Author: Whatfinger Editor

Photo Credit:Image: Zink Dawg via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0. Zink DawgDespite the unhinged warnings of climate alarmists, 2025 is turning out to be one of the least stormy, and coldest, years on record.

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Photo Credit:Karol (Charles) de Prevot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons WikiA UCL lecturer recently narrated how Jews “kidnapped and murdered” an Italian priest to obtain “drops of blood from someone who’s not Jewish” for mixing into “special pancakes or bread” during the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles.

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Out of the American Revolution emerged a unique political ideology or system of belief – republicanism. Whether Anti-Federalist or Federalist, Democratic-Republican or Federalist, Democratic-Republican or National-Republican, Democrat or Whig, this vision lay at the center of Americans’ beliefs. It remains today the root of what we as a people believe. Political debate then, as now, centers upon who has remained most true to this vision. Republicanism was a political outlook centering upon the themes of liberty versus power and civic virtue versus political corruption. The main lesson of republicanism was that a virtuous citizenry preserved its freedom by keeping government…

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I was born (a few months before the Crash) at 4:20 PM on February 11, 1929, in the Crotona Park Hospital, the Bronx, New York. My mother: a pert 20-year-old, my father, 26, a bon vivant. Both were homegrown New Yorkers, and I would be an only child. From a poor family, Goldie was eldest of four. The youngest of three, Max was doted on by his parents and sisters. He would remain “spoiled” his entire life. My paternal grandfather earned $10,000 per year as a designer of women’s clothes. Actually, with sketchbook in hand, he shopped the show windows…

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Compiling this list was a difficult task. There were many excellent books published during the past ten years, and it’s hard to select twelve as the best. All of the following, though, are outstanding works. They are not listed in any order of merit 1. John Attarian, Social Security: False Consciousness and Crisis. By far the best analysis of Social Security. Attarian argues that the government acts to create a false consciousness that Social Security is insurance; in fact, benefits rest entirely at the discretion of Congress. The author warns against “privatization” plans that will increase government spending. 2. Thomas…

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DIGG THIS Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution — and What It Means for America Today. By Thomas J. DiLorenzo. Crown Forum. 2008. 245 pages. After you read the dedication of Hamilton’s Curse, you know that the book is going to be good: “Dedicated to the memory of Professor Murray N. Rothbard, a brilliant scholar and tireless defender of the free society.” DiLorenzo proves to be an outstanding practitioner of a Rothbardian brand of history, a fact that should come as no surprise to readers of his earlier books, The Real Lincoln, Lincoln Unmasked, and How Capitalism…

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Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed. By Christopher C. Horner. Regnery, 2008. Viii + 407 pages. An audio version of this review, read by Dr. Floy Lilley, is available as a free MP3 download. Those of us who refuse to accept calls from proponents of global warming for drastic restrictions on production often confront objections like this: You skeptics, blinded by fanatical devotion to the free market, ignore evidence. True enough, you can trot out a few scientists who agree with you. But the overwhelming majority of climate scientists view…

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David Gordon is Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute and Distinguished Columnist at LewRockwell.com. He is also author of Resurrecting Marx and An Introduction to Economic Reasoning and editor of numerous books including Strictly Confidential: The Private Volker Fund Memos of Murray N. Rothbard. Send him mail.

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Killing in War. By Jeff McMahan. Oxford University Press, 2009. Xii + 250 pages. Jeff McMahan has written a genuinely revolutionary book. He has uncovered a flaw in standard just-war theory. The standard view sharply separates the morality of going to war, jus ad bellum, from the morality of warfare, jus in bello. Whether or not a war is just does not affect the morality of how war is to be conducted. Soldiers are forbidden to violate the laws of war; but no greater restrictions are imposed on those who fight in an unjust cause than on those whose cause…

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Where Keynes Went Wrong And Why Governments Keep Creating Inflation, Bubbles, and Busts. By Hunter Lewis. Axios Press, 2009. Vi + 384 pages. Defenders of Keynes, such as the recent convert Bruce Bartlett, often claim that he supported capitalism. (Bartlett’s The New American Economy has this as a primary theme.) His interventionist measures had as their aim not the replacement of capitalism by socialism or fascism. Rather, it is alleged, Keynes aimed to save the existing order. The unhampered market cannot by itself recover from a severe depression or at best can do so after long years of privation and…

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DIGG THIS Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country? Edited by Roderick T. Long and Tibor R. Machan. Ashgate, 2008. Xi + 196 pages. An MP3 audio version of this book review, read by Dr. Floy Lilley, is available for download. Libertarians of course believe in the free market; if you find someone who favors the government provision of medical care or education, e.g., you know immediately that he is not a full-fledged libertarian. But how far can one take the free market? Can it handle absolutely all the essential services of society, including defense and justice? Here…

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DIGG THIS Burt Blumert was one of the closest friends of Murray and Joey Rothbard, and it was in that connection that I met him in 1979. As he often did, he had invited the Rothbards to dinner and I was fortunate enough to be included as well. It was immediately apparent that Burt was a remarkable person. He knew almost everyone important in the libertarian movement, as well as in the hard money community of which he was a leading member. In his conversation, his sparkling wit was always apparent: he had an inexhaustible repertoire of funny stories. His…

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