04/12 -- Is there hope? What social animals owe each other
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Thomas L. Knapp
Apr 21, 2014, 8:53:51 AM4/21/14
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Freedom News Daily, 04/21/14
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Today's Freedom News:
1) Ukraine junta, Russia regime trade blame for eastern shootout
2) Yemen: US war criminals murder 46 in two days
3) Algeria: Insurgents kill at least 11 regime troops
4) Iraq: 79 killed, 112 wounded
5) Afghanistan: Regime claims four senior militant commanders killed in Kandahar province
6) White House responds to “Deport Justin Bieber” petition
7) CO: With sales now legal, cannabis lovers take Denver’s 420 weekend to new highs
8) Traveling three times faster than a bullet, LADEE slams into the moon
9) Healthcare.gov users told to change passwords due to Heartbleed risk
10) SCOTUS: Roberts denies Teva Pharmaceutical stay in Copaxone patent fight
11) NH: Manchester senators adversaries in tie vote on state killing
12) White House updating online privacy policy
13) IL: Idiot bureaucrats’ victim disarmament proposal removed from medical marijuana rules
14) OK: House passes solar surcharge bill
15) Jerusalem: Arabs, Israeli police clash at Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount
Today's Freedom Commentary:
16) Is there hope?
17) What social animals owe to each other
18) Little girls don’t need the state to protect them from Photoshop
19) Blooming dishonesty
20) The free market vs. the interventionist state
21) Where the death penalty stands
22) Official statist bible thumping
23) Time to stop following defunct economic policies
24) Quantum finance
25) I see rich people
26) Liberty maximizes prosperity
27) Ignore at your peril
28) Crony capitalism and crony communism
29) Government: Lies and LIES and MORE LIES
30) CEI, former State Department officials defend freedom of contract in Supreme Court case against Argentina
31) Liberty movement rising
32) Washington’s biggest strategic mistake
33) Patience as a verb
34) Movie trailer review: “Behold a Pale Horse” is rightwing, not libertarian
35) Tax collectors for the warfare state
36) The method Common Core is using to teach subtraction
37) Complexity, compliance costs fatal to free market case for Amazon tax
38) Illiberal arts
39) Nullification, the Bundy Ranch & right-wing lawlessness
40) What makes America exceptional?
41) Childhood spanking and corporal punishment
42) The pretense of knowledge and affection
43) How we can fix Wall Street
44) As I’ve been telling you for a couple of years now
45) Economic progress and the primacy of the individual
46) Close down the gay movement?
47) Edmund Burke, intellectuals and the French Revolution, Part 6
48) A closer look at Kagame’s Rwanda
49) Ben Stone on The School Sucks Project
50) Money, markets, and “get out of our way”: The National Health Federation at Codex Committee on Food Additives in Hong Kong
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FREEDOM NEWS
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1) Ukraine junta, Russia regime trade blame for eastern shootout
Source: Fox News
"Within hours of an Easter morning shootout at a checkpoint manned by pro-Russia insurgents in eastern Ukraine, Russia's Foreign Ministry issued a statement blaming militant Ukrainian nationalists and Russian state television stations aired pictures of supposed proof of their involvement in the attack that left at least three people dead. The Ukrainian Security Service, however, said the attack was staged by provocateurs from outside the country. And the presented evidence -- particularly a pristine business card said to have been left behind by the attackers -- was met with widespread ridicule in Ukraine, where it soon had its own Twitter hashtag." (04/21/14)
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2) Yemen: US war criminals murder 46 in two days
Source: Antiwar.com
