Posts Tagged ‘ classical liberalism ’

Frontiers of Freedom: Should Businesses Have the Right to Discriminate Against Homosexuals?

April 22, 2011
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Frontiers of Freedom: Should Businesses Have the Right to Discriminate Against Homosexuals?

By Sean Gabb On Wednesday the 13th April 2011, two men, James Bull and Jonathan Williams, kissed each other in the John Snow public house in Soho. Apparently, they were then asked to leave by a member of staff who called their act “obscene.” This alleged incident led to the usual sort of outrage. On the Friday following, several hundred homosexuals gathered in the street outside the pub to kiss each other. The pub closed early. Though its landlord has not so far made any comment to the media, the Metropolitan Police are now on the prowl, to see if he or his staff can be done under the “hate crime” laws. When I read this story last week, I simply sniffed and moved on. Not long ago, every sentence of the newspaper report would have had people scratching their heads. But modern England is a strange place. The only oddity now is that anyone running a pub in Soho could even notice if two men were kissing, let alone think it good for business to object. I have been drawn back to the story, though, by a news release from Peter Tatchell. Among much else, he declares that “Businesses

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‘Mentalist’ Episode Provides Strong Pro-Liberty Message

February 4, 2011
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‘Mentalist’ Episode Provides Strong Pro-Liberty Message

Last night’s episode of the CBS mystery The Mentalist, “Red Alert,” included some of the most explicitly pro-liberty, anti-government scenes you could ever hope to see. Rushing to a murder scene to assist in an official investigation, California Bureau of Investigation criminal consultant (and genius detective) Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) is stopped by a local deputy police officer in a speed trap. Jane identifies himself as a CBI investigator, but the deputy ignores that and treats him in the arrogant, highhanded manner most drivers have experienced from police officers who, after all, are supposed to be the taxpayers’ servants, not our superiors. The deputy insists that Jane hand over his driver’s license and auto registration. Fulfilling every driver’s fantasy, Jane refuses, tells the deputy that he’s being an officious jerk, and drives off. Arriving at the crime scene, Jane emerges from his car and is immediately pursued by the deputy, who insists Jane must now be taken to jail. Jane continues his resistance, and the two men’s bosses reach a deal: Jane will pay the ticket that day, and all will be forgiven. Jane, aside, tells his boss, Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney), that he’s not going to pay the ticket.

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‘New York’ Magazine Critique of Libertarianism Has Positive Unintended Consequences

January 11, 2011
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‘New York’ Magazine Critique of Libertarianism Has Positive Unintended Consequences

A recent New York magazine article has raised a bit of a ruckus on the right. In his long article on libertarianism, Christopher Beam appears both fascinated and puzzled by the odd phenomenon under his microscope. Anyone at all familiar with libertarianism will recognize that his characterization of the movement and the philosophy behind it is something of a caricature, but there is a serious critique to be found in his article. That critique is seriously wrong, as it happens, and understanding just where Beam goes wrong could go a long way toward helping libertarians, conservatives, classical liberals, and others on the right better understand the foundations of our thought and the opportunities for a mass movement it may afford. Too often we tend to argue as vigorously over our differences with one another as we do with those whose big-government policies are the real adversary. What we share, however, is the foundation for a truly American mass political movement. Beam, for his part, understands that the movement has developed a strong following among more than just fringe types in recent months: There’s never been a better time to be a libertarian than now. The right is still railing against

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Response to National Drift Requires Understanding of Fundamental Principles

September 30, 2010
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Response to National Drift Requires Understanding of Fundamental Principles

There are some false dichotomies in Thomas Friedman’s New York Times column denigrating what he calls the Tea Kettle movement (such as that diagnosing symptoms somehow makes it impossible to offer policies, that popularity makes a movement automatically suspect, etc.), but he does get a couple of things very right: the description of what kind of presidential and congressional leadership is needed today, the point that real decisions about spending cuts have to be made if the current public dissatisfaction with government is to have any policy relevance (although he actually denies this as a possibility), and above all, what America’s competitive advantage is: “our ability to attract, develop and unleash creative talent. That means men and women who invent, build and sell more goods and services that make people’s lives more productive, healthy, comfortable, secure and entertained than any other country.” Of course Friedman, like today’s elites in general, tends to think that nothing happens except what’s reported in his own dreadful newspaper, so he claims that the Tea Party people were content with the Bush years of spending hikes. That is a falsehood, at the very least in the important sense that he is making an unfounded positive

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Is There a Culture War, or What?

