Liberty Books

This is Buchanan's earliest book. Its main contribution is the debunking of the notion, prevalent at the time of publication and perhaps still, that government debt does not constitute a burden on taxpayers. Buchanan demonstrates that it is not the bondholders but future taxpayers who bear the cost of today's public expenditures. Bondholders are eventually repaid their invested principal plus interest, and they bought the bonds voluntarily because in their opinion it was the most appropriate investment from the entire range of investments available to them. The voluntary nature of their lending suggests they are better off not worse off, and thus they could hardly be deemed to be bearing a burden. Since bondholders will eventually be repaid from the proceeds of future taxes, it is future taxpayers who pay for today's public expenditures insofar as they are debt-financed. It makes no difference whether the debt is held internally (domestically) or externally (by foreign entities). Buchanan was not the first to make this argument (he credits classical economists such as Henry C. Adams, Charles F. Bastable, and particularly the Frenchman Paul Leroy-Beaulieu), but considering the "we owe it to ourselves" nonsense that was fashionable at the time, Buchanan's exposition was clearly warranted.

Although Buchanan is a libertarian thinker, his rationale here is not one of small government being superior to big government. He argues that not having to face the financial consequences of our spending decisions leads to distorted cost/benefit analyses: "[T]he real cost of public expenditure which is debt financed must rest on individuals other than those who participate in the social decisions made at the time of the approval or rejection of any proposed expenditure...This destroys the individual comparison of benefits from public expenditures and the costs of these expenditures which is possible in the case of taxes...If any individual benefits at all are expected to accrue currently from a proposed public expenditure, the individual when making his choice between the public debt-public expenditure and the no debt-no expenditure alternatives will always tend to favor the former over the latter. In such cases, the choice processes usually embodied in democratic institutions cannot be expected to provide correct decisions, upon any criterion of correctness. The individual chooser cannot fairly compare benefits and costs" (pp. 119-120).

All in all this is a terrific slim volume that makes for an indispensable first read in the study of the topic of public debt finance, along with Democracy in Deficit, volume 8 in the Buchanan Collected Works series, and, better yet, Debt and Taxes, volume 14 in the series.

Dr. Winnubst's latest work should prove to be an excellent, eye opening experience for anyone interested in what we mean when we call ourselves "free," or even what we mean when we say "I." Using several eariler philosopher's works about experience and identity, Dr. Winnubst deconstructs the myth of the automonous individual, independent of such fundamental considerations such as race, gender, economic status, and sexual orientation. Further, she argues that the myth of the autonomous self has been established for the sake of those who benefit from social injustice, what Dr. Winnubst calls "phallisized whiteness." She continues by offering how we can proceed while accepting our aspects of race, gender, wealth, and the like as inseparable parts of ourselves.

Dr. Winnubst shows clearly that she has confidence and authority in every field she approaches, from common and classical concepts of freedom to the philosophy of race and gender and psychoanalysis. Anyone who has encountered the philosophers who she cites will see their direct influence in her theories; however, Dr. Winnubst grounds her views as much as possible in original arguments. Nevertheless, anyone unfamiliar with her sources will not be left behind since Dr. Winnubst, showing her teaching experience, provides concise but proficient explainations of her citations. This book seems to welcome anyone willing to invest the time and energy to struggle along with the text, much in Bataillian fashion, to better understand what makes us ourselves.

Pam Parson did it again! She wrote such a moving piece of work that I am encouraged to move on in my walk of faith, using her characters as my guide. I enjoyed every chapter, every page, every intriguing episode. I do hope that Mrs. Parson will continue to write to give us both the reading enjoyment with strong characters like Kate, Collin, Jack, and Sadie, as well as a spiritual boost to aspire to a higher calling in Christ, just like they lived. All I can say is thank you, Pam Parson!!!

Reach For the Stars and Read is a wonderful collection of fun and thought provoking poems for children. They are delightful. I have heard the cassette tape and the songs are ones children will like learning to sing-along with the words of the poems in the book. Everyone with children should buy this book and songs to accompany.

