I recently visited the local hotbed of activism, my dry cleaners. While picking up a stack of clean shirts, I noticed their new sign: “Read Banned Books.” As a libertarian, I was inclined to say “right on!” After all, the free exchange of ideas is the first line of defense against tyranny, hence ranking the First Amendment first. So, what is a “banned book,” who banned it, why was it banned, and where can I get one?

If a ordinary storefront is able to advertise banned books, why aren’t they prosecuted? Who is the inept agency in charge of enforcing the banned book statute? Shouldn’t there be penalties for possessing these banned books?

In fact, no book is banned in the US, and there is no law banning any book. Even The Turner Diaries, the book credited with inspiring the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, is openly advertised on Amazon with no restrictions or warnings. So, sleep well, those who feared book bans were overturning The First Amendment and reanimating Hitler (Mein Kampf is Amazon’s 5,270th best seller). There is no such thing as a banned book in this great country.

“Banned books” is actually the name of a movement sponsored partly by the American Library Association, or ALA. They sponsor “Banned Book Week” where they highlight the plight of banned books throughout the prior year. Since none of the 175 million books ever published is actually banned in the US, the ALA has expanded its reach to include “challenged books.”

OK, so “Banned” was a tease, but what is “Challenged?” The ALA compiles a list of incidents where people have demanded that a book be removed from a school reading list or a high school library. Sadly, nothing by Al Gore has made this list yet.

For example I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou, was removed from the required reading list for 14 year olds in Annapolis MD. Apparently the chapters depicting rapes were too much for some parents. Or, Fayetville, AK removed The Homo Handbook: Getting in Touch With Your Inner Homo from its high school library. Dreadful assaults on liberty.

Now, the Library of Congress holds 32 million books, but the Denver Library holds less than 2.5 million. Does that mean Denver bans 90% of books? Of course not; Denver has only so much money and space for its book collection. No serious person would accuse DPL of being book burners or censors.

Since the Fayetville school libraries also can’t hold 32 million books, why then are they evil censors for dropping The Homo Handbook? The answer, of course, is that the ALA doesn’t want any input into the books it chooses to stock with taxpayer money.

When the ALA decides what book is best, given limited resources, that’s fine. When a taxpayer or parent demands oversight of how his money is spent, that’s censorship. All this is symptomatic of the elite’s sense of entitlement to dictate consumption for the commoners. The ALA thinks it is entitled to funding without responsibility or oversight, which aptly describes the NEA and PBS as well.

Not content to defend their own turf, the far left also attack the rights of their ideological enemies. The left has targeted right wing talk radio, for instance. Even though the elite left own NPR and PBS, which reach nearly every citizen caffeinated enough to listen, the likes of Nancy Pelosi seek to silence dissent in the name of fairness. Pelosi, of San Francisco, seemingly can’t stand that someone in Kansas doesn’t share her refined taste in bias.

So, the next time you whiff petuli and turn around to see a messenger bag with a “Read Banned Books” button, relax. The right to publish and read whatever you want is alive and well. If you still sense danger, it might just be the real censor and enemy of The First Amendment, the House Speaker from California.

Not many free market libertarians would call Jesse Jackson a hero, but it’s time to consider that label. His impolite comments about Sen. Barak Obama are actually a cause for celebration. Sure, Jackson calls Jews “hymies,” and Obama the dreaded “n-word,” but the underlying frustration in his remarks shows that he is giving up, which is the real good news.

Jackson is, of course, the worst sort of identity politics demagogue. His constant MO is to identify a successful, highly public company and shake it down – primarily for his own benefit. By organizing a boycott against such evils as Coca Cola, he extracts a few hiring and labor concessions for African Americans, but also massive donations to his organizations. He even receives “consulting fees” from potential victims for advice on how not to have him boycott their companies. Through his shakedowns and also government support, Jackson lives a lavish life.

How does Jackson get away with this, decade after decade? His power to extort comes from the fact that the Black vote is the most reliable block for the Democratic Party. Expect 95% + of the Black vote to go Democrat in 2008. In 2004, Democrats were very troubled because only 89% of the Black vote went their way. Such unanimity is unheard of anywhere else and leads to the adage “Republicans ignore the Black vote and Democrats take it for granted.”

