…to Crete, then Athens, for lectures and meetings. I’m looking forward to meeting some of the Greek libertarians with whom I’ve corresponded over the years.

I’m in Beijing….hoping to get some sleep before some morning meetings and then a trip to the airport for some long flights to the US and A. In the meantime, here are a few pics from some lectures I gave on this trip. (The last three pictures are from the Northeastern University in Shanyang, China.)

Meeting at Japanese for Tax Reform, Tokyo

Alumni Meeting of International Academy of Freedom in Manila

University of the Philippines

Introducing the Ideas of the Levellers at the University of the Philippines

I just finished a rather exhausting day — 6 lectures and then an evening of very active sports and “team building” exercises — at the Northeastern University in Shenyang, not too far from the North Korean border. It was quite a lot of fun. (I gave talks on trade, economic development and property rights, and the roots of the financial crisis.) Then it’s off in the morning to Beijing to meet a number of people. (I was in Manila [a few links here: 1, 2, 3] and Tokyo before China.) Asian libertarianism is on the move!

Michael Gerson in the Washington Post, “For the GOP, a risky wave to ride or turn back”

In America, the ideology of libertarianism is itself a scandal. It involves not only a retreat from Obamaism but a retreat from the most basic social commitments to the weak, the elderly and the disadvantaged, along with a withdrawal from American global commitments.

Libertarianism has a rigorous ideological coldness at its core. Voters are alienated when that core is exposed.

Our response in today’s Washington Post:

Michael Gerson ["The GOP rides a risky wave," op-ed, July 9] described libertarianism as “a scandal” because it “involves . . . a retreat from the most basic social commitments to the weak, the elderly and the disadvantaged.”

That is, he charged libertarians with a “retreat” from a welfare-state philosophy that is at odds with America’s heritage and with basic principles of limited government. Moreover, he charged libertarians with wanting to change policies that have not served the weak and the disadvantaged well because they encourage weakness and long-term dependence.

Libertarians warn that to continue down the current road leads to the Greek crisis, in which the cruelty of making commitments that can’t be kept is revealed.

Gerson also charged libertarianism with “rigorous ideological coldness.” He considers reason, arithmetic and a realistic assessment of what those “commitments” really mean to be “cold.” That says more about him than about libertarianism.

It might be kinder and gentler to try the Founders’ vision, the libertarian vision, of a limited state that provides a framework in which we can all enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Tom G. Palmer and David Boaz

The Francisco Marroquin University in Guatemala, which is a real world leader in online education and media, has just released the full Hayek interviews organized by Armen Alchian of UCLA after Hayek’s Nobel Prize in 1974. The interviews are searchable and you can quickly and easily jump from place to place. Congratulations to UFM for this achievement. (And I’m pleased that I had recommended for an academic internship at UFM this last year one of the people who worked on it, Alex Weller of Penn State.)

My colleague Jude Blanchette and I had a very fruitful meeting with some remarkable Japanese libertarians this evening. More meetings tomorrow!

I also discovered earlier today an interesting review from July 11 of this year of Realizing Freedom. I had the pleasure of being able to discuss the ideasa with the author of the review this evening; he had read my book in an Amazon Kindle edition….on his iPhone; now that is dedicated.

The poster for my upcoming talk at the University of Santo Tomas:

Palmer 2 Poster

My opening remarks (limited to no more than 5 minutes!) on the case against the state at FreedomFest: The Case for Ordered Liberty Without States

Just got in to my hotel in Tokyo. Very exhausted after the FreedomFest and then the travel!

I’m off to Las Vegas for meetings, for FreedomFest, where I’ll debate on the question of “Anarchy vs. Limited Government” and sign copies of Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice for Laissez Faire Books (which has the lowest price, in case you haven’t bought a copy!), and then head off to Japan, Philippines, China (for meetings and a conference on “Austrian economics” in China), San Diego (for Cato University!), Athens, and Crete. Maybe I’ll see you along the way!

From America’s Finest News Source:

WASHINGTON, DC—A Gallup/Harris Interactive poll released Monday indicates that nearly nine out of 10 Americans are “tired of having a country.”

According to study organizer David Griffith, poll respondents were surprisingly uniform in their opinion that the nation is too much of a hassle.

“I already belong to a health club, a church, and the Kiwanis Club,” Tammy Golden of Los Angeles wrote. “I’m a member of the Von’s Grocery Super Savers, which gets me a discount on certain groceries. These are all well-managed organizations with real benefits. None of them send me a confusing bill once a year and make me work it out myself, then throw me in jail if I get it wrong.”

