How Brave of You, Mr. McGreevey. How Very Brave.

As a variety of apologists step forward to laud Governor McGreevey for his allegedly courageous public coming out, he has offered his own feeble public defense in the New York Times (requires registration) of his remarkably transparent attempt to gain sympathy for his alleged victimization in order to avoid condemnation for old-fashioned corruption. His announcement led many to ask, “So why should he resign just because he’s gay? The guy’s being persecuted.” There’s no good reason to resign over sexuality. But there’s plenty of reason to resign to avoid charges of blatant corruption (such as appointing your unqualified boyfriend to be state director of homeland security).

Here’s what the Governor wrote:

“While there are many different and sometimes competing influences, it is my humble hope that my ‘coming out’ could, in some small way, help those gay Americans who have yet to become open with their sexuality. To be gay, for me, was not a choice, but simply stating a reality. Now at peace with arguably one of the most important truths of my life, it is my prayer that I will now be free to live openly and integrate my sexuality with my daily life. This integration will hopefully help my actions, my thoughts and my heart to be in alignment going forward, keeping me from the pitfalls of a divided self or secret truths.”

McGreevey hasn’t done anything to “help those gay Americans who have yet to become open with their sexuality” or to increase public acceptance of the dignity of homosexual people. He’s used all of us to deflect attention from his misuse of office (and to keep the state government and the state’s presidential electoral votes safely in the hands of his party by avoiding a gubernatorial election on the same day as the federal election). I have zero sympathy for someone who would use me as a shield for his own corruption. James E. McGreevey is neither a victim nor brave. James E. McGreevey is a despicable lout.

Cato University and the Endless Seminar for Liberty

I’m pleased to report that the summer 2004 Cato University seminar was a big success. Over 100 people took part, roughly half high school and college students and half business and professional people. The mix has proven quite conducive to good learning experiences, since the students appreciate being taken seriously as thinkers and the business and professional people are energized by the enthusiasm and excitement of the younger set. In addition, it’s good for the younger folks to meet “old” people (i.e., people from 30 to 100) who favor legalization of narcotics, laissez faire capitalism, legal recognition of gay marriages, free trade, peace, and so on. Appreciation for principles and for upholding ideals need not fade as the years add on, but may be deepened and strengthened.

I’ve been looking through the evaluations of the seminar and found that many of the participants rated the program as the best educational experience they’ve ever had. My hope is that the seminar will, in some sense, never end — that the participants will keep in touch and that they will keep on learning, discussing, thinking, and revising, passing their knowledge and enthusiasm for liberty on to others, from friend to friend and from generation to generation. As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that we’ll never definitively “win” the battle between liberty and coercion — since as long as there will be people there will be some who will seek to dominate and coerce others, but that we can expect the battle lines to move forward and back in a perpetual struggle for freedom. Despite not expecting any final victory (for who could predict all the forms that evil may take in future? How many in the 19th century — other than a handful of pessimistic visionaries, such as E. L. Godkin (see below) — could have predicted Bolshevist tyranny or National Socialist terror?), I am an optimist over the long run. And the Cato University seminar has only made me more so. (That’s one reason I’m looking forward to the upcoming seminar on “The Art of Persuasion” in Quebec October 38-31.)

P.S. E. L. Godkin wrote in 1900 in The Nation, “Nationalism in the sense of national greed has supplanted Liberalism. It is an old foe under a new name. By making the aggrandizement of a particular nation a higher end than the welfare of mankind, it has sophisticated the moral sense of Christendom. Aristotle justified slavery, because Barbarians were “naturally” inferior to Greeks, and we have gone back to his philosophy. We hear no more of natural rights, but of inferior races, whose part it is to submit to the government of those whom God has made their superiors. The old fallacy of divine right has once more asserted its ruinous power, and before it is again repudiated there must be international struggles on a terrific scale.”

Western Journalistic Arrogance

Are some lives inherently more important than others? If you’re a typical western journalist (or the usual left-of-center coloring), the answer is a big “well, du-uh.” Of course westerners are more important than non-westerners, and journalists are the most important of all. Here’s a typical example from the BBC website today, referring to the disappearance of two French journalists and an Italian journalist:

“An interpreter working for missing Italian reporter Enzo Baldoni has been found dead, raising fears that the journalist has been kidnapped.”

The interpreter — no doubt a mere Iraqi, and therefore not even worth mentioning by name — is in fact dead, but that’s only important because it raised fears that an Italian journalist had been kidnapped.

Home and Away

I am back home for a short while and racing over the weekend to get a billion things done for Cato University and other matters. (The new schedule and all the rest should be up on the website on Monday, August 23. The next seminar will be on “The Art of Persuasion” and will be held October 28-31 in the truly fabulous Chateau Frontenac in old Quebec City; it will feature practical workshops and presentations on the use of logic and evidence, public speaking, effective writing [e.g., letters-to-the-editor and op-ed essays in newspapers] and much more.) I will leave Monday evening for France to give a series of lectures for the Institute for Economic Studies, which will hold an instructional seminar in (classical) liberal thought and a Summer University.

