End the War on Freedom

Scott Bieser at Rational Review - Speaking of Epic Transformations - how the U.S. has changed between 1776 and 2002. Not funny, but an apt synchrony with the release of the new Star Wars movie.

L. Neil Smith at Rational Review - In Defense of Myself - Neil defends himself to someone in New Mexico who doesn't like him. Thankfully, I'm not privy enough to LP politics to know who he's talking about.

Since I'd failed to find within myself the makings of a mass murderer, habitual thief, or pathological liar, rather than become a politician, I chose to be as popular a writer as I could make myself, with the idea that, if I could persuade enough individuals that they wanted to be free, they, in turn, would convince the politicians that making this into the free country it was supposed to be was the most prudent policy.

T.L. Knapp at Rational Review - Brick and Martyr - a review of Vin Suprynowicz'es new book, The Ballad of Carl Drega. I had been putting off ordering it. Pure laziness. Ordered.

There's a subtle difference between the modern American martyrs for freedom and those traditionally defined as martyrs for a religious or political cause. Religious and political martyrs down through the ages have generally died in the act of proselytization or recruitment to their belief or cause. The modern American martyr for freedom have been killed for no other reason than that they wished to be left alone.

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History has proven that this is a fair rule of thumb: the supporters of bad ideas are compelled to impose those ideas by force and to harass, imprison, even kill those who fail to comply with their edicts. This, in turn, instructs the populace and eventually provokes a necessary reaction. If a revolution is a building, martyrdom is what holds that building's bricks together.

Mama Sierra at Sierra Times - Your Papers, Citizen - someone sent a letter saying that she was refused medical service because she had no photo ID to show the office manager. [sierra]

If sufficient numbers of people do not begin now to object to universal demands for submission of state-issued IDs as a condition for services, there will soon come a time when all activity will necessitate possession of some form of chip-imbedded ID, and there will be no viable opportunity for objection.

Claude Bohn at Liberty for All - Response to "And, the tyranny advances" - hear, hear. [kaba]

A friend of mine sent me a piece this morning about possible gun confiscations in Chicago. I wrote him back that, there was little doubt in my mind that, when (not IF) that happened, I was certain the vast majority of gun owners would dutifully surrender their firearms to dutiful officers of the Chicago P.D., who, after all, would only be "doing their duty".

A few hours later, another friend called and I related the story to him, along with my reply to the fellow who sent the story to me. I said, quite without thinking, "What good is the Second Amendment, when no one is willing to put it to use for the intended purpose?" Sort of a Freudian slip, I suppose; but it did cut to the heart of the matter, don't you think?

What good is a constitution, if no one is able or willing to see it enforced? What good is a Bill of Rights, if no one is willing or able to demand it be abided by and respected? And, what good are a whole armory of firearms, if no one is willing to put them to use in defense of Liberty?

Butler Shaffer at LewRockwell.com - The Delusion of Limited Government - why constitutions don't limit governments. A consitution is a bunch of words. It must be interpreted to have meaning. Different folks interpret the words differently, allowing socialists to interpret it to mean that they have permission to create their socialist "utopia" using government's monopoly on force. The only limit is for individuals to refuse to be coerced, with extreme prejudice when necessary.

There is an innocence, born of years of institutional conditioning, that leads most people to believe that the destructive powers of the state can be limited by the drafting and adoption of constitutions. Such hopes were expressed by seventeenth and eighteenth century philosophers who, building upon the capacity of private contracts to define the limits of interpersonal behavior, sought to extend such benefits to the social realm. But the abstract reasoning that underlay such expectations was soon confronted by the experiences of Realpolitik.

One would have thought that a group of people who believed in "free markets" would be astute enough to recognize the self-interest motivations that underlie all human behavior; and would further perceive that creating an instrumentality of coercive power would be far too dangerous a temptation to place before men and women. No more than should a bowl of candy be placed before a group of children with the expectation that it not be touched, should we expect political systems to be immune from mischief.

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When we recall that the Soviet Union had a constitution -- modeled after the United States Constitution -- it should be evident that liberty can never be guaranteed by the scribbling of words on parchment. Those who wave copies of the Constitution around as symbols of their liberty, remind me of dogs who have learned to carry their leashes in their mouths.

Brad Smith at San Francisco Frontiers via MPP - Asa Has Left the Building: DEA Chief Loses Another PR Battle - Mr. Hutchinson went to a Barnes & Noble in Rockville, MD, thinking he would be answering questions about prescription drug abuse. Instead, he got questions from people about why they were not allowed to use the only medicine that helps them, cannabis. He skirted the questions and walked out, red-faced.

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