End the War on Freedom

Kevin Tuma at KeepAndBearArms.com - Liberty Control - cartoon commentary on the real purpose of gun control. Not funny. [kaba]

Bogon II - Hitler Deeply Embarrassed By Repeated Comparisons To Bush - Satire. Very funny satire. Don't click if you are offended by bad language. [smith2004]

Lisa Lascody at Liberty Belles - The New Book Laws: Adventures in Absurdity - A true story, but "guns" were changed to "books". Would be funny if it weren't so disgusting. [smith2004]

The Wolf DeVoon Reader - Mr. DeVoon's writings are back. He took down his web site a year ago as a security precaution, but has put it back up. Have a look. I intend to. If you forget his address, its on my links page in the "Intellect" column of the "Freedom" section.

Of necessity, I had to reread every word of this collection, proofreading it for publication, a bittersweet journey through lost loves and spent brain cells. I often prayed that someone else would speak for me, yet no one ever did. Through the 80's and 90's, editors generally ignored me and more than a few condemned me for speaking candidly. Decades of exile were a hardy seed corn that sprouted slowly, when I could afford to buy typewriter ribbons and paper, then floppies and dial-up time. It was worth whatever it cost, because this treasured harvest fulfilled the ideal that Ayn Rand offered me in Anthem and The Fountainhead, to honor my own life and express an ambition that was unmistakably, unalterably mine.

L. Neil Smith at Rational Review - If you want peace, free the slaves - Which slaves? Us. Via taxation and conscription. [smith2004]

Slavery is such an insidious evil that it's sometimes difficult to detect, even when it's going on all around you. People were finally persuaded to see it for what it was in the nineteenth century, when it was occurring in the South, and later on, in Europe, under the Nazis. To a much lesser extent -- no thanks to the Marxoid mass media -- some of them could see its vile flower blooming in Communist regimes. It's too bad so many of them can't see it happening today, by order of the IRS, the Selective Service System, and the Department of Homeland Security.

But the important thing to see -- and to act on -- is the fact that the entire purpose of twenty-first century slavery is to feed the machinery of war. By the standards of any other century in mankind's 6000-year history, wars were fought on an unprecedented scale in the twentieth, only because governments operated on an unprecedented scale. The two things that made those phenomena -- cancerous war and metastatic government -- possible were taxation on an unprecedented scale ...

And the conscription of hundreds of millions.

Garry Reed, The Loose Cannon Libertarian - The Brief of Baghdad - what Mr. Reed learned from the war.

4. We are fighting this war against Iraq in retaliation for the terrorist attacks against America on September 11, 2001, because Saddam Hussein has links to Osama bin laden and al Quida. Wait. Can't find any links to Osama and al Quida? We are fighting this war against Iraq to rid an evil regime of its weapons of mass destruction that could be secretly passed on to Osama bin laden and al Quida. Wait. Can't find any weapons of mass destruction? We are fighting this war against Iraq to enforce the UN sanctions imposed at the end of Dessert Storm. Wait. The UN won't sanction this war? We are fighting this war against Iraq to free the Iraqi people. That's why the administration's PR people assigned this war the catchy, feel-good name of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Wait. We just found weapons-grade chemicals. We are fighting this war against Iraq to rid ... no, they're just barrels of pesticide. Wait. We've just found suicide vests and secret terrorist training camps. We are fighting this war against Iraq to ... Hey, the great statue of Saddam in Baghdad has just been toppled and the people of Iraq are free. We are fighting this war against Iraq ...

...

6. When an unorganized mob runs amok, intimidates people and steals their possessions without regard for their property rights, it's called looting. When an organized mob runs amok, intimidates people and steals their possessions without regard for their property rights, it's called government.

Roderick T. Beaman at Liberty for All - Abolish the United States Military - keep a skeleton crew of leaders on hand and federalize the state organized militia (National Guard) when necessary to defend the U.S. from attack. Emminently reasonable. [kaba]

I recommend this with a great deal of trepidation and hesitation but I think it is the appropriate step. It is obvious that the military has become a huge monster that is out of control and that is as much of threat to our Constitution as the Soviet Union ever was. It has taken on a life of its own. There has been much written about the fears the Founding Fathers had about an idle standing army. Whatever those fears were, experience has shown that they were more than justified.

ACLU - Stop the New Patriot Act - send a fax in three clicks. I sent to my three congress critters the ACLU's required text, plus the following: [kaba]

The only homeland security America needs is 250 million American citizens, armed to the teeth.

Pass a national Vermont Carry law that establishes once and for all that the second amendment guarantees that every man, woman, and responsible child has the unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, handgun, shotgun, machine gun, ANYTHING -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

Geov Parrish - Privilege Revoked - in the new Amerikan order, defend a terrorist, go to jail. Say goodbye to attorney-client confidentiality. Herr Ashcroft won't have it. [rrnd]

Lynne Stewart, a New York human-rights lawyer with a taste for radical politics, is accustomed to representing unpopular clients.

She never dreamed it would become illegal.

Stewart was in Seattle on Monday as part of a national campaign to drum up support--not for a client, but for her own case. Stewart was a member of the court-appointed defense team for Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence in connection with the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. After his conviction, Stewart continued as one of the lawyers representing Abdel Rahman. The Seattle visit came just over a year after her arrest April 8, 2002, when she was taken from her home without warning. Federal agents combed through her office, seizing files on all of her cases, and Attorney General John Ashcroft proudly announced that Stewart had been charged in a four-count criminal indictment with aiding and abetting a terrorist organization--solely for her work in representing Abdel Rahman.

Stewart's case, now winding its way through pretrial motions toward a January trial, stands as a critical test for the Bush administration's newly reserved right to violate lawyer-client confidentiality in order to wage the war on terror. It also has a significant First Amendment component. Stewart's indictment charges her with discussing Abdel Rahman's case with a Reuters reporter--even though no gag order barred her from doing so; with talking while an interpreter was speaking with her client during a consultation in his prison cell, thereby preventing the Justice Department from taping their conversation in Arabic; and with allowing the interpreter and client to speak in Arabic about nonlegal matters. If convicted, she faces 40 years in prison.

...

Lynne Stewart is a guinea pig--a chance for the Bush administration to see how far it can push its evisceration of the Bill of Rights. The attack on attorney representation is only one of a staggering number of its post-9/11 assaults on the Constitution, but it's one of the most important.

PGP 8.02 is available. This adds a few obscure new features. Probably not necessary for folks who aren't confirmed geeks. Allowing PGP to uninstall the old version automatically rebooted my machine without asking. A second reboot was necessary to enable the newly installed version. My PGP Disk volume still works. Encryption and decryption still work.

Add comment Edit post Add post