Cato University Lineup

Schedule, registration information, and scholarship information (for enrolled students), at Cato-University.org.

Rejoice Ngwenya, a leader of the opposition to the brutal policies of President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. He organizes the Zimbabwean Coalition for Market & Liberal Solutions (COMALISO) and is a regular columnist for Cato’s African initiative, AfricanLiberty.org.

Gene Healy, Senior Editor at the Cato Institute, editor of Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything and author of the new book The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power.

Professor Robert McDonald, department of history, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and author of the forthcoming book Confounding Father: Thomas Jefferson and the Politics of Personality.

Dr. Andrei Illarionov, a senior fellow at Cato’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, who served as chief economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin before resigning publicly at a Kremlin News Conference, saying he could not work for a dictatorship.

Dr. Karen Horn, head of the Berlin office of Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft Köln, a private economic research institute in Germany, and former economics editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Europe’s leading daily newspapers.

Dr. Peter Van Doren, senior fellow at Cato and editor of the quarterly magazine Regulation.

Me…, senior fellow at Cato and director of Cato’s Center for Promotion of Human Rights, which promotes libertarianism in 11 languages.

Gabriela Calderon, Editor of ElCato.org, Cato’s outreach to the Spanish-speaking world.

Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at Cato, who will address what will be one of the great struggles of the next decade - the fight over socialized medicine.

Some "Inside Baseball" About the Second Amendment Litigation

From the ABA Journal.

A Sad Story

I’ve known Anthony Flew (but not well) for quite a few years. He very kindly commented on a paper I presented at a seminar at Oxford University twelve or thirteen years ago. Now he seems to be the victim of some rather unscrupulous people.

See the account in “The Turning of an Atheist,” Mark Oppenheimer, New York Times Magazine, November 4, 2007.

I think I would be rather less charitable than Oppenheimer in his description of Professor Flew’s new friends.

Free Paul Jacob

For the offense of petitioning government for a redress of grievances, the state of Oklahoma is bringing felony charges against an old friend, Paul Jacob, who has already shown his mettle by standing up against state coercion and violence. This case is important for many reasons, including simple justice, but high on the list is that opportunities for citizens to influence — or even choose — their governments are being choked off one by one and that process must be resisted. Paul’s case is but one element in the attempt to limit the ability of citizens to influence their rulers. Political campaign finance is so highly regulated that “outsiders,” third parties, and independents are severely hobbled. As “loopholes” (read, exercise of freedom of speech and association) are discovered in the restrictions (e.g., Political Action Committees, independent expenditures, etc.) they are closed off. There is increasing talk of restricting the broadcast media, of placing campaign-finance-like restraints on non-governmental grass-roots, advocacy, and research organizations, and even of controlling the rights of newspaper owners to editorialize in their own papers.

The legislators don’t want to “represent” the people; they want to direct and control them, and above all, they want to be free from meddlesome, uppity citizens who put initiatives on ballots, recall elected officials, and even dare to put limits on how long the politicians keep their offices.

I have contributed to Paul’s campaign and I hope you will, too.

An Amusing Hit on Bryan Caplan

Know Your Right-Wing Speakers: Rundowns of our favorite right-wing ideologues.

A Harrowing and Terrible Story

The story of Alex Kurzem, aka Ilya Galperin. That that terrible period could have produced more than one case like that of Solomon Perel is remarkable.

Good on ya', Ron

Ron Paul has refused to be bullied over his reasoned dissent from U.S. foreign policy. Good for him.

The Right to Self-Defense

I was on ABC News last Friday to talk about the right to self-defense. Here’s the link.

Wollstonecraft Palmer Home Safe

Wolly as a (Very Smart) Kitten

Wolly Palmer is back home, after her third very unpleasant and harrowing stay in the hospital. Thanks to modern technology, good care, and substantial sums of money she has been given the gift of (I hope and pray) years of life. The experience was deeply unpleasant (and emotionally trying) for both of us. I visited twice daily and was present for most of the unpleasant tests so she would not be too stressed. She’s a clever person and understood (I believe) that those were visits and that they confirmed that she had not been abandoned or sent away. She’s happy to be back at home with Antigone (Tiggy) Palmer and me. (She needs a daily antibiotic pill, which she accepts, but attempts to evade, every-other-day subcutaneous injections of fluid from a drip bag, a special renal care diet, and lots of love and gentle affection.)