HT Larry White, via HT to Matt Zwolinski

Libertarianism in Japan!

The full text, translated from French into Arabic, of “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen” is now available online: “ما يرى وما لا يرى”

The French text is available here (in full facsimile) and here (as html), and the English here.

Congratulations to my colleagues at Minbaralhurriyya.org (The Forum of Liberty), a project of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. Bastiat is coming out in a lot of other languages, as well, as part of our “Bastiat Legacy” project: AtlasNetwork.org/BastiatLegacy, which includes short videos on themes dear to Bastiat (also translated into numerous languages), essay contest, seminars, summer schools, and more.

The referendum is about to begin in Kyrgyzstan, to choose a new constitution which, despite its flaws, will put greater limits on presidential power and, it is hoped, avoid authoritarianism and promote civil peace. Young people around the country, organized by the Central Asian Free Market Institute and similar civil society groups, are working to promote peace and suppress hatred, revenge, and violence. The shirts (see below) say on the front “I Want Peace in Kyrgyzstan” in Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Russian, and on the back, “One Homeland! One People! One Future!,” also in Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Russian.

The libertarians in Central Asia are planning to open an office in Osh, as well, to promote peace, liberty, and limited government in the area that has seen so much deliberately provoked violence by people who prefer force and power to persuasion and freedom. It’s not too late to make a modest donation to make that possible. (Ten dollars actually buys something there, and no donation is too small.) Click here for the information. We’ve already raised a few thousand dollars, enough to pay to open the office and equip it, just from Facebook and a few notes, mostly in small donations. Every penny helps!

Peace Activists at the Office of the Central Asian Free Market Institute

Some Faces of Friendship

Getting Ready to Distribute Peace Shirts to Kyrgyz Young People

“We are brothers and sisters, we are children of our beautiful land. We call all of you, kyrgyzstanis, to tolerance and peace, compassion and solidarity. We have to prove to everyone that we are united. Our friendship and brotherhood unites us! And we do not tolerate any more bloodshed, tears and suffering in our land. Protection of our country is our civic duty. Developing and maintaining friendship of peoples is the sacred duty of every person. We love our Kyrgyzstan. It is our home, our future, our homeland!”

We are Kyrgyzstanis!

If you want to support this campaign for peace and freedom in Central Asia, click here. Tax deductible donations can be made online to the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and 100% will be sent to support the work of libertarians in Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia who are working tirelessly for peace, liberty, justice.

The libertarian student movement is growing! The ELSS will be held August 25-28 in Brussels and will bring together serious libertarian student-organizers from around Europe for workshops, strategy sessions, and lots of opportunities to share experiences, learn skills, and advance a Europe of liberty.

www.eurolibstudents.com

CAFMI Executive Director Mirsulzhan Namazaliev at 2009 Cato University

Kyrgyz libertarians are leading a series of coordinated voluntary efforts to provide emergency aid to the victims of the vicious attacks of the last few days in their country and to promote peace throughout the nation and the region. I’ve been in regular touch with our friends there, and on Tuesday evening I talked to Central Asian Free Market Institute (CAFMI) Director Mirsulzhan Namazaliev by Skype, as he was interrupted by a stream of volunteers working late into the night in the CAFMI offices. He made their resolution clear:

“We are helping those who are suffering, but we are doing more. For me personally this is not only a fight for life. It is a fight for freedom. We don’t want to be ruled by any authoritarian Central Asian or Russian regimes that would exploit this awful violence. The violence we are suffering is a provocation designed to generate chaos and to overturn the chance for a constitutional regime. We will not stand for it. We want peace, we want freedom, and we want a lawful government.”

I was in Kyrgyzstan just last month to work with CAFMI and with the new acting minister of economic development, my friend Emil Umetaliev, a founding member of CAFMI’s board of directors. (CAFMI was founded by two Cato graduates, former Cato intern Seyitbek Usmanov and Cato University graduate Mirsulzhan Namazaliev.) There was guarded optimism about the country’s future, after the corrupt and increasingly authoritarian regime of Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in an uprising after he tried to suppress demonstrations with deadly force. But there was also fear of Bakiyev’s machinations, especially after the revelation of a recorded cell phone conversation between his son, Maksim, and his brother Janybek (who had given the orders to shoot protesters in April), in which they clearly plot violence to derail a new constitutional process and regain power, even proposing how many “fighters” to hire, arming them with iron bars and other implements, and how much to pay them to launch attacks. The recording was chilling. And with the money they looted from the country, they found the thugs to launch attacks on both Uzbek and Kyrgyz villages, in order to spark revenge attacks. Their plans bore fruit this month, as hundreds were murdered, homes and businesses were burned, and between 80,000 and 100,000 people were made refugees.

