More Zero Tolerance Follies

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Fri, 23 Aug 2002 12:00:00 GMT
From anodyne:
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others." -- Thomas Jefferson

From brad:

Alex Singleton at Liberty Log - Andrew Neil on Iraq and The Case for War - Mr. Singleton attempts to convince libertarians that war with Iraq is justified. He pointed me at his (shared) blog via email. I sent the following response:

Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 13:22:10 -0400
To: Alex Singleton <alex@alexsingleton.com>
From: "Bill St. Clair" <bill@billstclair.com>
Subject: Re: Liberty Log puts forward pro-war line
Cc: bill@billstclair.com

At 04:44 PM 8/22/2002 +0100, you wrote:
Over the past week, I have been putting forward a libertarian defence of the war against Iraq. If you haven't seen it, you might like to tune into:

http://www.libertylog.com/
Hmm... Iraq is training terrorists, so we should go to war to cause a regime change. Last I looked, the U.S. government ran the School of the Americas (AKA the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). As far as I can tell, that organization basically trains terrorists. Should someone go to war with us to cause a regime change?

I don't go with the argument that their government has no legitimacy either. No government is legitimate, unless it is contractually agreed to by all parties (http://www.lysanderspooner.org/notreason.htm). Even if I were to agree that a government like the U.S., where it is nominally possible to vote the bastards out, is legitimate, our only difference from Iraq is that our government leash is longer (http://64.46.100.6/~themille/EndAuthority/leash1.jpg). Stray outside the bounds set forth by our masters, and you will be eliminated.

War is the health of the state. Don't support it. Ever.

-Bill

L. Neil Smith at The Libertarian Enterprise - Remarks To The Fifth Annual Convention Of The Mars Society - a speech Neil gave on August 10. How to prevent future cataclysmic meteor hits on Earth while making lots of space pioneers filthy rich. [tle]

So recently, as a sort of personal thought experiment -- and by the authority vested in me as the author of 22 science fiction novels -- I have taken it upon myself to devise a three-legged program for the purpose of preventing "extinction-level" events. And this program (by some strange coincidence) requires a massive human presence in space. My part will be to write an "epic" novel about the program called Ceres, and a popular nonfiction book called Destroyer of Worlds.

The first "leg" on which the program stands is a permanently manned optical and radio observatory on the far side of the Moon. (In my forthcoming novel Ceres, it will be called the "Gary Larson Far Side Observatory.) An unmanned "satellite" facility at the Langrange Point on the opposite side of the earth will provide range-finding parallax.

Of course, somebody will have to run the McDonald's and the liquor store and the gunshop and the Wal-Mart that Lunar astronomers will need.

Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - Does Government Run the Economy? - Of course not. If it did, we'd have lines to buy bread. Which is where we're headed if we don't stop the socialist mostrosity that the U.S. government has become. This article is the source of the quote from The Federalist that I included yesterday.

So what exactly would critics have the President do to "fix" the economy? Presumably they believe he should propose some new laws and regulations, thereby protecting us from greedy CEOs and the risks of the free market. The belief is that government brings about economic prosperity, and that the current economic malaise represents a failure by government to act. In other words, the government somehow caused the economy to sour through inattention and neglect.

Notice that while our economic problems are always blamed on corporations, greed, capitalism, or a mysterious "business cycle," the solutions are always presumed to come from government. When the economy falters, the public clamors for the government to do something- and when the economy does well, politicians take credit for the good times caused by their sound economic policies. This reflects the pervasive attitude in America that government should "run" the economy.

Camille Paglia at AndrewSullivan.com - Camille Returns - Mr. Sullivan asked Ms. Paglia about something she said about the Palestinians in October 2000, and she sent him an answer. Mr. Sullivan also posted on July 31 The Camille Paglia IMterview. Yay!

I resigned from Salon.com last year to focus on my book projects and lectures. For example, a lecture I gave on multiculturalism and education at Santa Clara University in May 2001 was published last fall by Arion. This fall Arion will publish a lecture I gave at Yale University in March on American religion in the 1960s.

I'd been writing for Salon for six years since their inaugural issue in 1995. If I could have written for them every week, I would have. They were very generous in letting me go down to a triweekly schedule, but finally it just became impossible.

Timothy Lynch at National Review - Remember Ruby Ridge - Wednesday was the tenth anniversary of the killing by ferals of Sammy Weaver and his dog. Shortly thereafter, Lon Horiuchi murdered Vicki Weaver with a shot in the head while she was holding her baby. This article is a fairly good overview, though for some reason it does not include Mr. Horiuchi's name. [picks]

Billy Beck at No Treason Blog - Highway Robbery - another example of why reasonable people no longer respect the police. Two words: "Zero Tolerance". [notreasonblog]

As soon as it was clear, George swung left into the HOV lane and proceeded for as long as it took him to get around the stalled car, after which he returned to the lane for everybody else.

And that's when Officer Harris (badge number #9173) of the Georgia DOT got one step closer to his quota for the day. He wrote George for the HOV-lane violation, which will be another hundred bucks tapped in order to provide "services" in the state of Georgia. Like "no tolerance", for example. (The words out of Officer Harris' mouth.)

Add comment Edit post Add post