"Yesterday’s deadly US drone strike against a highway in Yemen’s Bayda Province was followed up by a similar round of separate strikes in the Shabwa Province today, sending the death tolls over the past 48 hours spiraling. After yesterday’s attack, which killed 21, reports of today’s strikes are still murky, but at least 25 more were killed, sending the figure to 46, and likely to rise even further as the figures continue to come in from remote areas." (04/20/14)
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3) Algeria: Insurgents kill at least 11 regime troops
Source: ABC News
"Islamist insurgents ambushed an Algerian military convoy in a mountainous region, killing 11 soldiers and wounding five others, the Defense Ministry said Sunday. But five other deaths from injuries reported by a hospital official could raise the toll to 16 in the attack that came two days after Algeria's presidential election." (04/20/14)
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4) Iraq: 79 killed, 112 wounded
Source: Antiwar.com
"Militants staged successful attacks deep into the Shi’ite south today and at a Shi’ite religious university in Baghdad. The army also pounded locations in Anbar province. At least 79 people were killed and 112 more were wounded." (04/20/14)
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5) Afghanistan: Regime claims four senior militant commanders killed in Kandahar province
Source: Khaama Press [Afghanistan]
"Four senior anti-government armed militant commanders were killed in the past 24 hours in southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan. Gen. Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the defense of Afghanistan said at least four militants were also arrested during the operations. Azimi said Afghan national army soldiers discovered and seized various types of weapons and explosives including 37 improvised explosive devices (IEDs)." (04/21/14)
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6) White House responds to “Deport Justin Bieber” petition
Source: United Press International
"The White House was forced to respond to calls for the administration to deport Justin Bieber back to Canada, when a 'Deport Justin Bieber' petition reached the necessary 100,000 signatures on WhiteHouse.gov last January. ... In its official response, published over the weekend, the White House declined to comment on Bieber's legal troubles, steering the conversation toward the broader issue of immigration reform." (04/20/14)
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7) CO: With sales now legal, cannabis lovers take Denver’s 420 weekend to new highs
Source: CNN
"Coming to the Mile High City this weekend was the perfect 65th birthday present for Karen Stevenson. She and her husband drove out of the Bible Belt to experience, for the first time, what it's like to buy and smoke weed legally. ...The Stevensons are among the tens of thousands of visitors -- by some estimates 80,000 -- who've come to Denver to mark 420 (April 20), a date that's emerged as a holiday among those steeped in cannabis culture." (04/20/14)
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8) Traveling three times faster than a bullet, LADEE slams into the moon
Source: The Space Reporter
"Show’s over, folks. The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) slammed into the moon between 9:30 and 10:22 pm PDT on Thursday, Apr. 17. Due to an insufficient quantity of fuel to maintain a long-term lunar orbit, NASA was forced to let LADEE’s orbit naturally decay following the spacecraft’s final low-altitude science phase. ... scientists hope that LADEE data can help them determine whether moon dust was responsible for the pre-sunrise glow observed above the lunar horizon during several Apollo missions." (04/20/14)
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9) Healthcare.gov users told to change passwords due to Heartbleed risk
Source: Fox News
"Users of the federal heath care exchange site have been advised to change their passwords this weekend after the Obama administration reviewed the government's vulnerability to the Heartbleed Internet security bug. Senior administration officials told the Associated Press that there was no indication that the HealthCare.gov site had been compromised and the action is being taken out of an abundance of caution."
