Category Archives: history

“Just say slavery.” “Slavery it is, sir!”

Posted on Tuesday, 2003 February 25 by Anton

Thomas DiLorenzo on the role of tariffs in the troubles of 1861. . . . when the Republican Party gained power in the late 1850s the top item on its agenda was to increase the average tariff rate from 15% [in 1857] … Continue reading →

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1861 and all that

Posted on Thursday, 2003 February 20 by Anton

Roderick Long writes in Shades of Grey (and Blue): To their joint discredit, both Union and Confederacy waged war against the principle of free association. Southern rebels claimed the right to exit the Union, but hypocritically denied slaves the same … Continue reading →

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with all due respect

Posted on Thursday, 2003 January 30 by Anton

This rant by Llewellyn Rockwell makes me curious: who was the last President to be booed while addressing Congress? I’d be surprised to hear that it has never happened, because the cult of the office was not so strong in … Continue reading →

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the way the future was

Posted on Tuesday, 2003 January 21 by Anton

Who is this Bill Walker? Fortunately, real life is too chaotic to predict via linear extrapolation. If Nero had tried to predict history with linear extrapolation, his picture of 2003 would have included: Imperial legions from the only world superpower … Continue reading →

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and then there’s the Rule of Five

Posted on Saturday, 2003 January 04 by Anton

Just found again, by chance, something that crossed my mind the other day. The author of The Bible Code responded thus in 1997 to the obvious criticism that you can find anything if you massage random data enough: “When my … Continue reading →

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Learned Hand

Posted on Thursday, 2002 December 26 by Anton

Could that guy turn a phrase or what? Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs … Continue reading →

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where was the battle of Waterloo?

Posted on Thursday, 2002 December 26 by Anton

A recent effort to measure the ignorance of college seniors included the question, “In what country was the Battle of Waterloo fought?” The ‘correct’ answer is Belgium, a state created 16 years later. Waterloo is in Brabant, which at the … Continue reading →

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