End the War on Freedom

I'm a hoplophile. I believe weapons are nothing but tools, neither good nor evil. A gun is a paperweight that lacks volition, that lacks intent; it cannot leap up and kill you. A knife is a letter opener unless and until you decide to use it to pierce your neighbor.

Sadly, too few people today understand weapons or their place in society. A weapon is an equalizer, a means of giving weaker people an advantage. Without weapons, society is at the mercy of the strongest and most aggressive.

From Quotes of the Day:

"O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet." -- Saint Augustine

"Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important." -- Eugene McCarthy

From this kuro5hin thread:

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." -- Hermann Goering

Under capitalism man exploits man, under communism it's just the opposite.

Think about it. If DC was nuked tomorrow afternoon you know what I'd do? Celebrate. It'd be the best thing to happen to this country in a long, long time. Yes, a lot of innocent people would die and that's too bad but when these nuts are going into other countries commiting mass murder anyway it's a small price to pay. A nice 50 megaton-er would clean the filth in our poltical system qutie a bit faster than any campaign finance laws ever will.

The system is fine but I don't think the founding fathers ever realized how far reaching and complete the corruption could go. Virtually every government offical is bought and paid for by a special interest. They're bitches to their money and their party. The people are less important than ever in our poltical system and more and more things are getting out of hand.

russmo.com via The Libertarian Enterprise - One Voice - cartoon commentary on how the administration ensures that the U.S. speaks with one voice about going to war with Iraq. [tle]

Joseph R. Stromberg at The Ludwig von Mises Institute - The Bushnev Doctrine - concerning Comrade Dubya's "post-modern imperialist manifesto". Mr. Stromberg provides a sarcastic translation of the "new" NSS. The name "Bushnev" is worth remembering. I think I'll use it. Often. By the way, the red Cyrillic letters at the bottom of the photo transliterate to "Boozhnev", where the "zh" is prounced like "si" in "vision".

The statement given by the Bush administration to Congress and now available online, entitled "The National Security Strategy of the United States," must be read to be believed. Its historical points are dubious, its economics misleading, and its social theory a heap of dangerous half- or third- truths.

...

As befits a manifesto, the structure of the essay is fairly straightforward. The murk is all in the content. The writers proclaim big abstractions allegedly embodied by America. Dangers to those are mooted. There follow long lists of things that sundry U.S. bureaucracies "must" do, though the heavens fall.

The argument is not joined, and the whole thing reads like a campaign tract for a candidate for World President. A strong undertow of amateur Hegelianism runs through the manifesto. Both halves of blatant contradictions are affirmed and then aufgehoben ("overcome") by way of blind faith strengthened by a truckload of "musts."

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Clearly on a roll, the manifestoists write: "We will identify and block the sources of funding for terrorism, freeze the assets of terrorists and those who support them, deny terrorists access to the international financial system, protect legitimate charities from being abused by terrorists, and prevent the movement of terrorists' assets through alternative financial networks." You can kiss banking privacy goodbye. I am sure we shall get it back, sometime, in the radiant future.

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Economic growth "in Europe and Japan is vital to U.S. national security interests.... European efforts to remove structural barriers in their economies are particularly important in this regard, as are Japan's efforts to end deflation and address the problems of non-performing loans in the Japanese banking system.... International flows of investment capital are needed to expand the productive potential of these economies" [my emphasis].

Translation: Any remaining barriers to the Open Door for U.S. exports (never mind that the door does not always swing both ways) must be battered down. Japan must somehow re-inflate, so that the game of coordinated international inflation through central banking can return to normal. The bankers are counting on us.

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There is much pro forma belligerence in the manifesto. Thus, the U.S. will "disrupt and destroy terrorist organizations" via "direct and continuous action," "identifying and destroying the threat before it reaches our borders." Further, the U.S. "will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively against such terrorists," thereby "denying further sponsorship, support, and sanctuary to terrorists by convincing or compelling states to accept their sovereign responsibilities" [my emphasis].