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10) SCOTUS: Roberts denies Teva Pharmaceutical stay in Copaxone patent fight
Source: Financial Express [India]
"US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday denied a request by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd to stay a lower-court ruling in a patent case that favored the developers of generic versions of Teva's top-selling multiple sclerosis drug. The decision could help pave the way for generic competitors of Teva's Copaxone drug to go on the market as soon as next month. Teva had sought to prevent the lower-court ruling from going into effect while the Supreme Court considers its appeal in the patent fight." (04/19/14)
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11) NH: Manchester senators adversaries in tie vote on state killing
Source: Concord Monitor
"The opposing votes cast by Manchester’s two Democratic senators reflect the deep divide of lawmakers and residents on the topic of repealing the state’s centuries-old death penalty. This year’s death penalty debate revolved largely around slain Manchester police Officer Michael Briggs and his killer, Michael Addison, the state’s only death row convict. The debate was punctuated Thursday by a 12-12 vote, with the tie meaning capital punishment remains on the books. ... Manchester veteran Sen. Lou D'Allesandro, a political science professor, voted against repeal while first-term Sen. Donna Soucy, a lawyer, voted in favor. ... D'Allesandro was the only Democrat to vote against repeal. Two Republican senators, Bob Odell and Sam Cataldo, voted in favor." (04/18/14)
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12) White House updating online privacy policy
Source: Worcester Telegram & Gazette
"A new Obama administration privacy policy released Friday explains how the government will gather the user data of online visitors to WhiteHouse.gov, mobile apps and social media sites, and it clarifies that online comments, whether tirades or tributes, are in the open domain. ... The Obama administration also promises not to sell the data of online visitors. But it cannot make the same assurances for users who go to third-party White House sites on Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus." (04/18/14)
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13) IL: Idiot bureaucrats’ victim disarmament proposal removed from medical marijuana rules
Source: Fox News
"Medical marijuana users in Illinois who own handguns will be able to keep their firearms, according to a new change in state policy proposed Friday. ... The revised rule would reverse a controversial proposal made by the Illinois Department of Public Health that would have required gun owners to hand over their weapons if they smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes. The move comes after Second Amendment advocates and pot proponents complained that medical marijuana users shouldn’t be forced to choose between guns and cannabis. However, letting pot users possess firearms still puts the state in direct conflict with [an unconstitutional] federal law that prohibits 'shipping, transporting, receiving or possessing firearms or ammunition,' while under a controlled substance."
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14) OK: House passes solar surcharge bill
Source: The Oklahoman
"Utility customers who want to install rooftop solar panels or small wind turbines could face extra charges on their bills after legislation passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives on Monday. Senate Bill 1456 passed 83-5 after no debate in the House. It passed the Senate last month and now heads to Gov. Mary Fallin for her approval. The bill was supported by the state’s major electric utilities, but drew opposition from solar advocates, environmentalists and others. It sets up a process at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to establish a separate customer class and monthly surcharge for distributed generation such as rooftop solar or small wind turbines." [editor's note: Not entirely clear whether this applies only to those who connect to a utility company's grid and sell juice back to them, or if it's a charge for nothing more than NOT buying your electricity - TLK] (04/15/14)
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15) Jerusalem: Arabs, Israeli police clash at Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount
Source: Reuters
"Israeli police arrested 16 Palestinians at one of Jerusalem's most revered and politically sensitive holy sites on Sunday as they dispersed protesters opposed to any Jewish attempts to pray there. A police spokesman said officers used stun grenades to disperse dozens of rioters, who threw rocks and firecrackers at them at the site revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's walled Old City. Two officers were slightly injured and treated at the scene in the brief clash, the spokesman added. Five Palestinians were also slightly hurt, a Muslim clergyman said." (04/20/14)
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FREEDOM COMMENTARY
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16) Is there hope?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Justin Raimondo
