through to just one of them, it'll be worth it. The poor will thank you for it.

It's understood by many libertarians that the most important advances we've made in the public policy arena have been on the local level. We may not have gotten a libertarian into the White House yet, but many can be found in more localized positions, from states to cities to school districts.

But while these successes are known, it is still very easy to limit one's focus to the BIG picture and, as a result, despair. "Why aren't there more Cato Institutes???" one might cry out. There are. There are many, they are having success, and they are local. They are the state think tanks, the institutions next door which are constantly churning out public policy research and commentary, and making a difference in your own neighborhood.

This week, I'm holding out as an example of one of the better state think tanks, The Georgia Public Policy Foundation. High on the list of GPPF's achievements is the ton of good work with Georgia's charter school movement. (In fact, their Charter School FAQ, with just one question, is a rare, concise explanation of just what charter schools are, in case you're not already clear on the issue. I wasn't.) The GPPF web site also offers much of interest to anyone, no matter what state you live in. After all, the laws of economics function in all states. Important economic lessons can be learned by reading GPPF's commentaries on subjects like deregulation and state trade barriers.

If you live in Georgia, you should visit this site right now if only to get information about the Foundation's upcoming events. If you don't live in Georgia, visit to find out about the good work being done, and perhaps take an example to start a new state think tank. Your state probably already has one, but competition is always a good thing, isn't it?

The war on the American people continues unabated. Despite countless arrests, increased border controls and $50 billion spent, the US government continues to desperately fight an unwinnable war. The war on terrorism? Oh no. That one is cake compared to the war I'm talking about: The unending and insane war on (some) drugs.

The drug war has gained many different shades of meaning since Sept. 11. Like our new war on terrorism, it's a war against a hazily defined, extremely decentralized network. And our current enemies in the war on terrorism made a lot of their capital by selling illegal drugs to Americans, drugs for which the profit margin would have been substantially lower had they been legal.

To keep up-to-date on the drug war in light of the terrorism war, check out the new Web site from Common Sense for Drug Policy, NarcoTerror.org. This informative site, subtitled "Crime, Drug Prohibition and Terrorism: An Inevitable Convergence", is constantly updated with the latest news about the old scourge and how it reflects on the new scourge. It won't fill you with confidence about either war, but it will help inject some common sense into discussion about both.

Everyone needs an outlet for ranting. Every day there's something new, some new bit of world inanity that thinking people need to go off on, if only for a minute. Where did libertarians rant before the Web? Since the libertarian view, that initation of force is bad, is honestly shared by almost no one, it's difficult to rant to whomever happens to be nearby. You can't expect the agreeing sighs of mutual frustration, the "I know! Isn't that ridiculous?" that the rant requires as its coda. I know I usually have to keep my rants stifled. To pause to explain basic economics or the nature of government to a co-worker at the water cooler is to go beyond the boundaries of a nice casual rant.

But the Web makes it all so much easier. Thanks to the Internet, and sites like oh, say, Free-Market.Net, other ranting libertarians can actually be found! One such ranter is Richard Barber and his personal web site is aptly titled Libertarian Rant.

Libertarian Rant is so expertly designed that you might initially mistake it for the professional site of a major magazine. It features the regular, well-written, and often very funny rants of Mr. Barber, usually on the news topics of the day. But it's not all about him. There's also room for your rants in the Group Rant discussion forums. And when you've gotten it off your chest, there are other things to do like browse the Library of recommended books, buy a cool Libertarian Rant mug (with "Big Government Sucks" explosively written in red and black), and check out the excellent links to news and other libertarian sites. (The libertarian links aren't just your usual laundry list. They're well picked. There were even a few that I've never heard of, and that's pretty rare. Rare enough to make me forgive the fact that one site is curiously missing...)

It's really hard to think about this war. A lefty, sometime-socialist friend of mine confided in me today that he's suddenly found himself thinking like a Republican hawk. And I, who can usually be found on the right side of everything, am lately entertaining thoughts like "We can't possibly win this and should probably pull out entirely". Okay, I don't know that we should pull out entirely. We should pursue justice for those who committed the terrorist acts. But I really don't know if we can win this war, especially as long as we're thinking of it as a war. Is that was this is? Or are we just stamping our feet at the previously unimaginable, a devastating attack on civilians on our own soil, having become a reality?

