End the War on Freedom

Are you going to come quietly, or do I have do use ear-plugs? -- Spike Milligan in The Goon Show

From The Federalist:

I understand that this is only anecdotal, but when you get enough anecdotes, it is certainly worth considering. I am the commander for Army recruiting in a large metropolitan area. Only about 45% of those who take our entrance examinations score above a 50. The exams are exponential, in that a one-point difference (a 51, for example) indicates a much greater knowledge. A potential recruit for the Army MUST have a high score because of the technology requirements of today's Army. That said, one of our management tools is projecting how an applicant will fare on the test. Applicants who have been homeschooled ALWAYS pass the test ... [and] ALWAYS score above the 80th percentile. Since homeschoolers are such a small percentage of the population yet their mean is so far above average, it should give us pause for consideration.

No Treason Blog is a new weblog maintained by John T. Kennedy. Added to my links page in the "Weblogs" section. The parent site, No Treason!, has some good articles, but hasn't seen any new content, except Mr. Kennedy's piece linked to below, in almost a year. Glad to see some movement from another anarcho-capitalist. Welcome to blogging, John!

The Ferret 50 is a .50 BMG single shot that pins onto an AR-15 lower. $1500 for 18" barrel, $1650 for 29" or 36" barrel. From the FAQ: [ar15.com]

Do I need to alter my lower to use a Ferret50?

No permanent modifications are required. Simply remove the bolt stop, buffer and buffer spring, pin your Ferret50 on, and you're ready for action.

Is an FFL required to purchase a Ferret50?

No. It is classified the same as a normal AR upper.

Albany (NY) Times Union - Curbing smoking: State lawmakers should not settle for half-hearted restrictions on food establishments - The TU comes out for banning smoking in restaurants. I sent the following letter to the editor:

Smoke in Restaurants

On June 18, the TU's editors wrote that "State lawmakers should not settle for half-hearted restrictions on food establishments". Nonsense. New York's lawmakers have no authority to say anything whatsoever about smoking in restaurants.

Restaurants are private property. The owner of each establishment is the only person with the authority to decide whether smoking will be allowed, and, if so, whether there will be a separate non-smoking section. Some owners will choose to allow smoking and some will not. People who don't like a restaurant's smoking policy are free to eat elsewhere. Restaurants whose policies drive away too many customers will change or go out of business.

But the outcome matters not. Government may not overrule private property rights, no matter how many people vote for it. That they are in the habit of doing so doesn't make it right.

Bill St. Clair
New Lebanon

John T. Kennedy at Strike the Root - The Wrong Hill - Arguing against war is noble, but likely useless. Arguing that you may not be forced to participate in a war you don't believe in is a better hill on which to fight. I'll be looking at the video store for Shenandoah, the film Mr. Kennedy quotes from. [notreasonblog]

It doesn't matter if there is a right side in the war, neither side can have any right to require Charlie Anderson to participate in any way. This is the argument libertarians need to make, not that war is evil, but that it can never be moral to force others to participate. It will do no good to win the argument that a war is evil while implicitly accepting that it is legitimately a collective decision; that's the wrong hill. The right hill is the one where we reject the collectivist premise first.

John T. Kennedy at No Treason - A Porcupine's Worth Is His Price - in order to establish an anarcho-capitalist society, we don't have to defeat the socialists, just make ourselves too expensive to govern.

The lesson the porcupine teaches is that you don't have to be strong enough to defeat a predator to avoid being that predator's lunch. It suffices to be an expensive meal. Predators tend not to dine on porcupines because a serving of porcupine tends not to be worth the mouthful of quill that it costs.

