Our modern “libertarian” movement is often traced back to the classical liberals and before, and there are of course influences and predecessor ideas, but in my view modern libertarianism originated about 60 years ago, in the 1950s (see my “Libertarian Controversies“), with Rand, Rothbard, Friedman, Hazlitt, and Read.

Turns out a group of 500 terrorists stormed a food depot and transportation center in Washington state, held six guards hostage, and the police did nothing. Nothing!

Oh, wait. They are not terrorist, just an assembly of union workers. And the police may actually arrest a few, but only if they can identify the protesters. (Hey, why not start with the thug in the photo?)

As I noted in Against Intellectual Property, in her confused and flawed attempt to justify patent and copyright monopolies, Ayn Rand mistakenly assumed that under US patent law, the first inventor to file has priority over later filers, in the case of multiple independent inventors of the same idea. Then she bent into contortions trying to defend such an obviously unfair, and artificial and arbitrary, rule.

[The Conscience of an Anarchist: Why It’s Time to Say Good-Bye to the State and Build a Free Society • By Gary Chartier • Cobden Press, 2011 • X + 118 pages]

“Chartier’s book is vital reading for libertarians.”

[Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea • By C. Bradley Thompson with Yaron Brook • Paradigm Publishers, 2010 • Xii + 305 pages]

Science Daily recently reported on a study that finds “Preserving just 4 percent of the ocean could protect crucial habitat for the vast majority of marine mammal species, from sea otters to blue whales.”