L. Neil in 2004!

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Tue, 15 May 2001 12:00:00 GMT

Kevin Tuma - Energy - cartoon commentary on why solar and wind power aren't doing too well in Amerika.

Let us prey. The lovely Heidi Klum, almost wearing a bikini. [grabbe]

Dave Winer's DaveNet - Death and Douglas Adams - a nice tribute to the author of The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy with some thoughts on death. I have a different take on death than many folks. I consider death to be my ticket home. I consider that I was sold a bill of goods in being convinced to come here. Fooled by the glossy tour brochures. Three score and ten years seemed like the blink of an eye from a cosmic perspective, but it's a long time when you're trapped in this tiny human world.

There's a new issue of The Libertarian Enterprise, NULLIFIED!

Letter from Keith Shugarts - an ode to the compassion fascists, those who use emotion to convince us that we need to be protected from ourselves.
Letter from James J. Odle - a good anti-drug-war screed.
Since the Supreme Court has effectively decided that the Bill of Rights is null and void whenever drugs are the issue, apparently this causes not the slightest twinge of conscience among archconservatives who, supposedly, have complete and total understanding and respect of and for the Constitution. This is especially amazing when you consider the Limbaugh comes from a family of lawyers and Liddy is a former lawyer and prosecutor himself.
Letter from William Stone, III - links to the Paul Ferris article below with some comments and kudos to Eric Raymond.
Letter from David Lewis; The Death of a 1,000 Year Old Bastion of Liberty - good commentary on the recent Kalifornia supreme court decision allowing judges to disqualify jurors for not following their instructions.
The thousand year old acknowledgment that every man woman and child accused of violating an edict of the state has the right to have their guilt or innocence decided not by their accuser the state but by the state's master, 12 RANDOMLY SELECTED people from the community, has gone through much suffering in the last hundred years. A concept known as "Voir Dire" has risen it's ugly head and embedded itself in our right of jury. Sounding reasonable, as all acts of tyranny always initially do, it was intended to ensure that no one on the jury was a close relative of the accused. Unfortunately the camel's nose got under the tent and now this French innovation is used to screen out anyone who might disagree with the elite judge - that is, anyone who has a conscience and the courage to act on it.

...

As noted earlier, the jury box is the last peaceful defense a free people have against the tyrants who rule them. When the tyrants have destroyed that defense what is left? No peaceful avenues remain to fight creeping tyranny. The tyrants may find that in taking away all peaceful means the people have of opposing tyranny they have forced the people into the only course left - the one embodied not by the Sixth and Seventh Amendments but by the Second. May God save us from that road.
One, Two, Three, Four I Don't Want Your Stinking War by L. Neil Smith - starts off saying he doesn't like drugs and advising you to avoid them. Most definitely! Then he goes on to skewer the war on freedom, er... some drugs, and good.
Every little thing Americans say or do or think or feel, every cent they spend and everything they buy, everywhere they go and everyone they meet, every line they write is monitored today by some violently officious subhuman garden slug who couldn't get a real job if this were a free country, because a truly free country would be technically advanced enough to have toilets and cesspools that clean themselves.

The drug war attracts that sort, it feeds them on the flesh of our children, it nurtures them with the tatters of our hopes, it empowers them with our blood, it encourages them to have picnics together and interbreed. They would have been Nazis or fascisti or Iron Guard in the 30s and 40s. They would have been Ku Klux Klan in the 20s or 50s. They enjoy terrifying and hurting and killing people. It is their sex. Anyone familiar with the Bill of Rights knows that there's a technical name for drug warriors of every stripe, at every level of government: criminals.
LibBits - two stories about the death of trial by jury in The Peoples Repugnance of Kalifornia.

Paul Ferris at Linux Today - Rant Mode Equals One: "The Commie Rat Anti-Free Software Act of 2001"? - Microsoft needs legislative help to protect it from the scourge of free software. Mr. Ferris proposes, tongue planted firmly in cheek, a law to help them out.

With the threat of Free Software extinguished and dangerous criminals like Stallman and Raymond behind bars, imitation, I mean, innovation can continue to be brought to you by just one company like it has in the past. God knows this makes America stronger and more productive, regardless of the fact that businesses spend money every year purchasing the same software they already own. Without a good revenue stream, Microsoft's' American dream can't survive.

Thomas L. Knapp - The Ad Hoc Conspiracy to Draft L. Neil Smith Rides Again - this was printed as a letter in the new issue of the Libertarian Enterprise, but I'm linking to it separately because it's important. Mr. Knapp is beginning the process of collecting a million signatures on a petition asking L. Neil Smith to run for president in 2004. He is also volunteering as the treasurer for the campaign, and plans to raise money and NOT report it to the f.e.c. Bravo, Mr. Knapp! You can sign the petition asking L. Neil to run. I did. You can donate via E-Gold or by sending a copy of L. Neil's Lever Action to the library of your choice.

So when I, treasurer of the Ad Hoc Conspiracy to Draft L. Neil Smith, send the FEC notice that they can go piss up a rope, it's all on me.
The Ad Hoc Conspiracy is going to raise money. The purpose of said fundraising will be to promote L. Neil Smith as a presidential candidate -- by getting copies of _Lever Action_ into libraries, among other things. I suspect the guy whose friends are trying to talk him into running will be willing, once again, to do talk radio and otherwise promote his ideas, if not a candidacy he isn't seeking.
Federal Election Commission will NOT receive reports from the Ad Hoc Conspiracy to Draft L. Neil Smith. They won't be told who contributed or how much they contributed. They won't be told ANYTHING -- correction: they will be told, at the very outset and every time they squeal thereafter, that they aren't getting the information they demand. Period.
No guarantees, but the Ad Hoc Conspiracy will also do its best to make sure that we don't even *know* who gave, or how much they gave. The only records we'll keep are how much money came in and where it went ... and those will be kept encrypted to the maximum extent possible. If the treasurer -- that's me -- has to visit the graybar motel, he'll do his level best not only to not tell, but to not be ABLE to tell, even if they pull out his fingernails and make him watch Barbra Streisand concert footage.

"The ManilaSiteConverter Tool provides an easy way to convert your Manila website into a Radio UserLand Weblog." Yay! Thanks, Userland. I'll try it soon, in sha' allah, and report how I like the result. [script]

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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