End the War on Freedom

I've been wanting to buy an autoloading .223 to complete the long-gun part of my minimal set of self-defense weapons (you can't legally own a pistol in New York without a permit, and I haven't yet been able to bring myself to ask permission for something that is my God-given right). There are a bunch of choices, but I just ran across a new one: the Ruger All-Weather Ranch Rifle K-Mini-14/5RP. $710 retail.

Anthony Garcia chimed in via email about Wednesday's poem, The Female of the Species. He recognized it as the work of "the ever-loveable Rudyard Kipling." Shame on me that I didn't. Fixed. Thank you, Mr. Garcia.

I received yesterday my copy of L. Neil Smith's The American Zone. Yay! I ordered it from Barnes & Noble since Amazon was only taking pre-orders at the time. Amazon is cheaper and The Libertarian Enterprise gets a cut if you use this link. An excerpt from the first chapter:

But I ask you, what's left of the meaning of Independence Day, if you let some jumped up city council, some upstart county commission, or some state legislature that doesn't know its place, confiscate your Roman candles, your M-802, or your pop-bottle rockets? North American Confederates would laugh out loud at such a contradiction--once the gunsmoke had cleared and the politiciands' bleeding carcasses had been hauled away.

Robert L. Kocher at Laissez Faire City Times - McVeigh and the Oklahoma Bombing, Epilogue 2: Waco, Mohammedism, and Domestic Terrorism - I haven't read this yet. [grabbe]

Ron Paul in the House of Representatives - November 29, 2001 - Dr. Paul talks about the war on "terrorism". In order to win a war, one must identify the target. Why attacking Afghanistan was a bad idea. Why attacking Iraq would be even worse. How all the new federal police powers will do nothing whatsoever to prevent terrorism. Instead, they will reduce the liberty of honest American citizens. Archived here.

It is not our job to remove Saddam Hussein- that is the job of the Iraqi people. It is not our job to remove the Taliban- that is the business of the Afghan people. It is not our job to insist that the next government in Afghanistan include women, no matter how good an idea it is. If this really is an issue, why don't we insist that our friends in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait do the same thing, as well as impose our will on them? Talk about hypocrisy! The mere thought that we fight wars for affirmative action in a country 6,000 miles from home, with no cultural similarities, should insult us all. Of course it does distract us from the issue of an oil pipeline through northern Afghanistan. We need to keep our eye on the target and not be so easily distracted.

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We have recently been reminded of Admiral Yamamoto's quote after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in expressing his fear that the event "Awakened a sleeping giant." Most everyone agrees with the prophetic wisdom of that comment. But I question the accuracy of drawing an analogy between the Pearl Harbor event and the World Trade Center attack. We are hardly the same nation we were in 1941. Today, we're anything but a sleeping giant. There's no contest for our status as the world's only economic, political and military super power. A "sleeping giant" would not have troops in 141 countries throughout the world and be engaged in every conceivable conflict with 250,000 troops stationed abroad.

The fear I have is that our policies, along with those of Britain, the UN, and NATO since World War II, inspired and have now awakened a long-forgotten sleeping giant- Islamic fundamentalism.

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Mr. Speaker, we must make every effort to precisely define our target in this war and keep our eye on it.

It is safe to assume that the number of people directly involved in the 9-11 attacks is closer to several hundred than the millions we are now talking about targeting with our planned shotgun approach to terrorism.

One commentator pointed out that when the mafia commits violence, no one suggests we bomb Sicily. Today it seems we are, in a symbolic way, not only bombing "Sicily," but are thinking about bombing "Athens" (Iraq).

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We have not done any better keeping our eye on the terrorist target on the home front than we have overseas. Not only has Congress come up short in picking the right target, it has directed all its energies in the wrong direction. The target of our efforts has sadly been the liberties all Americans enjoy. With all the new power we have given to the administration, none has truly improved the chances of catching the terrorists who were responsible for the 9-11 attacks. All Americans will soon feel the consequences of this new legislation.

