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Today is Milton Friedman Day honoring the 100th anniversary of his birth on July 31.

Kevin Williamson on Milton Friedman’s economics of love.

… The libertarianism of Rand … was based on an economics of resentment of the “moochers” and “loafers,” the sort of thing that leads one to call a book The Virtue of Selfishness.  Friedman’s libertarianism was based on an economics of love: for real human beings leading real human lives with real human needs and real human challenges. He loved freedom not only because it allowed IBM to pursue maximum profit but because it allowed for human flourishing at all levels. Economic growth is important to everybody, but it is most important to the poor. While Friedman’s contributions to academic economics are well appreciated and his opposition to government shenanigans is celebrated, what is seldom remarked upon is that the constant and eternal theme of his popular work was helping the poor and the marginalized. Friedman cared about the minimum wage not only because it distorted labor markets but because of the effect it has on low-skill workers: permanent unemployment. He called the black unemployment rate a “disgrace and a scandal,” and the minimum wage the “most anti-black law” on the books with good reason. He talked about two “machines”: “There has never been a more effective machine for the elimination of poverty than the free-enterprise system and a free market.” “We have constructed a governmental welfare scheme which has been a machine for producing poor people. . . . I’m not blaming the people. It’s our fault for constructing so perverse and so ill-shaped a monster.” …

Donald Boudreaux, econ prof at George Mason is next.

At the height of the Vietnam War, U.S. commander Gen. William Westmoreland testified before the President’s Commission on an All-Volunteer Force. The 15 members of that commission were charged with exploring the feasibility of ending the military draft.

Staunchly opposed to an all-volunteer military, which must pay its soldiers market wages, Gen. Westmoreland proclaimed that he did not want to command “an army of mercenaries.” One of the commission members immediately shot back with a question: “General, would you rather command an army of slaves?” That penetrating query was posed by Milton Friedman, a diminutive (he stood only 5 feet 3 inches tall) giant among 20th-century scholars. Were he still alive – he died in 2006 – Friedman would celebrate his 100th birthday on July 31. …

Stephen Moore has the honors for the WSJ. 

It’s a tragedy that Milton Friedman—born 100 years ago on July 31—did not live long enough to combat the big-government ideas that have formed the core of Obamanomics. It’s perhaps more tragic that our current president, who attended the University of Chicago where Friedman taught for decades, never fell under the influence of the world’s greatest champion of the free market. Imagine how much better things would have turned out, for Mr. Obama and the country.

Friedman was a constant presence on these pages until his death in 2006 at age 94. If he could, he would surely be skewering today’s $5 trillion expansion of spending and debt to create growth—and exposing the confederacy of economic dunces urging more of it.

In the 1960s, Friedman famously explained that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” If the government spends a dollar, that dollar has to come from producers and workers in the private economy. There is no magical “multiplier effect” by taking from productive Peter and giving to unproductive Paul. As obvious as that insight seems, it keeps being put to the test. Obamanomics may be the most expensive failed experiment in free-lunch economics in American history.

Equally illogical is the superstition that government can create prosperity by having Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke print more dollars. In the very short term, Friedman proved, excess money fools people with an illusion of prosperity. But the market quickly catches on, and there is no boost in output, just higher prices.

Next to Ronald Reagan, in the second half of the 20th century there was no more influential voice for economic freedom world-wide than Milton Friedman. Small in stature but a giant intellect, he was the economist who saved capitalism by dismembering the ideas of central planning when most of academia was mesmerized by the creed of government as savior. …

Erika Johnsen at Hot Air.

In these strange times of Obamanomics, populism, Keynesian revival, envy politics, big government, bureaucracy, regulation, and widely held belief in basic economic fallacies, the life and work of Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman is all that much more poignant. Though he passed away in 2006, today would’ve marked Mr. Friedman’s 100th birthday, and it’s always worthwhile to appreciate a voice like his that could cut through all of the baloney out there with such clarity and simplicity. If you haven’t read Capitalism and Freedom, get on it — it’s a quick and rewarding read that delivers more intellectual honesty than you can shake a stick at. …

Thomas Sowell

If Milton Friedman were alive today — and there was never a time when he was more needed — he would be one hundred years old. He was born on July 31, 1912. But Professor Friedman’s death at age 94 deprived the nation of one of those rare thinkers who had both genius and common sense.

Most people would not be able to understand the complex economic analysis that won him a Nobel Prize, but people with no knowledge of economics had no trouble understanding his popular books like “Free to Choose” or the TV series of the same name.

In being able to express himself at both the highest level of his profession and also at a level that the average person could readily understand, Milton Friedman was like the economist whose theories and persona were most different from his own — John Maynard Keynes. …

Bob Enlow, CEO of the Friedman Foundation, in National Review.

