Attack Cartoons

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Tue, 21 Aug 2001 12:00:00 GMT

Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps. -- Emo Phillips

and:

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Unknown News is back! Guess this means that Helen and Harry Highwater have arrived at their new home in Kansas City, Missouri. I wish them good luck and much joy in their new home. So, guys, where's the trip report? [unknown]

John Bergstrom's Attack Cartoons is a very funny place. My favorites (all of these made me laugh uproariously or groan out loud): Sisyphus, $300 refund, greygoose, inexhaustable, dickpuppet, airstrikes, ussypays, ashcroft, goreset, recount, isidiot, haiku. Added to my links page. [anti-state]

Drug War Responsible for Overdose Deaths is a letter I wrote to the Houston Chronicle in response to an article and editorial they printed recently about 16 drug overdose deaths in one weekend. [drugsense]

My site was queried twice yesterday by a spider from the Defense Technical Information Center, dtic.mil. Hmm... Well, at least it was kind enough to query the robots.txt file.

s8-11.dtic.mil - - [20/Aug/2001:05:26:32 -0400] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" 404 1650 "-" "vspider"
s8-11.dtic.mil - - [20/Aug/2001:05:26:32 -0400] "GET /blog/ HTTP/1.0" 200 66106 "-" "vspider"

George Aaron Broadwell at Albany (NY) Times Union - Hart's B.C. cartoon religiously offensive - Mr. Broadwell labels a recent Johnny Hart cartoon "a gratuitous insult to atheists and agnostics". Seemed pretty funny to me, but there's no accounting for taste:

In the July 31 strip, one character asks "What do a dead atheist, a dead agnostic, and a dead saint know?" and the second character answers,"They know that there is a god."

Brian Fitzgerald - CISG vs. RISG - using computer talk to describe the problems with government. Hehe. To find the joke, read all the way to the bottom of the page. [brianf]

Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - What Happened to the Surplus? - First off, there never was a surplus. The Klinton administration made it look that way by routinely raiding the social security and medicare accounts. Primarily, however, there's no budget surplus because congress spends every penny it can get its hands on. Until we kick out the pork merchants, it will continue to get worse.

The federal government cannot maintain a budget surplus any more than an alcoholic can leave a fresh bottle of whiskey untouched in the cupboard... The only way to end the unconscionable waste is to drastically reduce federal revenues by cutting taxes.

Humberto Fontova at LewRockwell.com - Really 'Politically Incorrect' - Mr. Fontova was one way up on Bill Maher and his guests. Hehe. They can dish it out, but they can't take it. Strong stuff. If you are easily offended, I recommend skipping it. [kaba]

bob lonsberry - Gun Owners Shouldn't Protest Cheney - The Utah Gun Owners Association is threatening to protest Dick Cheney's visit to Salt Lake City because guns will not be allowed in the auditorium. Mr. Lonsberry is a self-professed gun nut, and he thinks they're misguided. He's right. Property owners have the right to set the rules for visiting their property. If they say no guns and you don't like it, then don't go there.

Jeff Elkins at LewRockwell.com - Spam: It's The All-American Food - Some good advice for how to fight spam. And laws that violate the first amendment don't make the list. I used to get annoyed with spam. Now I just delete it, unread. Takes about 10 seconds each time I get my mail, and I get lots of spam. I'd rather spend that 10 seconds than have the feds in my e-mailbox. [lew]

Bjorn Lomborg at The Economist - The truth about the environment - a former "deep greenie" argues that environmentalists should replace their littany with facts. The environment is not in as much trouble as they would have you believe. As a matter of fact, it's improving. [lew]

These environmentalists, led by such veterans as Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University, and Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute, have developed a sort of "litany" of four big environmental fears:

...

The trouble is, the evidence does not back up this litany. First, energy and other natural resources have become more abundant, not less so since the Club of Rome published "The Limits to Growth" in 1972. Second, more food is now produced per head of the world's population than at any time in history. Fewer people are starving. Third, although species are indeed becoming extinct, only about 0.7% of them are expected to disappear in the next 50 years, not 25-50%, as has so often been predicted. And finally, most forms of environmental pollution either appear to have been exaggerated, or are transient—associated with the early phases of industrialisation and therefore best cured not by restricting economic growth, but by accelerating it. One form of pollution—the release of greenhouse gases that causes global warming—does appear to be a long-term phenomenon, but its total impact is unlikely to pose a devastating problem for the future of humanity. A bigger problem may well turn out to be an inappropriate response to it.

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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