I did not know her as well as some of my colleagues, but on the few occasions that our paths did cross, I was impressed by her mixture of strength of character and elegance. My colleague Ian Vasquez has a note on the death of Nien Cheng.

Wollstonecraft (”Wolly”) Palmer in a Chat Chambre (she speaks French)

A friend, Bright Simons, who is a member of the AfricanLiberty.org team, is featured in The Economist article (September 24, 2009) “Beyond voice: New uses for mobile phones could launch another wave of development“:

Bright Simons, a Ghanaian social entrepreneur, has devised a phone-based system called mPedigree to tackle the problem of counterfeit drugs. Some 10-25% of all drugs sold are fakes, according to the World Health Organisation, and in some countries the proportion can be as high as 80%. Under Mr Simons’ scheme, which is being implemented in Nigeria and Ghana, a scratch-off panel on the packaging reveals a code which can be texted to a special number to verify that the drugs are genuine. Most mobile-health projects are still at the trial stage, but a report compiled in 2008 by the UN Foundation and the Vodafone Foundation documented around 50 such projects across the developing world. Studies are now under way to quantify their benefits.

Bright is a voice for freedom, prosperity, justice, and peace, not only in Africa, but around the world. He is pioneering ways to help Africans to avoid the misery and death attendant on poor enforcement of trademark laws, drug falsification, and criminal fraud. (I spent some time with him this summer, as he was a participant in several programs in which I was involved last month in France, including the European Resource Bank, the Summer University, a Liberty Fund conference on “Universal Values and Cultural Pluralism,” and an international meeting on strategies for advancing liberty.)

NOTE: Bright is also a teacher at the Students and Young Professionals African Liberty Academy in Ghana. Anyone who’d like to help to fund the work of AfricanLiberty.org or the Students and Young Professionals African Liberty Academy, please do write to me. I can get your donations directly to them.

Yes, if done according to the law. (Richard Nixon was certainly impeachable, and would have been impeached had he not resigned; the articles of impeachment were drawn up and voted by the House Judiciary Committee.)

Here’s the analysis in the case of the removal from office of the former Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, prepared by the Directorate of Legal Research of the U.S. Library of Congress:

Conclusion:

V. Was the removal of Honduran President Zelaya legal, in accordance with Honduran constitutional and statutory law?

Available sources indicate that the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya in a manner that was judged by the Honduran authorities from both branches of the government to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system.

However, removal of President Zelaya from the country by the military is in direct violation of the Article 102 of the Constitution, and apparently this action is currently under investigation by the Honduran authorities.

Hat tip: Daniil Gorbatenko

I learned today about the death of a decent and good person, Jim Thiel, the audio-engineering genius behind Thiel Audio, makers of technically advanced audio equipment far more advanced than I can fully appreciate with my tin ears. I knew him through his and his family’s support of freedom. He is missed by his friends, including many participants in Cato University seminars, and by his wonderful and warm family.

James Edward Thiel 1947-2009

Jim Thiel co-founded THIEL Audio Products of Lexington, KY in 1976, and the company has grown to become one of the most respected manufacturers of loudspeakers in the world. Jim’s passion for music and his interest in electronics can both be traced back to childhood, when he began a lifelong love affair with the piano and also began to build and repair radios and other electronic gear. His academic background in physics and mathematics along with his naturally creative and inquisitive nature led him to pioneer the principle of time and phase accuracy in loudspeaker design. Over the last three decades, Jim Thiel’s speakers have received countless awards from the most prestigious audio publications worldwide, highlighted by Stereophile Magazine having adorned the THIEL CS3.6 as one of the Hot 100 – a group of the most important and influential audiophile components of all time.

“Not only was Jim Thiel a supremely talented and inventive speaker engineer, he was one of high-end audio’s true gentlemen, a gentle man. Had we not been divided by the gulf between reviewer and manufacturer, I would have been proud to have counted Jim Thiel as a friend.” – John Atkinson, Editor, Stereophile Magazine

When THIEL would host their dealers for training events in Lexington, many remarked that their favorite moments were spent with Jim in his lab, where he would detail his complex work in friendly and digestible language. Jim was known to listen thoughtfully and challenge gracefully, and he garnered a deep level of respect and affection from those who worked at his company. His employees remarked that he was so genuine—he was always fair, kind and reasonable. Jim was a man of science, possessing a profound respect for individuality and personal freedoms.

