The Supreme Court decision on March 6th in the case of Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR) should be a lesson to libertarian supporters of government-funded school vouchers. The Court ruled that colleges and universities that accept federal funding cannot bar military recruiters from their campuses. I believe the old saying is: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” Government-funded vouchers will certainly increase federal control over the private schools that accept them.

[The following is the English translation of a critical comment on Gerard Radnitzky’s article “Das Moralische Problem der Politik, Erwaegen, Wissen, Ethik, 2002, Heft 3, pp. 345-358; my comment appeared originally at the same place on pp. 378-380.]

Not surprisingly, I have no quarrels with Gerard Radnitzky’s criticism of the state or his sympathy for the idea of an “ordered anarchy.” Indeed, I have expressed similar sentiments and ideas, and for many years Radnitzky and I have been friendly allied intellectual combatants.

There is a bias to over-emphasize short-run, visible benefits in politics, often to the exclusion of what Frederic Bastiat termed the unseen effects on others and in the long run, because a politicians’ primary success requirement is to get elected long before all the consequences of their policies become obvious. T

By coincidence, just yesterday I discovered Ayn Rand Answers (referenced below by Mr. Tucker) at the library and checked it out.

So far, I’ve been surprised at how much I like Rand on so many things. I had become so used to ignoring some of her warmongering and libertarian-hating followers that I had forgotten how good she can be when she is good.

Here is George Reisman’s Blog reviewing Ayn Rand Answers, The Best of Her Q&A, Edited by Robert Mayhew, New American Library, 2005. x + 241 pp., a book about which I know nothing, but the review might be a landmark in what the phrase “blistering criticism” means. The post gets hotter and hotter as it moves along.