000407.html

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Fri, 07 Apr 2000 12:00:00 GMT

I'm back in the office today. Christopher was running around last night like nothing had happenned. Amazing! Al-hamdu lillah!

The Big Apple Circus was great! Incredible acrobats, many LOL moments, great music!

Mike Wayne Hodges, Jr. at DrugSense Weekly - Brutalized Marijuana Prisoner Asks For Help: a heart-wrenching view into the life of one of America's political prisoners. This man hurt noone, yet he is being routinely threatened with death under the watchful eye of a corrupt prison guard.

A bunch of good quotes from this week's The Federalist Digest:

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. -- John Stuart Mill
The socialist state requires greater and greater degrees of force to make it function. If resources and wealth are allocated on the basis of need rather than production, people will compete to be more needy rather than more productive. -- Linda Bowles
When I was in Congress people would ask me if I missed working with actors, and I would reply, "No, I miss working with professional actors". -- Former Rep. Fred Grandy, who played "Gopher" on TV's "The Love Boat"
Letterman.... Here's bad news. The Japanese prime minister is now clinically brain dead. On the bright side, this must be very encouraging for George W. Bush.

Ray Thomas at Sierra Times - Cop Killings: "Today police don't just shoot people who frighten them; they fill them full of holes." Mostly about the murder by government of Ismael Mena in Denver. [sierra]

Lindsay Perigo's Politically Incorrect Show - 06 April, 2000: "Communist carrion are hovering around the wounded body of Microsoft after a US District Court judge found it guilty of anti-competitive behaviour." He points to two older articles that are worth a read:

David C. Adams at The Free Radical Online - Bill Gates: Hero, Coward: "What if Bill Gates had made a principled defense in his trial? Imagine he read Atlas Shrugged, let's say, and found special affinity for Hank Rearden and the latter's defense in a similar trial. When presenting his deposition before the Department of Justice, Bill Gates would have said, 'Not only is Microsoft not guilty of any crimes, but I do not recognize the legitimacy of the law under which it is being held guilty. I do not recognize the legitimacy of punishing an individual or company not for any force or fraud, but for being successful.' But this approach is dangerous. It sends a chill through every pragmatic sinew of Microsoft's lawyers. It sounds so extreme. It's unprecedented. It's unthinkable. It would have worked."

Lindsay Perigo's Politically Incorrect Show - 09 November 1999: "In Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead, Howard Roark begins his courtroom defence by observing, 'Thousands of years ago the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light.' Nothing's changed, has it? Mr Gates' proper response to this outrage would be to withdraw his products, close shop & tell this rotten, ungrateful world to get stuffed."

Damien Cave at Salon - Can hyperlinks be outlawed? The MPAA managed to get a judge to require that 2600 remove copies of DeCSS from its web site. Now they want all links to be removed to other sites containing the code. [lt]

2600 - MPAA Seeks to Outlaw Linking to DeCSS: Much more involved than the Salon story.

TJ Miller, Jr. at OSOpinion - Sinking Into Fascism: The MPAA dives deeper: An overview of where we stand with the MPAA's attempt at complete control over DVD manufacture, sale, and presentation. "In spite of these warnings, I am heartened by one thing... What makes the MPAA think that they can actually enforce this domination that they apparently want? By taking on the Internet community, they may have bitten off far more than they can safely choke down, let alone chew..." [lt]

Richard Stallman at LinuxToday - On the Microsoft Verdict: RMS seems to have no problem with the feds attacking Microsoft. His beef is that destroying Microsoft may do no good for the free software movement. [lt]

Minority Mike at LewRockwell.com - Oiling The Venom Machine: Mike lays into the "Rice-President in charge of gettin' himself elected Totalitarian-in-Chief of the Peoples Republic of Amerika." and the "Crap-Speaker-in-Chief. Poster boy for the most investigated, indicted, convicted and unethical administration in the history of America." [wnd]

Joel on Software - Things You Should Never Do, Part I: Joel extols the sins of rewriting software from scratch. I've been wanting to burn the disks in my company's large construction-industry accounting system. Joel's essay is definitely worth considering before starting that project. [iowa]

JDK1.3 release candidate 2 is available for download. You need a free account to get it. This will likely be what Sun ships. They're planning on going final in April. I downloaded it (love that T1), and it appears to work for my application, though I haven't tested the network code yet. [cafe]

StarOffice 5.2 software preview is available from Sun. I probably won't try it, unless they make a version for LinuxPPC. [/.]

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair