L. Neil's Political Plans
From the Expedient Liberal Dictionary:
People (n) : The National Guard.
Bear (v) : To carry in an unloaded state while duck hunting.
Russmo.com - Still Digging - Bushnev is going to find those weapons of mass destruction, no matter how deep and hole he has to dig. Cartoon commentary. Hahahahaha.
L. Neil Smith - My Political Plans - Neil is no longer willing to accept a nomination for president or any other office. He is going to focus on writing books, which he has decided serves liberty better. Bravo! The link is to his message in the Yahoo smith2004-discuss group, which requires a free membership to read. I saved a copy here.
I'll say it up front: I will no longer be available to anybody as a candidate for any political office. If you're interested in my reasons, by all means, read on -- I may hand you a surprise or two along the way. If not, you can stop here, and go do something you'd rather do.
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Unlike many of my friends and acquaintances, I have never believed that there is anything morally wrong with participating in electoral politics or in voting defensively. I have questioned its efficacy from time to time, but even that may be irrelevant. After all, when someone is about to kill you, you grab any weapon you can to fight back with, even a rusty old .25 automatic you find lying in the dust at your feet.
But I've seen too much over the decades to believe that, even if a libertarian received a majority of the votes, the Republicans and Democrats (collectively known as the "Boot On Your Neck Party") would ever let him or her take office. The War between the States, both of the Kennedy assassinations, Ruby Ridge, the Waco Massacre, and this administration's ruthless and illegal disregard for common decency, let alone the highest law of the land, all seem to point in another direction.
Russell Madden at Laissez Faire Electronic Times - "Dangerous" Knives: More Airport Idiocy - Mr. Madden comments on a recent big news story. A man discovers that he has travelled through ten airports with a folding knife in his carry-on bag. He tells the press, and they go ballistic. Knives on airplanes in the possession of honest citizens! Oh, no!!! [grabbe]
While no one in this BREAKING NEWS STORY bothered to identify the "dangerous" blade, from what I could discern on my non-widescreen, non-HDTV [though I'd be more than happy to accept such a donation of technology from a charitable reader, solely, of course, to further my (ahem) future research . . . ], the product in question appeared to be a Spyderco knife. This folding weapon sported a semi-serrated edge of, oh, say, four inches or so. Folded, it would fit fine in a pocket.
The way the Reporter and the Security Expert carried on before we actually saw this WMD, I expected a Bowie knife with a twelve-inch blade, half-serrated, with a hook on the end of the "formidable" sucker for gutting your enemies when you sneak up on them in the dark.
Instead, we were offered this puny little puppy. Yes, yes. You could kill someone with the dang thing. Heck. You can kill someone with a one-inch blade. A tweezer. A pencil. A finger. So frigging what?
And what exactly would have happened if those two-million knives they so breathlessly mentioned had not been confiscated? Well, a great many American citizens would have collectively been twenty- or thirty-million dollars better off by keeping their property. But, hey. "Private" property is a joke, anyway, so the Reporter is not going to concern herself about that minor little fact.
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Just as when the subject is guns, these yutzs have yet to learn that knives are not dangerous. People are.
And a comparatively damned miniscule percentage of them, at that. But indiscriminately stealing private property is far easier than detecting and detaining real criminals.
