Erecting Entry-preneurial Barriers

Business, Protectionism, Victimless Crimes
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The caption accompanying this NY Times article picture of a street vendor selling bottled-water reads “Many sidewalk peddlers are doing record business, though the city considers it against the law to sell water without a license.”

I think Brad Spangler’s timely Facebook status update expresses how one should react to this:

Note carefully that states will be glad to bust down doors, “sweep streets” and so on in order to combat the problem of child prostitution. What states will not do is stop making the only choice for many prostitution or starvation, by impoverishing the populace with taxes, regulation and the sclerotic choking off of economic opportunities other than prostitution.

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Tom Palmer on “The Case for Ordered Liberty Without States”

Anti-Statism, Private Security & Law
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Tom Palmer links to the written version of his 5 minute opening remarks at Mark Skousen’s FreedomFest earlier this month, “The Case for Ordered Liberty Without States.” Although he doesn’t like to use the term “anarchist” (see also Gil Guillory, Libertarians or Anarchists?), this is a nice short argument for the anarcho-libertarian position.

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Follow us on the new Digg

Admin Updates
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We’re on the new Digg. If you are too, you may want to follow us: http://new.digg.com/libstandard.

The new Digg allows us to import our blog feed, automatically digging each of our posts as they are published. You can follow other people and organizations just like on Twitter. This may just revitalize Digg and make it a personalized source of truly relevant news.

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The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism

IP Law, Libertarian Theory
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death throes of an archaeopteryxMy article, “The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism,” was published on Mises Daily today. Also published today on Mises Daily is a reprint of Wendy McElroy’s great, classic “Copyright and Patent in Benjamin Tucker’s Periodical Liberty.”

Updates:

Amusing: on the “Christian Pipe Smokers” site (hunh?), one guy links to my article and says “This is so beautifully written I had to share it.” Another replies: “Okay to be nice I started reading it. I got half way and wanted to blow my brains out. That was stupidly and poorly written. After getting half way I was lost having no idea what he was talking about. … If yer reading crap like this all the time it is no wonder your politics are screwed up.”

Also, mentioned in Where should anarchists stand on IP? (FreeDissent); my comment was:

Thanks for the plug, but correct, I don’t regard myself as a right-libertarian. I despise the right, and also the left. We libertarians are neither right nor left.

I’m nonreligious, pro-gay-marriage, pro-open-borders, pro-tolerance/cosmopolitan values, pro-drug legalization, anti-state, anti-war, and anti-IP. And I even like chardonnay. I am not sure how that makes me “right.” I doubt they would have me.

Also discussed on Freesteader.

And in an excellent post, The Decline of the Randian Influence on American Libertarianism?

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Why Can’t LeBron Get Any Love?

Business, Pop Culture
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“People who love only once in their lives are. . . shallow people.  What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.”~ Oscar Wilde

I have an admission to make:  I didn’t watch any of ESPN’s coverage of “The LeBron Decision.”  I don’t remember what I was doing, but it probably involved something on the order of importance of putting clean newspaper in a bird cage or trying to identify navel lint or trimming my pet’s toenails.  You know—big, important, relevant stuff.

That disclaimer aside, I find myself puzzled by the coverage LeBron’s decision has gotten after he made it.  Luminaries from across the entertainment and sports spectrum, including the august Bryant Gumble, have jumped on the LeBron-is-a-schmuck bandwagon.  (If you’re hoping to get a seat, I say move fast.  Bob Ryan might save you one, if you ask nicely.)   Charles Barkley has chimed in, as has Michael Jordan (MJ). Apparently LeBron embarrassed himself as he pandered to the excessive coverage.  (Actually, maybe he did.)  Gumble, speaking as part of the closing commentary of his HBO sports news magazine, accused LeBron, among other things, of being shallow and overly pre-occupied with winning.  MJ, ostensibly commenting on the fact that LeBron has “teamed up” with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh versus staying in Cleveland, supposedly said, “I would never have called Magic [Johnson] or Larry [Bird].” Really?

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