To Kill An American
"If the government magically disappeared, would you run out to rob, murder, rape and pillage? No? How about your friends and family: would they? No? Would all of you like to defend yourselves against the very small portion of the population that would?" -- Chris Claypoole
From The Federalist:
In a dramatic reversal of decades-old "wisdom," some of the world's leading recycling advocates in Sweden, a country renowned for its concern for the environment, are now arguing that burning cardboard, plastics and food leftovers is better for the environment than recycling. They say that while recycling glass and aluminum still makes sense, there is no economical secondary market for paper and plastics, and given the technology to burn waste cleanly, incinerators could actually be used to generate electricity and reduce the need for oil.
To Kill An American is an uplifting piece that my Mother sent to me.
You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.
So an Australian dentist wrote the following to let everyone know what an American is, so they would know when they found one. (Good on ya, mate!!!!)
An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan. An American may also be a Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.
What Really Happenned - 3/15/2003: PROTEST DAY! - will move here in a few days. Search for "3/15/2003". Lots of links from yesterday's worldwide anti-war protests.
Al Barger - International Eat an Animal for PETA Day - Drats! I missed it. Yesterday was International Eat an Animal for PETA Day. I don't normally imbibe animal cadavers, but I'm partial to a bit of salmon from time to time. Yum. [culpepperlog]
Myself, my goal is to eat at least 10 different species of animals today. Now I certainly like to eat, but even I have limits. Therefore, most of those species will probably be in token amounts, like eating a communion wafer. A few bacon bits on a salad might be my pig consumption. [Of course, you could come up with 10 different ways of eating a pig today. Bacon, sausage, brautwurst, pork chops, pickled pigs feet (a delicacy favored by my late grandfather).] One way or another though, birds and pigs and fish and cows and maybe some others will all be making their way to my belly today. I forsee a visit to the Old Country Buffet in my near future.
JPFO - Alert: JPFO Author Claire Wolfe on Phoenix Radio & Webcast - Claire Wolfe will appear tomorrow on Ernest Hancock's radio show. Listen via the web at www.ernesthancock.com or www.kxam.com. I got this alert via email. It wasn't yet up at JPFO's web site, so I guessed the URL. Hopefully, Ken will put it up soon. [jpfo]
Here's an introduction I wrote for myself at the smith2004-discuss Yahoo group:
I've been on this mailing list since Tom Knapp created it as part of smith2004.org, primarily as a lurker, but I don't remember ever introducing myself, so here goes...
My political life, other than totally uninformed junior high school support for Tricky Dick's 1968 presidential campaign and high school tinkerings with the idea of communism, began in 1999 with my reading of Peter McWilliams' Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do. I had read Ayn Rand in my college days, but the political implications somehow didn't make it through the cannabis haze. I was ripe for the idea that the war on some drugs is incompatible with human liberty. This, coupled with Dave Winer's creation of editthispage.com, led to the idea of my weblog, End the War on Freedom, which I've published almost every day for the past three years. My focus has slowly changed from drugs to guns, likely due to the influence of L. Neil Smith's writings. I have gotten his Atlanta Declaration printed, much to my surprise, as letters to the editor in a couple of local (Albany, New York) papers:
"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
I'm really not much of a political beast. Like many libertarians, I just want government to leave me alone. With the increasing restrictions on our liberties, I have become more and more of an anarcho-capitalist, but I could still settle for the Constitution, if it were narrowly interpreted and rabidly enforced (meaning that at least 90% of the current crop of Congress critters should be rotting in prison for voting for blatantly unconstitutional legislation). I could even live with taxes, if I thought there was any way to limit them forever to a total of two or three percent of my income. But I espouse and believe in the efficacy of anarcho-capitalism, though I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime. If nothing else, this makes strict Constitutionalism a compromise.
I grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming, shooting and hunting and eating red meat, cooked very rare. I went to college in Cambridge, MA, and forgot about shooting and hunting for a while. I found a spiritual teacher in 1983 and became a strict vegetarian for quite a while. I now eat fish, and occasionally chicken or turkey, but haven't had any red meat in almost twenty years. I have no philosophical problem with other people eating red meat. I just don't eat it myself. Having killed, cleaned, and eaten deer, antelope, and elk, I understand fully what meat-eating means, and that part of it doesn't bother me at all. I stopped eating meat for irrational spiritual reasons. One day I just "knew" that I had to stop eating meat. Just as I "knew" that I had to stop imbibing alcohol and other consciousness-enhancing vegetable extracts. If you like meat, alcohol, or weed, go crazy. I'll enjoy watching you have a good time. If I one day "know" it's time to join you, I will.
I would love to move back to Wyoming or Colorado, but I have been unable to convince my wife, and so far she's more important to me than exactly where we live. I am getting tired, however, of not being able to legally own a handgun because I refuse as a matter of principle to apply for the permit required by New York's Sullivan law in order to legally purchase or possess a (registered) handgun in the Empire state. In the meantime, I shoot and reload for my safe full of rifles and shotguns.
My bachelor of science degree says "Mathematics" on it, meaning that I spent four years writing lots and lots of proofs. I make my living programming computers, currently for a medium-sized company that sells an accounting system for large construction firms.
I hope it's true that life begins at fifty, because that's just a little more than three years away.
Bill St. Clair (the name my Mom gave me)
DC Indymedia - Vandenberg Air Force Base can use 'deadly force' against trespassing protester - As I said yesterday, anti-war protesters who take it to the next level may end up six feet under.