And just who are we at war with? Terrorists? And why doesn't that seem to include the IRA? No, we're just at war with the terrorists who attacked us. And what is terrorism anyway, but a buzzword for war-like acts where we're not the agressor? Wait a minute! Just whose side am I on?? Voices scream at each other in my head. I find that I want to crawl back under the bed.

But I promised not to do that, so instead I will work to clarify my thoughts and feelings. And, if you wish to do the same, this week's Page of the Week is a good resource. Antiwar.com daily presents objective headlines to keep you abreast of the latest news, plus varied opinionated columns from political thinkers all over the spectrum.

Yes, you hawks out there judged the title of the Web site correctly: You won't find much favor for bombing the heck out of anything. But that doesn't mean it's all hugging and Kumbaya either. The editors of Antiwar.com aren't interested in hammering any one particular viewpoint. What you will find is reasoned, thoughtful commentary by Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, and None-of-the-Above's. As always, education is the key to clear thinking. Antiwar.com, with it's surplus of up-to-the-minute news and views, is sure to educate even the most educated about this unique mess that we're in.

As my colleague Tom Knapp has demonstrated (see this column two weeks ago), there are all kinds of reasons why, in a libertarian America, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11th would not have occurred. We could go on about that for hours. But heck, we wouldn't even have needed full-blown Rothbard-style libertarianism to prevent the attacks. The terrorists could have been thwarted if we simply had an American America! And by "American", I mean the kind of America envisioned and explicitly outlined by the Founding Fathers: An America where the Constitution and all ten amendments of the Bill of Rights are taken seriously, and yes that includes the second.

This point was forcefully brought home when even lefty Michael Moore, who at the time of the attacks was working on a documentary about the need to ignore the second amendment, realized "A thousand gun control laws would not have prevented this massacre. What am I doing?" If I may revert to the third-grade argumentative style appropriate to Mr. Moore's usual level of thought, the following is to be read with a low goofy voice and buck teeth: "Uh-DUHHH!!! Uh-DUH-DUH-DUHHHH!!! I'm Michael Moore and I'm toe too-pid! Uh-DERRR!"

Not toe too-pid are the folks at Project Safe Skies, who have known all along that the key to public safety is an armed and trained citizenry. Although an armed citizenry would be a good thing at all altitudes, the nation is currently focused on the skies so the skies it will be. Project Safe Skies' mission is to change the laws preventing travelers from carrying appropriate defensive weapons on flights. If you're skeptical about this, be sure to read their thorough FAQ, which covers many of the possible objections related specifically to guns on airplanes, as well as some basic ideas about guns generally. Once convinced, or if you were already, go to their Get Involved page for tools to help you voice your desire to make the skies as safe as they always should have been.

I'm feeling much better this week. I'm out from under the furniture. I'm not any more convinced that I'm safe from harm, nor that the war we are entering is winnable, but a friend convinced me that it was my patriotic duty to continue my life just as before. He was right. It's the least I can do.

The most one can do was what the passengers of United Flight 93 did on September 11th. We don't know everything that happened on that flight, but we do know that several of them, confronted with having their lives taken from them by terrorists, decided instead to willingly give their lives so that many other Americans would not have to. They were heroes, and all of us owe them our undying remembrance and gratitude.

UnitedHeroes.com has been set up so we can do just that. Please take a moment to read the stories of these heroes, and sign your name to the online "thank you card". In the coming weeks and months, as life returns to semi-normal, it will grow harder to remember just how much these people gave up, and likewise, just how much we may be called on to give up. Bookmark UnitedHeroes.com for those times when you need to be reminded that heroes, and the need for them, are real.

I don't know how to be a libertarian this week. The past week has laid me flat. Usually a look at the day's news is enough to inspire me to pick some page and write somethin' free-markety about it. But the only news is this Holy War which has been declared against us. And I don't know what to say about that. I can't sleep. I divide my time between hiding under my bed and watching TV, (from my safe position, hiding under the couch.) I can't even get worked up about a side issue, like with the accusations of "price gouging" last week. Bail out the airlines? Sure, I guess. Yep. A committed devotee of Murray Rothbard ambivalent about bailing out the airlines. I'm a mess.

