End the War on Freedom

"I am " is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?

You know the world is going crazy when...
the best rapper is a white guy,
the best golfer is a black guy,
and Germany doesn't want to go to war.

From Doing Freedom!:

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it." -- Thomas Jefferson

George W. Bush at The Washington Post - This Is Not a Question of Authority; It Is a Question of Will - the text of last night's address to the nation. Looks like the bombs will begin falling tomorrow night. George says that the day of the Iraqi peoples' liberation is near. How about the American peoples' liberation, Mr. Bush?

All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict commenced at a time of our choosing.

For their own safety, all foreign nationals, including journalists and inspectors, should leave Iraq immediately.

Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them: If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you.

As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In free Iraq there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms.

The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.

Carl Bussjaeger - Doing Freedom! March 2003 - the new issue is up. As is my mirror.

I switched my site's search engine to FreeFind. It allows me to index the entire site except the 911 Timeline and Doing Freedom! mirrors.

Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - Time to Renounce the United Nations? - Dr. Paul has been advocating this for twenty years. Maybe the current situation will finally convince some others. Note that neither Dr. Paul nor I believe we should be starting a war with Iraq. Nor has President Bush been given proper authority by Congress to wage such a war. But we agree that the U.N. should have no say in America's self defense. Time to support H.R. 1146, the "American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003". You can do so via this Liberty Committee page. There is an analysis of the bill by Herbert W. Titus here.

Our current situation in Iraq shows that we cannot allow U.S. national security to become a matter of international consensus. We don't need UN permission to go to war; only Congress can declare war under the Constitution. The Constitution does not permit the delegation of congressional duties to international bodies. It's bad enough when Congress relinquishes its warmaking authority to the President, but disastrous if we relinquish it to international bureaucrats who don't care about America.

Those bureaucrats are not satisfied by meddling only in international disputes, however. The UN increasingly wants to influence our domestic environmental, trade, labor, tax, and gun laws. Its global planners fully intend to expand the UN into a true world government, complete with taxes, courts, and a standing army. This is not an alarmist statement; these facts are readily promoted on the UN's own website. UN planners do not care about national sovereignty; in fact they are actively hostile to it. They correctly view it as an obstacle to their plans. They simply aren't interested in our Constitution and republican form of government.

The choice is very clear: we either follow the Constitution or submit to UN global governance. American national sovereignty cannot survive if we allow our domestic laws to be crafted by an international body. This needs to be stated publicly more often. If we continue down the UN path, America as we know it will cease to exist.

Ted Williams at Audubon Magazine - Wanted: More Hunters - supposed animal lovers get all hot under the collar about "killing Bambi", but when deer herds get out of control, everybody loses. It's even worse (for we humans) when the bear population gets out of control, as I've read is happenning in New Jersey. [scopeny]

The U.S. whitetail population is out of control. Not only are deer starving by the thousands, they're laying waste to entire ecosystems. There is only one solution.

Gannett News - NJ: What Red Alert will Mean - the "anti-terror czar" of New Jersey lays down the law. Translation, if the nazis declare red alert, you should plan to stay in your home or be prepared to shoot on sight anything in a uniform. [rrnd]

If the nation escalates to "red alert," which is the highest in the color-coded readiness against terror, you will be assumed by authorities to be the enemy if you so much as venture outside your home, the state's anti-terror czar says.

Daniel Patrick Welch at Strike the Root - Fair warning - the war mongers don't know what they are about to do. We will all suffer when the world turns its back on America. [rrnd]

We are on a runaway train (trains, planes, or automobiles--the metaphor hardly matters) and the overwhelming feeling is that the conductor doesn't care. World opinion, the sincere warnings of military and intelligence experts, our allies--nothing can penetrate the dense fog of allegedly faith-based resolve of a junta about to drive us off a cliff. And when the war comes, when perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis are dead, along with up to 10,000 of our own, boys and girls most of whom just wanted a shot at an education--what then?

We have failed to learn powerful lessons of history, lessons which Americans take enormous pride in having helped teach. Many in the antiwar movement, whom I applaud, are rightly pointing out that parallels between Nazi Germany and Iraq are inaccurate, and that the abuse of this misapplied historical parallel is hardly justification to strike. After agreeing, I point out that the parallel is also backwards, if not in scope or kind, then in the simple mechanics of international law. Robert Jackson, the Chief Justice at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, wanted to make sure above all else that the Nazis know that what they did wrong "was not that they lost the war, but that they started it." This act-unprovoked aggression against a fellow sovereign nation-state was the first and most reviled of all war crimes, precisely because the chaos of war makes all others possible.