Locke and Legitimacy

I’m ashamed to say that I’d never before read from start to finish John Locke’s First Treatise of Government. I finally got through it and learned a good bit. (I’d read the Second Treatise a number of times, of course.) It’s truly an astonishing demolition job on the crazy theory of absolute government offered by Sir Robert Filmer, a theory that has cropped up in various forms in the writings of contemporary socialists (notably G. A. Cohen). In addition to enjoying Locke’s rigorous demolition of a dangerous theory, I also gained a better understanding of the passage that is quoted by numerous socialists in support of coercive redistribution (First Treatise, Chapter 4, Section 42), which is a response to Filmer’s claim that, since God gave all the world to Adam, he (and his heirs, all eldest male sons of the eldest male sons) could deny all the rest of mankind the use of anything if they did not obey the commands (of Adam or his heirs) unconditionally. The point was not to argue for a right to redistribute from those who produce to those who don’t, but to argue that (Section 43), “tho’ God should have given Adam Private Dominion, yet that Private Dominion could give him no Sovereignty; But we have already sufficiently proved, that God gave him no Private Dominion.” The best answer to the threat of some person or group being sole owner of everything in the world (i.e., socialism) is not socialism or the welfare state, which simply creates the same problems, but what Locke and others called “property in severalty” or “several property,” which deprives any person (the sovereign) of the power to condemn to death
(through starvation) anyone who refuses obedience. Locke’s argument, which I’ve seen quoted out of context by socialists and welfre-rights advocates so often, is not an argument for socialism, but an argument against the version of socialism being advanced in his day, viz. the idea that the state (in the person of the sovereign, the king) enjoyed absolute ownership over everything in the country.

A Victory for Caesarism

It looks like a solid majority of Venezuelans who voted opted to retain a psychotic megalomaniac in office, on condition that he continue to loot the country and push it further and further into chaos and poverty. The recent rise in crude oil prices has allowed Hugo Chavez to spend wildly to buy votes and it’s worked. The country will have to descend further into chaos before the people decide to turn their backs on elective dictatorship and turn toward representative government based on democratic principles, the rule of law, and limited governmental powers.

The Joy of Liberal Friendship

I’m at the Mont Pelerin Society meeting in Salt Lake City and I have to say that it is a wonderful experience to renew friendships with intelligent and good people from so many countries, all dedicated to the establishment and protection of freedom among independent persons. Life can certainly be depressing when you let it, but few things can revive my spirits as much as meeting friends and colleagues from Iceland, Peru, Japan, Germany, Israel, Iraq, Canada, Mexico, Australia, the USA, Russia, and other countries, all dedicated to the simple system of natural liberty and to peace among free persons. And to have the opportunity to learn from brilliant scholars — people who have cut paths through the thickets of economics, history, law, and philosophy; that is pure joy.

Too Little Time To Blog...

Well, I’m barely keeping my head above water with all my projects. So that means little time to comment on the passing parade of human folly. I’m off on Saturday to the Holy City of Salt Lake for the Mont Pelerin Society meeting. I’m rushing to get the program and all done for the Cato University Fall 2004 seminar to be held in the spectacular Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City October 28 - 31. The theme is “The Art of Persuasion” and it will offer a series of practical workshops for people who want to win friends for liberty, rather than just “win arguments” (and thereby win enemies at the same time).

Back to California

I got back from California around midnight Thursday, got in to the office today, and head back to California on Saturday for the Freedom Communications meeting in the town I lived in in the only house my parents ever owned (for all of a few years): Huntington Beach. On my recent trip I managed to find it, after not having seen it for over thirty years, and of course it looked completely different. The family now there (how many times has it changed hands since I left?) had made changes, but also the trees were now huge (they were saplings when we moved in) and everything else looked smaller. (Surprise.) It was a rather sad experience.

The conference in which I’ll be taking part will be anything but sad, however, as I will have a chance to give presentations on “The Analytical Foundations of Journalism and Public Policy Analysis,” “The Struggle for Liberty under Law, 2300 B.C.E. to 1776 C.E.,” and “The History of the Theory of Individual Rights.” The second has been revised to include more on the Sumerian experience with limited government. I’ve included passages from the Epic of Gilgamesh and also material from Samuel Noah Kramer’s very interesting book From the Tablets of Sumer (The Falcon’s Wings Press, Indian Hills, Colorado: 1956). The trick is to fit a few thousand years into a few hours.

JUST POSTED: I’m in Huntington Beach again and still stunned at how completely unrecognizable the town is.

Beeeuuuutiful San Diego Weather

Just got in to San Diego for the start of the Cato University 2004 summer seminar. After sweltering heat and humidity in our nation’s Swamp (D.C.), the weather here is such a wonderful relief. The program should be fun, too, but I have to finish up introductory talk on “Liberty and Human Progress.” Back to work! More posting later, as I’ll have the occasional free three minute gap here and there.

Munich and the Alps

I’m writing this from the easyInternetcafe in Munich near the Hauptbahnhof. I took part in a program on education and research in Germany sponsored by the Council on Public Policy, a group that is doing much to revive critical thought in Germany. And tomorrow veerrryyyy early in the morning I’m off to Garmisch-Partenkirchen for two days of hiking in the Bavarian Alps. (And a brief yodelling refresher course.)

Back to the U.S. on Monday. I’ll miss the good beer and the excellent Bratwurst.