I Clear My Browser Tabs
Because I’m switching computers for the evening. Absolutely everything below comes unvetted and largely unread:
* Dave Schuler on a history of the expansion federal power
* The other thing, besides grunge, going on in the early 1990s
*Â Schumpeter-Galbraith Fight!
*Â The Wikipedia talk page on a yesterday’s widely distributed quote attributed to Ayn Rand on takin’ land from the injuns – and no, this link is not meant as a defense of Rand’s position
Comment by matthew hogan —
September 18, 2007 @ 6:44 pm
I would have thought Rand would have denied Indians’ rights to life or land on the grounds of their abstract art. A is A qua A. Altruism is a sin. Atheism is the only rationality. Burp.
Comment by mb —
September 18, 2007 @ 6:46 pm
That jibes perfectly with Rand’s thoughts on the Middle East, which most Randians seem to endorse.
Comment by Dave Schuler —
September 18, 2007 @ 7:38 pm
Thanks for the link, Jim. Browsing through the Annals of Congress was really fascinating. So many of the antipathies we’re seeing right down to the present day are obviously present right from the beginning.
Comment by Avram —
September 18, 2007 @ 8:40 pm
Getting a del.icio.us account means never having to worry about a browser crash taking out a week’s worth of open browser tabs.
Comment by Hesiod —
September 19, 2007 @ 1:30 pm
But if a “country” does not protect rights–if a group of tribesmen are the slaves of their tribal chief–why should you respect the “rights” that they don’t have or respect? The same is true for a dictatorship. The citizens in it have individual rights, but the country has no rights and so anyone has the right to invade it, because rights are not recognized in that country . . . .
Well…that explains how Glenn Reynolds can consider himself a “libertarian.”
Comment by Jim Henley —
September 19, 2007 @ 1:36 pm
Basically. It’s a kind of militant ignorance about the actual practices and principles of tribal society, deployed as an excuse for theft and murder. Note two things: 1) It is almost exactly the reciprocity argument deployed against concepts of “animal rights” as we were discussing last month. 2) It’s mean, mean, mean, sure, but you’ll notice that the rest of us aren’t exactly rushing to give back our forefathers’ ill-gotten gains. And you didn’t have to be an Objectivist to be enthusiastic about the American land-grab – it was the omni-partisan policy of white people for four centuries.
Comment by Avram —
September 22, 2007 @ 12:57 am
But Matthew, the Native North Americans lacked writing, and so couldn’t know that A = A! They therefore had no rights for Europeans to trample.
You don’t have Objective rights unless you have a phonetic alphabet. Why do you think the Chinese are collectivists?