Jamieson certainly does not shy away from controversy in Real Choices; this text is bound to rankle everyone from conservatives to old guard feminists still stuck in an "equality at all costs" mode of thought. Setting out to prove that equality and expanded liberty for women are not mutually exclusive aims, Jamieson ultimately succeeds in presenting scenarios where the law can move towards respecting individual freedoms and identities while creating a more level playing field for women. Jamieson is a talented writer, not given to the pretension and convolution that so often pervade academic works, and she even demonstrates a sense of humor on occasion; both qualities make for a pleasant reading experience. The work itself manages to integrate a myriad of contemporary feminist and legal works, but is carefully organized and well footnoted. Overall, Real Choices is an interesting read, an important illustration of how far feminism has come since the days of Dworkin/MacKinnon, and where the movement is heading in the 21st century.

I don't remember when I have finished reading a book and felt like I learned as much as I learned from this incredible book. As far as I can find, Daniel Dreisbach is a little known author who has written about a half dozen books on religious liberty and the First Amendment. I do not understand why Mr. Dreisbach is not a more acclaimed author, as his writing style is succinct, his research is exhaustive, and his conclusions are infallible.

Dreisbach himself gives an apt description of this book in the opening paragraph of his Conclusion chapter, when he writes;

"If only one conclusion emerges from this study, it should be that history can be, indeed has been, used and misused by strict separationists and nonprefentialists alike. The religion clauses are particularly susceptible prepossessions in the guise of historical interpretation. Sadly, the Supreme Court has been one of the chief abusers of the historical record."

The book first examines the battle of intentialist versus nonintentionalist theories of judicial interpretation. The author gives sound evidence from both Jefferson and Madison, two founders' whose views have been perverted greatly by the judiciary, in defense of the intentialist theory. Here a precedent is set for the author to follow throughout the book, where he continues to use similar instances of how history has been perverted and distorted to support the views of nonintentialists or nonpreferentialist or even strict separationists.

Much attention is given to recorded material, which has been largely overlooked or omitted by the judiciary. For example, Mr. Justice Black singled out Jefferson's Revisal number 82 in his opinion in the famed Everson case, but failed to mention Revisals 83-85 which called for protecting the property rights of the Anglican Church (no other church was protected), a blue law bill which also called for prohibiting disturbing citizens in the peaceful expression of their religion, a bill for appointing days of public fasting and Thanksgiving, and finally a bill which called for the recognition of Biblical (Levitical) Law.

The end result, Dreisbach succeeds in soundly rebutting the views of strict separationists such as Leo Pfeffer, Hugo Black and others. This is the best book I have read on the subject of the First Amendment and religious liberty, and there have been many good volumes written. Then again, this is not a book that you can "read' per se. This is a book that must be studied as the text makes up only half of this volume. This book has an incredibly extensive notes section and a bibliography that is unbelievable. I have already added about a dozen "must reads" to my reading list from this fine work.

I cannot recommend Dreisbach's book highly enough. This must definitely added to the essential reading list of anyone wanting to learn more about how Jefferson's "Wall of Separation" metaphor has been distorted and abused, and how our federal judiciary has used selective views of history to support their conclusions, rather than using all-inclusive views of history to reach their judicial decisions.

I found this little known book completely by accident. I have had on my reading list, another book by Dreisbach called Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State. I found this earlier work by Dreisbach referenced in another book and decided I should read his earlier work first. I'm truly glad that I did and will order other books by Dreisbach immediately.

Monty Rainey
www.juntosociety.com

I've read many books on small business startup and entrepreneurial guides to success, but this book is by far the best I've ever read on the subject. Edward K. Frank comes at you from a different angle. He not only shares his business successes but he shares his business failures and tells of how to avoid them. He's been there. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is considering starting a business as well as anyone who may need a motivational boost to get started. The book can even help those who have failed in small business start again. A truly wonderful book by an incredible man!

Geoffrey Brennan and James M. Buchanan's The Reason of Rules develops the notion that rules are needed for "reconciling the behavior of separately motivated persons so as to generate patterns of outcome that are tolerable to all participants" (p. 7). Simple-majority-rules democracy, while intuitively the best political system thought up by mankind, unfortunately still leads to some questionable outcomes. In the short term, elected officials may crank up tax rates because it will increase their revenues, even though in the long run it will also drag down economic activity. In the short term, elected officials may issue government debt to finance their expenditures, even though in the long run this leads to a government sector that is far larger than citizens would want it to be if they actually had to pay for those government expenditures.

