End the War on Freedom

"I hope that someday you Bush lovers would ask your boss how he intends to defend our borders by shipping our soldiers overseas on hunting and fishing expeditions. While we are busy imposing a democracy we do not have, upon others who never asked for it, I would think some foreign power just might take notice of the fact that there's no one left on these shore to defend this asylum. " -- faem.com

Semen makes you happy. That's the remarkable conclusion of a study comparing women whose partners wear condoms with those whose partners don't. -- New Scientist

Capt. Steve - From The Sandbox XIV - some hopes for the America back to which one Iraq war pilot hopes to return. Amen. [kimdutoit]

So many of you have written to let me know that my colleagues and I are in your prayers; that you ask for our speedy and safe return. At the risk of seeming ungrateful, I ask you to pray for something else. Pray that when we bring home victory, it will be to a nation based on liberty, on the belief that the government that governs least governs best. Pray that we bring home victory once again, to a nation that is worthy.

Sierra Times - Fighting Terrorism - Montana Style - a real anti-terrorism bill passed by the Montana legislature. [patrick]

(1) The people of these United States are exhorted to participate individually in the war on terrorism.

(2) The participation of individual people in interdicting acts of terrorism should be both passive, such as being observant, and active, such as individual acts of contention and interdiction against any terrorists attempting to commit a terrorist act.

(3) Individual people participating in the prevention of acts of terrorism must not be prevented from having at hand the tools necessary for such prevention, especially firearms, by the federal government, any state or local government, or any subdivision of these governments.

(4) Individual people assisting in prevention of terrorist acts must be exempted from criminal and civil liability arising out of such preventative acts, according to established and standard doctrine for allowable uses of lethal force.

(5) Medals and citations of award should be created to honor and reward individuals who materially serve their country by preventing any act of terrorism on United States soil.

I sent the following letter to Unknown News. It will likely appear tomorrow on their discussion page.

As I said near the beginning of the "discussion" on the so-called "separation of church and state", we'll just stand in our corners and talk at each other and no one will budge an inch. So I won't talk about it any more. It's a waste of time and energy. Sort of like discussion abortion.

I would like to say a few more words about taxation and regulation, however. Yes, regulation controls big business more than anyone. But who pays for it? Big business doesn't pay for it. We do. In the increased cost of everything we buy.

As L. Neil Smith wrote in his essay "Where No Libertarian Has Gone Before" ( http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/le960509.html ):

"Or, just to put it in what may seem like everyday, more practical terms, half of everything we make -- to be precise, 47% or our income -- is taken from us in the form of income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and so forth. To add insult to injury, half of what we spend evaporates the same way, not spent on the quantity or quality of the goods and services we think we're paying for, but wasted on corporate taxes, inventory taxes, and that sort of thing.

"What's even worse, according to economist Arthur Laffer, the burden of complying with socialist regulations doubles the price of everything again, so that we're spending eight times as much as we should need to, to acquire life's necessities and luxuries. Every day, we run on one eighth of our real capacity, while right-wing and left-wing socialists greedily gobble up the remaining seven eighths of our substance, not to mention our opportunities, our futures, and our children's futures."

I don't know about you, but I'd sure like to make effectively eight times my current salary, by changing nothing but government regulation and taxation. We would make up in charitable donations many times what we currently waste in overhead on welfare, social security, medicare, etc. Blue collar workers would be able to pay for hospital stays out of pocket. They'd also be able to pay out of pocket for private schools, the only schools that would exist in the society I want to live in. Schools where prayers would be said or not said as agreed upon by everyone whose children attend.

There's another reason that regulation is wrong. Every law ever passed, every law that will ever be passed, points a government gun at somebody's head. It authorizes the police to force anyone who doesn't go along with the law to make them go along, at gun point, and if they resist, to shoot them dead. Think about that next time you ask for a law. Is it worth killing someone for what you want? If not, don't ask for it.

