Bloody Monday
From Quotes of the Day:
Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings. -- George Willand:
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -- George Bernard Shaw
From kaba:
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. -- Sallust
Theft-by-Deception.com markets a video that educates the public about the fact that most of our wages do not fall withing the definition of "income" for the federal income tax. It proposes no way to fight the crooks at the i.r.s.; once people realize that they do not owe the tax, the whole evil scheme will crumble under its own weight. And I have a bridge to sell you... Still, I intend to order the video. $20. Permission given to screen it for or loan it to your friends. Free copies available for i.r.s. agents deemed worthwhile to educate. [trt-ny]
I scored 210 yesterday on Fred's 25 meter Army Qualification Test. Got 207 the day before. Iron sights, of course. This qualifies me as a "Rifleman" according to Fred. It's listed as "Expert" on the targets. Wasn't difficult. Haven't seen others try it, so I don't really know if I'm shooting better than average. I do know however, that you don't want to be in my sights when I pull the trigger.
There's a new Libertarian Enterprise issue: "Bloody Monday". Articles I liked:
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Letters to the Editor - mostly more abortion stuff. Some of it is
good. Jack Jerome's short comment is apt:
Enjoyed the running debate on Abortion, but I think that the tenor of all arguments were too strident, on both sides. I can only paraphrase a Ranger buddy of mine concerning the moral or ethical aspects of abortion, "let God sort 'em out." Not my job.
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PROPAGANDAMERCIAL: Having the Freedom to Endure The War On Terrorism
With Flags Waving and Patriotic Bumper Stickers Sticking by Keith
Shugarts - a satirical look at our government's newest "war".
The War on Poverty allows the IRS to take your money, the War on Drugs allows the DEA to usurp your individual sovereignty, and now the War on Terrorism will allow the rest of the government to take anything else we've missed! Doesn't this make you want to go out and fly a flag and put a patriotic bumper sticker on your car - of course it does because we the government said so!
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John Moses Browning, American Hero by Jeff Elkins - on the genius
who invented the auto-loading mechanism still in use in many shotguns,
rifles, and pistols.
Could John Moses Browning exist in the world of Twenty First Century? Most emphatically no, at least not in the United States.
Armed state thugs from the BATF and FBI would examine his paperwork with microscopes, looking for the least deviation, merely to harass and slow production. They would delight in finding any error, seeking any means of 'legally' shutting Browning down. The most minor paperwork error would be seized upon and treated as a criminal infraction. John Moses Browning would be harassed, harried and quite probably thrown in jail. -
Whip Me. Beat Me. Tax Me. Enslave Me: Shall We Pay Reparations to
Taxpayers? - by Douglas F. Newman - End the income tax!
Slavery, antebellum south style, may be long gone, but two new, more subtle, forms of slavery are alive and well in America today. One, the mindset that simply will not go outside the box, is described above. The second is our current tax burden, which forces us to work almost half the year to pay our taxes.
But isn't the top marginal income tax rate 39 percent? Well, yes, but that only includes federal income taxes. It does not include Social Security taxes, state income taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, mass transit taxes, stadium taxes, etc. By the time you add it up, it comes to about half of the income of the average American. A slave is any person who labors involuntarily for someone else's benefit. The serfs of the middle ages turned over about one-third of what they produced to their landlords. If the American tax burden dropped to this level, it would be a stupendous step in the right direction.
AP via The Orange County Register - Plan would tax bullets, pay for victims' treatment: Critics say proposed 5-cent levy would penalize the law- abiding - a good counter-proposal to the ridiculous idea of taxing "bullets". [firearmnews]
Several critics of the plan handed out a California Rifle and Pistol Association news release, calling for a 25-cents-per-cartridge tax credit for gun owners.
In the release, association lawyer Chuck Michel called Perata's tax plan ridiculous.
"If Boy Scouts earning a shooting merit badge should pay a tax for the actions of a gang banger shooting a liquor-store clerk, then why shouldn't law-abiding gun owners get a tax credit for the tremendous public benefit their firearms provide," he wrote.