"Americans are, at present, profoundly alienated from their own government. No, that distrust hasn't reached Ukrainian levels quite yet, but we’re getting there. It wouldn't take much to bring them out into the streets: another economic disaster, another ginned up war, a fresh revelation of government overreach as in the Bundy Ranch incident. This country has been on the brink of open rebellion for quite some time, and a seemingly minor albeit dramatic incident could be enough to set it off. That's one big reason why our rulers are constantly coming up with new foreign 'enemies' -- to take Americans' minds off their real enemies, who live Washington, D.C., rather than in Moscow or some cave in Afghanistan. The War Party’s big problem, however, is that Americans aren’t falling for this old trick anymore." (04/21/14)
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17) What social animals owe to each other
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Sheldon Richman
"To say that one may use force only in response to aggression is in effect merely to restate the nonaggression principle. One shouldn’t aggress because one shouldn’t aggress. But the NAP can hardly justify itself. So we need a real justification for the NAP, and the one I’ve offered seems like a good start. The NAP is an implication of the obligation to treat persons respectfully, as ends and not merely as means. Of course this also requires justification." (04/18/14)
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18) Little girls don’t need the state to protect them from Photoshop
Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Cathy Reisenwitz
"The pro-censorship feminists cannot have it both ways. If, as they contend, governmental power is inevitably used to the particular disadvantage of relatively disempowered groups, such as women, it follows that women’s rights advocates should oppose measures that augment that power, including Dworkin/MacKinnon-type laws. Even if the law were enforced evenly across the board, it puts undue strain on artists who attempt to sell their work. No one wants or needs a struggling photographer to disclose to the federal government exactly how their images were made." (04/18/14)
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19) Blooming dishonesty
Source: Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
by Claire Wolfe
"When Michael Bloomberg announced he was putting $50 million into a 'grassroots' gun-control group, he surely intended to send chills of dread down gun owners' spines. Instead, we laughed."(04/20/14)
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20) The free market vs. the interventionist state
Source: Heartland Institute
by Richard Ebeling
"In whatever direction we turn, we find the heavy hand of government intruding into virtually every aspect of American society. Indeed, it has reached the point that it would a lot easier to list those areas of people’s lives into which government does not impose itself -- and, alas, it would be a very short list. But it was not always that way." (04/18/14)
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21) Where the death penalty stands
Source: The American Prospect
by Paul Waldman
"Yesterday, the New Hampshire state Senate deadlocked on a bill that would have eliminated the state's death penalty, killing the bill for the moment and leaving New Hampshire as the only state in New England that still has a law providing for executions. The bill had already passed in the state House of Representatives and has the support of the governor, so one more vote would have passed it. I thought this was a nice opportunity to look at the state of the death penalty in America and around the world." (04/18/14)
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22) Official statist bible thumping
Source: Authority!
by Timothy J Taylor
"Statist Bible thumping politicians, those guys herding the sheeple in the great State of Louisiana, the ones who aren’t content to practice their religion in private at home, or at church, are poised and ready to designate the Holy Bible as Louisiana's official state book. They’re going to make Christianity the official government religion of the Bayou State and they don’t give a damn about any First Amendment objections." (04/20/14)
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23) Time to stop following defunct economic policies
Source: Reuters
by Anatole Kaletsky
"Can economists contribute anything useful to our understanding of politics, business and finance in the real world? I raise this question having spent last weekend in Toronto at the annual conference of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, a foundation created in 2009 in response to the failure of modern economics in the global financial crisis (whose board I currently chair). Unfortunately, the question raised above is as troubling today as it was in November 2008, when Britain’s Queen Elizabeth famously stunned the head of the London School of Economics by asking faux naively, 'But why did nobody foresee this [economic collapse]?'" (04/18/14)
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24) Quantum finance
Source: EconLog
by Scott Sumner
"I don't find it all that paradoxical that people sometimes behave like individuals and at other times behave like members of a mob. But I do find the Efficient Markets Hypothesis to be somewhat paradoxical. This hypothesis says that individual traders cannot know more than the market, and hence deviations of assets prices from trend are essentially unforecastable." (04/19/14)
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25) I see rich people
