You have arrived at my brand new blog, Overton’s Arrow.
My name is Carl Oberg and I am currently a MA student of Economics at George Mason University here in Virginia. I am also currently wrapping up a summer internship at the Cato Institute this month and will return to full-time schooling in September. I am in the middle of a drastic career change, having spent the last decade as a defense contractor drone and Middle East specialist at the U.S. Department of Commerce. I graduated from American University in 1997 with a BA in International Studies. I also have a MA in International Commerce & Policy from GMU.
I try to be a passionate advocate for liberty. This blog is an effort to turn that passion into a physical (or at least virtual) manifestation that can accomplish some outreach. It might even get me paid at some point. You will find that future posts will range from philosophical concepts like natural liberty to the more political and economic concerns of international trade and public policy.
The blog takes its name from Richard Overton, a proto-libertarian pamphleteer during the English Civil War, and one his most important tracts “An Arrow Against All Tyrants.” Overton was the a central member of a group known as the Levellers, radical (for their time) believers in an expanded franchise, equality before the law, and religious toleration. They expressed freedom in terms of property in a time before the works of John Locke making them particularly forward-looking.
I hope this blog will be a continuation of that pamphleteering tradition, striving at all times for an economic concern for efficiency but also a moral concern for freedom. Again, welcome and I hope you enjoy my writings.