Exactly a century ago, the United States was a highly charged magnet for immigrants around the world. Thousands entered Ellis Island each day in the hope of making a better life for themselves and their families. Two of those immigrants were Jeno and Sara Friedman; they would become the parents of Milton Friedman, one of the most influential and important economists of the 20th century.Dubbed by the New York Times as the “grandmaster of free market economic theory,” Friedman in his writing — especially his 1980 book Free to Choose, authored with his wife, Rose — refuted popular claims that “more government” would improve the quality of our lives. Milton Friedman was the most ardent spokesperson advocating the complete opposite: Voluntary choices of individuals rather than arbitrary dictates of the state, he argued, should be the default mode of human life. Government is justified only insofar as it preserves, protects, and defends individual liberty. …

Pickerhead once got some tax advice from Dr. Friedman.

YouTube has many videos of Milton Friedman available. We have highlighted a few including the first episode of Free to Choose.

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We have heard about Nancy Black before. She is the whale watch captain who ran afoul of federal thugs. George Will has an update and more about the laws that wait to ensnare us.

The huge humpback whale whose friendliness precipitated a surreal seven-year — so far — federal hunt for criminality surely did not feel put upon. Nevertheless, our unhinged government, with an obsession like that of Melville’s Ahab, has crippled Nancy Black’s scientific career, cost her more than $100,000 in legal fees — so far — and might sentence her to 20 years in prison. This Kafkaesque burlesque of law enforcement began when someone whistled.

Black, 50, a marine biologist who also captains a whale-watching ship, was with some watchers in MontereyBay in 2005 when a member of her crew whistled at the humpback that had approached her boat, hoping to entice the whale to linger. Back on land, another of her employees called the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to ask if the whistling constituted “harassment” of a marine mammal, which is an “environmental crime.” NOAA requested a video of the episode, which Black sent after editing it slightly to highlight the whistling. NOAA found no harassment — but got her indicted for editing the tape, calling this a “material false statement” to federal investigators, which is a felony under the 1863 False Claims Act, intended to punish suppliers defrauding the government during the Civil War.

A year after this bizarre charge — that she lied about the interaction with the humpback that produced no charges — more than a dozen federal agents, led by one from NOAA, raided her home. They removed her scientific photos, business files and computers. Call this a fishing expedition. …

Kevin Williamson has more on law enforcement criminals.

This Houston Chronicle story is terrifying:

The phone rang before sunrise. It woke Craig Patty, owner of a tiny North Texas trucking company, to vexing news about Truck 793 — a big red semi supposedly getting repairs in Houston.

“Your driver was shot in your truck,” said the caller, a business colleague. “Your truck was loaded with marijuana. He was shot eight times while sitting in the cab. Do you know anything about your driver hauling marijuana?”

“What did you say?” Patty recalled asking. “Could you please repeat that?”

The truck, it turned out, had been everywhere but in the repair shop.

Commandeered by one of his drivers, who was secretly working with federal agents, the truck had been hauling marijuana from the border as part of an undercover operation. And without Patty’s knowledge, the Drug Enforcement Administration was paying his driver, Lawrence Chapa, to use the truck to bust traffickers.

This jackass DEA adventure has driven Mr. Patty to the edge of bankruptcy, and possibly toward an even worse fate: …

What if Washington thinks one of their meddlesome laws will hurt them? Jennifer Rubin has the story.

This is rich: One of the most meddlesome federal labor laws foisted on employers by Big Labor has now come back to bite the administration. The Post reports:

The deep federal spending cuts scheduled to take effect at the start of next year may trigger dismissal notices for tens of thousands of employees of government contractors, companies and analysts say, and the warnings may start going out at a particularly sensitive time:

Days before the presidential election.

By law, all but the smallest companies must notify their workforce at least 60 days in advance when they know of specific job cuts that are likely to happen.

Obama administration officials say that the threat of layoffs is overblown and that Republicans are playing up the possibility rather than trying to head it off. The Labor Department said Monday that it would be “inappropriate” for contractors to send out large-scale dismissal notices, because it is unclear whether the federal cuts will occur and how they would be carried out.

You see laws are optional in the Obama administration. If the immigration laws haven’t been amended, do it unilaterally. If the welfare rules require able-bodied recipients to work, just waive the law.

And if a federal law designed to protect workers from abrupt changes in their employment situation are inconvenient, why just “advise” employers not to follow it. And get sued by the employees? Most employers would say, “No way.” There are also state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN Act) requirements that the feds have no jurisdiction over.

The administration wants to have it all ways: Slash defense, take no heat for the layoffs and resulting downturn in the economy and make the companies look “political.” In fact, the administration should come to grips with the implications of its insistence on slashing defense. (“Economists say the threat of deep cuts in domestic and defense spending, coupled with automatic increases in taxes, is already a drag on economic growth and a source of enormous uncertainty for businesses, which are holding back on hiring and helping to keep the nation’s unemployment rate above 8 percent.”)

With any other administration, liberals would be hollering about an imperial executive and/or demanding the administration follow labor laws. But not this one. Civil libertarians and Big Labor long ago tossed aside principle; their sole mission is to reelect President Obama. Actually the same could be said of the entire administration.

David Harsanyi reminds us Obama once held the position Romney advocated in Jerusalem.

