We Don't Need No Steenking Terrorists, We've Got Government
The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up there's no law against wacking them around a little. -- Joe Martin
Doing Freedom, July 2002 is out. Yay! I haven't read it yet. My mirror is here.
Remember to tune in tonight at 10pm to ABC News 20/20 for John Stossel's show, "War on Drugs, A War on Ourselves."
Vin Suprynowicz at The Las Vegas Review-Journal - The parade of disarmament marches on - After a handful of killings, Europe, as usual, focuses on the weapons instead of the criminals who used them. It's even happenning, in a small way, in Vin's home town, Las Vegas, even though Nevada is an open carry state. [firearmnews]
The problem in all these cases -- and especially when a lone gunman can take out eight city council members -- is not so much that the felons were armed (since all men have a God-given right to bear arms), of course, as the fact that their intended victims were dis-armed.
To respond by asking whether "more must be done to control weapons" is like responding to reports that many 18th century patients were dying after being bled by their doctors, by declaring, "We must redouble our efforts to purge these poor souls of their evil humours by bleeding them not of mere pints of blood, but of quarts! quarts!"
Civilian death rates climb when the taxpaying class is effectively disarmed, while the two criminal classes that surround us -- free-lance bandits and government agents -- continue to pack heat. We saw it in Hitler's Germany, we saw it in Stalin's USSR, we saw it in Pol Pot's Cambodia, and now Western Europe seems determined to give it another try.
Aaron Turpen at The Salt Lake Tribune - America's 'First Freedom' - the right to keep and bear arms, of course. [firearmnews]
The Founding Fathers realized that without a means of protection, the people of this country could easily fall under another tyranny like the one that sparked the Revolutionary War. The Second Amendment is our guarantee that our government cannot and will not become what we do not want it to become. The right of the people to keep and bear arms is our most important right, for without it, all other rights will be trampled upon.
Matt Lasley at LewRockwell.com - Airport Education - Mr. Lasley had a small pocket knife stolen by "security" while he was seeing his niece off at the airport. When he tried to get it back after seeing her off, he was given a typical run-around. [lew]
Sunni Maravillosa at Sierra Times - Getting Free, Post-911 - Some practical advice for retaining your freedom in an almost police state. [sierra]
Stop giving out your SSN. With the talk of NIDs and TIPS still going strong, it just plain makes sense not to add information that's linked to that number. When given a form, simply don't fill in a number. Many times, it won't be noticed. If it is, and you're asked about it, an answer I've found effective is, "I don't use it any more." Usually that ends the conversation; if not, a brief explanation should suffice. If the person persists in asking for it, take your business elsewhere, if possible.
Charley Reese - Nothing Is A Good Weapon - at least it's working mighty well for the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center towers last September.
It seems to me that the terrorists with whom America is "at war" are doing exactly the right thing -- nothing.
In the meantime, the U.S. government seems to be digging itself into a deeper and deeper hole. There are raucous debates over anti-terrorism measures; any concern for budget discipline has gone out the window; government power is being expanded on a willy-nilly basis; civil liberties are being put in jeopardy; the American economy, particularly the aviation industry, is being strained; and pressing problems such as the environment, economic infrastructure and a sensible trade policy are all shoved to the back burner.
And what has all this cost the terrorists? Nothing. Not a single bullet, not a stick of dynamite. Nearly a year ago, some men hijacked four airplanes and crashed them, dying with their victims. Since then, nothing has happened. While we have gone to war in Afghanistan, made a mess of foreign policy, greatly alarmed our traditional allies and, frankly, conducted ourselves in general as a nascent fascist state, the terrorists have done nothing.
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I say it is time for us to suck it up and get on with our lives in a manly fashion. I would hate to think that our constitutional republic is to be dismantled because a few minimum-wage employees didn't do their jobs at two airport-security counters.
