FOB (friend of blog) Gary Oppewall, replying to my Fukuyama quote, writes: "The pirates are still among us. They may not wave skull and crossbones flags and have parrots on their shoulders, but the deeds are the same. The only difference is that they have the support...
Economics of War
People from all over the political spectrum hate Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man, with its naïve progressivist-historicism, its post–Cold War /pre–Sept. 11 triumphalism, etc., so imagine my surprise when I started reading it and enjoying it (while of...
Tale of Slave II
Reader Doug Barrett from Edmonton, Canada, suggests that the 9 cases in Nozick's Tale of the Slave can be expanded upon: 10. They read 'the Tale of the Slave' and they are now aware that you feel you are a slave. "We're sorry you feel that way." they say. "If you want...
Napoleon, Bismarck, Hitler… Bush?
Frederick W. Kagan, author, and teacher of military history at West Point, is a tax-and-spend hegemonist. In "The art of war," an article from the November, 2003, The New Criterion, which I found on the excellent aldaily.com site, Kagan warns about the dangers of the...
The Tale of the Slave
We know that conscription is slavery and empire is slavery but what is slavery? "The Tale of the Slave" from Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, pp. 290-292. Consider the following sequence of cases, which we shall call the Tale of the Slave, and imagine it is...
Marxian Exploitation
The requirement that an object have utility is a necessary component of the labor theory of value, if it is to avoid certain objections. Suppose a person works on something absolutely useless that no one wants. For example, he spends his hours efficiently making a big...
The Coming Catastrophe of Central Asia, Part II
To say I am not optimistic about the future of Central Asia is an understatement of oceanic proportions. The entire region is unstable, with ethnic disputes and conflicts over borders, water, oil, and pipelines disrupting every political discussion. It is debatable...
The Coming Catastrophe of Central Asia, Part I
Turkmenistan’s president, Saparmurat Niyazov, former party chairman under the Soviets – the same party continues to dominate Turkmenistan’s politics today – has changed his name to Akbar Turkmenbashy, which means “Great Father of all Turkmen.” And his megalomania is...
Did Al Qaeda Exploit Government Jihad Support?
If the FBI could carry out a pre–Sept. 11 sting operation against Hamas that included the use of no-warrant wiretaps, dummy companies, informants, overseas recruitment, etc., why weren't those same aggressive techniques used against al Qaeda? One possibility is that...
Our Tax Dollars at Work
What's this about opponents of the PATRIOT Act being "Anti-American"? Liberty-leaching PATRIOT actors claim that the Sept. 11 attacks succeeded because US spies and secret police were hamstrung by excessive caution and concern for civil liberties. How then to explain,...