As Namazaliev put it to me, “We will not stand for it.”

CAFMI Volunteers Load Supplies to Deliver to Refugees

CAFMI’s staff and volunteers are almost all under 25. Few have backgrounds in defense or security. But they immediately put the talents they do have to work. CAFMI volunteers worked with others to solicit, gather, and deliver humanitarian assistance for the thousands of people – mainly mothers and children – who had been driven from their homes, and to create a message of communal peace – of Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Russians, Uighurs, Tajiks and others who were standing together for peace and against murder and hatred. They called together teams of computer experts, technological wizards, social networkers, and activists to build an umbrella coalition: “I Want Peace in Kyrgyzstan” –“Мен Қирғизистонда тинчлик бўлишини истайман!” in Uzbek, “Мен Кыргызстанга тынчтыкты каалайм!” in Kyrgyz, and “Я хочу мира в Кыргызстане!” in Russian.

I Want Peace in Kyrgyzstan -- in Three Languages

Some Peace Graffiti (this one in English)

The “I want Peace in Kyrgyzstan” campaign has five coordinated elements:

1. Use cell phones, databases, and the internet to organize volunteers effectively and to create and disseminate maps (using Google Maps and other techniques) to guide deliveries of aid to victims and to help people to avoid areas in turmoil, burning buildings, and road blocks and ambushes set up by thugs.

2. Create a modern campaign for peace in three languages (Kyrygz, Uzbek, and Russian) – with a brand, a logo, street graffiti, slogans, t-shirts, stickers, leaflets, hand-written letters from children, radio interviews and public announcements, text messages, and other means to calm tensions and promote peace. Representatives of the various ethnic groups appear together to pledge peace and to build the rule of law and freedom together.

3. Combat disinformation and misinformation that might fuel ethnic hatred and violence, and respond rapidly to malicious rumors and hate campaigns before they bear their evil fruit.

4. Contain the spread of reprisals and hatred throughout Central Asia, by providing reliable information to media, helping to combat ethnic smears and suppress revenge attacks against minorities in other countries, and quickly rebutting calls in nearby countries for military intervention into Kyrgyzstan, which carries the very real danger of regional war.

5. Create a “Peace Room” (not a “War Room”) in CAFMI’s Bishkek offices to be open 24 hours a day to coordinate the collection and dissemination of information. Volunteers in the Peace Room utilize cell phones, social networking sites, twitter, text messages, phone trees, and more and monitor mass media constantly. The CAFMI office is now fully staffed with volunteers and working around the clock.

The young volunteers and staff of CAFMI are donating their time, risking their lives, and contributing their scarce resources, in a country with a per-capita income of about $2,100. If you’d like to stand with a group of very brave, very determined, and very committed libertarians to stop the violence in their country, provide emergency aid to the victims, avoid regional war, and lead the region to peace and freedom, you can send a tax-deductible donation to the Central Asian Free Market Institute (CAFMI) through the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, which has provided support to CAFMI. Please write to Erin.Grant@AtlasNetwork.org and 100% of your donation will be dedicated to CAFMI’s work in Central Asia. Even small donations will help. It would be a decision you would not regret. (You can follow CAFMI’s work on their Facebook page and Namazaliev writes in Russian and in English on NewEurasia.net, Twitter, and other media. He covered the April uprising against Bakiyev’s authoritarian regime in The Independent and was quoted frequently by CNN and many other news organizations.)

Volunteers Collecting Donated Supplies in Bishkek Neighborhoods

CAFMI Volunteers After Days of Loading Donated Supplies at Manas Airport to Send to Victims of Violence in Osh and Jalalabad

My interview on Fox Business while here in Berlin. (It’s a part of a whole program on Milton Friedman’s legacy.)

I’m in Berlin (Potsdam, actually) for a conference on dealing with the problems involved in measuring freedom and coming up with some measurement system. Last night I did a television interview in Berlin for John Stossel’s show on Fox Business. It will air Thursday at 8 p.m. and 12 midnight, Saturday at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., and Sunday at 10 p.m. (all times eastern).