I have underscored "compelling," above, to alert readers that this is a new buzzword especially favored in Air Force journals. It sounds so much nicer than "coercion" or "bombing," don't you think? Of course, "compelling states to accept their sovereign responsibilities," as defined for them by a third party--no matter how historically exceptional and noble that party is--suggests that the compelled states are not "sovereign" after all.

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"The enemy is terrorism--premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against innocents." Dresden, Hiroshima, Amiriya... ?

Joseph R. Stromberg at antiwar.com - What Is 'New' In the New Bush Doctrine? - no new substance, but the form has changed. The glove has been removed from the fist. The first link in the quote below is to the article above. [grabbe]

Toward the end of last month, there emerged from Important Places a statement of the strategic thinking of the Bush administration. Much was made of the document's unilateralism and rhetorical embellishments. Further examination suggests that the chief novelty lies in the sheer nakedness of present US claims to universal rulership.

Of course the United States only aspires to rule the world in order to do Good.

Even so, the underlying notions have been around for quite a long time. Already by the late 19th century, US leaders in effect asserted a non-negotiable right of the US government to be "secure." Any anxieties experienced by that government were the world's fault and the world could be held to answer for them. America, or at least its leaders, were sinless preachers to a sinful world and thus had every right to externalize their psychic crises and historical traumas onto the world stage.

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We must forever deal with a sort of US Ruling Class Historical Inflexibility Syndrome.

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And there's the rub: an empire has come into being on the basis of a set of mistaken, even criminal, policies -- the Open Door for US exports, an over-the-top notion of security, and the centrality of bombing. The Cold War provided a perfect ideological rationale for things the leaders wished to do anyway. Absent the Cold War, they have been looking for new missions.

It would never do to give up empire, would it? The Bush Manifesto states that it has taken a decade for US planners to understand the New Menace. It would be more correct to say that it has taken them that long to wheel a new villain into place for the edification of the TV-besotted masses.

The Union Leader (New Hampshire) - NH Libertarians meet, listen to "Drega" author - a report on the speech I attended two weeks ago in Nashua.

Bob Wallace at LewRockwell.com - Gun Control Equals Murder - damn straight! [lew]

Barry Miller at molonlabe.net - Assault rifles are obsolete "Homeland Defense Rifle" - the term "assault rifle" was coined by the Brady Bunch to villify firearms. From now on, proudly call yours a "Homeland Defense Rifle." [smith2004]

Yahoo! News - Troopers Will Carry Submachine Guns At Logan - starting in 2003. I've seen police with rifles in Rome and Warsaw. And of course we had our M16-clad junior G-men for a while here in the U.S. of A. But this is a first for every-day airport security.

Larry Pomykalski at Armed Females of America - Shooting From Cover - some information from which to start your practice.

Let's suppose that you are attacked and find a convenient brick wall to use as cover (it's apparently your lucky day!) As soon as you round it, you will need to make a quick and important decision-does this cover offer you not only protection from incoming rounds, but a means of complete retreat? Remember, the only way to lose a firefight is to be in it in the first place-if you can safely retreat from your attacker, that is the prudent, moral and most legally justifiable thing to do. An orderly withdrawal around the cover to a position of safety will be the wisest course of action, if possible.

Patrick Seale at Gulf News - It is growing clearer that war is inevitable - Bushnev's rhetoric is being heard, and believed. [grabbe]

What price will America have to pay for this ambitious neo-colonial adventure? Will American citizens, soldiers and interests be at risk from attack throughout the region, or will the Arabs eventually accept to live quietly under American rule? Will American rule be direct or indirect? Who can administer such an empire?

Little thought appears to have been given in Washington to the post-Saddam era, or the likely opposition to these American-Israeli plans. The American tendency (now being mouthed by an alarming variety of Arab intellectuals in this very paper) is to dismiss the "Arab street" as all noise and no action and to conclude that Arab opponents, whether states or individuals, can either be bought off or intimidated.

Meanwhile, America's world-wide "war on terror" - a euphemism for war against militant Islam and perhaps Islam as a whole! - continues without respite. Networks will be disrupted, activists arrested and sanctuaries denied. Thousands of innocent Muslims will become victims. America's real fear is mass-casualty terrorism like September 11, which it feels must be prevented at all cost.

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