End the War on Freedom

That Shapes the Eye

Children
Can easily open the
Drawer

That lets the spirit rise up and wear
Its favorite costume of
Mirth and laughter.

When the mind is consumed with
Remembrance of
Him

Something divine happens to the
Heart

That
Shapes the hand and tongue
And eye into
The word
Love.

(The Gift: Poems by Hafiz, translations by Daniel Ladinsky)

bob lonsberry - All We Must Do Is Love - someone asked Mr. Lonsberry what to do when her daughter left to live with a man to whom she was not married. "Love her," Bob answered.

Whether they go to jail or turn to drugs or abandon our faith or stop returning calls. There must be something certain in their lives, something which, should they choose, they can always rely on.

And that is our love.

Hill and Billary when they were youngsters. Oh. My. Gawd. [grabbe]

From The Federalist:

What does global tax reporting have to do with slavery? Think about it. When people cannot vote with their feet without being taxed by the U.N. and having chunks of their income remitted to their country of origin, they do not own themselves. They are the property of their country of origin and country of residence. The deterioration of political discourse in the United States and Europe has dulled the concept of slavery. A slave, like a serf, is a person who does not work for himself. He works for others, just as you and I do when we pay income tax. A sales or excise tax is consistent with freedom because it establishes no claim to a person's labor. If a purchase tax becomes too onerous, black markets will emerge to curtail government's greed. Few slavemasters punished a shirking slave as severely as the IRS punishes a shirking taxpayer. An under-performing slave might receive a whipping or short rations for a while, but a taxpayer is robbed not only of his income but also of several years of his life spent in prison for income-tax evasion. Slavemasters understood that human labor was too valuable to lock away in a dungeon, but the IRS regards shirking as slave rebellion and puts it down mercilessly. So will the OECD and the U.N. Indeed, global reporting will permit parties in power to pursue political opponents across national boundaries and to dispossess groups, ethnic or otherwise, that lose political struggles. Global tax reporting means the demise of individuals, dissent and freedom, and the rebirth of gold coins in the mattress as a favored financial institution. -- Paul Craig Roberts

The Libertarian Enterprise has a new issue, "DING DONG, ...!" Articles I liked:

• Letter from EJ Totty - slaps L. Neil's hand over his suggestion to shoot bullets in the air in The Fifth of July.
• Tax Slavery Reparations! by Kent Van Cleave - The title says it all. The way to counter the current wave of proposals for slavery reparations is to remind the proponents that we're all tax slaves here, and demand reparations. Yes!

  It will be downright fun to deal with the lame arguments against reparations for tax slavery. At the top of the list would certainly be the claim that taxes aren't really involuntary, and thus don't constitute slavery. Much rolling on the floor and gasping for breath ... then we'll have to explain things to the folks who really believe in the "social contract" theory of polity: No, I never signed no steenking contract. "But it's implicit in your choice to remain here that you accept what is required of you by government!" Would this be the same sort of acceptance of their legal status as slaves that black Americans in 18th century America demonstrated -- simply by failing to flee, no matter what the consequences of the attempt would be? Maybe today's tax slaves can leave the country and keep their skins intact, but they will certainly not be allowed to depart with all of their property. And where will they go to live free of taxation? The fact is that, just as with their earlier brothers in involuntary servitude, escape to freedom is not a real option. But freedom where they are is their inalienable right.

• The Free Mind by William Stone, III - As I occasionally tell my son, "You are free. Absolutely. Noone can force you to do anything except fall down." Our liberty is, of course, infringed upon daily. But we are free, and with this freedom comes responsibility. Mr. Stone says this very well. He also gives a good reminder that power corrupts. Noone is immune to this corruption. Not Mr. Stone. Not you. Not me. The only way we can avoid it is to avoid positions of power. Like the plague.

  Freedom is, first and foremost, in your mind. It's a way of thinking and approaching life at all times. It's any individual waking up one morning and saying, "Starting today, I'm free. I'm going to do what I want to do, short of initiating force against another human being."
  
  The problem is that life constantly throws up barriers. Usually it's in the form of some autocratic toady saying things like, "No you don't, either! You're driving faster than I like, so give me some of your money!"
  
  In a world where everyone woke up and said, "Today, I'm free," the toady would hear a guffaw of laughter as the freeman left him in a cloud of dust.

Manuel Miles at The Houston Review - Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Kanada! - think Amerika is approaching police state status? It's worse in Kanada. [tle]

In Canada, it is illegal for a citizen to threaten violence against an attacker, to use a weapon to defend his property or even his life, and even to have the "wrong" view of history. The armed forces of the Canadian State, on the other hand, can pretty well do as they please. If that isn’t a police state, then they don't exist.

Vin Suprynowicz - War: our proudest export - Part of The Libertarian series. Vin's take on what Ron Paul titled Congress Sends Billions Overseas. Guess what? We're being robbed of our tax money to support the world's bad guys. But you knew that.

Your U.S. Congress, trying every day in every way to prop up waste, fraud, and tyranny around the globe.

demitira monde thraam at anodyne - Blogathon post FORTY FIVE - a good screed on the war on freedom, er... some drugs. Will likely move here sometime in August. [anodyne]

The Drug War is a slave trade, but the slaves don't get treated as well as they were when slavery was legal. It is a hunt. An ego gratification for individuals and groups. A means of expanding the coffers of same by civil forfeitures. And a way to then take all that the captured Drug People have left from them: their time, and their bodies. A way for human beings to legally own other human beings and make them work for them.

They are not just prisoners of war. They themselves are now the spoils of it.

Sarah Boseley at Guardian Unlimited - Canada legalises the compassionate joint for chronic and terminally ill - As promised, Canada now allows use of marijuana for some medical conditions. [grabbe]

Canada yesterday became the first country in the world to legalise the use of cannabis for medical purposes, allowing those with chronic and terminal illnesses to grow their own and to smoke, inhale in some other way or eat the drug as they prefer.

Gwynne Dyer at Japan Times Online - Legalization: The drug war's best weapon - Sir David Ramsbotham, Britain's outgoing chief inspector of prisons, is calling for legalizing and prescribing drugs. [grabbe]

"The more I look at what's happening, the more I can see the logic of legalizing drugs, because the misery that is caused by the people who are making criminal profit is so appalling and the sums are so great that are being made illegally. I think there is merit in legalizing and prescribing, so people don't have to go and find an illegal way of doing it," he said.

...

Heroin addiction, before it was demonized by American lawmakers, was an undesirable but relatively low-cost affliction that had no adverse health consequences and left its victims free to lead a normal and productive life.

Christopher Ryan at Mama State - Early to bed? - Apparently, BlogMax doesn't work with XEmacs. Guess I'm gonna have to figure out why and fix it.

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