new0515

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 15 May 2000 12:00:00 GMT

Angus Glashier suggests:

Here's an idea: Why don't all of us who believe in the right to watch pornography get together and hold a Million Masturbators March?
We could all go and hang out in our respective capital cities and... well, let's just leave it at that.

Hehe.

New stuff added at the bottom today. Scroll down...

Brian Fitzgerald - Surrender to your dreams: Brian does a good job of espousing a pacifist ideology. I'm definitely drawn to it, and would likely go there except for my kids. Any time I imagine anyone threatening my kids, I go non-linear, and cannot remain passive. I don't mind anyone espousing pacifism, more power to them, as long as they don't attempt to force anyone else to agree, i.e. by supporting victim disarmament laws. Not sure where Brian stands on that. He reads this page, so we'll likely see the answer soon.

Sarah Foster at WorldNetDaily - FLIR expert had 'heart attack': The autopsy report on the death of Carlos Ghigliotti is in. Cause of death: heart attack. [wnd]

Nancy Johnson at Sierra Times - Second Amendment Sisters: Never Be Victims Again! (an exclusive report on the S.A.S Rally in D.C.): estimates the crowd at the Million Mom March at about 40,000. They had over 3,000 at the Armed Informed Mothers march. [sierra]

There's a new issue of The Libertarian Enterprise today. Ya'll go on over and read it, hear? I especially liked the Letter from Rick Trentham in which he suggested captions for the famous photo of the INS goon pointing a machine gun in the general direction of Elian Gonzalez. My favorite:

They would have sent Lon Horiuchi instead of me, but your mom's already dead.

Google.com press release - Google Goes Mobile With Industry's First Comprehensive Wireless Search Engine: Not only are they going to provide their search engine in WML, they've got a translation service that translates HTML to WML, so you have a way to view the entire web through your cell phone or Palm Pilot. My guess is that these automatically translated pages will look horrid, but you'll at least be able to read the text, which is a whole lot better than nothing. [/.]

Kevin Tuma - Million Mafioso March: hehe

Jim Peron at Laissez Faire City Times - Turning Reason Inside Out: The pseudo-scientists have convinced lots of folks that you have to prove something is safe. This is impossible.

What each of these cases have in common is the reversal of the basic rules of evidence. They are arguing that one must prove a negative -- something which is not possible. Let me illustrate by asking you to prove to me that you are not a child rapist. And for purposes of our argument let us assume you are seeking to work in a child care center. Remember I simply ask you to prove the negative. I don't find it necessary to offer evidence or proof that you may be guilty of something.

Scott Carpenter at Laissez Faire City Times - The Million Mom March: Labels the Million Mom March as an example of "mass groupthink", a pretty accurate description, IMHO.

Unfortunately, mass groupthink does rear its ugly head every so often and, as usual, the results are somewhat less than constructive. So, as the "Million Mom March" began to take shape one wondered where, in light of strong evidence that proves more gun control does not reduce crime or the suicide rate, the tens of thousands of women partaking in the "March" should fit in. While they obviously fall short of being a rioting mob the phenomena is still of a more destructive nature than the behavior exhibited by our thoughtless and carefree teens. After all, binge drinking is primarily a self destructive activity; campaigning to deprive someone of their right to self defense is not. ...
The result of refusing to think gives those in power carte blanche to think for us. This is the essence of collectivism and this my good friends and neighbors is what is at the heart of the great evil that is eating North America. Collectivism naturally requires groupthink (and complacency) on a massive scale in order to grow. Groupthink (thoughtlessness) is how millions of people can be convinced that something which is completely immoral is within their right to enforce upon their fellow man.

Andy Oram at O'Reilly Network - Gnutella and Freenet Represent True Technological Innovation: an article on the technical merits of Gnutella and Freenet. [cafe]

Gnutella and Freenet, in different ways, make the location of documents irrelevant; the search string becomes the location. To achieve this goal, they add a new layer of routing on top of the familiar routing done at the IP level. The new layer may appear at first to introduce numerous problems in efficiency and scaling, but in practice these turn out to be negligible or least tolerable. I think readers should take a close look at these systems; even if Gnutella and Freenet themselves turn out not to be good enough solutions for a new Internet era, they'll teach us some lessons when it's time for yet another leap.

Andy Oram at webreview.com - The Value of Gnutella and Freenet:

The title of this essay contains a hidden message. There are important areas where Gnutella and Freenet have value, but there are also areas where they don't offer much value. The area where all the fears are being spawned -- the distribution of illegal, defamatory, or copyright-infringing material -- is actually not a big danger, according to my analysis.

He claims that anonymous information is not valuable, which I don't believe. Still, these systems, and others like them, are going to make digital copyright enforcement virtually impossible. Will I still pay for software and music. Of course. For the same reason I pay for food and clothing that I could just as easily steal. I want to keep the people who create them in business so that their creations will be available next time I want them.

Wesley Fok's "humble site", chrominance, comments on the two sides of the victim disarmament issue as described by yours truly and kitschbitch, both sparked by the Million Mom March. It's in the 05-14-2000 section, which I can't point at any closer than the home page.

Thorn is a UML modeling tool written in Java. It uses XML to save the models you create. Its purpose is to give the open source world a good modeling tool to help develop and manage the increasingly sophisticated development efforts of the open source community. The current version of the project is unusable for modeling purposes, but it is progressing rapidly (albeit, only on the weekends). [meat]

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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