- Spaghetti monsters and free exercise Ethan Blevins, NOL
- Social warfare (government schools) Mary Lucia Darst, NOL
- Vulvæ in pornography and culture Bill Rein, NOL
- Early childhood memories of a Cambodian refugee camp Chhay Lin Lim, NOL
Author: Brandon Christensen
Be Our Guest: “Liberty, Government, and Technology: 2019”
Jack Curtis is the latest to submit a piece for NOL‘s “Be Our Guest” feature. A slice:
We will compare China, Russia and the United States. China is a post-communist police state that has never experienced democracy. Russia is a post-communist, quasi democratic republic devolving back into a police state. And the United States is a traditionally democratic republic. Excepting the vagaries of disparate cultures, their three governments seem increasingly similar, revising themselves to adopt the new technology. However, these revisions have not originated only within governments; they also reflect the gradual confluence of the underlying societies.
Do read the rest, and I must point out that Jack has been a long time reader of NOL. For that I am personally grateful. It’s nice to be able to link up and collaborate like this.
Submit your own thoughts to us. Be our guest. Tell your friends, too.
Nightcap
- Bosnia’s mosques without Muslims Colborne & Edwards, Los Angeles Review of Books
- China and the Ricardian vice Samuel Hammond, National Affairs
- The closing of the conservative mind John Gray, New Statesman
- Europe, not America, is home to the free market Thomas Philippon, the Atlantic
Nightcap
- Argentine Nazi finds are fakes Glüsing & Wiegrefe, Spiegel
- China’s looming class struggle Joel Kotkin, Quillette
- The real costs of the war in Afghanistan Adam Wunische, New Republic
- Progressive purity tests and Supreme Court wish lists Damon Root, Reason
Nightcap
- Ottoman cosmopolitanism Ussama Makdisi, Aeon
- American racism Coleman Hughes, City Journal
- WTO arrogance John Quiggan, the Conversation
- Chinese Antarctica David Fishman, Lawfare
Nightcap
- How American anthropology redefined humanity Louis Menand, New Yorker
- China’s new Great Wall rises in the heart of Europe Katsuji Nakazawa, Asian Nikkei Review
- Chile: neoliberalism’s poster boy falls from grace Branko Milanovic, globalinequality
- Turkey rejects German-NATO plan, cozies up to Russia Laura Kayali, Politico
Nightcap
- Second-hand: the new global garage sale Susan Blumberg-Kason, Asian Review of Books
- Learning to love America Jacques Delacroix, NOL
- “Why I don’t trust the police” Michelangelo Landgrave, NOL
- Chicago cops Paul Buhle, Counterpunch
Nightcap
- John Mbiti (Kenyan Anglican) is dead Richard Sandomir, New York Times
- The long history of eco-pessimism Desrochers & Szurmak, spiked!
- An early case for reparations Eric Herschthal, New Republic
- What the 1956 Uprising says about Hungary today KB Vlahos, American Conservative
Nightcap
- Who betrayed Syria’s Kurds? Amberin Zaman, Al-Monitor
- How the Physiocrats confronted France’s empire (Smithian-Misesian-Hayekian federation) Pernille Røge, Age of Revolutions
- Strange respect for central banks Scott Sumner, MoneyIllusion
- This is just the beginning of Brexit Tom McTague, the Atlantic
Nightcap
- Making Canada great for the first time Scott Sumner, EconLog
- Detoxifying Brexit Chris Dillow, Stumbling & Mumbling
- What’s driving protests around the world? Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg
- “There’s no telling what’s next” Conor Friedersdorf, the Atlantic
Nightcap
- The Great Firewall of China, as cyber-sovereignty John Lanchester, London Review of Books
- The lost art of exiting a war Adam Wunische, War on the Rocks
- The Eastern Jesus Ian Johnson, New York Review of Books
- China’s first permanent president Johnathan Chatwin, Asian Review of Books
Nightcap
- Charlemagne Chris Wickham, History Today
- Populism Simon Schama, Financial Times
- Harold Bloom (1930-2019) Flesch & Roth, n+1
- German supermarkets Rachel Lu, the Week
Nightcap
- The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train Baye McNeil, Japan Times
- Interstellar conversations Caleb Scharf, Scientific American
- Donald Trump is a weak man in a strongman’s world Ross Douthat, New York Times
- The Poland model: left-wing economic policy and right-wing social policy Anna Sussman, the Atlantic
Nightcap
- Nozick, State, and Reparations Irfan Khawaja, Policy of Truth
- No friends but the mountains Maurice Glasman, New Statesman
- The layers of Israel’s Trump mistake Michael Koplow, Ottomans & Zionists
- Why hasn’t Brexit happened? Christopher Caldwell, Claremont Review of Books
Thinking globally, as a dad, and as a libertarian
There’s no reason to keep writing. I have an nine month-old (nine-month old?) boy and a twenty-nine month-old girl. My vote doesn’t matter. I’ve lost my zest for ideas and events. Nobody cares what a libertarian has to say anymore, anyway. We’re back in the wilderness, wandering aimlessly and pettily bickering with each other about the stupidest things. We had our moment, we truly did, and it got flushed down the toilet along with the big, racist turds we dropped in the porcelain bucket.
Something in the world of ideas has turned stale. Or, I’ve gone stale. I don’t think I have, though. I’ve been reading plenty of books and plenty of internet, and much of it is enjoyable and provides me with a better sense of the world I inhabit. Has the world of ideas always been this stale? Has “the world of ideas” been a Big Lie to begin with, a cover-up invented by political strategists to influence youth and vie for power?
Libertarianism itself is no longer what I thought it was. Consider Syria. What’s a libertarian to do? A libertarian from the US would probably say that his country’s military leaving Syria is a good thing. A libertarian from Syria would probably say that the US leaving Syria is a bad thing. Actually, this is pretty cool now that I’ve thought about it. What is the libertarian position on Syria? Abandon it and regroup somewhere else? Would this “somewhere else” then become a fortress of libertarianism? Would it become a launching pad for military action, for violent acts of aggression against an equally violent polity?
Libertarianism seems to work great in an American institutional context, but what happens when libertarianism moves abroad? Now, I’m not about to go all sideways (to borrow a phrase from an old black cook that I know here in Texas). I’m still a libertarian, but only because it’s the least bad option out there. The world could use more liberty. This liberty can be gained through non-violent indigenous means most of the time. As a citizen of the world’s big, bad hegemon, this is the position I have a duty to take. If I was born in, say, Kurdistan, though, or Angola, violence might be the best least bad option to take en route to more liberty.
Edwin’s 2014 post continues to impress. Is this because I am getting older? Is this because I have other shit to do besides ensure (online…) that liberty remains as pure as possible?
Notes On Liberty 