To combat such deficiencies, the authors propose that we add constraining rules to our political system. Such rules should not be added at the statutory level, because here people tend to vote based on their short-term interest, which is what leads to the shortcomings of democracy in the first place. Instead, these rules should be at the constitutional level, since in the long run people are less driven by how a law affects him or her today than by how laws make for good policy for the country as a whole.

Economically, the reason why individuals agree to impose behavioral constraints (rules) on themselves is that they do so as part of an agreement, or exchange, under which other people agree to do the same. The arrangement is reciprocal rather than unilateral. Politically, the reason why individuals agree to be governed, even though in doing so they forfeit a degree of personal liberty, is the benefits from public goods and services they expect to receive in exchange.

Before the authors published their argument, received thinking was that the fairness of rules is evaluated by a notion of justice that is independently determined (how is not always clear, and has shifted over the centuries). The authors argue instead that rules are what is needed to define justice in the first place, which in and of itself is another reason for rules.

The book's argument is persuasive because it drills the analysis down to the level of decision making by individuals: institutions (such as governments) do not make choices. Instead, the individuals who populate those institutions (such as voters, politicians, bureaucrats, etc.) make choices, and unless we consider what it is that motivates these individuals, the analysis is incomplete.

The book was written in response to criticism to a previous collaboration, The Power to Tax, volume 9 in the Buchanan Collected Works series, but can be easily read on a stand-alone basis. It is one of the earlier publications of a branche of public-choice theory called constitutional political economics, hence its subtitle. The year after its initial publication, co-author James Buchanan would earn the Nobel prize in economics for his contribution to the development of public-choice theory.

With the keen judgment for which she is so well known within law and society circles, Barbara Young Welke has produced a compelling and engaging work centering on the restructuring of the notions of liberty in the American polity from the end of the Civil War to the Progressive Era that will attract a wide audience. "The era of steadfast commitment to American ingenuity and independence," according to Welke, "was replaced by the era of ordered liberty, liberty assured through restraint" (4). It was through the injuries that women often suffered alighting from trains and streetcars that "the transition from an outmoded ethos of a nation of free men to one that recognized the reality of human vulnerability" occurred (124). Those familiar with her seminal articles, "When All the Women Were White, and All the Blacks Were Men: Gender, Class, Race, and the Road to Plessy, 1855-1914" (winner of the ASLH Surrency Prize) and "Unreasonable Women: Gender and the Law of Accidental Injury, 1870-1920" will be deeply satisfied with this monograph that couples her earlier analysis of gender, race, and class with the development of the modern regulatory movement. Thoughtfully argued and gracefully written, Recasting American Liberty is a valuable contribution to the Cambridge University Press Historical Studies in American Law and Society series which includes works from many outstanding scholars such as Tony Freyer, Andrew Cohen, Michael Grossberg, and David Rabban. Welke's analysis forces the historical community to reconsider the ordering of social relations, institutions, individual identity, and power arrangements within American society. As Welke notes, "Railroads and streetcars transformed accidental injury from unconnected, individual events into a shared American experience, a shared discourse of injury, suffering, and human vulnerability" (80). Welke brings historical depth and philosophical perspective to her narrative and, as a result, truly furthers the understanding of the law of accidental injury, the law of nervous shock, and the law of racial segregation. The traditional subsidy and economic theories of tort law that dominate legal literature say little about "whether individual liberty was increased or decreased by the methods companies adopted to prevent alighting injuries: enclosed cars, gates, pneumatic doors, and limited, marked stops" (105). Recasting American Liberty thoroughly enriches the literature surrounding the impact of the railroads on American society.

Book with information, history, photography and maps on the Manzanar National Historic Site for those who wish to learn about and visit. Never mind the haters and the lamers, an important book about an important subject and place often dismissed and ignored, which is part of American and Californian history, and any and all can benefit from visiting here if they keep an open mind and heart. This guidebook is helpful for those who travel alone or with a group. Many participated in the culmination and production of this book over time, including many of the original internees of the original Manzanar camp when it existed during wartime as well as many who were interned in other camps during World War II in the United States. Beautiful book compiled and printed on parchment with many black and white photographs and illustrations, as well as maps, histories and tours laid out to experience. I thank my good friend who is one of the chief curators of this book and member of The Manzanar Committee for the introduction to it, and for spending meaningful quality time with them there. I look forward to my next trip to Manzanar. :) 10/10