No New Ugly-Semi-Automatic Rifle Ban, for Now
"There is no right to have access to weapons of war. To those who wish to wield those weapons, we have a place for them. The military." -- John Kerry, yesterday
"Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA -- ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the state." -- Heinrich Himmler, WWII
From Black Crayon's Quotes page:
"The Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. They believe that 'the best government is that which governs least,' and that which governs least is no government at all." -- Benjamin Tucker
"In existing States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. " -- Peter Kropotkin
"Law never made man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the well disposed are daily made agents of injustice." -- Henry David Thoreau
Voting is "merely a labor-saving device for ascertaining on which side force lies and bowing to the inevitable... It is neither more nor less than a paper representative of the bayonet, the bully, and the bullet." -- Benjamin R. Tucker,
"An Anarchist is anyone who denies the necessity and legitimacy of government; the question of his methods of attacking it is foreign to the definition." -- Benjamin R. Tucker
"Dynamite ... is government in its most intensified and concentrated form ..." -- Auberon Herbert
"The State is said by some to be a necessary evil; it must be made unnecessary." -- Benjamin R. Tucker
"Aggression is simply another name for government. Aggression, invasion, government, are interconvertible terms. The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control. He who attempts to control another is a governor, an aggressor, an invader; and the nature of such invasion is not changed, whether it is made by one man upon another man, after the manner of the ordinary criminal, or by one man upon all other men, after the manner of an absolute monarch, or by all other men upon one man, after the manner of a modern democracy." -- Benjamin R. Tucker
"On the free market, everyone earns according to his productive value in satisfying consumer desires. Under statist distribution, everyone earns in proportion to the amount he can plunder from the producers." -- Murray N. Rothbard
"Since outright slavery has been discredited, democracy is the only remaining rationale for state compulsion that most people will accept." -- Joseph Sobran
"When you advocate any government action, you must first believe that violence is the best answer to the question at hand." -- Allen Thornton
"To be an anarchist only means that you believe that aggression is not justified, and that states necessarily employ aggression. And, therefore, that states, and the aggression they necessarily employ, are unjustified. It's quite simple, really. It's an ethical view, so no surprise it confuses utilitarians." -- N. Stephan Kinsella
From BK Marcus' quotes page (Over a thousand quotes and counting!):
"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggy...' until you can find a rock." -- ?
"The meek shall inherit the Earth... the rest of us are going to the stars." -- ?
"If you don't believe in Gosh you'll be darned to heck." -- ?
"Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men." -- George Bernard Shaw
"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." -- George Bernard Shaw
John de Rosier at The Albany (NY) Times Union - A Glimpse into Haitian Democracy - cartoon commentary on voting in Haiti. Hehe.
#
GeekWithA.45 -
It Ain't Over Yet... - an essay written shortly after the Senate
voted down
S.1805, at Larry Craig's request: "I believe it is so dramatically
wounded that it should not pass, I ask my colleagues to vote against
it." It was "wounded" by the addition of a renewal of the
ugly-semi-automatic rifle ban, a ban on selling at gun shows without a
background check, and a few other bits of anti-gun excrement. At least
they voted down Kennedy's AP ammo amendment.
The AWB amendment passed 52 to 47. The bill itself failed 90 to 8.
This High Road thread (from which I took the quotes above) has
27 pages of blow-by-blow description and discussion.
The roll call for the vote on the assault weapons ban extension is
here. All the "Yea" voters need to unelected, ASAP. Both senators
from the following states voted "Nay": Alabama, Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri,
Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah,
Wyoming. If you're looking to move, consider one of those states. Both
senators from the following states voted "Yea": Arkansas, California,
Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine,
Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio,
Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington. I'm surprised and dismayed
to see Vermont and Maine in that list. You can find other Senate votes
for 2004
here. [geekwitha.45]
For those of you worried about a resurgent AWB, I remind Readers that this whole shenanigan was about fillibusters.
Prior to the cloture/agreement, the status was:
-Any Progun legislation would be fillibustered
-Any Antigun legislation would be fillibustered.
