Murderous Ostracism
J.J. Johnson at Sierra Times - Wolves in Idaho: Shoot, Shovel, and Shut Up - somebody killed a gray wolf and left it around to be discovered. Next time, shoot, shovel, and shut up, says Mr. Johnson. And I'll add to that to do the same to any gummint goon who comes around asking questions about dead wolves. [sierra]
By the way, offing an animal protected under the Endangered Species Act is punishable by a fine of up to $100,000 and one year in jail, so don't get caught.
Claire Wolfe - The California massacre story you didn't read - "sent by a journalist who wishes to remain unidentified". Well done. [claire]
An 86-year old man wielding an automatic weapon of immense destructive power murdered 9 people and wounded 45 others, 10 critically, in a deadly rampage in Santa Monica, California. The dead and injured far outnumber the totals of the infamous Columbine shootings, and represent one of the largest mass killings since the murder of 86 people in their Waco, Texas church in 1993. Police chief Police Chief James T. Butts Jr. characterized the slaughter as "The worst I've seen" in his 30+ year career.
Police say the man had a valid license for the powerful weapon, whose speed and power match anything owned by the police department. Why the elderly man needed such a large, powerful weapon, and why he was granted a license for it, were not disclosed. One police source, speaking anonymously, said that the elderly and gang members tend to favor the automatic version of these weapons as they are both large and powerful while being easier to aim and use than the manual versions.
Claire Wolfe at Backwoods Home Magazine - The Quisling Effect: Government is not the only destroyer of freedom - there are plenty of individuals and companies that go along to get along, hence strengthening government's denial of our liberties. Claire dubs this The Quisling Effect. [claire]
Washington Times - Bang, bang... you're alive - Orrin Hatch has introduced legislation to drastically lessen gun control in Washington DC. I've seen this story on a number of mailing lists. Senator Hatch'es press release is here. It's on Thomas as S.1414, the "District of Columbia Personal Protection Act". It currently has 19 cosponsors and was submitted to the Committee on Governmental Affairs. [scopeny]
Nathan C. Masters at CNS News - Cancer Survivor Faces Possible Prison for Selling Apricot Seeds - heaven forbid that anyone should sell a cancer cure that actually works. [trt-ny]
David Friedman - The Advantage of Capitalist Trucks - why private "governments", i.e. condominium associations, are inherently better than public ones. [root]
That is a possible answer, but I do not think it is one likely to convince many non-libertarians, nor is it one that I find terribly interesting. The purpose of this essay is to offer another answer, and one that does not depend on our particular view of rights. There are good practical reasons why the way in which the "government-like" institutions came into existence matters, quite aside from the question of whether anyone's rights were violated in the process.
To see the reasons, consider the following question: You wish to buy a truck, and have a choice of two. One was built in Detroit, one was built in the Soviet Union. Which do you choose?
Most people would choose the capitalist truck. Why? Both are trucks. If they are identically built, they should function in exactly the same way--why does their history matter? Why should we care about the ideology of a truck?
The answer, of course, is that the two trucks are not identically built. The capitalist truck was built under a system of institutions in which people who build bad trucks are likely to lose money. The communist truck was built under institutions in which people who build good trucks are likely to lose money, and often other things as well--since the result of building good trucks is likely to be not meeting your assigned quota for the month. Even before checking out the trucks, we have a good reason to expect that the communist truck will be worse built. In particular, we can expect that it will be heavier--since quotas were frequently set, not in number of trucks, but in tons of trucks.
Precisely the same answer can be made for the difference between the "government" of a condominium or proprietary community and the larger government within which it is located. The private developer who created the former had a private incentive to design the best possible political institutions. What he was selling, after all, was both a house and a share in a "government." The more attractive the form of the community association appeared to the purchaser, the higher the price he would be willing to pay for the house.
Richard O. Hammer at The Libertarian Nation Foundation - Gateway to an Altered Landscape: Law in a Free Nation - an exploration into free market law. Contracts would be enforced and criminals encouraged to make resitution through "murderous ostracism." I like it. I added The Libertarian Nation Foundation to my links page. [root]
In this paper I use a metaphor of travel. I will try to bring you along as I tell of my journey from the landscape of law in America to a radically different landscape, law in a free nation. At the start of our journey, where we were raised, the legal landscape is shaped by features such as those enshrined in the Bill of Rights. These are huge mountains which shape our feeling of where we fit and which make us feel comfortable and safe. But these are institutions of state.
