January 28, 2005

Clashing Generalizations - Evaluating The Use Of Force
By Ted Lang © 2004

Speaking to a small audience of peers and fellow historians, Professor Joseph J. Ellis was taped delivering a presentation at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston. It was carried on C-Span 2’s “Book TV” a short while ago. Professor Ellis, on the faculty of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, received the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for his book, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation.

Ellis was promoting his most recent book, His Excellency: George Washington. Professor Ellis enlivened his brief discussion of Washington with delightful anecdotes and brilliant philosophical insights regarding the man both he and I believe to be America’s greatest patriotic icon. (Read the rest here)

Comouflage Surrounding Social Security
By Ed Henry

There are so many issues, opinions, and arguments surrounding Social Security that, coupled with misunderstandings, misinformation, disinformation, misdirection and deliberate propaganda, it’s no wonder the average American can’t see the forest for the trees. It all works to help the Beltway Bandits get away with robbing the system of hundreds of billions of the American worker's hard earned dollars.

Some of these arguments are valid and worthy of consideration, like the role of the Federal Reserve in our bond market and otherwise, but many of them are complete fantasy, like Social Security having any resemblance whatsoever to a Ponzi scheme. Others range from the philosophical and ideological to the downright ridiculous, but they all have one thing in common. They all get in the way of what should be done first to “save” or improve Social Security. (Read the rest here)

Libertarian Commentary on The News
By Nathan A. Barton © 2004

Commentary today is a bit shorter than usual, but we’ve selected some important news items, regarding the state of liberty in the nation and the world. As always, these views are those of the author, not necessarily those of anyone else, including TPoL.

California: Failed suicide kills eleven in multi-train crash
Fox News
Eleven people were killed today when a would-be suicide stopped his motor vehicle on a rail crossing as two passenger commuter trains approached, and then decided at the last minute he didn’t want to commit suicide. As the smoke cleared from the grisly remains of the two trains and a third freight train, he attempted to again kill himself by slashing his wrists and stabbing himself in the chest, but was instead arrested and is expected to be charged with multiple counts of murder. More than 200 others were injured, including 40 critically, as one car caught fire and another overturned, filled with morning rush hour commuters.

This has nothing to do with terrorism (although, given the current “official” definition, don’t be surprised if they don’t pad the charge sheet with the federal charge), but it shows how vulnerable our transportation system is, if there were any serious organized attempts to terrorize the nation with the same kind of thing going on in Iraq or Israel. If one “deranged man” seemingly on the spur of the moment can kill eleven and injure hundreds, what can a dedicated suicide bomber with only a few hundred dollars to his name (but a bit of smarts) do - triple the body count? Quintuple it? (Read the rest of the Commentary here)

New Feature At The Price of Liberty
BEWARE - The Idiot Zone
New "Idiot Sighting" from a reader! (Read the rest here) And send us your IDIOT sightings too.

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