Some Classic L. Neil
"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles." -- Jeff Cooper
From Bill Stone's Favorite Quotes:
"You're a blithering idiot who wouldn't know a clue if it appeared on your screen in a GUI interface with a a button labeled, 'I'm a clue -- click here to aquire me.'" -- Seth Finkelstein
L. Neil Smith - Why Did it Have to be ... Guns? - oft-linked by me and others, this is required reading about four times a year. I mirrored it here. [picks]
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 at The Libertarian Enterprise - Where No Libertarian Has Gone Before - A speech Neil gave in 1996 at the Colorado Libertarian Party Convention. Another one that's worth re-reading. Some of the examples are a bit dated, but it's still right on. [wrstone]
Or, just to put it in what may seem like everyday, more practical terms, half of everything we make -- to be precise, 47% or our income -- is taken from us in the form of income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and so forth. To add insult to injury, half of what we spend evaporates the same way, not spent on the quantity or quality of the goods and services we think we're paying for, but wasted on corporate taxes, inventory taxes, and that sort of thing.
What's even worse, according to economist Arthur Laffer, the burden of complying with socialist regulations doubles the price of everything again, so that we're spending eight times as much as we should need to, to acquire life's necessities and luxuries. Every day, we run on one eighth of our real capacity, while right-wing and left-wing socialists greedily gobble up the remaining seven eighths of our substance, not to mention our opportunities, our futures, and our children's futures.
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In a tax-free, regulation-free civilization, a 133 mhz Pentium w/color monitor, 1.6 Gbyte hard-drive and 6X CD ROM will cost you $299, a '96 Neon, $1112.25, and a '96 Plymouth Voyager is $2111. The average American home goes for $12,500, and that Winnebago -- a 37' '96 "Luxor" you thought you could never afford -- will set you back $19,862. (I had no idea the damned things were so expensive!)
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Another way to look at this is to take your present income, multiply it by eight, and think about the lifestyle that would make possible. (Within the constraints of an action-adventure plot, I tried doing this in 1979 with my first novel, The Probability Broach and will make rather more of it in 1999 with The American Zone. ) If you earn, say, $20,124, which is what the average Coloradoan makes, that will give you the real-wealth equivalent of $160,992 to spend every year. If you make $35,306, which is what the average federal bureaucrat in Colorado makes, think about an equivalent income of $282,448. I have friends who make about half that, and (at least from the viewpoint of an impecunious novelist) in terms of their houses, their cars, vacations, and other everyday concerns, they might as well live on another planet.
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In my chosen political speciality, The "Z" I strive for is the day when any 12-year-old kid can walk into a hardware store, slap $62.50 in gold down on the counter, and walk out with a Thompson submachinegun without having signed a single piece of paper -- or even having identified herself. And at $1.28 a box for ammunition, she'll be able to afford an awful lot of practice.
The sky above or the mud below. Everything or nothing.
Eli J. Lake at UPI - Afghan heroin crop spikes this year - take away the ruthless dictators and the market works its wonders. Between 2001 and 2002, there has been a 19-fold increase in the area in Afghanistan cultivated in poppies. Hehe. [anodyne]
The Hal Turner Show - Bali Explosion Was, in Fact, Micro-Nuke - take with a grain of salt. Warning, contains a few graphic photos of victims. [birdman]
NORML - Special Release - Marijuana Arrests For Year 2001 Second Highest Ever Despite Feds' War On Terror, FBI Report Reveals - As I said in my essay, The Lie of Cannabis Prohibition, I consider arresting people for possession of vegetables (or rifled metal tubes) to be assault and kidnapping. Passing laws authorizing such arrest is conspiracy to commit mass assault and kidnapping, a crime against humanity. Speedy trials and public hangings are in order.
Police arrested an estimated 723,627 persons for marijuana violations in 2001, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. The total is the second highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprises nearly half of all drug arrests in the United States.
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Of those charged with marijuana violations, 88.6 percent - some 641,108 Americans - were charged with possession only. The remaining 82,518 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses - even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use.
