End the War on Freedom

"My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four, unless there are three other people." - Orson Welles

# New Hampshire Legislature - SB454 "relative to carrying a concealed weapon without a license" was due to be considered yesterday by the House Committee on Crime and Safety. No word yet on its web pages. It is due out of committee on April 29.

# Rick Stanley - The Gathering - with the withdrawal of USA.N.V.I.L from the Empty Holster Gathering because some of the attendees intend to come with full holsters, Mr. Stanley has renamed the event preceding his trial in Brighton, CO to "The Gathering". It's scheduled for June 19-25, with an Italian Family Style dinner on the 20th including twelve speakers. The only thing I don't understand is why he intends to show up in court? Hasn't he painfully learned already that the courts are corrupt beyond repair and that the only proper response anymore to an arrest attempt in the United States is overwhelming violence against the badged kidnappers? [stanleyscoop]

When told of the "GATHERING", Stanley said, "Fill em up. Fill those holsters with lawful weapons of choice. I paid 102 days in jail for that right, and I urge every American to lawfully exercise the right to openly carry a weapon in Brighton, Colorado during the "GATHERING." While Stanley is out of jail on a $25,000 bond and unable to possess a weapon because of the special conditions imposed by the court, Stanley will wear an empty holster throughout the trial, but urges the "GATHERING" to "Fill em up" per the state constitution, SB-25 and our 2nd Amendment rights.

Mr. Stanley went on to say, "I hope every law abiding gun owning citizen will come to this event in Brighton, Adams County, to show judges of this country that our right to keep and bear arms and our First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances are "fundamental" rights not to be granted to Americans as "privileges", by judges operating outside the boundaries established in the Constitution under the fraud of "color of law." This event will establish once and for all, that Americans will not tolerate "judicial activism" or the "Police State of America."

# Angel Shamaya at The Fort Wayne Gazette - Gun owners simply want choice to defend themselves - Angel is pro-choice, when it comes to guns. If you aren't, you should be. [smith2004]

# Bill Whittle - Chapter Two: It's a Trap! - on the idiocy of intellectualism decoupled from experience. [geekwitha.45]

These people, down below, arguing endlessly in the chartroom -- they have a word for themselves that they find flattering. They call themselves intellectuals. I considered myself one, and believed all manner of mental pudding until I got a little experience, and as a result of opening that window on life, I am far less intellectual and immeasurably more intelligent.

It's sad but true: there are people who are deathly afraid to go up on deck, face the sunshine, and realize that the maps they have so lovingly and painstakingly crafted over decades are essentially worthless pieces of crap. They are so wrong, in so many places, that they are far worse than no maps at all. They draw all manner of hazards where there are none, and disasterously, they show open seas and smooth sailing in the most treacherous and deadly places. Such maps are not merely worthless; they are dangerous.

There was a time when intellectual meant someone who uses reason and intellect. Today, people who call themselves intellectuals are in a form of mental death spiral: they search for, and find, those index cards that support their world view, and clutch little red books like rosaries in the face of all external evidence. They are ruled by appeals to authority. Their self-image and sense of emotional well-being trumps any and all objective evidence to the contrary.

...

So far, not one book or one author has seemed to write the definitive manual on how people behave and why. They in themselves have little or no predictive value whatsoever. They are useful lighthouses to mark distant positions, and they open our eyes to new viewpoints and new experiences. But one book, or one philosopher, or one revolutionary has not yet been able to pen a work that will tell us how people will behave. And yet, among these so-called elites, there are many who take the word of, say, a German expatriate, living in Britain, at the dawn of the Industrial Age, as a guide for living in an Information-Age culture dominated by an explosion of freedom and prosperity brought about precisely by ignoring what that individual wrote and doing exactly the opposite.

Don't take my word for this. Let's not sit down in the bilge arguing about whether Karl Marx or Adam Smith had the best course to freedom and happiness. Let's just go up the stairs, open a hatch, go out on deck, get out the telescope and have a look at what actually happened.

We are not blind, and we are not crippled, and the world is not a novel or a treatise or a theory or a manifesto. It exists. We can go look for ourselves. And on the way up, when those desperate elitist bastards start clutching at your ankles and implore you to stay below where it's safe and argue some more...be sure to kick those sons of bitches right in the teeth. Their blind obedience to their Big Ideas have killed more people in history than anything except disease. Boot to the the teeth, I say.

But that's just me. You've been around. You're no sap. What do you think?

# Carl Watner with Wendy McElroy - Dissenting Electorate - An Anthology on Non-Voting - commentary on and Mr. Watner's introduction from this book on why a moral person who cares about liberty should not vote. [root]

The primary purpose of this book is to prove that there is more to non-voting than one's gut reaction not to participate. There are very important moral and political reasons for not voting.

The secondary purpose is to offer an intellectual defense of the non-voter. Non-voters have always been, and actually still are, the majority in most political elections in this country. Their right to remain unrepresented and unsullied by politics ought to be recognized. The fact is that non-voters have won every presidential election ever held in this country.

Political voting is something sui generis (something peculiar, something unique) because the institution to which it applies - the state - is different from any other organization in society. Membership (i.e., citizenship) in the state "organization" is compulsory. The state establishes a monopoly of defense services (police, courts, and law) in a given geographic area. Furthermore, it collects its revenues via compulsory levies, euphemistically known as taxation. All those who refuse to acknowledge its jurisdiction or pay its assessments are thrown in jail, have their property confiscated, or both. There is no way to opt out!

Most modern states provide for political elections in which their citizens choose from a slate of predetermined candidates or policies. Majority rule usually determines the outcome. Regardless of the number of people voting, the candidate with the greatest number of votes wins. Even if you don't vote, you are bound by the outcome of the political election. It is still your president, your representative, your tax - even if you haven't voted or voted against the person who won the election.

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