Since Jackson stood by the assassinated body of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the assumption was that “black leaders” spoke for this block vote. MLK and Jackson were both left wing political figures who worked for unions and Democrats (in the case of Memphis, the sanitation workers). If Jackson was pro-union, then his voting block of millions was presumed pro-union too. Since blacks vote as a block, the reasoning went, there was no need to look past the views of “black leaders.”

Times are changing, and smart politicians like Obama know it. Since Jackson became the “black leader” of the United States, private sector union membership has fallen from about 30% to 7.5% of the work force. Recent polls suggest that African Americans generally do not support the Democratic Party’s position on many social issues such as gay marriage and school choice. African Americans are more church friendly than the Democratic Party, which is seeking to ban prayers at its 2008 convention in Denver.

In other words, the Black vote is becoming more like all other demographics, a mix of issue driven votes along with some sense of identity. The same thing happened with the Irish vote and the post-Civil War White Southern vote. Eventually, a sense of identity can’t keep a voting block together when issues act as a wedge.

Obama sees this and is talking up some very un-Democratic concepts like personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is, of course, a poison to old school “black leaders” like Jackson. Someone who is responsible for himself and his family hardly needs Jackson to shake down another investment fund. A self-realized person who has built up his career is beholden to nobody, especially people like Jackson. A self-realized person might even vote for the politician that supports lower taxes, school choice, or 2nd Amendment rights.

Here is why Jackson hates Obama. Jackson sees him driving a wedge into the Black identity block. Obama, no doubt, is willing to concede a few percent of the relatively small Black voting block to gain a few percent of the larger vote by appearing modern and reasonable. Jackson calls this “acting like he’s white” and “talking down to black people,” but Obama probably calls it acting presidential.

Now for the part where Jackson is a hero, but with a twist. Jackson abdicated his “black leader” crown by wanting to castrate Obama and dropping the n-bomb. Jackson has clearly shown that he represents the narrow past while Obama is the wide open future. Jackson is a “black leader,” and a one trick pony, while Obama is a broad based politician that appeals on many levels.

No matter how bad someone is, stepping down from a position of evil power is heroic. As the dust of history settles, Pinochet will be remembered for relinquishing power to the benefit of his country, but Chavez, Mugabe, Castro, and most other dictators will be remembered for clinging to power as their countries suffered. It’s the end game that counts most.

Either Jackson is an unpolished fool or he has, albeit bitterly, given up his conceit of speaking for every African American in the US. This blog will go with the latter and congratulate the Reverend for seeing the light.

If you haven’t already seen his TV ads, check out www.pickensplan.com. That is the web site of T. Boone Pickens Jr.’s plan to save the USA from its oil addiction. Pickens has used his considerable market and media savy to generate PR in such places as the Wall Street Journal Op-ed page for his big plan to save us from oil. Sadly, it’s based on a few half truths and is largely self serving. There’s only space for one of these today, though, the $700bln half truth.

Pickens calls the purchase of $700bln/yr in foreign oil “the largest wealth transfer of wealth in the history of mankind.” Transfer of wealth? Not hardly. A wealth transfer is when Bob Mugabe confiscates farm land for his cronies. A wealth transfer is when Robin Hood takes from the rich. A wealth transfer is when a parent leaves his property to his children. A wealth transfer is a one-way deal.

$700bln/yr for foreign oil is an open market trade. The Sauds get dollars and the US gets oil. The transactions are voluntary. Is the deal fair? It’s very fair and the US gets the long end of it.

Economically, the US is among the most energy efficient countries in the world (behind Singapore, but they don’t spend much on heat). Wait, doesn’t the US consume 5 times more energy per capita than average? Yes, but the US generates more than 5 times the wealth per capita than average. The US does more with its energy to create wealth, and wealth means longer, happier lives.

The Gores of the world want us (but not themselves) to live in smaller houses with less heat and generally do with less. But they don’t seem to realize that large heated houses and comfortable lives are part of the drive to succeed that generates the innumerable inventions and benefits that are made in the USA. In short, the energy the US consumes is in good hands and works to benefit the world. The US is not an oil addict. The US uses energy very efficiently to drive the strongest economy in the world, so if you are tired of the oil guilt trip, feel free to disembark.

So, sorry Mr. Pickens, it’s not a wealth transfer. Should the US build nuclear plants, drill for domestic oil, and research new technologies? Sure, that’s the future. Just don’t pretend oil imports are bankrupting the US in order to fish for more government subsidies for your wind farms.

T. Boone Pickens is the real addict here – addicted to Uncle Sugar.