“Anyone who dealt with Jim Thiel had to admire his integrity, his firm dedication to real-world engineering, and his equal concern that the end result sound as much like live music as possible. He was truly dedicated to advancing the state of the art in loudspeakers, and he made steady breakthroughs during his career without ever losing a sense of quiet modesty and being unwilling to listen to comments and criticism. Virtually every new design he created marked a further step forward in his personal approach to the absolute sound, and it is a real tribute to him that his last major design—the Thiel C3.7—was not only his best speaker yet, but is one of the most outstanding speakers ever made. Jim will be deeply missed for his qualities as a person, his integrity, and his constant search to perfect his designs. He exemplified all the best in the high end.” —Anthony Cordesman, The Absolute Sound

Jim would like to thank Dr. Mark Rosenberg who extended the length and quality of his life. Jim felt strongly that Dr. Rosenberg’s alternative approach to cancer treatment was viable and would like to encourage anyone challenged by the disease to learn more about Dr. Rosenberg’s work at www.newhopeforcancer.org. Donations in honor of Jim Thiel can be made to the Rosenberg Integrative Cancer Treatment and Research Institute at the above URL or to:

RICTRI
2512 North Federal Highway
Suite 105
Del Ray Beach, FL 33483-6147

Jim is survived by everyone who ever loved him and a legion of devoted THIEL fans around the world…

THIEL welcomes everyone to share their thoughts or memories of Jim at www.thielaudio.com

Millions of people around the world are alive because of the achievements of Norman Borlaug. Few of them will ever hear his name, even though many, many more will hear of George Bush and Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin and all the other expropriators with puffed-up egos who rule us, and who invariably claim for themselves all the credit for the work that was actually done by scientists, farmers, truck drivers, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, construction workers, and the other varied occupations of great societies. (Of course, by simply limiting their power — no easy task that! — and providing the rule of law, they help to make it possible for people to cooperate, and for the people to produce wealth. So they do have a role, but no more than clearing away obstacles created by their predecessors and creating frameworks for peaceful cooperation.)

The Daily Telegraph: Norman Borlaug

Don Boudreaux on Borlaug at Cafe Hayek: “Dark Green Day“

Rose Wilder Lane’s essay in the Saturday Evening Post from 1936: “Give Me Liberty” (originally published as “Credo”)

I was contacted by several people about the death of G. A. Cohen, to whose ideas I devoted a chapter of my book Realizing Freedom. (The chapter, originally published in Critical Review, is also available in a PDF form here.)

I’ll just make two points about Cohen here, as I believe it generally best (there are exceptions) not to speak ill of the dead. In a meeting in his office when he reviewed an early draft of the essay above, he admitted that I had found a serious flaw, but demanded to know (and demanded is the right word) what my point was: “Are you attacking the argument, or the conclusion?!” I said I did not understand the question. He answered, “Well, the conclusion does not follow from the argument, so which are you attacking?” I was rather flabbergasted, and replied that the conclusion of an argument is a part of the argument, not some separate thing. But that was not how he saw things, and it showed in his entire career. There are arguments, and there are conclusions. You attach yourself to a conclusion, and then you look for arguments that lead to it. That’s why he was an “analytical Marxist,” i.e., someone who agreed with what he took to be Marx’s conclusions, but who thought that the arguments by which Marx reached them were erroneous or fallacious, so his job was to come up with new arguments. If those didn’t work, you kept the conclusion and looked for other arguments. (In this case, however, despite acknowledging to me that his argument failed to reach the conclusion, he never acknowledged it publicly, but took some pains to lobby journals not to publish my critique, as was confided to me by editors of those journals.)

