Wolfe's Lodge Mirror
"Just when you thought no lawsuit could be more preposterous than the one filed by families who tried to sue McDonalds for making them fat, along comes evidence that lawsuit madness has taken hold in Egypt in a truly unique fashion. . . . Nabil Hilmi, dean of the faculty of law at the University of Al-Zaqaziq,...in concert with a group of expatriate Egyptians in Switzerland, is preparing perhaps the largest lawsuit in the history of the world. Mr. Hilmi, et al., are going to sue 'all the Jews of the world' for items stolen by the biblical Hebrews from the Egyptians during the Exodus from Egypt." -- Mona Charen
Wolfe's Lodge is my mirror of the old Geocities version of Claire Wolfe's essay site, before she moved to curleywolfe.net. The essays are still on the Geocities site, that's where I got them, but the index page is no longer there. Thanks to the wonders of Google, I found an internal link, and eveything else, except the Patricia Neill essays (which I also found with Google) was connected to that, so I was able to copy the whole thing. Curleywolfe.net is no more. Don't know if anyone saved the bits. These essays were how I cut my liberty teeth. They date from 1996 through 1998. Good stuff. I just noticed that archive.org has an archive of the curleywolfe.net version as of January, 2001. That will take a while to snarf, as their server is very slow, but I'll start working on it soon, in sha' allah.
From scopeny, excerpts from Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power by Niall Ferguson:
"Credit makes war, and makes peace; raises armies, fits our navies, fights battles, besieges towns; and, in a word, it is more justly called the sinews of war than money itself...Credit makes the soldier fight without pay, the armies march without provisions...it is an impregnable fortification...it makes paper pass for money...and fills the Exchequer and the banks with as many millions as it pleases, upon demand." -- Daniel DaFoe, on what cheap credit could do for a country.
Robert A. Levy at The CATO Institute - Bloomberg Smokes Out Property Rights - a good article from back in October about why smoking in restaurants and bars is a property rights issue, not a health issue. [smith2004]
Fireworks are expected at the City Council hearing scheduled for October 10, as New Yorkers wrangle over Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to ban smoking in all restaurants and bars. For now, smokers and nonsmokers have been debating which group's rights should trump. Actually, both groups miss the point. So does Bloomberg, businessman extraordinaire, whose proposal proves that he hasn't the foggiest notion of what private property is about. Smokers have no right to light up in my restaurant. Nor do nonsmokers have a right to prevent smokers from lighting up in my restaurant.
To put it bluntly, the owner of the property should be able to determine -- for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reason at all -- whether to admit smokers, nonsmokers, neither, or both. Customers or employees who object may go elsewhere. They would not be relinquishing any right that they ever possessed. By contrast, when a businessman is forced to effect an unwanted smoking policy on his own property, the government violates his rights.
That's the controlling principle. Private property does not belong to the public. Employing a large staff, or providing services to lots of people, is not sufficient to transform private property into public property. The litmus test for private property is ownership, not the size of the customer base or the workforce.
Lee R. Shelton IV at Toogood Reports - The Best Security Is A Well-Armed Citizenry - Mr. Shelton re-asks the same question most of us asked right after 9/11. Why bother with air marshalls and fancy programs to arm and train pilots? Just rely on the people to take advantage of their second-amendment-guaranteed right to defend themselves, always and everywhere, including airplanes, with whatever arms they deem appropriate. [scopeny]
By refusing to even address the right to keep and bear arms, the feds are sending the message that ordinary citizens cannot be trusted. "We will protect you," they are saying. "Just go about your lives and let us do the job you are paying us to do. Don't worry your pretty little heads about arming yourselves. Only government law enforcement officers are qualified to carry firearms!"
...
We could have hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in the Middle East. We could start drafting teenagers for military service and send them off to die overseas. We could wage war against everyone who dares to look at us the wrong way, but no matter what we do to help us sleep better at night, there is no defense against the brand of terrorism we saw on 9/11 like a well-armed citizenry. The sooner the government realizes that, the safer all of us will be.
H.R. 2038, the Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2003, got three more cosponsors on Wednesday. It's up to 100 now, though still no sign of committee action.
