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The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair. --H. L. MENCKEN
Demitria Monde Thraam passes her "Green Light of Truth" filter over CNN's picture of Barry McCaffrey's resignation. Hehe. [randomonium]
Mike Shelton at the Orange County Register - Mideast Specialists: cartoon commentary on Klinton's role in the middle east peace process. Too sad to laugh.
From The Free Radical:
Do not open your mouth to tell me that your mind has convinced you of your right to force my mind. Force and mind are opposites. Morality ends where a gun begins. -- Ayn Rand
There a new issue of The Libertarian Enterprise:
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Would You Give Up Your Guns if Thomas Jefferson Told You To?
Strong language. Important stuff.
How about that Second Amendment? Granted, it should be First, since we have no rights whatever if we lack effectual means - guns among other things - to defend them. Certainly, every scrap of actual scholarship confirms that the amendment unmistakably affirms an individual right to keep and bear arms: translated into modern terms, it reads, "Well-armed and trained guerrillas being freedom's necessary defenders, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Note also that the latter clause, which is manifestly the operative one, needs no adjustment. In truth, as I've said before, the first clause could read, "The moon being made of green cheese ..." and the net meaning would be the same: we have the absolute right to own and carry weapons of any description.
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There's no such thing as a pro-gun politician; there can be no such thing as a pro-gun government. You might see individual aberrations - Ron Paul seems as sincere as he is insignificant - but in political terms they are lethal mutations. Government is about theft, enslavement, and murder by nature, and cannot be about anything else. Participants in the continuing criminal conspiracy we dignify with the name of government only have incentive, and it is an overwhelmingly powerful one, to centralize power, profit, and privilege upon the State and its favored allies. Private possession of firearms is one of the most decentralizing agencies possible; therefore government's incentive is urgent and in even the medium term absolutely irresistible to destroy it.
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The politicians will take our guns because they must. No amount of money you can spend, no vote you can cast, can prevent them.
Only disobedience can. By violence if that's required. The alternative is total expropriation, enslavement, and death - and not in half a century, not in a generation, but deadly soon. American ownership of private firearms is in a real and meaningful sense the Earth's last best hope for freedom. Which is why the governments of the Earth are united in hysterical determination to see us disarmed.
Richard Roland Riley at Laissez Faire City - Straw Man: Most interesting. Did you ever notice that your name is in BLOCK CAPITALS on government documents? Mr. Riley (not a real person) claims that this BLOCK CAPITAL person is your STRAWMAN, a legal fiction that can be manipulated by the criminal governments. Twisted my brain around a bit. [grabbe]