John Myers of the Duluth, Minnesota, News Tribune interviews Lew Rockwell - May History Judge Harshly - this one ain't even close to a Just War. [rrnd]

All public policy involves moral issues, but particularly foreign policy and war. War kills. It destroys. It smashes what men and women have created with their own hands. It yields terror and suffering. It is radically inhumane and unleashes devils of all sorts. When we are talking about war, we are not just having a regular political debate. It's not like discussing whether to expand housing subsidies or something. We are discussing whether to ruin and destroy lives. And the consequences of war last decades, even centuries. It is serious business.

Right now, the US is on the verge of obliterating a country that never did anything to us. The claims that it could do something to us are no more plausible than the same claim that could be made of 100 other countries. This attack will set a precedent for unending war all over the region and the world. It will transform America and make the threat and use of violence a constant part of our lives. The US is, in effect, claiming to be the consolidated world state, in charge of who rules what country and how and whether they may defend themselves.

Given this reality, it is about time that someone raises the question of justice and morality.

So far as I can tell, this war on Iraq clearly violates every tenet of Just War theory. There is no just cause. It is not defensive, nor proportional, nor a last resort, nor conducted by legitimate authority, nor protective of innocents, nor likely to leave the world a better place. In short, it is unjust.

Jacob G. Hornberger at The Future of Freedom Foundation - Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Saddam? - Mr. Hornberger is not afraid of Saddam Hussein. You shouldn't be either. You should, however, be very afraid of George Bush and his henchmen. [rrnd]

I have a confession to make: I'm not afraid of Saddam Hussein. Not a bit. I have absolutely no fear that the man is going to come and get me or that he is going to spray biological or chemical weapons on me or that he will send someone to do the dirty deed for him. I don't even fear the possibility that Saddam will nuke me.

...

Why are so many Americans terrified of Saddam Hussein? There is one -- and only one -- reason: U.S. government propaganda. Day after day, U.S. officials, from the president on down, have pounded a deep and abiding fear of Saddam into the minds of the American people.

Sherman H. Skolnick at Rense.com - France's Plan To Stop America's Hitler - put on your tin foil hat and prepare for another wild ride. [grabbe]

Amy Benfer - Hunting the American dream - an interview with Ted Nugent. [smith2004]

The Motor City Madman recently took time off between interviews for MTV and "Politically Incorrect" to deliver a mini-sermon on those beliefs for Salon readers. The man is a straight shooter: It's clear in this interview that he loves nature, his family, wilderness, God, guns and guitar, and that he loathes animal rights activists, bag limits, hunting restrictions, factory farms, drugs, alcohol and the rock star lifestyle as epitomized by the Osbournes (though he took time out to pray that the Osbournes would renounce their soulless lifestyle and find salvation).

Mary Starrett at Rense.com - I'd Rather Go Naked - than wear RFID chips in her clothes. Time to start making noise about this folks. Boycotts of Benneton and Gillette are in order right away. [trt-ny]

Vin Suprynowicz at Sierra Times - The Inconvenient Irwin Schiff - And Why the First Amendment is Considered a Weapon - The IRS has been attempting for a long time to silence a man who helps people ask them inconvenient questions. [smith2004]

Nonetheless, Mr. Schiff -- author of the book "The Federal Mafia: How It Illegally Imposes and Unlawfully Collects Income Taxes" -- is not currently charged with any criminal conspiracy. There is no evidence, nor even the faintest suspicion, that this fast-talking, well-educated and amiable old codger is recruiting demolition experts in hopes of launching some campaign of mayhem.

What Irwin Schiff does that has the government functionaries with their knickers in a knot is ... he talks.

Boy, does he ever talk.

The government agents have him in court on a civil complaint, see, and are now asking U.S. District Senior Judge Lloyd George to slap a gag order on the spunky gadfly. They want the judge to forbid Mr. Schiff from charging admission to seminars where tax matters are discussed (that is to say, from earning his living), "or otherwise inciting or assisting others to violate the internal revenue laws" -- and further to order him to stop advocating the "false and frivolous position that paying federal income taxes is voluntary."

They don't like what he's saying, and they find it inconvenient that because he keeps saying what he's been saying, other people then come to the IRS and make them -- hold on to your seats, now -- spend a lot of time answering questions they consider "frivolous."

Oh, the humanity.

What on earth is the First Amendment for, if not to allow folks to question government agents, and the appropriateness of the way government agencies enforce the law, and to "advocate" their beliefs, however crackpot they may seem?

Steve Miller - Formactive - Chrysalis - pictures of an unusual cottage. A sphere made of plywood with triangular windows and a circular door. Text and links to other structures on the home page. About the 42 foot diameter plydome pictured at right, Mr. Miller says: [smith2004]

Completely assembled plydome with lexan windows, April, 1994. Assembly of plywood took 5 days with a crew of three; windows 2 days with a crew of two.

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