During his recent visit to Israel, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney commented that “it is a deeply moving experience to be in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel.” Somehow this declaration of fact has become controversial and a “gaffe.”

Needless to say, the Obama Administration took a shot at Romney’s foreign policy “fumbles.” And in response to the candidate’s innocuous declaration, White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest stated: “Well, our view is that that’s a different position than this administration holds. It’s the view of this administration that the capital is something that should be determined in final status negotiations between the parties.”

Funny, because when addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on June 4, 2008, as a Democratic presidential hopeful, Barack Obama said that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” Like Romney, Obama upset the perpetually upset Palestinian government.

Naturally, Obama later backtracked – or perhaps evolved — saying, “Well, obviously, it’s going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations” – which is nearly identical to the position Mitt Romney took this past week on the status of (East) Jerusalem. …

Max Boot defends Romney’s comments about Palestinian culture.

… In point of fact, there was nothing offensive–or particularly novel–in Romney’s observation. His words could have been drawn from the UN’s Arab Human Development Reports, written by Arab intellectuals, which have reached damning conclusions about the lack of freedom, education, women’s rights, and other factors holding back the Arab world. As the latest such report notes: “The Arab region is dominated by long-standing state structures which have inhibited the empowerment of Arab individuals and communities.”

The Arab Human Development Reports were considered big news when they first started coming out a decade ago because they represented a break with an age-old tradition in the Arab world: that of blaming outsiders for all of one’s woes. For decades Arab rulers, echoed by compliant intellectuals, have chosen to blame “Zionists,” “imperialists” and other bogeymen for their countries’ shortcomings. Thankfully, the Arab Spring represents a moment of self-awareness in which Arab publics are realizing that their own leaders are the cause of their woes. …

Boot expands on his thoughts about Palestinians.

Here is a follow-up to my item yesterday about Mitt Romney and his comments about Palestinian culture in order to clarify some of the debate swirling on Twitter and the Internet. I want to make a couple of things clear: I was in no way disparaging the entrepreneurial and educational achievements of the Palestinian people, whose record in building human capital is among the most impressive in the Arab world. Nor was I claiming that Israeli security restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip play no role whatsoever in retarding Palestinian economic development. Obviously, they do. But even here Palestinian culture (and institutions) are, I believe, ultimately to blame.

Israel is not restricting movement in and out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip because it wants to play the role of colonial occupier or believes it has a duty to rule the benighted Palestinian people. The vast majority of Israelis are happy to give up any claims to rule in the West Bank or Gaza Strip and to acknowledge the Palestinians’ right to statehood. Indeed, in 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak was willing to cede upwards of 95 percent of the West Bank, part of Jerusalem, and the entire Gaza Strip to Palestinian rule. As we know, Yasir Arafat refused to take the deal.

Why? Much of the explanation may be found in Arafat’s character: shaped by a “resistance” struggle, he was unwilling to beat swords into ploughshares and become the president of a small, impoverished state with little claim on the world’s attention. But part of the explanation can also be found in the Palestinians’ dysfunctional political culture which they share in common with much of the Arab world–a culture that elevates grand gestures (such as “resistance”) over mundane realities such as improving economic life, and a culture that is so deeply impregnated with anti-Semitism it is simply unimaginable for most Palestinians to give up the “right of return” and truly accept they will never win back by force the land now occupied by the “Zionists.” Arafat was said to fear that if he actually gave up the struggle, he would not be long for this world, and he may have been right–look at the fate of Sadat. …

Ed Morrissey says you can’t make it up. The Dems are going to put Elizabeth Warren front and center at their convention. Talk about doubling down.

It’s not quite as good as getting the keynote slot, which will instead go to San Antonio mayor Julian Castro, but for Republicans, it’s pretty darned close to perfect.  Democrats gave Elizabeth Warren the prime-time slot just before Bill Clinton will officially nominate Barack Obama to be the party’s candidate in the November election, which means she may get even more viewers and attention than Castro in the keynote position. National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar wonders what Democrats are thinking: …

Next up at the Dem convention will be Bill Clinton. Erika Johnsen of Hot Air quotes Britt Hume on that:

The convention role being given Bill Clinton is proof that President Obama is in deep trouble and he and his political handlers know it….

… Add to that the Rasmussen survey in which voters by 62 percent to 30 said economic growth was more important to them than economic fairness. Fairness, of course, is a major theme of Mr. Obama and his party. With his attacks on Mitt Romney’s business record and his repeated and unsubtle appeals to elements of his party’s base, Mr. Obama is clearly shooting for a big Democratic turnout in November.

But Gallup reports that the number of Democrats who say they are more enthusiastic about voting this year is at 39 percent, down from 61 percent four years ago. 51 percent of Republicans, meanwhile, said they are more enthusiastic this year, that is up from 35 per cent in 2008.When you put all this together with the continuing bad news on the economy, you know why Mr. Obama is suddenly reaching out to Bill Clinton.

This is a distress call. …