The experience has been hard on both of us (what with four hours of sleep for me, between night visits and morning visits), so when we got home yesterday late afternoon we both laid down for a few minutes and woke up 13 hours later.

Wolly Asking for Her Toys

Tiggy (on the left) and Wolly on a Sunny January Day, 2004

Wolly Safe at Home This Morning

Joseph Coberly, Rest In Peace

I’ve learned of the death of an old friend, Joseph E. Coberly, Jr., a long-time promoter of freedom and a man of principle and integrity. I met Joe many years ago, as a teenager, when I went to his office to ask for support for some libertarian activities. I was ushered into his office, where he (somewhat theatrically) was poring over a book by Ludwig von Mises. After five minutes or so, he looked up and acknowledged me. That was followed by a wide-ranging and memorable conversation about classical liberalism, socialism, statism, religion, and other topics.

Joe distinguished himself as the proprietor of Coberly Ford, a major Ford automobile dealership in southern California. In that capacity he regularly campaigned and testified before Congress against restrictions on imports by his competitors (at the time mainly from Japan), on the grounds that peole should be free to buy from whom they wanted. He was a principled free trader, not because it was in his interest, but because it was just.

Good bye, Joe. We need men and women like you. You will be missed, by the world, which will needs people like you, and by your friends, who admire you so.

Petro-State Corruption On Display

Hugo Chavez, who first came to national attention when he led a military coup attempt in 192, is on his way to buying a massive reelection victory, thanks to high oil prices and the willingness to use the revenue for patronage. Former Transparency International representative Gustavo Coronel explains some of the process in his paper “Corruption, Mismanagement, and Abuse of Power in Hugo ChÃ?¡vez’s Venezuela.”

The general problem of Petro-States and the obstacle they pose to democratic, constitutional liberalism — in Venezuela, in Russia, in Iraq, in Saudi Arabia, in Nigeria — deserves much more attention on the part of political scientists, economists, and political historians and journalists.

(Op-eds based on the study have also been published in Russian and in Arabic in a number of papers. Hats off to my colleagues at Cato.ru and Misbahalhurriyya.org.)

A Muslim Voice Against Radical Political Islamism

Anwar Ibrahim: A Courageous Voice for Liberty
My colleagues are very pleased to translate, publish, and widely disseminate throughout the Arabic world the writings of Anwar Ibrahim, a courgeous voice for freedom and justice from Malaysia. Dr. Ibrahim, who has spoken at Cato Institute events, wrote an essay for the Far Eastern Economic Review, “Radical Islam in Southeast Asia,” which has now been posted on the Lamp of Liberty website and syndicated to newspapers throughout the Middle East. Among the publishers that have run it so far are Al Wast of Bahrain, Al Ghad of Jordan, SudaNile of Sudan, and Albawaba.com.

They’re currently working on translating his article “Universal Values and Muslim Democracy” into Arabic.

Muslim Basher Robert Spencer Upset at my Dismissal of his Book

Don’t Bother: It’s Not Worth the Effort
Robert Spencer, author of one of the trashiest and least enlightening books I’ve read, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (part of what seems a generally low-brow and unreliable series of books), has gotten himself very upset at my remarks.

The Loss of a Great Champion of Freedom

Click for the Statement of the Friedman Foundation

My Blackberry started buzzing early this morning with very sad news, which continued to come in throughout the day. It is hard to think of another contemporary scholar/scientist with such influence, and certainly with such a passionate love of liberty.

"I am an Ignoramus, Hear Me Roar!," Declares Lou Dobbs

One of the least insightful people on television today (and that’s saying a lot), is Lou Dobbs, who has just issued his manifesto:

And, yes, I’m an ardent and fervent believer in the first three words of that radical populist document, which begins with the words “We the People.”

