End the War on Freedom

Angus Glashier at Latte Log - Tyranny of the Commons? Angus writes a thoughtful and eloquent response to my off-the-cuff criticism of yesterday. Well said, Angus. I still label myself a crypto-anarcho-libertarian, but I have yet to find a glue that can make any political label stick on anybody, even though I'm more guilty than many of trying to label myself and others. We are all orders of magnitude more complex than words can describe. [latte]

At the end of the day, I am none of these things. I am Angus Glashier and I reserve the right to change my opinion on any and all issues whenever and however I feel the need.

I can do this because I live in a Democracy.

Angus has reminded me of the root of libertarian belief. It is not OK to initiate force, ever, no matter how many people voted for you, no matter what funny hat or uniform you're wearing. This one idea has huge consequences. It makes the war on some drugs impossible. It makes coercive taxation impossible. It forbids all consensual and political "crimes", no matter why your republic (pun intended) made a law about it. Said more eloquently at the top of every issue of The Libertarian Enterprise:

"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."

Angus is running a survey, asking whether you prefer his Manilla, Trellix, or Blogger site. I voted for Manilla, but if he picks Trellix, I'll still read his site. I care much more about content than appearance. The things I like about Manilla are the calendar, the read counts, the integrated searching, the ease of doing updates wherever I happen to be, and, last and most, the shortcut feature that makes it so easy for me to point to my stories and credit my sources. I actually prefer writing Manilla's abbreviated HTML to a WYSIWYG editor. But then, Emacs is programmed into my brain stem. Text is king!

Tilde at ZDTV - My Illegal T-Shirt: An interesting take on the DeCSS case. [metajohn]

I, as you may have guessed, fall into the latter category. I believe that coding is a creative act, and that in order to inspire technological breakthroughs one must be allowed to express that creativity freely. DeCSS was created out of necessity, with absolutely no laws being broken. A DVD was purchased legally, and a teenager was smart enough to figure out how to play it on his machine. He owned the product, it was his right to do with it what he wanted, and the fact that CSS was obviously not well enough designed to keep him from decrypting it is the DVD CCA's own damn problem.

...

Essentially, the cat isn't just out of the bag; the cat was never in the bag. Instead of going to court, the movie and DVD industry needs to step back and rethink how to deal with a technology that simply isn't going away.

Tilde at ZDTV - Carnivore Bites: light-hearted commentary on the FBI's "Flesh eating snoop system".

Now, the last time I looked it was quite illegal to intercept snail mail without a judge's consent. In theory, the Feds won't read your email unless you're a suspected criminal. Still, the potential for widespread abuse is tremendous and shouldn't be shrugged off with a mere promise to behave. There are good cops and there are bad cops. I would sincerely hate to have one of the latter going through my email.

Here's a thought. Who among us hasn't sent an email off through a friend's computer before. Oh, and surfing and emailing anonymously isn't exactly brain surgery. Identities shift and change in cyberspace -- I'd hate to have the FBI break down my door because some disgruntled woman named Tilde from Wisconsin was planning to blow up her local dairy.

Joel on Software - Review: "Why Does Software Cost So Much?" Joel reviews this new book from Tom DeMarco. He's got the Amazon link. Here's the Fatbrain link: Why Does Software Cost So Much? : And Other Puzzles of the Information Age. Both places are selling it at retail: $29.95. Joel loves the book.

... Suppose I told you that you and one other programmer needed to write code to do X, and I need to know how long would it take?

The very first thing you would ask me would not be "Can I use C++?" It would not be "Do I get a 21 inch monitor?" No, the first question you should ask would be "Who's the other programmer?" DeMarco is one of the few people that realize that the hard thing about software management is getting the right people, not getting the right technology, and focusing on what it takes to make them productive.

...

Still, about half the essays prove that Tom DeMarco is simply the world's leading genious of software project management, and you shouldn't skip this book.

Roger Maynard at The Times of London - Anger as Army is given shoot-to-kill powers for Games: The Australian government is planning to use soldiers for security at the Olympics. This decision is not popular, as well it shouldn't be. [unknown]

Angus Glashier bought a digital camera and has posted his mug for all to see. Nice to see you Angus. Oh, and he's threatening to quit blogging if people don't answer his poll. And I'll hold my breath until my blood turns blue. Too late? It's already blue? Rats. [latte]

There's a new issue of The Libertarian Enterprise, "Back to School":

• John Taylor's libbits is especially good this time.

  So, if the statists/federalists want to continue to deny the BoR, it seems to me that they simultaneously negate the validity of the entire Constitution.

  And that's fine. Yep, you hear me right. Throw the whole thing out.

• Why I Will Not Vote for a "Law & Order" President by John Silveira - Mr. Silveira no longer believes in the death penalty. Not because he doesn't think that murderers should be executed. He does. But because of the record of the courts at condemning innocent men. Mr. Silveira is senior editor for Backwoods Home Magazine.

  A recent news item declared two-thirds of all death sentences are later overturned. One reason this happens is the incompetence of defense attorneys. And while it may have been the defendant's fault for choosing a loser for a lawyer, should a man pay with his life for hiring bad help? But what really surprised me was that a bad lawyer wasn't even among the leading reasons found. Among the other reasons are judge's mistakes, the withholding of evidence by the police, the withholding of evidence by prosecutors, and unreliable testimony by witnesses. Seven percent -- that's one person in 14 -- of those who have been on death row have been cleared by DNA evidence, alone.

  ...

  At this moment we have a president in office who instituted a plan, called COPS, to put 100,000 more officers on the streets to enforce the thousands of unconstitutional laws we already have. Gore wants to expand this by another 50,000. We don't need more cops. We need fewer laws. We need to remove from the books every law that violates any part of the Constitution and its Amendments. This includes all victimless and consensual crimes including the drug laws, the gun laws, and the new affirmative apartheid laws.

• Companies' Defense in Anarchocapitalism: I nice overview of how "defense firms" might operate and be controlled in an anarcho-capitalist world. Interesting.

  How much worse would the situation of warring and oppressing defense companies be? They can't collect taxes, so they must finance all of their wars from within themselves, or through donations to them, so they can carry out a war only to a certain extent until they are bankrupted, and any really horrendous war, even a slightly expensive one, will cause them to lose many of their customers. In a world much ruled by governments, governments can collect taxes and use their enslaved populaces to finance war for as long as they wish to do so for, and are not curtailed by profitability.

• Letter from Jeff Colonnesi: a good argument for an incremental approach to acheiving Vermont carry. First go for "shall issue" permits. Then, when enough people who care about their right to carry get those, get rid of the permits.
• Letter from Scott Graves: an entertaining argument for working on incremental sub-goals while maintaining the main goal of true liberty. It took 150 years to get where we are. We're not going to get back overnight. Didn't convince me to vote, but I enjoyed it.

Dick Durham at CNN - Deep secrets of the Russian sub missiles: a big reason that the Soviets may not have wanted to call for help is that it was armed with "12 new SS-N-19 Shipwreck missiles which neither U.S. or EU military chiefs have seen." It may have been sunk by its own torpedo. [grabbe]

Don Jacobs at Capitol Hill Blue - Buy a Car, Get a Gun: An auto dealer in Powell, Tenn. is offerring a voucher for a rifle with every car sale. The Brady Bunch is angry. Hehe. [sierra]

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