A Dose of Their Own Medicine

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 31 Aug 2002 12:00:00 GMT

From samizdata:

"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog." -- G. K. Chesterton

Dale Amon at Samizdata - Support for Boston Tea Party grows - The latest Boston Globe poll of 801 likely voters shows 40% support for Karla Howell's repeal of the Massachusetts income tax. And this was before her full page ad appeared in the Globe. The socialists must be wetting their pants. [samizdata]

Rick Gee - Speeding Tickets: Public Safety or Public Plunder? - Mr. Gee got a speeding ticket a while back, which he refused to pay. [anti-state]

My second option is to report to the judge down at the Magistrate Court. If given the chance to speak in my own defense, I shall utter the following:

"Mr. Judge (I refuse to use the term "Your Honor." I honor myself, my wife and my mother, but most definitely NOT a lawyer-politician in a black robe.), this citation is contemptible. First of all, I am innocent. It is my legal right to travel with the flow of traffic, and everybody that day was traveling at roughly the same speed. Why I was singled out I cannot say. Nonetheless, this ticket should be unconditionally dismissed.

"But there is a larger issue, beyond my own fate in this matter, that screams to be addressed in this public forum. Why are we paying the police to sit behind a bush near the border of a higher speed limit to harass citizens who are merely going about their business, driving to work or church or the grocery store, who pose no threat to anyone? Are there not real crimes that need to be investigated? Are there not neighborhoods where crime runs rampant in which the presence of the police might actually have a deterrent effect? Why is my right, and the right of my fellow citizens, to travel freely, so long as I am not driving recklessly, being trampled upon?"

Joseph R. Stromberg and Karen De Coster at LewRockwell.com - Things To Do To Pass Time -- During the War - a long list of ridiculous things to do, all of which are more important and more interesting, IMHO, than having anything to do with GW's war. [lew]

William L. Anderson at LewRockwell.com - Ashcroft and Justice: Mutual Exclusives - Mr. Anderson wishes that Mr. Ashcroft would be more Christian. [lew]

John Ashcroft is not the first attorney general to engage in malicious prosecutions, deprive individuals of constitutional rights, and generally railroad innocent people into prison. Furthermore, he is not the first in his position to abuse and torture people who are not guilty of crimes. This practice has been going on for some time, although in our postmodern, secular era, it seems that each attorney general is determined to be worse than the successor. The use of the "rubber hoses" of RICO and anti-drug laws that began with the Ronald Reagan Administration has escalated into the present era of the guilty plea, as hapless defendants are snowed under with multiple indictments and threats of long prison terms unless they plead out.

Moreover, modern prosecutors have legal tools that would have caused many of their predecessors to recoil in horror. Thanks to RICO laws, prosecutors can pick up a violation of any regulation, no matter how mundane, and bundle those violations together into huge counts of "conspiracy" charges that carry 25-year sentences upon conviction. Upon a RICO indictment, the government can freeze the assets of individuals and their families, thus making it difficult for them to adequately defend themselves.

Stephen Manning of AP via newsobserver.com - Maryland police hunt man who killed 2 sheriff's deputies - Two deputies tried to apprehend James Logan, whose wife had said was behaving erratically. He shot and killed them. This article makes the guy out to be a criminal, but KABA gave a little context to the story by linking to the Washington Post's A Blue Wall of Silence special concerning the rash of killings in Prince George's County, Maryland. Maybe Mr. Logan read or heard about these stories telling of the shooting of at least a dozen "mentally ill or emotionally distraught people" since 1990. Sounds to me like the cops were just getting a little dose of their own medicine. [kaba]

Audrey Hudson at The Washington Times - Drunken-pilot joke delays Midwest flight - yet another example of the absurdity of current airline "security" policies. [market]

Chris Floyd at CounterPunch - The Secret Sharers: The CIA, the Bush Gang and the Killing of Frank Olson - a little history of the evils perpetrated by the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bush clan. [market]

There is a thread running through modern American history, a thin red cord that weaves in and out of the shifting facades of reason and respectability that mask the brutal machinery of power. At certain rare moments the thread flashes into sight, emerging from the chaotic jumble of unbearable truth and life-giving illusion that makes up human reality. It appears, bears witness, then vanishes again, forgotten behind the next facade.

It's a thread that runs from horrified young intelligence operatives stumbling into the death camps of Nazi Germany to hardened agents running assassination programs in the jungles of Vietnam to august men of state building a shadow government with secret decrees authorizing tyranny, murder, torture and deceit. It's a thread of moral corruption, corruption by an idea, a temptation, a perversion of reason, the whisper of evil that says: "The end justifies the means."

Anis Shivani at CounterPunch - What's Next...Concentration Camps? - how Hitler happenned in Germany and his successor is happenning in Amerika. I don't like how he equates Nazism with capitalism, but the rest reads true. [market]

For there is no doubt that the whole idea behind forcing Bush to the presidency was for America to enter the era of concentration camps, mass deportations, cultural genocide, and the redundant addition of Orwellian, or hard, totalitarianism to its already existing Huxleyan, or soft, totalitarianism, in order to ratchet things up to such a depressing level that mere survival, mere existence as we knew it before apocalypse would become a breath of fresh air.

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair