Saturday, January 20, 2007

On "Break" (Ha!) for a While


The new semester begins again in two days -- always a very busy time for me. Then I'll hurry of to Italy, for the "Conference on Equal Respect" at La Universita di Pavia, not to return until Sunday the 28th. So I won't be able to post anything new for a while.

Although I am the conference participant who is coming from the greatest distance, the schedule for some reason has me speaking first. Assuming I don't miss my own session, I'll be talking for 1 1/2 hours having gotten virtually no sleep the night before. Pray for me, oh my brothers and sisters!

While I'm gone, I recommend you take a look at Ilana Mercer's post on the genocide in South Africa. Also that you follow the link in my comment on that page. Interesting question: Why on earth is this horrific and long-standing series of events going virtually unreported? That's not a rhetorical question. I really don't know.

Also recommended: Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State, by Goetz Aly, formerly Hitlers Volkstaat, just came out in English translation. It presents what I already strongly suspect is the best single explanation for Hitler's apparent successes: his state was one of the purest kleptocracies ever! I have my copy, you should get yours! $32.50, pp. 431.

In a lighter vein, the estimable Grant McCracken has an interesting post on his idea that "touchy selfhood" may be a precondition of freedom I have a comment on that one too. Take a look!

Added later: As I leave for Italy, I notice that Hugo Chavez has been granted the "right" to create laws by decree in Venezuela, via an "Enabling Law" that sounds to me very much like the "Enabling Act" that made the democratically elected Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany. He also announced that he will seek the abolition of a law limiting how many terms he may serve as President. The purpose of these measures, he said, is to advance the country's "march toward socialism." It's as if the gods have devised yet another experiment to test Hayek's hypothesis that socialism and democracy are incompatible. (Note that by "socialism" Hayek meant what Chavez means by it. He was not referring to sedate capitalist welfare-states like Sweden.) I expect it will result in yet more confirmation, but such confirmation is not something any person of goodwill wants - or, in many cases, needs.

The brutally stupid foreign policy of the US continues to push the rest of the world to the left!

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