Therefore, I hand you over to the much more capable hands of my fellow Free-Market.Net editor, Tom Knapp, at his personal Web site tlknapp.net. Unlike me, he has kept his head together and written a really great piece called In A Libertarian America... which all libertarians should read. And it's just Tom's latest. His site contains many excellent essays. (Back before I started hiding under furniture, my favorites included a hilarious report of a woman who, attempting to decry Ambercrombie & Fitch's "pornographic" catalog, ended up breaking pornography laws herself.)

So go read what Tom has to say. Reading his essays is a good reason to come out from under the couch. (And you may find, as I have, that you can fit both yourself and your computer under your desk.)

I was just sitting down to work on the Page of the Week when the tragedy began. Since then, I've been sitting in front of the television. And beyond all the horror and all the grief, the question nagged at me: What good is the Page of the Week today? To ignore the tragedy and just pick some great libertarian page seemed impossible, but what libertarian page could say anything that would put some of this in perspective? Is there a distinctly libertarian view about this huge tragedy?

And then Gov. George Ryan of Illinois gave me my answer. This Republican governor called a press conference to publicly condemn the wicked "price gouging" the gas companies are doing, saying something about not letting anyone "profit from this tragedy". No, I don't feel qualified to put the terrorist attack itself in perspective, but the opportunism and economic ignorance of politicians is always relevant.

Thankfully, there are sites like Ed Lotterman's Real World Economics, dedicated to explaining important economic concepts in short articles. So before you allow your friends and co-workers to condemn the gas companies right alongside the terrorists, as Ryan did and others inevitably will, make sure to read Lotterman's article on price gouging. What is it, and what is it's useful purpose? The answer goes to the very heart of the way prices work in a market economy.

Yes, it's a good thing that we as a people have bonded together to fight this common enemy who recently made himself so apparent. But don't forget that the capitalist way of life which was under violent attack in New York and D.C. has been under subtle attack for decades by politicians such as Ryan. And long after we finish this war with the terrorists, the war within our own country will continue. And knowledge of economics, aided by articles such as Ed Lotterman's, is our most important weapon.

I was having lunch today with a couple of friends at some burger joint. These friends, a musician and a playwright, got on the subject of politics, which means that, being artists, they were railing about Bush and other evil Republicans. When we got up to leave, a newsletter from an organization called Judicial Watch was sitting on a counter, apparently left there by someone. The playwright, on a whim, picked it up and it was passed around for perusal during our drive back to work. (Painting a house. Insert joke about artists here.) When the playwright read it, and it's many articles about suits filed against the Clintons, he said sarcastically, "Jeez, do you think these guys have something against the Clintons?" The musician fired back, "Yeah, but they're also after Cheney so they're pretty cool."

It's true. JW is cool. And they are truly non-partisan when it comes to exposing corruption in the capital, and bringing the corrupted to justice. Since it was established in 1994, Judicial Watch has dedicated itself to serving as a watchdog "over our government, legal, and judicial systems to promote a return to ethics and morality in our nation's public life." It's true that JW will appear conservative to many, since many of their targets are Democrats. (Few lefties are likely make the more important connection: that Democrats are simply more corrupt.) But they really will go after anyone, in line with their motto: "Because no one is above the law."

JW is involved in over 50 cases, against Republicans and Democrats, which can be browsed through at the Web site. But if going over legal briefs isn't your thing, the JW site is also an interesting casual read. Check out Larry Klayman and Russ Verney's regular commentaries for opinions on subjects ranging from the media to Cuba to the boy scouts. JW also produces The Judicial Watch Report, a weekly radio show (broadcast on the radio as well as the Web) featuring guests ranging the spectrum from Jerry Falwell to Alan Dershowitz.

Whoever left that newsletter at that burger place, thank you. I now have a new site to bookmark, and a new organization to point to for an example of principle taking priority over politics.

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