...

Even before the passage of the recent draconian legislation, hundreds had already been arrested under suspicion, and millions of dollars of al Qaeda funds had been frozen. None of these new laws will deal with uncooperative foreign entities like the Saudi government, which chose not to relinquish evidence pertaining to exactly who financed the terrorists' operations. Unfortunately, the laws will affect all innocent Americans, yet will do nothing to thwart terrorism.

The laws recently passed in Congress in response to the terrorist attacks can be compared to the effort by anti-gun fanatics, who jump at every chance to undermine the Second Amendment. When crimes are committed with the use of guns, it's argued that we must remove guns from society, or at least register them and make it difficult to buy them. The counter argument made by Second Amendment supporters correctly explains that this would only undermine the freedom of law-abiding citizens and do nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals or to reduce crime.

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The Anti-Terrorism Bill did little to restrain the growth of big government. In the name of patriotism, the Congress did some very unpatriotic things. Instead of concentrating on the persons or groups that committed the attacks on 9-11, our efforts, unfortunately, have undermined the liberties of all Americans.

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It's easy for elected officials in Washington to tell the American people that the government will do whatever it takes to defeat terrorism. Such assurances inevitably are followed by proposals either to restrict the constitutional liberties of the American people or to spend vast sums of money from the federal treasury. The history of the 20th Century shows that the Congress violates our Constitution most often during times of crisis. Accordingly, most of our worst unconstitutional agencies and programs began during the two World Wars and the Depression. Ironically, the Constitution itself was conceived in a time of great crisis. The founders intended its provision to place severe restrictions on the federal government, even in times of great distress. America must guard against current calls for government to sacrifice the Constitution in the name of law enforcement.

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In his speech to the joint session of Congress following the September 11th attacks, President Bush reminded all of us that the United States outlasted and defeated Soviet totalitarianism in the last century. The numerous internal problems in the former Soviet Union- its centralized economic planning and lack of free markets, its repression of human liberty and its excessive militarization- all led to its inevitable collapse. We must be vigilant to resist the rush toward ever-increasing state control of our society, so that our own government does not become a greater threat to our freedoms than any foreign terrorist.

The executive order that has gotten the most attention by those who are concerned that our response to 9-11 is overreaching and dangerous to our liberties is the one authorizing military justice, in secret. Nazi war criminals were tried in public, but plans now are laid to carry out the trials and punishment, including possibly the death penalty, outside the eyes and ears of the legislative and judicial branches of government and the American public. Since such a process threatens national security and the Constitution, it cannot be used as a justification for their protection.

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The real outrage is that such a usurpation of power can be accomplished with the stroke of a pen. It may be that we have come to that stage in our history when an executive order is "the law of the land," but it's not "kinda cool," as one member of the previous administration bragged. It's a process that is unacceptable, even in this professed time of crisis.

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One cannot be reassured by believing these courts will only apply to foreigners who are terrorists. Sloppiness in convicting criminals is a slippery slope. We should not forget that the Davidians at Waco were "convicted" and demonized and slaughtered outside our judicial system, and they were, for the most part, American citizens. Randy Weaver's family fared no better.

It has been said that the best way for us to spread our message of freedom, justice and prosperity throughout the world is through example and persuasion, not through force of arms. We have drifted a long way from that concept. Military courts will be another bad example for the world. We were outraged in 1996 when Lori Berenson, an American citizen, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life by a Peruvian military court. Instead of setting an example, now we are following the lead of a Peruvian dictator.