If you would journey with me your desire must be strong enough to enable you to turn your back on those comforts which our ancestors in law have assumed for hundreds of years. We must travel away from those mountains, trusting that we will find a legal landscape with better prominent institutions, with a different sort of mountains which will confine human behavior to safe limits, with valleys in which our individualistic human spirits can build happy homes.
Somewhere in the middle of this journey there is a gate, at the frontier between the two nations. Now most of the travel that we must take consists of one long trek to arrive at the gate and then another long trek after passing through the gate. Passing through takes only a few steps. But I mention the gate as a symbol of transition. Any traveler who passes through shows a strong desire to find a new legal homeland.
Our trip must take place in our imaginations, because none of us have ever been in a free nation. I wish I had more snapshots and citations with which I could convince you that those better mountains and valleys exist. Fortunately I can point out some evidence in our shared experience. But each of you, in your individual journeys, might come to barriers which you cannot pass because you are not convinced.
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Before we start out on our journey, let me tell about one feature of the landscape where we are bound. Protection of many things dear to you, such as your life, property, and safety, will be provided by private organizations for which we need to invent a name, because there is nothing like these organizations in America. I will call them "security agencies." These will combine a number of functions that we in America get from separate entities such as: insurance companies, police forces, courts, regulatory bureaucracies, and parents.
For an example, you might sign up with a security agency to protect your home from fire, burglary, and natural disaster. As with an insurance company in America, the security agency would promise to restore your property (or the value of it) in the event of loss. But the similarity ends there. The security agency would do much more, because it would be free of the regulations which cripple entrepreneurship in America.
It might provide armed policing for your property. Or it could give you a discount if you and your neighbors were armed and capable of policing your own neighborhood.
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Lest it seem that I am calling you toward a nation with no moral structure or guidance (a nation completely lacking in what we libertarians would desire), let me point again to the force which I trust to organize civil society. When law is voluntary there is one way, at least, in which everyone, in spite of their wealth, is equal before the law.Everyone who commits what libertarians would call a real crime, everyone who injures or cheats a trading partner, will have to pay.This works because in a free nation the injured party, and all who network with the injured party, will be less willing in the future to trade with the offender. They will feel an impulse to ostracize. And entrepreneurs will provide an outlet for this impulse. A multifaceted industry in punishments and protections will grow to satisfy a demand. (In America this demand is served only by the state monopoly in law, which fails to do its job.) With the efficiency of a free market in protections, every offense bigger than the trifling level will generate a defense or a counterattack.
James Dyer at Portland Indymedia Center - An Afternoon With Eustace Mullins - Mr. Dyer interviews the " author of the only book burned in Germany since Hitler" (link below). [kaba]
Speaking of Communists, what's your take on their descendants, the Neocons?
The Neocons are worse than the Communists because they're bent on world power more than the Communists ever were. The Neocons are more dangerous because they've taken Communism and hitched to the Jewish bandwagon. They see it as the final vehicle to world domination.
What about Jews? Are you an anti-semite?
I've always tried to defend that. When I went to New York in 1952, I met a lot of very Conservative Jews, Henry Klein, Benjamin Freedman and others, and they were real Jews by faith and race. The real Jews were Orthodox Jews, and they've believed for 2000 years that there can be no Jewish kingdom on earth until the coming of the Messiah. Of course, they refuse to admit that Jesus was the Messiah, so no Jewish kingdom...
In 1810, the Rothschilds began to push for a country for the Jews, so they created a new brand of Judaism called Reform Judaism which would establish a new Jewish country, which is now Israel. Only the Rothschilds could do that because to create a worldwide movement costs a lot of money.
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What do you think of the current political landscape?
Amazingly, the Democrats have come up with nine candidates who're all dumber than Bush. I though it would have been impossible to find nine people in the whole United States dumber than Bush.
Eustace Mullins - Secrets of the Federal Reserve - the entire banned-in-Germany book in one web page. About 680K of text, but includes two large images that add over a meg. Turn off image loading if you want to get it quickly over a slow line. There's a zipped-up copy here (779K). Amazon has it on dead trees here for $40.
