Good TLE Issue This Week
Do you still want to vote?
# The Libertarian Enterprise - Letter from James J Odle - Mr. Odle recommends that we read The Lie Factory from the Jan-Feb issue of Mother Jones. [tle]
Until now, the story of how the Bush administration produced its wildly exaggerated estimates of the threat posed by Iraq has never been revealed in full. But, for the first time, a detailed investigation by Mother Jones, based on dozens of interviews-- some on the record, some with officials who insisted on anonymity -- exposes the workings of a secret Pentagon intelligence unit and of the Defense Department's war-planning task force, the Office of Special Plans. It's the story of a close-knit team of ideologues who spent a decade or more hammering out plans for an attack on Iraq and who used the events of September 11, 2001, to set it into motion.
# L. Neil Smith at The Libertarian Enterprise - The War of Janet's Nipple - Mr. Smith can't imagine what all the fuss is about. He also explains why so few reporters mentioned her nipple shield. And why his method of metaphorically hitting people over the head with a 2x4 is the only way that can possibly work to awaken the masses from their slumber. [tle]
Unless your brain's been frozen in a vat of liquid nitrogen for the past few days, you know--like everyone else within a lightweek of the planet--that during the recent Super Bowl, the right half of entertainer Janet Jackson's upper apparel was suddenly removed by her fellow performer Justin Timberlake (a name I know only because I have a 14-year-old daughter), revealing her naked right breast on national TV.
Okay, okay, my daughter informs me that she abhores Justin Timberlake, and make that almost naked. I'll come back to that in a minute. But before I take this dissertation further, I suppose I have an editorial obligation to make it clear where I stand on the issue of breasts.
I like them.
# William Stone, III at The Libertarian Enterprise - Government Marriage - why government needs to get out of marriage. [tle]
# James J. Odle at The Libertarian Enterprise - Where are the Adults? - if there were any adults in DC today, there's no way they would have burdened young Americans with paying for the Social Security drug "benefit". [tle]
Were there any adults in Washington DC, someone would have told the retirement community--a long time ago--that with the cost of medicine perpetually rising faster than the rate of inflation, that a nation with a low birth rate and an aging population combined, make Social Security/Medicaid-Medicare socialism financially unsustainable. On second thought, I can't believe that this fundamental economic fact is unknown to the retirement community--more to their shame.
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All a politician has to say is that it is for the "general welfare" and this immediately justifies spending on everything from baseball stadiums, to "revitalization of the city" projects, to giving our hard-earned tax dollars to foreign dictators, to buying our votes with our own money, to anything and everything that might cross the fevered political "mind."
This lack of self-control will lead to a future long lasting depression together with a resulting declaration of an national emergency as well as nationalization--(whether directly or through regulation, it doesn't matter)--of all private enterprise. Isn't this what happened during FDR's Great Depression? (See Jim Powell's FDR's Folly).
Think I'm kidding--that I'm being unnecessarily alarmist? If so, then you don't understand the psychopathology that is a government. Bear in mind that it was a long-standing depression that made Hitler possible as well as the Hitler youth. If it can happen in Germany, among some of most highly educated people in the world, then it can happen here. All it takes is a long standing widespread emergency and the resulting public outcry for relief will bring out new oppressions.
# Kalaong at The Libertarian Enterprise - We Are sheep--and That's Not an Insult! - hehe. [tle]
# Ken Holder at The Libertarian Enterprise - Listening Session: Sibelius - a music review by TLE's editor. [tle]
Back 25 or so years ago I bought a boxed set of the Sibelius Symphonies. As was my custom with new LPs (remember them?) I was playing through all of them in case there was a defect so I could take them right back to the record store for replacement. It so happened that a new lady friend was visiting, and after listening to 4 or 5 LP sides of Sibelius' music, she turned to me and said "This is the sexiest music I've ever heard!" Later, she undressed.
# The Libertarian Enterprise - TLE Interviews Aaron Russo--Part One by L. Neil Smith, Transcribed by Rylla Smith. Mr. Russo is running for president as a Libertarian. My only problem with the interview is that Mr. Russo appears to believe that the United States needs to have a standing army. I disagree. So does the Constitution. [tle]
TLE: First and foremost, why are you running for the Presidency of the United States?
RUSSO: I'm running for the Presidency of the United States because I can't stand what's happening in America. I just feel like America is becoming a police state, a totalitarian country. We're losing our rights every day, nobody running for office that I can see is going to change it, and so I just put myself out there because the Libertarian Party is the only Party that has the principles that can change things.
# L. Neil Smith at Rational Review - Hell, no, she won't go! - the thirteenth amendment forbids conscription. But, of course, they're doing it anyway. Neil's daughter, Ryla, will not be going. You can help by encouraging everyone you know to refuse to vote for either major political party. [tle]
I narrowly avoided getting drafted myself, during the Vietnam war. Ironically, worrying about the draft -- I don't play well in groups, I can't place my life in the hands of others, and I won't take orders from somebody dumber than I am -- gave me an ulcer, and the ulcer got me out of the draft. I whistled "Alice's Restaurant" all through the physical.
But now, I'm told, the sons-of-bitches want my daughter. There are no adequate words to describe my disgust at having to go through this all over again. The word is that, unsatisfied with sending their storm troopers to over 160 nations, unsatisfied with crushing helpless Third World countries and murdering their women and children, unsatisfied with ripping off their oil, the Bush Administration is cranking up the Selective Slavery system. Only this time, they want to take girls, as well.
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This fall -- and every day between now and then -- do your level best to make certain that no one you know votes for a Republican or a Democrat for President. Tell them that the one and only way we can put a stop to centuries of murderous nonsense is to vote for a third party candidate.
Any third party candidate.
# Garry Reed, The Loose Cannon Libertarian - Pointless Policy Pundrity - Why Mr. Reed writes about ideology, not policy.
Since nobody has ever asked me why I don't write spellbinding analytical commentary on policy issues I'll be happy to answer. It's pointless. Oh, there was a time, when I was facile and feckless, that I thought policy matters were a Really Big Deal. Expanding political perceptions meant one was growing up and becoming a Mature Adult. So I watched presidential speeches and state of the union addresses and political debates and nominating conventions and election eve returns and public affairs TV shows that featured haggling heads like Bleat the Press and Deface the Nation and Pointless-Counterpointless and felt very cool.
But it's a slight-of-mouth game. Words are the shells and the pea is a promise. Politics is the practice of manipulating people. Candidates are masters of the con and you'll never find the pea. Just playing the game with them marks you as a mark. What difference does it make what policy politicians espouse when they'll do what they have to do to preserve their power anyway? Words are meant to win your vote. Actions are meant to massage the money mongers. The two seldom coincide.
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The difference between policy and ideology is simple. Should the government punch you in the left eye or the right eye? That's a policy question, because the assumption has already been made that government has the right to punch you -- it's only a question of which eye gets the fist. But as soon as you ask whether the government should have the right to punch you at all, that's when you've asked an ideological question.
