Wirkman Virkkala – Page 2 – The Libertarian Standard

Mises on the Beach

(Austrian) Economics, The Left, Vulgar Politics

By Wirkman Virkkala / July 3, 2011 / 1 Comment / 3 minutes of reading

When Michelle Bachmann confessed to taking the writings of Ludwig von Mises with her on vacation, I assumed she used the august Austrian economist as a soporific — not because Mises isn’t worth reading, or not exciting to read (I can’t tell you how my heart pounded when I first unleashed myself onto The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science), but because Bachmann has never said anything to suggest a scholarly or subtle mind, the kind of mind best suited for pleasure in reading Mises.

But a Salon writer, Andrew Leonard, has proven himself less dismissive of Bachmann than I. He, knowing nothing of Mises, set out to read Human Action. His conclusion? Well, he didn’t get very far into the book. But he did get far enough to tell us what he found. After reading a few chapters, he was struck by
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Death Comes for the Philosopher

History, Vulgar Politics

By Wirkman Virkkala / June 13, 2011 / 4 minutes of reading

Though John Hospers was never my hero, he came close. Now he’s dead, like most of the other philosophical writers I admire.

He died yesterday, a few days into his 94th year.

Since I grew up in one of the two states of the union in which his name appeared on the ballot for the U.S. Presidency, I must’ve come across his name in that year of 1972. But it didn’t stick. The renegade electoral college voter, Roger MacBride, who cast his ballot for the Hospers/Nathan Libertarian Party ticket, did leave an impression four years later, with his direct-to-the-camera spiel following the Democratic Nominating Convention.

That was probably my first notice of the word “libertarian” alone and naked, not prefixed by “civil.”

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The Whelps of Tiger Moms and Irish Setter Dads

Education

By Wirkman Virkkala / March 31, 2011 / 3 minutes of reading

Amy Chua, the Tiger Mom phenom, has finally received an apt check and mate from P.J. O’Rourke, in The Weekly Standard. Proclaiming himself an “Irish Setter Dad,” he finds the perfect use for the new Chua tome:

I gather Ms. Chua is a total bitch with her children, making them finish homework before it’s assigned, practice violin and piano 25 hours a day, maintain a grade point average higher than Obama budget numbers, and forbidding them from doing anything they might enjoy, such as exhale.

But being a male parent with a typical dad-like involvement in my children’s lives?—?I know all of their names?—?I thought Battle Hymn was great. That is, I thought it made me look great. Not that I read the dreadful book, but I did buy each of my children a copy and inscribed it, “So you think you’ve got it bad?”

The driving, manic Tiger Mom ethic — Always Excel in Academics and Music — is not only an anti-hedonic prescription for misery and resentment, as O’Rourke relates, it is also, he says, quite self-defeating:

Amy Chua, I’ve got bad news. “A” students work for “B” students. Or not even. A businessman friend of mine corrected me. “No, P.?J.,” he said, “?‘B’ students work for ‘C’ students. ‘A’ students teach.” Teaching in the Ivy League gives you a lot of time off, Amy?—?enough to write a crap book, worse than Yale prof Erich Segal’s Love Story.

This is hyperbole, of course, but there’s a germ of truth here.

Alas, O’Rourke takes his argument one step …

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