I believe in laws against real crimes, the physical harming of a person or theft/damage of his/her property. It IS worth killing the perpetrators of real crimes. And the best way to do it is for the intended victim to stop the criminal at the scene of the intended crime. The victim needs no court of law. (S)he knows that a crime is happening. (S)he knows that it must be stopped now. The police and the courts should enter the picture only if the perp gets away.

Liberty works. Government doesn't work. Socialism kills. It killed over 100 million innocent men, women, and children in the twentieth century alone. Stop the killing. End socialism now.

-Bill St. Clair

Juanita Ramirez at Liberty for All - There's a Place I Call Home - a warning to the "little Harvard neophytes" from a child of World War II. [rrnd]

Even now, with the WAR in Iraq in full-bloom, with all the buzz-words little Harvard neophytes can conjure up, I say give all people on the face of this earth a place they can call home. Let each one have his own culture, religion, and liberty. I say, you elitists' go play a game of chance in the way you prefer but stop doing it on our backs. We don't want to attend your parties and we don't think you would be comfortable in ours. You can have all the tokens of this world to argue over among yourselves. We'll continue to serve you in waiting your tables, caring for your gardens/lawns, minding your children, and fixing those ever so inconvenient technical problems with your machinery and plumbing. We will do this happily for fair pay for fair services. We will never be your slaves.

Parviz Esmaeili at The Tehran Times - Dictators' Collusion - the author believes that Saddam Hussein secretly agreed with the U.S. dictatorship to leave Iraq and let his government fall in exchange for his safety and keeping quiet about prior evils committed by the U.S. [grabbe]

Even dictators have to respect a hierarchy. A minor dictator like Saddam is like a puppet that has danced for a lifetime to the tune of a certain major dictator like the U.S. and cannot act on his own. Saddam did whatever the White House wanted him to do for years. Therefore, the simple answer to the question "Where is Saddam?" is nothing but "Wherever the U.S. desires!"

Karen De Coster at LewRockwell.com - Welcome, Mom, to the Neo-Fascist, Imperialist, Police State - Ms. De Coster's mom is no political whiz, but even she recognizes the fascist state that America has become. [grabbe]

Perhaps Americans are too easily thrilled by all of the puffy propaganda, the show of false, forced unity, and the filtered war news to notice where the finest of our country's founders had hoped to lead us, and where we ended up. But hey, as long as the trains run on time, who cares?

Michael Gilson De Lemos at Laissez Faire Electronic Times - The Crime that Created Police - a long piece on Jonathan Wilde's private policing and William Dockwra's London mail service and how both were destroyed to increase the power of government goons. [grabbe]

People responded to Wilde's system of negotiating for the return of goods while encouraging people to take preventive measures, and soon groups carrying out his system arose in every area. The government was particularly horrified that he had organized people into quasi-democratic juristic councils in every district where they took care of their own justice needs in a sort of franchise operation, and people settled affairs without invoking the draconian government punishments or profitable fines.

In effect, he had begun to privatize to the people the entire capital in a disciplined, networked organization in an era where average men still did not vote. If people took active control to eliminate small thieves, it did not take much imagination for officials to wonder what would happen as the larger thieves of government came next on the list? As the government understood what was happening, it reacted. The outrageous tirade of the judge to Wilde's plea for justice and exposure of what was really happening speaks for itself.

...

At one time much of the mail was delivered cheaply in the US by private post; in a similar process, they were throttled by government bureaucrats to a cheering section of social scientists claiming to find "natural monopolies" only government could address. This trend, under the influence of libertarian ideas and the creation of e-mail and services such as Federal Express has begun to reverse; and, several of the next-day service pioneers were avowed Libertarians.

...

Do more police equal less crime? Do more white blood cells mean more health--or that a cancer of the blood has struck the system?

...

This is worse. The truth is that it was a matter of government exterminating the freedom of people to create alternative services under a common law. This Ur-crime of government police and city services is so fundamental that, as one can see looking at the Old Bailey, London and other government sites, it is continued to this day in the distortion of the events. It must continue to be denied and trivialized by government, scholars, writers because if true, history since then is wrong.

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