End the War on Freedom

"How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin." -- Ronald Reagan

HTML Redirection Example is a small example of using the HTTP-EQUIV meta tag to cause one web page to redirect to another. You can call me Bill, and you can call me Mr. St. Clair, and you can call me a nerd or a geek, but if you call me Mr. Bill... (a paraphrase of an old John Wayne joke: "Well, you can call me John, and you can call me The Duke, and you can call me Mr. Wayne, but if you call me The John...")

Tim Dowling The Guardian - The Saddam and George show - what might have happened had George Bush agreed to debate Saddam Hussein. Hehe. [grabbe]

Blair: I'd like to remind everyone at home that the Monica Lewinsky-Tonya Harding fight follows after the break.

Charlie Reese - The Facts About Rebellion - Mr. Reese has no bones to pick with Honest Abe, but he uses this example to make a point that every country's leaders will crush an internal rebellion. Saddam has lots of company on that score. [lew]

Which political leader made war on his own people, killing 262,000 of them, burning their cities, destroying their food supply and placing the survivors under military occupation?

If your answer is Saddam Hussein, you're wrong. The answer is Abraham Lincoln.

Accepting the Northern but incorrect view of the War Between the States, Lincoln did exactly the same thing Saddam Hussein did. When "his own people" rose up in armed rebellion, he crushed the rebellion, brutally and decisively.

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It's quite true that, like any other dictator, Saddam treats his political opponents harshly, but it's also true that if you stay out of politics, you could live as freely in Baghdad as you can in New York City. Unlike a communist-style dictator, Saddam doesn't give a damn what Iraqis think or do unless it involves a threat to his hold on power. There are two categories of dictators: totalitarians who want to control every aspect of a person's life, and gangsters who just want to stay in power. Saddam is in the gangster category. Iraqi women, for example, are entitled to free education, just the same as men, and are free to choose any vocation they wish. Prior to the Gulf War, Iraq had one of the largest middle classes in the Middle East, one of the best education systems and one of the best health care systems. We, not Saddam, have destroyed all three with the war and economic sanctions.

Michael Peirce at LewRockwell.com - Waco: What If There Had Been A Real Peace Officer There? - Mr. Peirce imagines how Waco could have ended much better had there been a real Texas Ranger around instead of a bunch of feral goons. [lew]

Chris Floyd at Counterpunch - Bush Magic Turns Medicines Into Munitions - Bushnev and company are now talking about using chemical weapons on Iraq, contravening the Chemical Weapons Convention treaty that the U.S. initiated and signed years ago. Can you say hypocrite? Thought you could. [lew]

Jeff Cooper's Commentaries - The Ides Of March - the frustration of marketing firearms; Winchester short magnums; a great display of 45 autos; "We need a short 45 the way we need a three-wheel Ferrari"; the Walther P22; the Blaser 93's perfect out-of-the-box trigger and the sad state of most rifle triggers today; the Remington 673 chambered in Remington 350 Short Magnum; three replicas of the 1851 Colt Navy pistol; Ted Nugent bucks airport security; "Munchausenism"; heard from a wheelchair at an airport; a Beretta "pseudo thumper"; "As of this point, I know of no stopping failures on the part of a major-caliber rifle cartridge"; Blaser 93 selling better than Steyr Scout; Jim West's "Co-Pilot"; Ashley Emerson did a hog neatly with his kukri; the link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda; the importance of ammunition quality to accuracy; the consequences of traveling unarmed in the wilds of Africa; the difference between Gunsite's color code and the one used by Herr Ashcroft and friends; some amazing shooting records; "Battery Specialist"; Patton on planning.

Standing out amongst new handguns is the "Dino Pistol" of Smith& Wesson. This is a gigantic 5-shot wheel gun taking the 500 Smith& Wesson cartridge. It is so big and heavy that it reintroduces the job description of "gun bearer." It is to pistols what the 700 Nitro cartridge is to rifles- an exercise in the possible without any consideration of what might be desirable, needful or necessary. I bet it will sell like Big Macs.

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I have lived a long and an adventurous life, as I sometimes point out, and I find that the unvarnished truth is amazing enough for anybody.

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I cannot accept the idea that the girls really want to be placed in harm's way. I think they want to have it both ways, which has always been difficult. Placing a woman deliberately in harm's way is gross, and cannot be countenanced by ladies or gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, however, are endangered species.

Bill Whittle - Confidence - another cheery note, well-written and followed by lots and lots of comments, as usual. Mr. Whittle's optimism is starting to feel sickly sweet to me. Somehow he hasn't noticed that the American government is corrupt beyond repair. Still, I enjoy reading his essays. [mrsdutoit]

The protestors we have seen recently know this is very well. They accuse us of being Nazis. We hear people from Berkeley and Santa Monica railing that they live in a Police State, no better than the one in Iraq. They claim we want nothing but oil, filthy lucre -- and ascribe to our determined action the most base motives they can devise: sheer profit. Diversion from economic woes. Racism. Paternal guilt. Bloodlust. The list goes on and on.

Like the terrorists we also face in these quietly desperate times, these people seek to attack us where we are the most vulnerable, and for the anti-American multitudes that means our confidence. They know as well as we do that if we were the cruel, bloodthirsty and vicious killers they claim us to be that they would all be dead in unmarked graves. Gandhi, after all, succeeded in freeing India because his non-violent strategy was aimed at the British -- another fundamentally decent and humane people. Had he tried this against Hitler or Stalin we would never have heard of him, for he would be yet another of the nameless, faceless millions taken away in the night, never to be seen again.

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