The War Prayer

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 12 Nov 2001 13:00:00 GMT

I watched Hannibal last night on a DVD played on my laptop. Yechhh. The lady f.b.i. agent was the only good guy in this film. Still, it kept my attention, the production was superb, and Anthony Hopkins did his usual good job of playing a really wierd character. Not for the squeemish. Unless you're fond of watching a guy have his skull cap removed and then eat a fried piece of his own brain. I repeat. Yechhh.

I had a disquieting thought yesterday. J. Orlin Grabbe linked to a couple of stories shortly after 9/11 claiming that the crashed airplanes were flown by wire to their destinations, not by a terrorist sitting in the cockpit. I find those claims very difficult to believe. Then there's the possibility of suitcase nukes. I find that much easier to believe, as horrible as it is to imagine. But my disquieting thought is more in keeping with using our own technology against us. As far as I know, the U.S. still has a large number of nuclear missiles. A missile in Wyoming can be launched to target Moscow or Beijing, or Washington, or New York. How hard would it be for someone with evil intent to retarget and fire one of those missiles? I hope it's really hard.

Mark Twain at What Really Happened - The War Prayer - Wow! Mirrored here.

Another H.E.A.P. Site - a public service of Webley Web Works, Ken Holder's business. H.E.A.P. ="Holocaust Education and Prevention". A collection of Amazon.com links to useful books on a number of subjects: Homemade guns and ammo, Fighting with Guns, General Gunsmithing, Genocide, The American Revolution, American Founders, The Constitution, American Culture, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Fiction. I mirrored the page at http://billstclair.com/heap.html and added it to my links page in the "RKBA" section.

The Libertarian Enterprise has a new issue, "1 + 2 = FREE". It begins with the following ad. If you click on it you can buy hats, t-shirts, mugs, etc. with a similar logo, A NOT'ed U.S. flag with the stars in a swastika or barbed wire shape. I ordered a cap with the swastika design. It'll be interesting to see how the guys at the range respond to it, assuming I have the panache to wear it there, which I may not.

This issue contains the two newest articles in The Libertarian series by Vin Suprynowicz: House Blocks Vast New Airport Bureaucracy and Congressmen in Wonderland. I've already reviewed them, so I won't repeat myself. If you haven't read them yet, there's no time like the present. And...

Letter from Curt Howland - A response to Charles Novins piece last week about U.S. v. Emerson. Mr. Howland says that the decision reiterated what we all know, that the second amendment affirms the individual right to keep and bear arms, and it also disagreed with Miller, individuals have the right to keep and bear all arms, not just those with military utility. Unfortunately, it also allowed the prior restraint under which Dr. Emerson was charged.
Mr. Novins is very correct in his conclusion, however. It is time for peaceful people to start being arrested, in large numbers, for peacefully carrying arms.

I believe that the defense at the trials must then rest upon the principle of "Prior Restraint" of an individual right.
Letter from Amos J. Vaden - Commentary on Sean Gruber's Good Cop, Bad Cop.
The state is initiatory force. It is evil.

The individual is free to risk or spend his life as he wishes. But if even one egg, even a robin's egg, which does not belong to that individual, is broken by him, he owes compensation. He has committed either crime or tort, and must pay a suitable and meaningful compensation, perhaps to include his life. And it doesn't matter if he wears a uniform, carries a badge, says he is part of the all-important gang who "really run things," has a subpoena or a warrant, or is otherwise authorized or licensed to kill.

Putting uniforms and badges on criminals doesn't make them good.
Thirty-two Stupid Years by L. Neil Smith - It's time to dismantle the security state, so that we, you and I and our children, can visit the stars. Well said, Mr. Smith.
Ending victim disarmament is only the first step. The abysmal political events that have followed September 11 are a clear signal that it's time to dismantle the security state totally and forever. Every time some idiot suggests that you give up any part of your liberty for the sake of "safety", remind him that the most famous advocates of that philosophy ended up being tried and hanged at Nuremburg.

Creative Loafing - Clash of wills: Rights versus security in Fort Benning protest - bad title, since the argument has nothing to do with rights versus security, but good article about the problems Father Roy Bourgeois is having getting permission from Columbus Georgia to hold his annual protest against the School of the Americas, or whatever newspeak it's called nowadays. [unknown]

Late last week, Mayor Bobby Peters had refused to approve routine gathering and parade permits to a protest group headed by Father Roy Bourgeois and threatened a court injunction to block the march. On the other side, ACLU lawyers are contemplating a legal half-nelson designed to force the city to allow the march on constitutional grounds.

...

According to Bourgeois, the two settled on a nearby city park also close to the base, but the mayor quickly withdrew the offer after Fort Benning's outgoing commander, Maj. Gen. John Le Moyne, gave his thumbs-down to that alternative.

"The general told the mayor, 'We're on high alert; keep protesters away,'" Bourgeois says. "I call him Lt. Peters because he's taking his marching orders from Gen. Le Moyne. There's no reason to protect the fort against us; it can protect itself."

What Really Happened - The Rise of the Fourth Reich - makes an apt comparison between the rise of the Third Reich and what is happenning today in Amerika. [unknown]

It is the very nature of power that it attracts the sort of people who should not have it. The United States, as the world's last superpower, is a prize that attracts men and women willing to do absolutely anything to win that power, and hence are also willing to do absolutely anything with that power once they have it. If one thinks about it long enough, one will realize that all tyrants, past and most especially present, MUST use deception on their population to initiate a war. No citizen of a modern industrialized nation will send their children off to die in a war to grab another nation's resources and assets, yet resources and assets are what all wars are fought over. The nation that wishes to initiate a war of conquest must create the illusion of an attack or a threat to start a war, and must always give their population of cowards an excuse never to question that carefully crafted illusion.

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Happy Armistice Day
New Toy!
Afghan Mountains Surrender
Congressmen in Wonderland
House blocks vast new airport bureaucracy
Take a Break
No Time Today
Meet the new boss ... same as the old boss
Los Angeles Policeman of the World
'Students' of death

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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