What courage.

NAE Site Being Updated.....

Whoops!

I guess this is the equivalent of Bill Clinton’s “I didn’t inhale.”

UPDATE: This interview is positively painful to watch. I feel sorry for his wife. And I would feel sorry for him, if he had not made his life a part of an assault on freedom, on personal dignity, on equal rights, on decency itself. The entire Focus on the Family crowd should hang their heads in shame, as they should have done when their favorite “Ex-Gay” leaders kept popping up soliciting men in gay bars. But such arrogance, it seems, knows no shame.

A Great End to an Exhilirating Conference

I’m really happy with the conference on “Freedom, Commerce, and Peace: A Regional Agenda.” We had Georgians and Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, Armenians and Azeris, Iranians and Iraqis, Romanians and Moldovans, and on and on…28 nations in all. The first discussion of the last day of the conference was of a high order, with Robert Lawson speaking on the Economic Freedom of the World Report and Cato’s new Senior Fellow Andrei Illarionov offering a high-level critique of methodology and suggestions for improvements. The discussion was very scientific and really focused attention on the issues of explaining the relationship between liberty and well being. Ricardo Martinez Rico, former Deputy Minister for the Budget of Spain, gave a fascinating and practical guide to how Spain managed to get its state budget under control, along with concrete proposals for the assembled reformers from Eurasia. The three workshops (organizing a think-tank, involving free media in public information campaigns, and using the economic freedom of the world data to promote reform) went well, as did Johan Norberg’s presentation on the environmental case for property rights, which moved participants to avoid environmental disasters by promoting transferrable rights in fisheries, forests, and other natural resources. Some other highlights were former Croatian Justice Minister Vesna Skare-Ozbolt’s presentation on “Improving the Rule of Law” and the presentation and discussion of Warren Coats’s paper on “Creating Monetary Stability and Financial Sector Freedom.” (Ok, the others were good, too, notably the energetic presentation by my friend from Belarus, Jaroslav Romanchuk [head of the Mises Center of Minsk, which actually is inspired by Ludwig von Mises, rather than by zany pro-Lukashenko cultists], on how to convince the public of the benefits of liberty.) The papers will be collected and edited over the coming months; my plan is to publish them in English and in Russian editions.

Finally, the concluding banquet address by former Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar was outstanding — the perfect rousing and inspiring conclusion to the conference.

I’m confident that this conference will go a long way toward creating and strengthening a network of classical liberal reformers throughout Eurasia, all armed with practical information and advice on how to promote the rule of law, individual liberty, and And I’m so, so, so happy about it — especially now that the work’s over.

I took the day off on Sunday and took a long trip with other foreign participants to Kakheti to visit ancient Georgian churches, see the countryside, and taste the local wines. The churches were remarkable, the countryside showedhow important economic growth is and how much (it’s currently running about 11%) will be necessary to overcome the legacy of Soviet poverty (as shown by the ruined churches we visited). But the process is clearly underway, as evidenced by the rationalization of and improvements to the wine industry. In addition to the natural beauty and the remarkably hospitable people, the wine and food in Kakheti were excellent. (I’m a big fan of Georgian wines. They’re excellent. If you have a chance to try them, ask for the dry wines of Mukuzani or Sapaveri.)

P.S. We also had a fair amount of media exposure, with interviews on tv with Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith, Andrei Illarionov, myself, and other participants, as well as print media coverage (which I haven’t been able to monitor, but about which I’ll find out next week).

P.P.S. This week I’ve got meetings with various Ministers from the government, opposition leaders, reporters and editors from the media, NGOs, and professors and students. Then I’m back to the U.S. to visit my cats and catch up on office work, before I go to Guatemala for the Mont Pelerin Society meeting.

My New Colleague

It’s nice finally to be able to announce publicly that Andrei Illarionov, one of Russia’s most outspoken friends of liberty, has joined the Cato Institute as a senior fellow. The announcement (English, Russian) has led to an enormous amount of coverage in Russia (English on Mosnews.com), as well as across the Russian blogosphere. Andrei will speak at the conference on “Freedom, Commerce, and Peace: A Regional Agenda” (English, Russian) that I’m organizing in Tbilisi later this month.