War Without End? Not in Our Name is a site dedicated to resisting the U.S. War on the World, Detentions and Round-ups, and Police State Restrictions. The "Not in Our Name" project was launched on June 6 in many U.S. cities. Here is the Pledge of Resistance: [lew]

We believe that as people living
in the United States it is our
responsibility to resist the injustices
done by our government, in our names

Not in our name
will you wage endless war
there can be no more deaths
no more transfusions of blood for oil

Not in our name
will you invade countries
bomb civilians, kill more children
letting history take its course
over the graves of the nameless

Not in our name
will you erode the very freedoms
you have claimed to fight for

Not by our hands
will we supply weapons and funding
for the annihilation of families
on foreign soil

Not by our mouths
will we let fear silence us

Not by our hearts
will we allow whole peoples
or countries to be deemed
evil

Not by our will
and Not in our name

We pledge resistance
We pledge alliance with those
who have come under attack
for voicing opposition to the war
or for their religion or ethnicity

We pledge to make common cause
with the people of the world
to bring about justice freedom and peace
Another world is possible
and we pledge to make it real

Kate Connolly and Rory McCarthy at Guardian Unlimited - New film accuses US of war crimes - in Afghanistan. Can't say I'm surprised. [unknown]

James Vicini at Rense.com - Supreme Court Rules For IRS On Restaurant Tips - so now the infernals can "estimate" how much restaurant employees made in tips and force them to pay taxes on that amount without bothering about how much they really made. Sheesh. Shoot 'em. [grabbe]

Charley Reese - Conservative Or Blockhead? - Hey, Charlie, you're a libertarian, even if you won't admit it. [lew]

Some blockheads equate being a conservative with ardent support of any war, no matter how unconstitutional, unnecessary and unjust the war might be. A true conservative supports the Constitution and does not support anybody or anything that violates it. Some people have said there is a resemblance between America today and the Weimar Republic, which eventually produced Adolf Hitler. I think there is some truth to that comparison. There are an awful lot of heel-clickers who swoon with admiration for any politician willing to bomb some foreigners. These same people are more than willing to trade liberty (which they make little use of anyway) for security. That is not conservatism.

...

There has been a sea change in American politics since the end of World War II. Politics has move massively to the left. Today's nominal conservative would have been a liberal 60 years ago, and today's liberal is in fact a socialist or a communist in beliefs, if not in name. Americans have been stuck with a choice between advocates of total government and advocates of big government.

John R. Lott Jr. at USA Today - Armed citizens can defuse terrorist threat - Apprently written before Rabbi Lloyd chickened out. [kaba]

These Brooklyn Jews can point to Israel to counter such criticism. Israeli Police Inspector General Shlomo Aharonisky has repeatedly called on all concealed-handgun-permit holders to carry firearms at all times. In March, Israeli police announced they wanted to increase the number of Israelis carrying handguns by 60,000.

"There's no question that weapons in the hands of the public have prevented acts of terror or stopped them while they were in progress," Aharonisky says.

...

Given New York City's stringent gun-ownership rules, those who carry guns during the patrols are surely among the most law-abiding citizens. It takes six months or more to get a gun; so they hardly ran out and bought one right after 60 Minutes. Those who have a permit to carry a concealed handgun have had extensive police scrutiny. And despite Kelly's warning, it is lawful for city gun owners to carry their unloaded shotguns in enclosed cases.

Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - A Stay of Execution for the Death Tax - the fascists in the senate have let stand the theft of half your parent's money when they die. Fie on them. Fie.

Ultimately, the argument against the death tax is a moral one. People should not be punished for working hard, saving, and building wealth. Our society should respect the most basic property right, namely the right to dispose of one's property as one wishes. The American dream is based on making a better life for one's children, despite the empty rhetoric of the class-warfare politicians in Washington. Building wealth is not sinister, it is admirable. Our tax rules should encourage the decidedly American virtue of saving for the future.

Patri's World - Laissez-Faire City (10/28/01) - one man's experience with Grabbe's cyberspace community. [notreasonblog]

Ted Roberts at The Ludwig von Mises Institute - Markets Care; Governments Don't - and how! [notreasonblog]

Brewster Kahle's Internet Archive has finally released their archived web content to the public as the "Wayback Machine" (FAQ). Enter a URL, choose a date, and see the web as it was. Yes! [notreasonblog]

The UCSD P-System Museum - UCSD Pascal! Brings back fond memories of the LSI 11-23 system I had in my apartment in 1979. 4 MHz processor, 128 KBytes of RAM, 20 megabyte disk drive. Awesome! [cowlix]