To get a sense of what kind of man he was, think a bit on this defense of the Soviet Union:

The Soviet Union needed to be there as a defective model so that, with one eye on it, we could construct a better one. It created a non-capitalist mental space in which to think about socialism.*

Millions had to die so that Cohen and his rich friends could enjoy “a non-capitalist mental space in which to think about socialism.” Words almost fail me. But not entirely. He should have spent his life begging forgiveness from all of the people who suffered from his pro-Soviet (he spent a good bit of his youth as a Soviet propagandist, which was essentially a family enterprise) and pro-Communist activities. He was no different than any old National Socialist who might have regretted that National Socialism wasn’t nationally socialist enough, but who enjoyed the “mental space” it created to construct fantasies of an ideal life.

I will merely point out that his attacks on charity and assistance to others is consistent, not only with his political philosophy, but with his personality and life.

*From p. 250 of his 1995 book Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), in which he strings together the “argument” that does not lead to the “conclusion” that property rights are unjustified.

Also posted at Cato@Liberty and the AtlasNetwork.

My friends David Beito and Linda Royster Beito have published an important new book, Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power (University of Illinois Press, 2009).

It was just reviewed in the Wall Street Journal: “Demanding Rights, Courting Controversy
A flamboyant civil-rights leader —doctor, orator, activist—finally gets his due,” by Mark Bauerlein. After noting that Howard has received much too little attention in the histories of the civil rights movement (”A flamboyant Second Amendment, ­anti-communist capitalist doesn’t please journalists and historians searching for civil-rights martyrs.”), Bauerlein notes,

“Black Maverick” … makes room for exactly such a figure, and rightly so. That Howard made an important contribution is unquestionable. Three months after the Till murder, he lectured in a ­Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., the guest of ­26-year-old pastor Martin Luther King. He spoke of shootings, the FBI and a ­freedom march on ­Washington, D.C. One woman in the audience remembered years later Howard’s vivid ­description of the Till killing. Her name was Rosa Parks, and four days after Howard spoke she answered a Montgomery bus driver, “No.”

In a Washington Post article about a potential candidate for the Supreme Court (”Supreme Court Prospect Has Unlikely Ally:Friendship With Thomas May Complicate Chances for Left-Leaning Georgia Judge“; registration may be required), the reporter informs us that a mere personal friendship between two judges may disqualify one from consideration for the Supreme Court. Why? Because the court is not seen as dispensing justice, but as “representing interests.”

But if the choice does turn out to be Sears, the nation’s first black president would be nominating someone whose closest friend on the court is the very person civil rights activists have accused of failing to represent African Americans’ interests.

That neatly tells us what is wrong with the approach to jurisprudence pioneered by theorists of positive rights, who have effectively replaced rights with interests, and even state that rights simply are interests. Judges, accordingly, are supposed to decide cases as representatives of interests, not on the grounds of justice. (I explore the issue in some depth in my essay “Saving Rights Theory from Its Friends” in my very soon-to-be-released book Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice.)

Rahm Emmanuel: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

Remember Paul Begala? “Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool.” Right. Exercising arbitrary power is kinda cool to those who have the power.

The only thing more disgusting than a Republican politician in power is a Democratic politician in power. And the only thing more disgusting than a Democratic politician in power is a Republican politician in power. After eight years of Republican subversion of the Constitution, erosion of the rule of law, needless and hugely destructive foreign war, run-away-spending, massive social engineering (”pump up those home-ownership rates through manipulation of financial and mortgage markets!”), and on and on, we get…more of the same. But at an accelerated rate.

Here’s to a great thinker!

Mrs Mugabe assaults our photographer outside her luxury Hong Kong hotel

Kleptocracy in Action.

Grace Mugabe, 43, known as the First Shopper of Zimbabwe, flew into a rage when she was spotted last week leaving the exclusive Shangri-La hotel in Hong Kong. She has been staying there with her entourage at a cost of £2,000 a day while her country endures poverty, hunger and disease.

Holding a Jimmy Choo-style bag estimated to be worth at least £2,000, and hiding behind Cavalli rhine-stone-framed glasses with a red cashmere shawl over her head, she ordered her bodyguard to attack the photographer, Richard Jones.

It’s worth a read.

