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Two new articles in The Libertarian series by Vin Suprynowicz:
- Time to stop paying the Danegeld - Why the U.S. should stop
giving bribes (er... "foreign aid") to anyone in the middle east.
The time has come to stop paying for nothing. Congress should cut off aid to all parties in the Mideast, cold turkey, and let the parties stand on their own for a change, in the clear light of day.
Who knows, they might just discover that in a tough new world where they have to fend for themselves, it makes more sense to cooperate than to fight.
- {@That someone could have a gun in the store!} - Sandra Suter, a
53-year-old grandmother stopped a knife-wielding robber in a Florida
Wal-Mart by pointing her handgun at him. The rhetoric in the
newspapers made it sound like she did the wrong thing. Not. Bravo,
Mrs. Suter. Vin also includes some responses and counter-responses to
his list of questions for politicians. His conclusion is that we've
been so poluted with socialist (my word, not his) ideas that we blame
everything on guns, not on people. Why are we relatively free in
today's world? Because we can defend ourselves from tyrants. Because
we are armed. Vin proves this with a little history lesson. He then
asks whether most of would be prepared today to put down an invasion
of our community by even a small armed government force. He is not
making a call to arms. Merely warning us that the battle is, for all
intents and purposes, already lost.
Add this to the new presumption that an arrest for "child abuse" is appropriate for any father who keeps guns in the home; pulls his kids out of school for hunting trips; physically disciplines his kids; or uses psychoactive drugs in his religious observances (yes, even Indians.) Then, when a small percentage of these effectively fatherless government-manufactured young morons and maniacs finally respond by shooting up those responsible for their chemical castration, the circle is closed when the Katie Couric Lapdog Press blames ... who?
The school nurse with her experimental chemical sedatives? No, no, no. We blame the evil spirits supposedly resident in those symbols of male independence, power, and freedom, the dark power of that inanimate but totemic object of wood and steel ... the gun!
...
Is there a "control sample" that tends to confirm my thesis for why commoners in America (and, to a lesser extent and until recently, places like Australia and Western Europe) managed to throw off the chains of feudal tyranny and become far more "free" in the centuries after 1500 -- with all the advantages of economic, scientific, and technological progress with which we're so familiar ... even if we've forgotten how they were won?
Yes, I think so. After toying with imported European firearms in the late 1500s, the shoguns of Japan banned the instruments entirely. In fact, under the decree of the shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598), issued on the 8th day of the seventh month, Tensho 16, "The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, short swords, bows, spears, firearms, or other types of arms. The possession of unnecessary implements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to foment uprisings."
Probably no update later today. Enjoy your Sunday!
