End the War on Freedom

Dividing God

The moon starts singing
When everyone is asleep
And the planets throw a bright robe
Around their shoulders and whirl up
Close to her side.

Once I asked the moon,
"Why do you and your sweet friends
Not perform so romantically like that
To a larger crowd?"

And the whole sky chorus resounded,

"The admission price to hear
The lofty minstrels
Speak of love

Is affordable only to those
Who have not exhausted themselves
Dividing God all day
And thus need rest.

The thrilled Tavern fiddlers
Who are perched on the roof

Do not want their notes to intrude
Upon the ears
Where an accountant lives
With a sharp pencil
Keeping score of words
Another
In their great sorrow or sad anger
May have once said
To you."

Hafiz knows:
The sun will stand as your best man
And whistle

When you have found the courage
To marry forgiveness,

When you have found the courage
To marry
Love.

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

I'm planning to join Geneice Hovak this afternoon in a demonstration near the Albany (NY) International Airport. I will hold a sign saying the following, in sha' allah:

ARM
OUR
PILOTS Here is Geneice's invitation:

To All Groups,

Tuesday Oct 2, 2001 5:00pm RAIN or SHINE, I will be standing near the traffic light, on the access road to the Albany airport. I will be holding a sign that reads, "ARM OUR PILOTS" or "WE DON'T FLY". Any man, woman or child that wishes to join me will be a welcome addition to this demonstration. We MUST show our support to the pilots who are ultimately responsible for the thousands of lives aboard every airplane in our skies. Let's show our pilots that the second amendment community is behind them 200%.

If you can't be in Albany, then get a group together, go to your local airport and take a stand. Bring your signs and the pilot's petition. If you can't do that, then take a seat on the next airplane, hold your breath and pray to God, that the sky marshal doesn't go down, because there isn't going to be any back up.

As Benjamin Franklin said, "If you make yourselves sheep, the wolves will eat you."

Geneice
Montgomery Co.
"Liberty Line"

For driving directions, go to this Yahoo Maps page. I made a copy of the pilot's petition (front and back) in case you want to print it for collecting signatures in ink. Use the link above for on-line signatures.

I cased the Albany airport yesterday afternoon to see how much has changed since Bloody Tuesday. They closed quite a bit of short term parking that is closest to the terminal. Downstairs at check-in and baggage claim looks pretty much as it always did. Upstairs are signs at "security" saying "Ticketed Passengers Only" and giving a list of "weapons" that won't be allowed in. This list is repeated at www.albanyairport.com:

To help ensure your safety and facilitate your quick passage through Albany International Airport, the following items will not be allowed through the Security Checkpoint.

WEAPONS OF ANY TYPE

Box Cutters, Cigar Cutters, Corkscrews, Chrochet Hooks, Double Edged Razors, Files, Hair Picks, Hat Pins, Ice Picks, Leatherman Tools, Letter Openers, Knitting Needles, Knives, Metal Forks, Nail Clippers w/files, Pointed Combs, Pocketknives, Safety Pins, Scissors, Screwdrivers, Sewing Needles, Tweezers

Oh! I feel safer already. Not!

William Stone, III at The Libertarian Enterprise - It's Time to be Free - Well done, Mr. Stone! Things are not going to get better. They're going to get worse. If you want to be free, you'll have to just do it. Because of Larry Ellison's proposal for a National ID, Oracle must die. I am reminded of what I occassionally tell my son, "You are free. Noone can force you to do anything except fall down."

It's time for you to wake up in the morning, stretch, and say to yourself, "Today, I am free. I will go out and do anything I like, short of initiating force against another human being."

Smedley Butler on Interventionism - This was linked to in E.J. Totty's recent letter to The Libertarian Enterprise. A career marine, after his retirement as a Major General, reminds us, way back in 1933, that war is a racket. A criminal racket.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

Carl Bussjaeger at The Libertarian Enterprise - Arm Passengers for Safe Skies - another good argument for airplane carry.

Here's a new scenario: Passengers boarding a plane are not subjected to magnetic, radar, and chemical scans, nor anally probed. Unannoyed by intrusion, and undelayed by pointless "security", they board their flight on time. The plane takes off. And a couple of hijackers stand up and announce their intent to divert the craft for the greater glory of Zool or some other nitwit idea.

Said announcement is immediately followed by approximately 100 firearms safeties being clicked off, as all the other passengers and flight crew object to the interruption of their own plans, out-gunned by a ratio of 50 to 1, the hijackers choose between surrender or being mopped off the bulkheads after being hit with several hundred rounds of frangible (ie- fairly harmless to the aircraft) ammunition.

Assuming the FAA gets out of the business of making aircraft easy targets, the cockpit door should be locked and well-lined with bullet-resistant kevlar. The worst case scenario would then allow the hijackers to kill or injure only as many passengers as they have rounds in their magazines. And they'd still be dead, and their suicidal mission failed.

Project Safe Skies is a web site dedicated to making airplane carry a reality. Hunter and Sunni seem to be the prime movers here. Don't miss the discussion list messages.

John Burnett at Project Safe Skies - A pilot's solution - advice for pilots in dealing with hijackers. Bottom line: kill them.

Bruce Schneier - Cryptogram, September 30, 2001 - A good analysis of security issues surrounding Bloody Tuesday: The Attacks, Airline Security Regulations, Biometrics in Airports, Diagnosing Intelligence Failures, Regulating Cryptography, Terrorists and Steganography, News, Protecting Privacy and Liberty, How to Help. [picks]

Security and privacy are not two sides of a teeter-totter. This association is simplistic and largely fallacious. It's easy and fast, but less effective, to increase security by taking away liberty. However, the best ways to increase security are not at the expense of privacy and liberty.

It's easy to refute the notion that all security comes at the expense of liberty. Arming pilots, reinforcing cockpit doors, and teaching flight attendants karate are all examples of security measures that have no effect on individual privacy or liberties. So are better authentication of airport maintenance workers, or dead-man switches that force planes to automatically land at the closest airport, or armed air marshals traveling on flights.

Liberty-depriving security measures are most often found when system designers failed to take security into account from the beginning. They're Band-aids, and evidence of bad security planning. When security is designed into a system, it can work without forcing people to give up their freedoms.

Add comment Edit post Add post