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
by Debra J. Saunders
"In the Star Trek movies, San Francisco serves as headquarters of Starfleet Command. This cracks me up no end, as I cannot imagine the Board of Supervisors approving construction of Starfleet Academy or the oddly shaped high-rises you see in the background. And if City Hall somehow did approve the project, you know there'd be some ballot measure to kill the deal. The grounds could be endless: No photon torpedoes. Too many techies already. What about affordable housing?" (04/18/14)
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26) Liberty maximizes prosperity
Source: Clovis News Journal
by Kent McManigal
"Many times I have been asked some variation of the question, 'I don’t understand; what is it you want?' Well, what is it most humans want? I think most of us want health, safety, and prosperity -- let’s call this combination 'happiness' -- for ourselves and our loved ones. I want the same things! Since there’s no disagreement there, what we have is a common goal." (04/17/14)
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27) Ignore at your peril
Source: Idaho LIberty
by Ted Dunlap
"The obfuscators have their mystical language so you can admire their superior knowledge and assume you just don’t understand economics. That has been the design of Keynesian economics from its inception. You could learn Austrian Economics. It does, after all, not only make sense, it proves itself reliable time after time, regardless of when and where you apply it. Making it much easier, the two charts on this page give it to you in a clear, simple picture. You don’t have to even read a little pamphlet to GET it." (04/20/14)
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28) Crony capitalism and crony communism
Source: Bleeding Heart Libertarians
by Matt Zwolinski
"My guess is that most libertarians find the 'we haven’t tried it' argument utterly unpersuasive in the first case, and spot-on in the second. But why? The structure of the arguments looks almost exactly identical. If it’s a good argument in the first case, why isn’t it just as good in the second? Or if it’s a bad argument in the second case, why isn’t just as bad in the first?" (04/18/14)
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29) Government: Lies and LIES and MORE LIES
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
"Good morning -- or not. Should I lie to you and tell you what a wonderful day it is, here in America? If I do, then I’m just like the government. To them, lies come with breathing. They are incapable of telling the truth, of telling anything BUT lies." (04/19/14)
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30) CEI, former State Department officials defend freedom of contract in Supreme Court case against Argentina
Source: OpenMarket.org
by Hans Bader
"Can a country seeking to welsh on its debts invoke sovereign immunity to evade not just court orders to pay those debts, but also post-judgment discovery aimed at collecting on those judgments? Can it do so to prevent not just discovery directed at it, but also at third-party banks? Most importantly, perhaps, can it do so even though it contractually waived sovereign immunity? The answer is yes, according to Argentina, which is seeking to stiff many of its bondholders. Thankfully, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit disagreed with this attack on property and contract rights in a 2012 decision." (04/17/14)
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31) Liberty movement rising
Source: Alt-Market
by Brandon Smyth
"The label of 'fringe' is a common one used by statists, bureaucrats and paid shills in order to marginalize those who would stand against government corruption. The primary assertion being sold is that the 'majority' joyously supports the establishment; and the majority, of course, is always right." (04/17/14)
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32) Washington’s biggest strategic mistake
Source: Cato Institute
by Ted Galen Carpenter
"The United States is on the brink of committing a cardinal sin in foreign policy: antagonizing two major powers simultaneously. There are frictions in bilateral ties with both Moscow and Beijing that have reached alarming levels over the past year or so. It is a disturbing development that could cause major geopolitical headaches for Washington unless the Obama administration takes prompt corrective measures and sets more coherent priorities." (04/18/14)
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33) Patience as a verb
Source: Everything Voluntary
by Angel M. Ethell
"Patience is not something that comes natural to me. I was not blessed with the ability to listen to a child screaming pretty much for any reason, nor the ability to suffer just about anything when I am either tired or hungry. Anyone else hear me on that? I know I'm not the only one. There are so many things that aggravate me endlessly if I let them and for some reason my children are capable of doing any number of these things. Sometime simultaneously. Anyone else been there? Yup, I know it. You don't have to tell me. So what do I do? I cannot just lose my cool all the time so I had to learn some patience if I was going to survive parenthood. So I'm going to talk about patience as a verb." (04/18/14
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34) Movie trailer review: “Behold a Pale Horse” is rightwing, not libertarian