Andrew Buncombe at The Independent - Top US military planner fears a 'likely' repeat of Somalia bloodbath - think the war on Iraq will be quick and clean? Think again. [grabbe]
Jerry Pournelle - A Defense of the TSA - some reader mail concerning Dr. Pournelle's anti-TSA commentary with responses from him (TSA = Transportation Security Administration): [pournelle]
Third: the attacks in September were successful because people had been lulled into believing that in a hijacking situation they were better off doing nothing and acceding to the hijacker demands rather than resisting. The disaster came not because the planes crashed -- airplanes are always vulnerable to those determined enough and willing to be killed in the process of destroying them -- but because the hijackers were able to gain control of the airplane. Better passive security measures such as stronger cockpit doors; and instructions to flight crew and passengers not to give in but immediately to not only resist but resist with deadly force any attempt to take over an airplane would have resulted in a few dead passengers, more dead hijackers, and an unaltered New York skyline. If you want security heroes, that would have generated s0me very real heroes.
...
The TSA is the result of enemy action. Getting us to establish the TSA was most effective use of economic ju-jitsu I have ever seen, making us use our own strength against ourselves. The TSA has cost us far more than 9-11 ever did; a 9-11 every year would cost less than the TSA.
Bryan Caplan - Anarchist Theory FAQ - looks like a worthwhile read, though long. [notreasonblog]
Helen Highwater at Unknown News - Yellow Times - concerning the shut down of Yellow Times by their web service provider. They're back on-line now. I have heard of Yellow Times, but don't recall reading any of their content. Still, I will not condone censorship. I'm glad they found a new web service provider. [unknown]
Drew Cullen at The Register - PayPal switches off indy news site account - PayPal cancelled the account of WhatReallyHappenned.com. No good reason. PayPal is holding their funds, donations, for 180 days. Coupled with PayPal's new Firearms, Ammunition, Replicas, and Militaria Policy, which forbids the use of PayPal to sell firearms or normal capacity magazines, this seems to me like a good reason for a boycott. [unknown]
What Really Happenned - The PayPal Saga - after huge negative feedback, PayPal restored their account, but they have decided not to use it again.
NoPayPal - Options Page - some options to PayPal, one of which is not Citibank's service. I can't speak for the quality of any of these. Caveat emptor. [whatreallyhappened]
Unknown News - An open letter to President Bush from Jesus - if only he would listen. [unknown]
Joe Blow at Ether Zone - Come Back, Frank Zappa: Slime from Your TV Set - Frank Zappa had it right with his I'm the Slime tune. Joe thinks the networks should have played it before Bushnev's press conference last week to prepare the audience for the pack of lies to follow.
Jacob G. Hornberger at The Future of Freedom Foundation - The Rot at the Center of the Empire - more on the lies used to attempt to convince the world that the only remaining superpower is justified in wreaking havoc in a war-torn third-world desert country. This is not new. The U.S. government has been run by professional criminals for a long time now. Mr Hornberger gives lots of examples. Fortunately, as Bill Stone has been reminding us lately, the U.S. empire will collapse real soon now exactly as the Soviet empire collapsed. But thousands will needlessly die before it happens.
Last weekend's announcement that the U.S. government had relied on fake and false evidence in the attempt to secure approval of its upcoming invasion of Iraq was, by and large, met by a collective yawn from the American people, especially the members of Congress. It's just one more example of the depths of moral depravity to which our nation has fallen.
Think about: After months of enumerating a long laundry list of alternating justifications for invading Iraq and killing lots of people and after looking for every conceivable technical violation of UN resolutions to justify an invasion, it now turns out that the federal government has cited and relied on fake and false evidence to persuade both the American people and the UN Security Council that an invasion is necessary -- an invasion that will certainly kill tens of thousands of Iraqis, including both ordinary soldiers and civilians, and possibly large numbers of American GIs.
...
There is a rot at the center of the American empire, and the rot has been there a long time. Unfortunately, it is a rot that the American people simply do not want to confront. It's just too painful to confront the possibility that the root of their woes lies with the rot at the center of their empire.
It was the same in the Soviet Union. Most Russians who worked for the Soviet government were the same as Americans who work for the U.S. government -- they were honest, hard-working, ordinary people who believed in their country, worked hard at their jobs, and were busy raising their families.
...
Thus, if it was the Soviet government incarcerating Russian citizens for the rest of their lives without a trial and without even being permitted to speak to an attorney, Americans would be outraged. If it was the Soviet government torturing criminal suspects or prisoners of war, Americans would be outraged. If it was the Soviet government using innocent children as an instrument of foreign policy, Americans would be outraged. If it was the Soviet government spying on and monitoring the activities of the Russian people, Americans would be outraged. If it was the Soviet government secretly spying on UN Security Council members, Americans would be outraged. If it was the Soviet government waging a war of aggression against Afghanistan or Czechoslovakia, Americans would be outraged.
But if it's the U.S. government contributing to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children through the most brutal set of economic sanctions in history, sacrificing American GIs and killing tens of thousands of Iraqis in a "liberating" war of aggression of Iraq, arresting and incarcerating U.S. citizens for the rest of their lives without a trial and without being permitted to even talk to a lawyer, and torturing both POWs and criminal suspects, all of a sudden the conscience of all too many Americans disintegrates into mush. Thus, for example, while people consider it evil for Saddam Hussein to have used chemical weapons against the Iranian people, they feel it was just an "honest mistake in foreign policy" for U.S. officials to have furnished those weapons to him with the express intention that he use them against the Iranian people.
Just Response - Genetic manipulations: an interview with Michael Pyshnov - an interview with a Russian biologist who says that the University of Toronto stole his research. Mr. Pyshnov's telling of this story is here.
