Labor Day and Freedom

It isn’t clear that Labor Day is worth celebrating. According to the US Department of Labor, Labor Day “is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers.” It is also a holiday that is largely grounded in fiction. Part of the traditional narrative of the labor movement is encapsulated in this passage from the US Department of Labor’s website: “The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals ...”

The Fallacy of We

While watching the Olympics, we tend to cheer participants along national lines. We root for our country’s athletes over those from the rest of the world. While there is nothing wrong with this fun diversion, the concept of the individual must never be lost amid the ideal of the collective — the belief that the members of the collective (the nation in this instance) are faceless automatons dedicated to serving the whole.

Make Ourselves Miserable Now

The local Swiss press carried a summary of a report compiled by a panel of so-called “experts” of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Science (SATW) under the startling rubric that motor gasoline “should” henceforth be priced, by fiat, at no less than four francs per liter — roughly double the current market price and representing what, to an American, must seem like the eye-watering equivalent of around $14 a gallon.

Kauffman celebrates regular folks who hate war

In my hometown, the peace rallies are always sponsored by the Unitarians. Actually, it is they who are the participants too. This is not a highly heterogeneous group. In fact, you know them already: highly educated, ideologically driven according to conventional left-wing moorings, attracted to fashionable causes like global warming and the mortal threat posed by plastic grocery bags, and hyper-tolerant of all points of view except those with which they disagree.

The Economics of War (Georgia Edition)

Americans should consider how the US government would react if (say) Texas declared its independence and received massive amounts of military aid and advice from the Russians, all while the Texas president feted his Russian counterpart at state dinners in Austin and promoted Texan membership in a post-Cold War Warsaw Pact that had already expanded greatly in the previous 15 years. To me, the economic lessons dominate.

Truth in the Coin Shop

Is it any wonder that people who enter this world think differently from others? Their blinders are off. They see what is real and true. They don’t believe in the great modern lie that the state is our wise master, in whom we should trust our very lives. The owner of gold and silver coins is just a bit less attached to the state than others. And should a time of great crisis come, and you look among the survivors, preeminent among them will be those who love the coin shop as much as I do.

Liberty restored or a lucky pull on the legal slot machine?

Californians can once again home school their children without fear of the state (well, almost). Is this a victory for Liberty? Or did homeschoolers in CA simply benefit from a lucky pull on the legal slot machine — a pull that this time came up three smiling judges?

Of course, the latter is the case. The next challenge to homeschooling in CA could be the pull that once again comes up two frowns. The legal game in CA is similar to the more sophisticated game in DC — a game where it takes five jokers to be a winner, with Liberty never even a card in the deck.

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