Source: Libertarian News Examiner
by Garry Reed
"The trailer for the political film 'Behold a Pale Horse 2: America Aflame' (in theaters this August) is locked inside a private Vimeo video with the password liberty2014. One enthusiastic libertarian claims that by supporting it 'We have a rare opportunity for a political film with a libertarian theme to have voice.' But while most libertarians may agree with the message is there really a libertarian theme here? The trailer sounds deeply hardcore rightwing reactionary, repeatedly invoking familiar traditional memes like Constitutionalism, patriotism, Washington Crossing the Delaware, Remember the Alamo, and many other rightist shibboleths." (04/18/14)
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35) Tax collectors for the warfare state
Source: Reason
by Jon Basil Utley
"Ryan’s fantasy budget, passed by a large majority of those once cost-cutting House Republicans, is based upon the falsehood that he can commit future congresses to cut $3 trillion (over 10 years) from Obamacare and make changes to Medicare. Ryan was a big Iraq war fan, and he now supports the John McCain/Lindsay Graham war hawk wing of the party. He would increase military spending by some $50 billion per year starting in 2015, eliminating the savings of the defense sequestration plan passed last year by congress." (04/19/14)
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36) The method Common Core is using to teach subtraction
Source: The Truth
by Michael Snyder
"I thought that there was no possible way that this could be real. I really thought that this must have come from some sort of parody website. But it is actually true." (04/18/14)
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37) Complexity, compliance costs fatal to free market case for Amazon tax
Source: The Canal
by Nick Zaiac
"Imagine being a young entrepreneur, attempting to sell your product online, but you need to send taxes to every single jurisdiction in every state that one of your customers orders from. Without a doubt, the MFA would raise the cost of entrepreneurship and barriers to entry, something that most can agree is a terrible thing. Online sales taxes aren’t all bad, but this proposal for one definitely is." (04/18/14)
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38) Illiberal arts
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Allen Mendenhall
"A diversity of thought and a variety of perspectives are necessary to facilitate competition among ideas. Such competition selectively eliminates the bad from the good, the true from the false, and the practical from the impractical. Opposing viewpoints must enter into this more constructive contest so that the struggle does not move into the arena of physical violence. Thus, toleration of dissenting and controversial opinions is fundamental to peaceful discourse, intellectual progress, and human liberty." (04/18/14)
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39) Nullification, the Bundy Ranch & right-wing lawlessness
Source: Our Future
by Dave Johnson
"Does the right get a free pass to ignore laws? Is armed intimidation the way we decide which laws should be followed? Is conservative media whipping up the conditions for another Oklahoma City bombing? ... Flag-waving Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy refuses to pay cattle-grazing fees like other ranchers do, or even get a grazing permit, because he 'doesn’t recognize the federal government.' The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), following years of federal court rulings, finally starts removing Bundy’s cattle from public land." [editor's note: This leaves out a lot of factors (for one, Harry Reid's complicity in all of this?), but it covers a lot of the matter pretty well - SAT] (04/18/14)
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40) What makes America exceptional?
Source: CounterPunch
by Paul Craig Roberts
"A government that relies on propaganda cannot be believed about anything. Americans misinformed by a prostitute media are in no position to protect the US Constitution and their liberty. Misinformed, they become tyranny’s allies and their own worst enemy." (04/20/14)
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41) Childhood spanking and corporal punishment
Source: Daily Anarchist
by Danilo Cuellar
"The repercussions that childhood assault, more commonly known as spanking, has on the adult that emerges later in life is profound and devastating. Violence does not solve any problem in 'government,' nor in parenting. It also does not justify the propagation of further violence." (04/20/14)
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42) The pretense of knowledge and affection
Source: Cafe Hayek
by Don Boudreaux
"So here’s a question: why would someone object (often in high moral dudgeon) to the allocation of scarce health-care services by prices and market competition but, at the same time, believe it acceptable for scarce health-care services to be allocated by the decisions of individual doctors, each of whom has some image in his or her head of how health-care resources ‘should’ be allocated? The latter method of allocation is far more arbitrary than the first." (04/19/14)
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43) How we can fix Wall Street
Source: In These Times
by David Sirota