Charley Reese - Bush Plays Pontius Pilate - Nazis never win in the long run, but they can do a lot of damage in the short. You'd think the Israeli's of all people would remember that. Sigh...
Sharon is neither defending Israel nor pursuing terrorists. He is doing what he has planned to do from the very beginning -- destroy the Palestinian Authority and thus the peace process, and wreck what's left of the infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza.
Sharon believes that will leave the Palestinians where he wants them -- leaderless, impoverished and demoralized. I think he will fail, though the time ahead will be bad for the Palestinians, as impossible as that sounds given the suffering they've already endured in recent decades.
...
While the Israelis put on their usual false face to the international media, moaning about how difficult and dangerous this operation is, just remember that it is an army against civilians. Some brave Palestinians armed only with rifles have resisted, but a rifleman can't do much against a main battle tank protected by infantry, snipers, F-16s and helicopters.
...
Nevertheless, Sharon will fail. Israel will know no peace. One of the lies Israel uses in its nonstop barrage of slander against the Palestinians is that families teach their children to hate Israelis. Nothing is further from the truth. It is Israeli behavior that teaches children to hate Israelis. A military friend related a story of how IDF members operated in Lebanon. They went into a house, wrecked it, beat the father in front of his wife and children, then dropped their pants and defecated on the coffee table in front of the family. Do you think those children, watching their parents' humiliation, will have to read a book to hate Israelis? Even the American officer came away hating Israelis.
Angel Shamaya at KeepAndBearArms.com - KABA Director Warns California Public Safety Committee - a letter that Mr. Shamaya faxed to the committee members warning them of the imminent repeat of history in their state should they pass the .50 caliber rifle ban. April 19 is very close. Wonder what it'll bring this year... [kaba]
Be advised that I'm going to be frank and cut to the chase -- I'm not the NRA.
The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting, and gun bans like this are boxing good, decent people into corners that could eventually lead to assassinations of the people who make them happen. That's not a threat -- I don't live in your socialist Criminal Empowerment Zone of a once-decent state -- it's a PREDICTION based on three things:
David Codrea at KeepAndBearArms.com - Letter to California Safety Committee Regarding .50 Caliber Rifle Ban - another impassioned warning. [kaba]
Only traitors would support this abomination and enact such a tyrannical edict. I do not obey tyrants -- I DEFY them. I do not comply with the demands of rights rapists -- I RESIST them. Do what you will -- I'll not beg you to vote my way. I will simply put you on notice that no mere persons will take away my unalienable rights. I will not allow it to happen.
Brian Jennings at Strike the Root - Arming Society - why an armed society is a polite society, hence you should buy at least one gun a year and convince all your friends to do likewise. [anti-state]
Robert P. Murphy's Chaos Theory, a 60-page pamphlet containing the essays "Private Law" and "Private Defense", may be ordered from the linked page for $8 delivered. They intend to start shipping "by May 1st".
When I first read the draft of Bob's book, I was blown away by the sheer simplicity of his arguments, something I think is lacking in much of the existing important anarchist literature. His simple explanations, a smart mixture of common sense and slimmed-down economic theory, provide a perfect starting point for the curious non-anarchist, or a fantastic finishing point for the committed anti-statist who has a few logistical doubts about the stateless society.
Basically: intelligent; succinct; and most important of all, written in the language of the common person, without the haughty academic snobbery so present in the current available body of work." -- Jeremy Sapienza, from the Introduction
mortismaker at ar15.com - m-16 for bear defense???!!! - a hypothetical question about whether a .223 would stop a bear. Likely not. I'd go for 00 buck with 4 drams equivalent of powder. Well, Remington calls it a bear load. And it kicks bad. Twelve .30 caliber pellets are likely to get even a bear's attention. [ar15.com]
Cole Distributing sells a few rifles, Walther pistols, ammo (new & .308 surplus), and magazines (mostly pre-ban 20-round M14). [battlerifles.com]
kuran42 at kuro5hin - Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition - a good short introduction to the Python programming language. [kuro5hin]