May 13, 2010
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Is There a Culture War, or What?

There is a culture war, and we need it, argues Carol Iannone on NRO’s The Corner. I don’t like martial metaphors, but I strongly agree with Carol Iannone that there are basically two worldviews competing irreconcilably in the United States today. One, called progressivism, derives from the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and tends to blame all human problems on imperfect social institutions. Individuals devoted to this worldview concentrate great effort on the perfecting of institutions according to their idea of social justice, which evolves as new problems are created by their efforts to transform society and its institutions. Their opponents refer to this fundamental problem of progressivism as the Law of Unintended Consequences. In addition, progressives of all stripes require the development of an aristocracy consisting of political, economic, social, and cultural elites who can implement the proper management of society. The other worldview, best described as classical liberalism, acknowledges that social conditions circumscribe individuals’ choices, but they nonetheless argue that people have freedom of choice within the conditions under which they live. Such classical liberals argue for political liberty and allowance of social mobility, an essential element of which is the acceptance of the concept of personal responsibility, the

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Live-blogging Obama’s State of the Union Address

January 26, 2010
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Live-blogging Obama’s State of the Union Address

President Obama will be delivering his first State of the Union address on Wednesday night — and it should be an interesting address in the wake of the Massachusetts Miracle and the collapse of ObamaCare in Congress. Certainly, the speech-writers have been working overtime this week to make the proper (and, hopefully, humblng) adjustments. The Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank peopled by scholars of a libertarian bent, is going to be live-blogging Obama’s speech. It will be using the “Cover it Live” program, which means you can join in the fun with your own comments as you watch the address on TV. Go to InfoTech & Telecom News to get an email reminder of the event, and/or just show up there (or at any of Heartland’s other publication sites) just before the speech starts at 9 p.m. EST, 6 p.m. PST. It should a good time as Heartland scholars show off their wit, wisdom and fact-checking skills.

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Low U.S. Troop Morale in Afghanistan Reflects Doubts About Mission

October 9, 2009
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Low U.S. Troop Morale in Afghanistan Reflects Doubts About Mission

Exemplifying the great cultural gulf between those who build the country and those who rule it, U.S. troops in Afghanistan are rapidly losing morale as President Obama dithers over what to do. The central question: what is the U.S. mission in Afghanistan? Unlike the situation in Iraq, U.S. military personnel on the ground are increasingly coming to the conclusion that the United States cannot realistically hope to achieve any positive result by continued occupation of Afghanistan. Thus their morale sags as their comrades die or are maimed without a clear objective being served by the sacrifices.

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U.S. Movie Audiences Continue Quest for Optimism, Positivity

September 21, 2009
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U.S. Movie Audiences Continue Quest for Optimism, Positivity

  The animated comedy Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was unexpectedly successful last weekend as U.S. movie audiences continued to seek out more positive stories, S. T. Karnick writes.

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‘National Review’ Allows Diverse Opinions, Former Staffer Says

October 23, 2008
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‘National Review’ Allows Diverse Opinions, Former Staffer Says

        A former associate editor of National Review magazine says Christopher Buckley’s departure from his back-page column was not a firing, and the magazine embraces diverse viewpoints within conservatism. But that’s the real problem with the contemporary right: it lacks a set of coherent principles.  

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Downey to Lead Genre-Bender

June 26, 2008
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Downey to Lead Genre-Bender

Robert Downey Jr., star of the megahit movie Iron Man, has signed on for a new film that crosses genres and may have some interesting and salutary ideas.  

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California Court’s Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Is More Government Coercion, Not Freedom

May 16, 2008
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California Court’s Same-Sex Marriage Ruling Is More Government Coercion, Not Freedom

A California court’s ruling that the state of California must approve of same-sex marriages is being hailed as a blow for freedom. In fact it is exactly the opposite.  

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The Great Disruption—Is There Any Hope of Deliverance?

July 9, 2007
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In an article ostensibly considering the literary legacy of science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein, John Derbyshire veers off into an interesting discussion of the current American culture. Derbyshire’s conclusion is that a great separation of American society has taken place since the 1950s: America has always had elites, of course, and we have always had an underclass of some kind. Both seem to be much bigger now than they were then, though. Furthermore, if you subtracted off the elites and the underclass in Heinlein’s time, what was left—the great middle—was far more homogenous then than it is now, its members much better acquainted with each other. The social distance between (say) a doctor and (say) a cop, was smaller then than it is now

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"Culture is the expression of the guiding philosophy of the day."—Murray Rothbard
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