"If you read one business book this year, make it Flash Boys by Michael Lewis. ... The technical architecture of high-frequency trading is right out of a sci-fi movie: the schemes rely on algorithms that seem artificially intelligent, and the velocity of transaction signals approach light speed. ... The good news is that a financial transaction tax can at once raise public resources and disincentivize the most predatory schemes. The even better news is that structural changes in the industry have made such a tax more economically viable than ever." [editor's note: Since this transaction tax is actually more like a fee paid for protection of services, I have no real problem with the idea. - SAT] (04/18/14)
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44) As I’ve been telling you for a couple of years now
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Tim Worstall
"A new ONS report makes for us a point that I've been regularly presenting to you over the past couple of years. Yes, there most certainly is variation in age at death across the country. And yes, those in more deprived areas do indeed tend to die younger than those in more affluent ones. But this isn't, and isn't from somewhere between not very much and a lot, because living in a deprived area kills you. Rather, it's because people migrate in and out of deprived and affluent areas and those doing the migrating tend to have different health prospects ..." (04/18/14)
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45) Economic progress and the primacy of the individual
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Patrick Barron
"Members of an Austrian School of economics forum to which I belong have been discussing the source of economic progress. It began with the usual elements of capital, technological development, and managerial expertise before getting more philosophical when a member suggested the acceptance of rationality in all things. I felt this was not a proper answer, because the definition of 'rationality' is itself debatable and can be used by political authorities to suppress unpopular ideas. For example, in the Soviet Union, to question the inevitable victory of communism and the ultimate transformation of man’s nature to communist man would land one in an insane asylum." (04/19/14)
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46) Close down the gay movement?
Source: The Nation
by Richard Kim
"In the early 1990s, the writers Andrew Sullivan and Tony Kushner (in the pages of The New Republic and The Nation, respectively) laid out two catalytic visions of gay politics. In his essay 'The Politics of Homosexuality,' Sullivan made the conservative case for a gay agenda that focused solely on eliminating state discrimination against lesbians and gay men, chiefly the bans on same-sex marriage and military service. ... Once those two goals (marriage and the military) were realized, Sullivan argued in his book Virtually Normal, 'we should have a party and close down the gay rights movement for good.'" (04/16/14)
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47) Edmund Burke, intellectuals and the French Revolution, Part 6
Source: Libertarianism.org
by George H. Smith
"According to Mackintosh, the 'inflexibility of general principles' is even more essential in political decisions than in personal morals. For if we concede that natural rights are to be sacrificed to expediency in particular instances, we must consider the question: Who is to decide when individual rights should be sacrificed to expediency? Such decisions inevitably will be made by political rulers who wish to preserve and enhance their own power, rulers whose interest 'is linked to the perpetuity of oppression and abuse.'" (04/18/14)
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48) A closer look at Kagame’s Rwanda
Source: Independent Institute
by George BN Ayittey
"President Paul Kagame is a fine soldier who saved the Tutsis from extermination in 1994 in Rwanda. But in his analysis of the genocide ('Building a Future After Rwanda’s Genocide,' op-ed, Wall Street Journal, April 7), he glosses over some pertinent historical facts and his own appalling human-rights record." (04/17/14)
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49) Ben Stone on The School Sucks Project
Source: The School Sucks Project
"Ben Stone joins me [host Brett Veinotte] for a discussion about the past, present and future of the philosophy of liberty." [Flash audio or MP3] (04/17/14)
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50) Money, markets, and “get out of our way”: The National Health Federation at Codex Committee on Food Additives in Hong Kong
Source: National Health Federation
by Katherine A. Carroll
"The National Health Federation (NHF) returned again to Asia in mid-March 2014, to attend the Codex Committee on Food Additives (CCFA) Forty-Sixth Session in Hong Kong, China. Last year’s CCFA meeting, held amidst the death-smog of Beijing, yielded a great victory as NHF reduced neurotoxic aluminum by 50% in many food products and completely eliminated it in others. NHF’s goal was the same this year: To eliminate more aluminum and aspartame too, particularly based on a plethora of new studies on this killer-sweetener, some of which called for 'urgent re-evaluation of aspartame' by international regulatory agencies (Such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission) and to consider re-evaluation an urgent matter of public health." (04/18/14)
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