The total number of marijuana arrests far exceeds the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
Harry Browne at World Net Daily - An anniversary worth celebrating - Yesterday was the hundred and sixteenth anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty. Mr. Browne thinks it should be a national holiday. He is committed to re-establishing in America the individual liberty that the French were celebrating when they gave us that statue.
The great monument isn't called the Statue of the World's Superpower, or the Statue of National Greatness, or the Statue of the World's Policeman. Because individual liberty was America's one possession so prized by others, the monument was named the Statue of Liberty.
It is an impressive sight. Notice that Lady Liberty faces outward -- toward the world, not toward America. With her torch held high, she is reaching out to the world as the symbol of liberty -- bringing light and inspiration to people everywhere.
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That is the America we once had -- the beacon of liberty, providing light and hope and inspiration to the entire world -- the America we have forsaken for a mess of tasteless pottage.
Timothy Wheeler at Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership - America's 80 Million Potential Snipers - from before they caught the cretins. Mr. Wheeler elucidates the real agenda of the Violence Policy Center and Physicians for Social Responsibility: a complete ban on ownership of firearms by we the people. [trt-ny]
Joel Stein at Time Magazine - The New Politics of Pot - cannabis legalization is gaining ground, becoming a political force to reckon with. [drugsense]
Before the new czar was appointed in December, it was the government's preference not to address the legalizers. But the pro- pot movement has gained so much ground they can't be ignored as a fringe element. Americans, it turns out, aren't conflicted in their attitude toward marijuana. They want it illegal but not really enforced. A Time/CNN poll last week found that only 34% want pot to be totally legalized (the percentage has almost doubled since 1986). But a vast majority have become mellow about official loopholes: 80% think it's O.K. to dispense pot for medical purposes, and 72% think people caught with it for recreational use should get off with only a fine. That seeming paradox has left a huge opening for pro-pot people to exploit. Eight states allow medical marijuana, and a handful of states have reduced the sentences for pot smokers to almost nothing.I sent the following letter to the editor:
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... The drug czar's latest commercial, which was actually focus-grouped with teens and their parents, shows two teens getting stoned in their father's study, talking apathetically about a bunch of stuff. One pulls out a gun from his dad's drawer, the other asks lazily if it's loaded, and the gun-toting teen shrugs and shoots the other kid. "The suggestion is not to say too many children are being shot in their dens who are marijuana users," Walters said. "It's meant to show that marijuana alters your ability to use judgment." ...
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 21:50:48 -0500
To: letters@time.com
From: "Bill St. Clair" <bill@billstclair.com>
Subject: The New Politics of Pot
Cc: bill@billstclair.com
Arresting people for possession of vegetables qualifies very simply as assault and kidnapping. Kidnapping is a capital offense. I suggest speedy trials and public hangings. Start with John Walters.
Bill St. Clair
Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - Snipers, Terror, and Gun Control - eminently reasonable.
The wanton and unpredictable nature of the sniper shootings has reinforced an uncomfortable feeling that many Americans first experienced the morning of September 11th: namely, that the government cannot protect you. No matter how many police or federal agents we put on the streets, a determined individual or group can still cause great harm.
For many this is a sobering thought, because we have come to view the state as our protector and the solution to every problem. We should remember, however, that we hardly would want to live in a rigid totalitarian society completely free of danger. This nation was founded on principles of self-reliance, but we've allowed ourselves to become far too dependent on government. Perhaps the only good that can come out of these senseless and tragic killings is an emerging understanding that we as individuals are responsible for our safety and the safety of our families.
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For most Americans, guns are not a political issue. People buy and own guns to protect their families, not to commit crimes. The truth is that even millions of Americans who support and vote for gun control own guns themselves, because deep down they share the basic human need to feel secure in their homes. Since September 11th, that sense of security has been shaken, resulting in a big increase in gun sales across the country. Most supporters of gun rights take no pleasure in this fact, nor do they trumpet it as a political victory over gun control forces. The time has come to stop politicizing gun ownership, and start promoting responsible use of firearms to make America a safer place. Guns are here to stay; the question is whether only criminals will have them.
Christian Guide to Small Arms contains some good, practical, information about guns and shooting.