A Fine Man Is Gone

In the course of running seminars and giving talks on freedom, I have met many admirable people. One of the most memorable recently died. Pedro A. Diaz died at the age of 67. He was a Cato Institute Benefactor, a successful entrepreneur, and a great lover of freedom and of his adopted country, the United States.

Pedro floated over to the U.S. from Cuba as a young man and started painting houses. He mastered English (although his Spanish always remained with him and elegantly accented his English) and finished school. His work as a house painter not only earned him a good living, but gave him an insight into business. As he told me, “I realized that I didn’t just paint things. I coated them.” The result of that simple insight was Boyd Coatings Research, the firm he organized to coat virtually anything and everything you could imagine, from components of rockets to the tiny stents that are inserted into arteries and pop open to keep the flow of blood steady. I have cited him many times in talks about the morality of business enterprise. He was an inspiring person.

Pedro loved his work. He loved his country. He loved freedom. And he loved his Sandra, his partner of 11 years. His last words, as he died in her arms, were “Mi Sandra.”

Pedro A. Diaz, R.I.P.

Libert�© Ch�©rie

I had the pleasure of dining this evening with five leaders of the French classical liberal organization LibertÃ?© ChÃ?©rie, which has been revamped, rebranded, and revitalized by an infusion of new, young talent. They’re certainly worthy of support.

A Prize for Advancing Liberty

I’m off tomorrow to Chicago to attend the dinner and presentation of the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty to former Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar, a remarkable and inspiring figure.

Her Last Word was "Libert�©"

My former colleague at Cato, David Archer, just sent me the moving story of Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan, a spy for the British in Nazi-occupied Paris who was executed at Dachau:

In 1958, a former Dutch prisoner of the Nazis known as “A.F.” who witnessed Noorââ?‰?¢s execution read her biography and wrote to its author, Jean Overton Fuller. He revealed her killer to be Wilhelm Ruppert, a sadistic SS guard at the camp, and he described Noorââ?‰?¢s last moments on September 12, 1944. “The SS undressed the girl and she was terribly beaten by Ruppert all over her body. She did not cry, neither said anything. When Ruppert got tired and the girl was a bloody mess he told her then he would shoot her. She had to kneel and the only word she said, before Ruppert shot her from behind through the head, was ââ?¬Ë?libertÃ?©ââ?‰?¢.” She was 30 years old.

Is 40 the new 20? 50 the new 25?

Hugh Hefner on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

Madeline Cosman, R.I.P.

Fabulous Feasts

I was saddened to learn that Dr. Madeline Cosman had died. She had attended several Cato University seminars and lectured at one. (She lectured on how the rule of law was being systematically undermined, with special attention to what has been happening in the field of “medical law.”)

Here’s a review of her book on medieval cookery, Fabulous Feasts. She gave me a very treasured copy. I’m afraid to say, however, that I’ve never tried any of the recipes. (Mainly because most of the meals I cook are taken from the microwave or the blender and eaten over the sink.)

Lamp of Liberty

My friend Jonathan Rauch has published in the National Journal an essay on the Lamp of Liberty, the Arabic libertarian web site, “In Arabic, ‘Internet’ Means ‘Freedom’.” (I suspect that the essay will only be available for a limited time without a National Journal subscription, so read it now…..)

UPDATE: If the link to National Journal expires (which it will), the piece is now available on Reason.com (and won’t expire there).

FURTHER UPDATE: I’ve been thinking about the collaborative work that has gone into this effort. Most must remain anonymous, for obvious reasons. But I should mention one who was a friend and who gave useful advice and encouragement: Ron St. John. Ron died last year in Amman, where he was working with the Iraqi Reconciliation Project of the United Nations. I wish that he had lived to see what we have done with the Lamp of Liberty.

