At the Mises Circle in Chicago earlier this month, I not only gave a speech, but I also had the honor of participating on a panel with the other speakers, Walter Block, Douglas French, Roderick Long, and Yuri Maltsev.
We addressed audience members’ questions on a variety of topics, but you may be especially interested in the discussion of immigration that begins at the 10:45 mark.
Laurence M. Vance has kind words for Libertarianism Today in the April 2011 issue of Freedom Daily. The review isn’t online and probably won’t be for a while [UPDATE: now it is], but for now I can tell you that he says that it’s “the best introduction to libertarianism on the market.” And here’s how he concludes:
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Libertarianism Today is the most important book on libertarianism since Rothbard’s For a New Liberty. Not only does it stand in the Rothbardian tradition, it is a principled, uncompromising, iconoclastic, consistent, and unvarnished defense of libertarianism that Rothbard would be proud of.
by Jacob Huebert on April 21, 2011 in Police State
Leave it to Fox News to use the occasion of the royal wedding to advocate the police state.
This article informs us that for the royal wedding, the U.K. will be using security measures — including random stops and searches, warrantless arrests, and a ban on uploading iphone photos — that would “never fly” in the U.S.
You see, former CIA agent and current security firm owner Mike Baker explains, “there’s a more mature acceptance in the U.K. of the tradeoff between civil liberties and security.” They’re not like those whiny Americans, who think they can do as they please with their own property: “You’re going to tell them what they can and can’t do with their iPhone? That would drive people nuts.” Some Americans even have the nerve to complain “about having to take their shoes off at the airport.” Such children!
But Fox News is nothing if not fair and balanced, so they brought in a second expert, former NYPD detective and current security firm owner Pat Brosnan — who also says Americans need to grow up and accept the total state: “There’s a number of different measures that should be implemented [in the U.S.] in the face of the reality that we now have. Our biggest threat is homegrown extremism. How do you get control of that? It’s tough, very tough, and people have forgotten.”
In all of this, there’s no mention of any past conflicts between Brits and Americans over issues of search and seizure, nor is there any suggestion that any constitutional provisions might stand in the way of imposing these things in the U.S.
Brosnan does say that he doesn’t think Americans would go for the U.K. measures “in a million years.” But given Americans’ willingness to surrender their rights at the airports and their steady diet of propaganda like this, I’m not at all sure he’s right.
In Policy, a magazine published by Australia’s Centre for Independent Studies, Alex Willemyns has a favorable review of Libertarianism Today.
Here’s a sample:
Indeed, although the author could not possibly provide a complete introduction to an ideology as unorthodox and contested as libertarianism in such a short volume, Huebert’s attempt is the most engaging and incisive currently available. Further, its unabashedly radical nature is a welcome surprise for a book that could just as easily have been meandering and equivocal in its case for libertarianism. With an abundance of suggestions for further reading throughout, it should appeal to all readers, from the most well-informed libertarian to those new to the radical theory.
I saw Atlas Shrugged Part I this evening, and I thought it was great. Not a great movie in the usual sense, but a great adaptation of Atlas Shrugged, which is not a great novel in the usual sense.
Yes, it’s low-budget. Yes, the direction is pedestrian. Yes, the dialogue is often clunky. So people who want to whine can whine about those things.
But I see no point in dwelling on the negative. This movie is as true to the book as anyone could desire. The screenwriting isn’t perfect, but neither is Ayn Rand’s novel-writing. The actors probably won’t collect Oscars for their work here, but they are mostly well-cast, and the villains are especially well-cast.
In fact, I don’t think a better Atlas Shrugged movie could ever be made. You can wish the movie had a big budget and better talent, but if you got those things, you would almost certainly lose this movie’s faithfulness to the book’s story and ideas — and the ideas, after all, are the point. Besides, can you imagine an adaptation of Atlas Shrugged — no matter who wrote it, directed it, or starred in it — that wouldn’t have unnatural dialogue, unbelievable characters, and an implausible plot? There is no time period in which you could set this movie — with its train travel, its heroic industrialists who own their own companies, etc. — in which it could seem realistic. So you just have to do what you do with the novel or with any science fiction or fantasy: suspend disbelief and go with it.
I doubt this film will win any new converts to libertarianism or (thankfully) Objectivism; the story has to move forward so quickly that someone who isn’t already familiar with the book may be lost or bored. But it should delight fans of the book who go in with a positive attitude.
I look forward to seeing it again and to seeing Part II.