Hat Tip: Pedro Sette Camara

I had read about the murder of the courageous Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickramatunga, whose paper (according to BBC reporter Alastair Lawson)

was closed down because it mockingly avoided censorship regulations by reporting the opposite of what had really happened.

At that time the army was in retreat and the northern Jaffna peninsula was close to falling to the Tigers. The paper avoided the censor by reporting that Jaffna was safe in the government’s hands and that the army was on the offensive.

That is not only brave; it is brilliant.

Until alerted and encouraged by a friend, I had not read his last editorial, which he wrote to be published after his murder. It is obviously the work of a great man, who could honestly state,

“As for me, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man.”

I recommend reading the whole editorial from his newspaper, The Sunday Leader: “And then they came for me.”

Hat Tip: Jude Blanchette

My older cat, Wolly, has been ill for two years with kidney problems, which are common for cats. She’s been in hospital a few times with crises (and is alive because she got better medical care than the vast majority of humans can access, which is a constant reminder of the importance of wealth creation) and I’ve had her on a regular program of infusions of liquids to increase the flow through her kidneys. I recently started her on Azodyl, a treatment that is intended to supplement the function of her kidneys. (There’s an explanation here.) I don’t know for sure whether it’s the treatment that’s responsible, but she’s much healthier and happier and she, at least, is convinced that it’s the pills. Anyone who’s given a pill to a cat knows it’s not an easy process. But Wolly thinks that the pills make her feel much better, so when I tell her it’s time for a pill, she comes over and sits on my lap and takes it. (And it’s a pretty big pill for a cat.)

If you have a dog or a cat with chronic renal failure, you should try Azodyl.

Helen Suzman, a champion of justice, 1917-2009.

(Here’s short BBC film clip about her.)

Senate seat for Caroline Kennedy would extend legacy

“Remember, [Clinton's] seat in the Senate was once held by Robert Kennedy,” CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider said Saturday. “Her other uncle, Ted Kennedy, is ill right now. If [New York Gov. David] Paterson appoints Caroline Kennedy to the Senate, it means there could be a Kennedy staying in the Senate for quite a long time.”

One good thing about the Obama victory: He’s not from a family accustomed to ruling people.

It was a terrible shock to hear of the death of Beth Hoffman. I had known Beth for years before becoming a trustee of FEE (for nine years). I had the pleasure of working with Beth when I wrote a few articles for The Freeman, and cooperated with her on a variety of projects, including getting copyrights on FEE materials for translation into other languages. It is hard to imagine her not being with us. She was always a warm and friendly presence, as well as a steady and ever reliable force for freedom. My sympathies go to her family, who have lost so much, and to the whole FEE family and the libertarian movement, who miss her deeply.

I encourage people who knew her, or even those who did not but who may be inspired by her story, to donate to the FEE scholarship fund established in her name.

I’m meeting with my colleague Diogo Costa, Editor of OrdemLivre.org, who just returned from a very successful trip through his native Brazil, where the Portuguese edition of Economic Freedom of the World report was unveiled at an international conference. (The print version will be in bookstores by the second week of December.)

Then it’s off to pack for London and a very full schedule of meetings, lectures, seminars, and more.

In doing some research for my paper on “Classical Liberalism, Morality, and Poverty” I re-read Thomas Babington Macaulay’s brilliant refutation of Tory paternalism, “Southey’s Colloquies on Society.” (If you want to read a definitive smackdown refutation, I recommend this as probably the best I’ve ever read.) I asked my friend Don Boudreaux for his ideas on Macaulay (I know Don’s a great Macaulay fan) and he mentioned that Walter Olson, another old friend, had written a great appreciation of Macaulay. A quick google search and there it was, a tribute both to Macaulay’s genius and to Olson’s exquisite command of the English language: “Confessions of a Macaulay Fan: The great liberal historian appreciated on his bicentenary.” Anyone interested in the work of one of the greatest historians and the greatest champions of liberty who ever lived should start with Wally’s essay. Enjoy!

(Macaulay’s entire The History of England from the Accession of James the Second can be downloaded as a PDF facsimile from Google Books. Or you can buy it here from Amazon.)