An Effective Campaigner for the Legal Rights of People Who Agreed With Him to Speak and Organize

Frank Wilkinson has died. He was, according to the obituary writer at the New York Times, a campaigner for “free speech” and for “antipoverty” efforts. Um, right. It’s not until the eighth paragraph of the obit that we learn that he was for more than three decades a member of the Communist Party, which did a great deal to suppress free speech and to promote poverty, and that he worked with a variety of Communist Party front groups, all of which were — all of the time — entirely opportunistic and subservient to the interests of the USSR.

My colleague David Boaz collects these things. Sometimes he brings them to my attention. It’s a regular feature that obits laud life-long Communists as “free speech” champions (although invariably the cases in which they were involved were entirely opportunistic, and involved defending only those who toed their line), or as “civil rights” champions, or as “peace campaigners.” I wonder (well, not for very long) whether the New York Times would describe the Nazi marchers in Skokie as “free speech” champions, or the opponents of going to war with Hitler as “peace campaigners.”

Gene McCarthy, R.I.P

Another fine man, Gene McCarthy, has died today. He will be rightly remembered for his courage in opposing the odious Lyndon Johnson and for his courage in opposing restrictions on freedom of speech (notably campaign finance restrictions) but he will also be remembered for his wit. Some years ago I was asked by the Wall Street Journal to write a piece on the 75th anniversary of The New Republic, which was celebrated shortly after the defeat of Senator Fritz Mondale by Ronald Reagan in the race for the presidency. I attended the party for the magazine’s celebration (which was also attended by Robert Nozick) and I got a great quote for the piece from Senator McCarthy: “Fritz Mondale didn’t lead the Democrats to defeat. He just escorted them.” (I also recall his remark, regarding campaign finance restrictions, that the founding fathers were not famous for pledging “their lives, their sacred honor, and up to $1,000.”)

Bill Bradford, R.I.P.

I’m sad to report that I’ve been informed of the death of R. W. “Bill” Bradford, the publisher of Liberty magazine. Bill was an entrepreneur and a friend of liberty and will be missed by people the world over.

Inspiring Friends of Freedom

Yesterday and today I’ve had the privilege of meeting with pro-liberty activists from Georgia, Syria, Mauritania, and Iraq. Yesterday my colleagues and I met with Paata Sheshelidze and Gia Jandieri of the New School of Economics of the Republic of Georgia to discuss undertaking a program to promote liberty, commerce, and peace in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Today I met with a group that was brought together and introduced to Cato by Jesse Sage of the American Islamic Congress: Abdel Nasser Ould Yessa, Foreign Secretary of the anti-slavery group, S.O.S. Slaves Mauritania, Nasser Weddady, North America coordinator for S.O.S. Slaves Mauritania, and Ammar Abdulhamid, currently a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a prolific blogger in English and in Arabic. We discussed a wide variety of issues and agreed to collaborate on publication of a volume of personal accounts by Arabic liberals of how they had come to appreciate individual liberty, toleration, the market economyh, and the rule of law. Then this afternoon and early evening I met with friends from Iraq to plan my itinerary for my upcoming trip.

It’s an inspiration to meet people so dedicated to freedom and willing to risk everything to promote it in perilous places.

Sad News

Ron St. John with Sayyid Farqad al-Qazwini of the
Religious University of Hilla, presenting a Cato
Institute book, “Toward Liberty,” to the library there.

This morning I received a terrible email from a friend in Baghdad. It was forwarded from the office of the United Nations in Baghdad and informed recipients of the death of Ron St. John, a friend who worked for the United Nations Office of Constitutional Support, for which he was heading up a national reconciliation program. I have called Baghdad and emailed to try to get more information, but all my friends know is what was in the the email, which referred to “natural causes,” so it doesn’t seem that Ron was killed by the terrorists who are trying to kill anyone promoting peace. (Update: I just received an email confirming that the cause of death was a heart attack.)

I send my condolences to his family and to his many friends.

(The book that Ron is presenting to Mr. al-Qazwini is Toward Liberty:The Idea that is Changing the World, ed. by David Boaz and published by the Cato Institute. The image in the background is of the Imam Ali, whose life is venerated by Shia Muslims)