In a masterful way, the fillibuster was broken, and the whole mess was enmeshed together in one package.
It was an amazing chessgame: We sacrificed a queen (the pre-emption law) in order to mate the black king: the AWB, and took out the black queen (the Gunshow loophole) in the process.
Well done gang! Well done All!
...
Right now, I fear that too many Joe & Jane Normals don't understand what just happened. Too many think that the non-renewal of the AWB is a sign of government failing them, not a sign of it actually working, and serving the People. Too many still see the illusion the gun bigots wove before their eyes.
It will be a fatal mistake for us to congratulate ourselves, and slink back into our enclaves and gun clubs, polishing our brand new collapsible stocks and 30 round mags. We've got to come out of the closet, merge into the mainstream, and bring Joe & Jane Normal with us.
It's going to be an uphill battle. They've got all of freaking Hollywood, and 95% of the press. We've got Oleg Volk, and the Internet.
What was that famous Easy Company/Chesty Puller quote?
"They've got us surrounded. The poor bastards have got us right where we want them."
# Strike the Root - Bob Murphy's Columns - the first seven chapters of Mr. Murphy's ancap novel, Minerva, are now available. He seems to be churning out a chapter every day or two. Watch this page for more.
# Samuel Edward Konkin III - New Libertarian Manifesto - on Saturday, I said that I was unaware of Mr. Konkin. Don Galt and Mark Odell recommended this. From the Preface to the First Edition:
The basic form of new Libertarianism arose during my struggle with the Libertarian Party during its formation in 1973, and Counter-Economics was first put forward to the public at the Free Enterprise Forum in Los Angeles in February 1974. New Libertarianism has been propagated within and without the libertarian movement and its journals, most notably New Libertarian magazine, since then.From Statism: Our Condition:
More importantly, the activism prescribed herein (especially Counter-Economics) has been practiced by the author and his closest allies since 1975. Several "anarchovillages" of New Libertarians have formed and reformed.
Just once, wouldn't you like to read a manifesto that's been practiced before it's preached? I wanted to.
And I did it.
Samuel Edward Konkin III October 1980
Such an institution of coercion, centralizing immorality, directing theft and murder, and co-ordinating oppression on a scale inconceivable by random criminality exists. It is the Mob of mobs, Gang of gangs, Conspiracy of conspiracies. It has murdered more people in a few recent years than all the deaths in history before that time; it has stolen in a few recent years more than all the wealth produced in history to that time; it has deluded - for its survival - more minds in a few recent years than all the irrationality of history to that time. Our Enemy, The State. [2]
In the 20th Century alone, war has murdered more than all previous deaths; taxes and inflation have stolen more than all wealth previously produced; and the political lies, propaganda, and above all, "Education" have twisted more minds than all the superstition prior; yet through all the deliberate confusion and obfuscation, the thread of reason has developed fibers of resistance to be woven into the rope of execution for the State: Libertarianism.
Where the State divides and conquers its opposition, Libertarianism unites and liberates. Where the State beclouds, Libertarianism clarifies; where the State conceals, Libertarianism uncovers; where the State pardons, Libertarianism accuses.
Libertarianism elaborates an entire philosophy from one simple premise: initiatory violence or its threat (coercion) is wrong (immoral, evil, bad, supremely impractical, etc) and is forbidden; nothing else is. [3]
# Black Crayon is dedicated to Individualist Anarchism. I found them via a Google search for "agorism". They have essays, people, a library, extensive quotes (excerpted at the beginning of today's blog entry), a marketplace of books, and a links page. It appears, from the listed email address, to be maintained by Brian Knatz (BK) Marcus. From the dictionary:
ANARCHISMCheck out their definition(s) of property.That organization of society in which the Free Market operates freely, without taxes, usury, landlordism, tariffs, or other forms of coercion or privilege.
RIGHT ANARCHISTS predict that in the Free Market people would voluntarily choose to compete more often than to cooperate.
LEFT ANARCHISTS predict that in the Free Market people would voluntarily choose to cooperate more often than to compete.
