Alan Charles Kors – Freedom Dinner 2009 Keynote from Atlas Network on Vimeo.

Still reads well: “Why Socialism Collapsed in Eastern Europe”

(I gave it as a lecture at a Cato University summer seminar on political economy in California during the summer of 1990, after having spent a good bit of 1989 and 1990 in Central and Eastern Europe.)

An excellent piece on how a tyranny crumbled: “Filming a Revolution”

Conny Rakow on her memories of the opening of the Wall.

It’s in German, but this short film the message of this little film should be clear to all.

The talk in Oxford was fun. Really smart students and a delightful conversation.

Now to something deadly serious:

I hope that people will visit the new Free Kareem website and take note of how urgent the situation is for him. It is painful to think of his suffering for merely writing some blog posts.

This is very important to everyone who values liberty and who thinks about the innocent victims of power.

News about Kareem’s trial todayOctober 20th, 2009

As we reported earlier, the decision of September’s appeal was meant to be announced today. However, it has been postponed until the 22nd of December. In the meantime, Kareem will remain imprisoned despite his innocence.

We are extremely upset by this discouraging news, as his trials are consistently delayed, causing him to remain in prison for much more than he should be, even though he already completed 3/4th of his sentence.

Please tweet this news by using the #FreeKareem tag. Express your outrage at this gross human rights violation. Kareem must be freed!

BBC: “Turkey, Armenia to restore ties”

Arguing over the nature or magnitude of crimes in the past is not necessarily a bad thing, unless it gets in the way of peace and freedom. It’s time for the people of Turkey and Armenia to discuss the past openly, through private discussion and through the institutions of civil society, and for their governments to make peace and allow peaceful exchanges among their people.

From FreeKareem.org: “Decision of today’s appeal will be reported on the 20th of October”

The Egyptian government could end this torment and abuse by releasing Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman. You can help.

New York Times: “Cuban Court Upholds 2-Year Sentence for Protester”

A Cuban appeals court upheld a two-year prison sentence for ”public dangerousness” against a man who became an Internet celebrity after his drunken rant about hunger on the island was captured by a film crew.

His crime: “imploring the camera about how Cubans are going hungry in a country where the communist system is supposed to provide for all citizens’ basic needs.”

Hat Tip: Emmanuel Martin

BBC: “Venezuela rivals march in Caracas”

Opponents were also angry at the government for shutting dozens of radio stations last month.

More were expected to be shut, Infrastructure Minister Diosdado Cabello announced on Saturday.

“Another 29 will be gone soon,” he told a pro-Chavez rally, Reuters reported.

Washington Post, 1/September/2009: “Gun Owners’ Next Victory in D.C.,” by Robert Levy

Associated Press: “Mexico decriminalizes small-scale drug possession“

From the FreeKareem.org website:

Kareem’s final appeal

You can write to the Egyptian Ambassador to help his case. Please be polite and respectful.

More information available at www.FreeKareem.org. I wrote about the case in 2007 here and here.

Takis Michas is a very brave Greek journalist who is not afraid to point out the idiocies of extremist nationalism and xenophobia and their awful consequences, especially in the Balkans.

He has suffered quite serious death threats for pointing out the craziness of threatening war over the name of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and now he is being sued for pointing out the presence of Greek nationalist paramilitaries in Bosnia during the Srebrenica massacre. Here’s an interview with him on the case on the website of the Congress of North American Bosniacs: “Greek journalist sued for writing about the presence of Greek paramilitaries in Bosnia”

More on the case from the Srebrenica Genocide Blog.

The text of the legal filing in the case in which I’m a plaintiff to vindicate the right to bear arms in the District of Columbia.

CBS Correspondent Declan McCullagh on the CBS Blog: “New Gun Rights Suit In D.C. Tests 2nd Amend Limit”

The legal sponsor is the Second Amendment Foundation.

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.”

Here’s an excerpt from my talk opening this year’s Cato University.

I think that Radley Balko basically gets the issue right: “‘The Henry Louis Gates ‘Teaching Moment’”

The conversation we ought to be having in response to the July 16 incident and its heated aftermath isn’t about race, it’s about police arrest powers, and the right to criticize armed agents of the government.

Two Azeri youth activists, Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada, one of whom (Emin) I met last year, were recently attacked in a restaurant, then arrested when they went to the police to file a complaint. The men who attacked them were released (guess who they almost certainly work for) and the two who were attacked are may be charged with “hooliganism,” which carries a punishment of 1.5 years in prison.

Respectful letters can be sent to the Azerbaijani Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Emin is a well known advocate of non-violence, so it is especially ironic that charges would be brought against such a clearly pacific person.

BBC: “Gay sex decriminalised in India”

The position of the Roman Catholic Church is disagreeable, but compatible with civilized treatment of others:

Father Dominic Emanuel of India’s Catholic Bishop Council said the church did not “approve” of homosexual behaviour.

“Our stand has always been very clear. The church has no serious objection to decriminalising homosexuality between consenting adults, the church has never considered homosexuals as criminals,” said Father Emanuel.

“But the church does not approve of this behaviour. It doesn’t consider it natural, ethical, or moral,” he said.

I disagree with the priest’s views about sexuality, nature, ethics, and morality, but in a free society, we tolerate the beliefs of others, no matter how odd or eccentric or unfounded, so long as they do not use force. As members of a great society, the leaders of the Catholic Church could have done better: they have agreed not to object to liberty (rather than endorsing the freedom, while criticizing the behavior), when they should have been insisting on liberty, just as I would demand liberty for them to preach their views without any hindrance. Freedom is a fundamental right for everyone — those who disagree with us no less than those who agree with us.

The response of one (and I should note that that does not mean that it is the view of all) Indian Muslim was very different. Note the strangeness of referring to the repeal of a prohibition as itself a law that he would not “accept”:

The head cleric of Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque, criticised the ruling.

“This is absolutely wrong. We will not accept any such law,” Ahmed Bukhari told the AFP news agency.

Does that mean that he will go and punish with force gay people on his own?

Here is the legal decision.

P.S. Sorry for the slightly garbled version first posted. I was rushing to write it in the Mexico City Airport and then had to go to board my flight.

“President, Murderer, or Both?,” by Constantino Diaz-Duran