End the War on Freedom

russmo.com - Fiscal Responsibilty - cartoon commentary on the end of the "surplus".

Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury - Sunday, January 27, 2002 - Mr. Butts and Mr. Jay meet as "the sin lobby gins up for another year" and remind us that there is no known death that can be attributed to cannabis (aka marijauna). [drugsense]

Butts: Mr. Jay!
Jay: Buttsy!
Butts: Gimme some love, Dude!
Jay: Hey, tough guy. How's it going?
Butts: Great! Just got the new numbers in. Turns out I'm still smokin' over 400,000 folks a year. So how about you? How many did you kill?
Jay: Uh... none.
Butts: None?
Jay: Zippo. The only thing that I caused was 735,000 arrests.
Butts: Well. Okay! You bad! You bad!
Jay: Yeah, right. Next to you I feel like a total fraud...

Amber Kronberg - Obituary for a Ghost - most unusual. I hope she enlightens us soon as to what's going on.

Amber Kronberg is going away.

Actually, to be fair and honest I think I should say that Amber Kronberg never existed. She was a work of fiction, someone I tried on for size and masqueraded as for six years, like dressing up in a costume to pose for an old-time photograph.

Amber Kronberg was a ghost. The foreshadow of everything I thought I needed to be. The cloak of respectability I put on over my own naked and bleeding skin, hoping it would staunch the flow.

Perry de Havilland at Samizdata - The tools of liberty in use - good picture of Mr. de Havilland firing his AR-15. A graphic depiction of the fact that a muzzle brake is not a flash suppressor. He neglected to use his sling. Many thanks for the kudos to End the War on Freedom. [samizdata]

Ian Goddard at The Ultra High IQ Community - Less Calories More Life: Can caloric restriction extend human lifespan? - some evidence from animal studies and Okinawan statistics that lowering your caloric intake may lengthen your life. My take: sounds to me like a reasonable trade-off. Eat more and die earlier. I once worked with a guy from Montreal who knew that smoking would make him die earlier, but smoked anyway because he decided that the pleasure he derived from smoking was worth it. People have the right to make these decisions about their lives, even when the penalty for a wrong decision is death.

Russell Madden at Laissez Faire City Times - The Lessons of "Roots" - commentary on collectivism in the light of the rebroadcast of Roots.

Shall I hold present-day Egyptians responsible and liable for any slave-ancestor of mine who was forced to help build the pyramids? If not, what is the magical cutoff point for absolving living people for what their ancient ancestors did? By what principle does one decide?

What about the black Africans who first captured the blacks of other tribes and shipped them to the Americas? What about black Americans who bought and sold other blacks?

Collective guilt is a morass from which there is no extrication. Riddled with contradictions, it is as untenable as the exaltation of the group - of collectivism - over and above the actions of the individuals who comprise those groups. Time after time, collectivism has demonstrated its destructive results while individualism has created better conditions for those who accept its ideals. But apparently, world wars, racism, and slavery are insufficient to disabuse most blacks and statists of their obscenely unjust beliefs.

...

Yes, most of us are not literally chained. But then neither were the majority of slaves in America.

They had passes to travel between one location and another. We have passports to travel from one country to another . . . and perhaps soon, even within our own.

They were allowed to keep small portions of their income and, sometimes, to buy their freedom. We are allowed to keep small portions of our income . . . but we can never purchase our freedom.

T. E. Ruppenthal at Laissez Faire City Times - Hijacked by Fliberals - Fliberals ('Frisco-style liberals), UGEs (Useless Government Employees), the Guard-stapo in action, His Grayness (California governor Gray Davis), the homeless in the Bay City.

P.J. Gladnick at Laissez Faire City Times - The Bulldog Box Guardian - Mr. Gladnick is a bit full of himself in this piece, but it's entertaining anyway, and even has a point.

On a subconscious level, the Bulldog Box Guardian looks upon me as a greedy capitalist exploiting her labor even though empty cardboard boxes are only a worthless byproduct of her work. This attitude of economic envy is a strange offshoot of the "Keeping Up With The Joneses" syndrome. Instead of raising yourself to a higher level, many folks nowadays want to "Keep The Joneses Down." They will only be happy to see others brought DOWN to their economic level. It seems ridiculous but taking advantage of such a common attitude elects many a politician. And I'm sure one of the voters who casts her ballots for such politicians is the Bulldog Box Guardian who will go to great lengths to keep her empty cardboard boxes from being exploited by an "evil" profiteer.

Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - Enron: Under-Regulated or Over-Subsidized? - Enron's collapse signals too much government involvement in business, not too little regulation.

The point is that Enron was intimately involved with the federal government. While most in Washington are busy devising ways to "save" investors with more government, we should be viewing the Enron mess as an argument for less government. It is precisely because government is so big and so thoroughly involved in every aspect of business that Enron felt the need to seek influence through campaign money. It is precisely because corporate welfare is so extensive that Enron cozied up to Congress and the Clinton administration. It's a game every big corporation plays in our heavily regulated economy, because they must when the government, rather than the marketplace, distributes the spoils.

Aaron Zelman and Claire Wolfe at Sierra Times - How to Recognize a Skunk Or Why Most Americans Can't Think -- But You Can - practical advice on how to recognize attempts by journalists to pull the wool over your eyes. [sierra]

Vin Suprynowicz - The right way to fight a war - part of The Libertarian series. The U.S. military has learned the lesson of Black Hawk Down. If you're going to send troops into danger, back them up with lots of air power. What I learned from the movie Black Hawk Down is that for some reason 16 dead Americans is considered more important than 1000 dead Somalis. It was two and a half hours long: half an hour of setup, an hour and three quarters of bloody firefight, and fifteen minutes conclusion. Not for the queasy.

Avoid war when possible. But when war cannot be avoided: win.

Vin Suprynowicz - An old man with a curious little metal cross - part of The Libertarian series. Vin comments on the case of retired Marine Corps Gen. Joseph J. Foss, who was given trouble at airport security because he was carrying the Medal of Honor that he was given in 1943 by President Franklin Roosevelt.

I'll tell you what would make us a whole lot safer in our skies: Spotting an 86-year-old Marine Medal of Honor winner in line about to board one of our planes, security personnel should have approached him, asked if he still felt steady enough of eye and hand to help out, and then handed him a loaded Colt .45 and asked if he'd be willing to carry it at the ready for the duration of his flight.

What's that? If they'd done that with retired Marine Corps Gen. Joseph J. Foss, Medal of Honor winner, they'd have to do it with everyone?

Well, yes. Precisely. Because, you see, a well-armed citizenry -- practiced in the use of their arms -- being necessary to the security of a free country, the right of individual Americans to keep and bear their arms of military usefulness -- anytime, anywhere -- shall never be infringed.

And that's not just a proposal. It's the highest law of the land.

Vin Suprynowicz - Nevada needs tort reform - part of The Libertarian series. Nevada's obstetricians, neurosurgeons, and emergency room doctors will pay an average of $200,000 annually for malpractice insurance this year, up from $40,000 last year. It's no wonder that they're leaving the state in droves. It's time to put a cap on jury awards and penalize lawyers and patients who pursue frivolous complaints. At the very least, institue a "loser pays" system. I think this would be a good idea across the board for all lawsuits. If you sue and lose, you and your lawyer pay the other guy's legal costs. Government getting out of the way of the insurance industry would also help. Competition drives prices down.

Al Martin Raw - Coming Soon: Flying Fascism on Your Doorstep - The U.S. military's new surveillance drones. Seems to me that the proper thing to do on seeing one of these is to shoot it out of the sky with #00 buck. As usual with Mr. Martin's pieces, take with a grain of salt. [grabbe]

These drones can stop and detain people. Since they have a microphone, they can hover right in your face, while you're looking into the camera. It also has a transmitter, which can play pre-recorded messages, or someone can actually talk to you even though they're a thousand miles away.

During the demonstration, they hovered the thing around the room and then it came down in front of this Air Force captain's face, and it said, "Citizen, kindly present your national identification card."

Then a little telescoping plate comes out of it, and you're supposed to hold your national identification card in front of this plate. They wouldn't reveal all of its abilities of the drone because some of it was still classified. The manufacturer is the same company, located in Indiana, which makes other equipment for the NSA.