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The planned use of military personnel to patrol our streets and airports is another challenge of great importance that should not go uncontested. For years, many in Washington have advocated a national approach to all policing activity. This current crisis has given them a tremendous boost. Believe me, this is no panacea and is a dangerous move. The Constitution never intended that the federal government assume this power. This concept was codified in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. This act prohibits the military from carrying out law-enforcement duties such as searching or arresting people in the United States, the argument being that the military is only used for this type of purpose in a police state. Interestingly, it was the violation of these principles that prompted the Texas Revolution against Mexico. The military under the Mexican Constitution at that time was prohibited from enforcing civil laws, and when Santa Anna ignored this prohibition, the revolution broke out. We should not so readily concede the principle that has been fought for on more than one occasion in this country.

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However, if we get to the point of returning to the draft, I have a proposal. Every news commentator, every Hollywood star, every newspaper editorialist, and every Member of Congress under the age of 65 who has never served in the military and who demands that the draft be reinstated, should be drafted first- the 18-year olds last. Since the Pentagon says they don't need draftees, these new recruits can be the first to march to the orders of the general in charge of homeland security. For those less robust individuals, they can do the hospital and cooking chores for the rest of the newly formed domestic army. After all, someone middle aged owes a lot more to his country than an 18-year old.

I'm certain that this provision would mute the loud demands for the return of the military draft.

Garry Reed, The Loose Cannon Libertarian - USA PATRIOT Games - good screed on the further desecration of the Constitution and Bill or Rights by the latest "anti-terrorist" garbage from congress.

The USA PATRIOT ACT, cattle-prodded through Congress with very few pols actually reading it, is supposed to be an anti-terrorist measure. Its name is a Mad Magazine acronym for (take a deep breath) Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. (Poet Laureate yes, but who knew Congress had a Gag Writer Laureate?)

What it actually does is create the gun-and-badge wet dream of the All American Police State. Now, worse than ever, our lives will be infested with federal enforcers' body parts: eyes ogling our email, ears filtering our phone chats, fingers fondling our "papers and effects" (as the Fourth Amendment so eloquently put it), feet tromping throughout our homes during secret searches, noses thrust indiscriminately into our faces at every turn, well fed asses festooning secret Star Chamber judicial benches.

An honest, non-doublespeak acronym for the USA PATRIOT Act would be Usual Suspects Alert: Politicians Attacking Traditional Rights Instead Of Terrorists Act. (Can't let myself be out-absurded by a Gag Writer Laureate.)

Libertarian Party Press Release - Why did police arrest 734,498 pot-smokers, instead of tracking murderous terrorists? - because arresting peaceful law-abiding citizens for possession of vegetables is easier than tracking down suicidal murderers, that's why. Also, stealing their property, so-called "asset forfeiture", is a really good racket. Steve Dasbach didn't mention those two reasons in his article, but he made some other good points.

"Local and state police, the FBI, and federal law enforcement agencies have only a finite amount of people, time, and money to investigate and stop crimes," he [Steve Dasbach] noted. "By directing so many of those resources to the War on Marijuana, law enforcement made the ill-advised decision that detecting murderous, fanatical terrorists was less important than arresting non-violent Americans who choose to use marijuana.

Alan Randell at Abbotsford News (CN BC) via MAPInc - Questions for Those Who Hosted Drug Forum - good questions for our local nazis as well. [cures-not-wars]

2. Would you feel hard done by if you were sentenced to a few years in jail for your part in enforcing drug prohibition, a strategy many have characterized as nothing less than a Hitler-like government pogrom designed, first to ostracize, and then to annihilate an identifiable minority of innocent people?

3. Is it your position that the police are duty bound to enforce any law, no matter how unjust?

Would you, for example, help to enforce a law requiring the imprisonment of all Jews?

Perhaps I should remind you that Adolph Eichmann protested he was simply following orders when he assisted in implementing Hitler's Final Solution, but the Israelis hanged him anyway.

Did Eichmann get a raw deal in your estimation?

AspectJ 1.0 is available for download. It implements "aspect oriented programming" for Java. I was very interested in this kind of thing a while back. Another toy for my copious spare time. Actually, adopting this style of programming would likely save many of us lots of time.

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