UPDATE (4.18.11): Some people have written to me (and commented below) assuming that this post was intended as “faint praise” of both the book and the movie. That’s not true at all. Atlas Shrugged is a great novel, and it’s one of my very favorites. It doesn’t satisfy some of the usual criteria for great literature, but that’s okay because it is unique and ingenious and in its own way better than most “great” literature. I wrote about this in my review of Edward Younkins’s volume Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged for the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. As for the movie, it has some obvious shortcomings because of the limitations the filmmakers faced, but the point of my comments above was to emphasize that the shortcomings are insignificant in light of the film’s virtues. Again, I loved the film, I will see it again, and if you like the book, I would encourage you to see it, too.
I only had 15 minutes to make my opening statement, and of course it’s impossible to make anything close to a complete case for why we should abolish copyrights and patents in such a short time. I could only hope to challenge the students to begin to reconsider whether we need or should have those things. As you can tell from the Q&A at the end, the audience at least found it provocative.
Thanks to my debate opponent, attorney and software developer David Raskin, for making and allowing me to share this recording.
I listened to this “Freakonomics” podcast on fire safety, and not only does it have nothing to do with economics, it would seem that the people behind it are entirely unfamiliar with the economic way of thinking.
The podcast starts by telling us that fire deaths decreased by about 90% over the course of the twentieth century. These days, there are only about 3,000 deaths from fire in the U.S. each year. Great.
Then they put on a government fire-safety expert who tells us that’s not nearly good enough — he wants that number down to zero. Toward that end, he thinks we should all be required to have sprinkler systems installed in our homes, as California now requires for new houses.
This had me really ready for a dose of sound economics. I thought they would then put on an economist to explain why the optimal number of fire deaths is not zero because that would require a ridiculous expenditure of resources, if it’s even possible. I thought the show would explain that at some point, the marginal dollar spent on fire safety isn’t worth it.
The video of my speech a the Nullify Now event in Cincinnati is now online. I talk about nullifying the PATRIOT Act, nullifying TSA tyranny, and, most importantly, nullifying the State in your own mind.
As for me, I’ll be at the Mises Circle in Chicago this weekend, and then giving a talk calling for the abolition of copyright and patents at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, California on April 14.
Jacob H. Huebert is a constitutional lawyer in Chicago and the author of Libertarianism Today, a new introduction to libertarian ideas and the libertarian movement. The views expressed on this site are his own, not those of any organization.
Read more.
"In Libertarianism Today, Jacob Huebert draws on his mastery of libertarian philosophy, Austrian economics, and history to show that limited government and free markets are the only cures for the numerous problems facing our nation. Huebert also provides an excellent introduction to libertarian thought and a concise summary of the history of the libertarian movement. Anyone interested in learning more about the past, present, and future of the liberty movement can benefit from reading this book."
- Congressman Ron Paul
"J.H. Huebert is a scholar who can really write. If you want an unvarnished look at the libertarian movement and care about the future of liberty, read this book."
- Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., founder and chairman, Ludwig von Mises Institute
"Jacob Huebert has written an excellent overview of libertarianism today in his book of the same name. On everything under the sun he persuasively argues the libertarian position."
- Thomas Woods, New York Times bestselling author of Nullification, Meltdown, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History
"Jacob Huebert's outstanding survey of libertarianism ranks as the best work of its kind since Murray Rothbard's For a New Liberty."
- David Gordon, Mises Review
"Huebert's verbal presentation deserves to rank right up there with the scintillating writing of a Rothbard or a Hazlitt . . . this young man really has a gift for writing clearly and even beautifully." - Walter Block, author of Defending the Undefendable
"The best introduction to libertarianism on the market." - Laurence M. Vance, Freedom Daily
"If you want to undermine statist beliefs, pass this book around." - George C. Leef, The Freeman
"It should appeal to all readers, from the most well-informed libertarian to those new to the radical theory." - Alex Willemyns, Policy
"The best book on the essentials of libertarianism…. It’s wonderfully entertaining, easy to read, and splendidly pithy." - Norman Horn, LibertarianChristians.com
"There should be a guy carrying boxes of this book to every college bookstore in America. Give it out, loan it to your friends. . . . It's awesome." - Scott Horton, Antiwar Radio
"It's really quite excellent. If you know nothing about libertarianism, it's all in there . . . I've got my Christmas shopping taken care of for all my non-libertarian friends!" - Brian Wilson, WSPD Radio
I saw Atlas Shrugged Part I this evening, and I thought it was great. Not a great movie in the usual sense, but a great adaptation of Atlas Shrugged, which is not a great novel in the usual sense.
The audio from my Chicago Mises Circle talk is now online for streaming or download:
