Memorial Day, 2004
"Other people are not your property." -- Roderick Long
# Michael Badnarik was selected as the 2004 Presidential Candidate for the Libertarian Party. Michael will be a guest on Washington Journal this morning at 9:15am eastern time. From his acceptance speech, which I watched last night on C-SPAN:
Well, if I can win this nomination, there's no reason that I can't win the election. [joking]
What we have in 2004 is a unique opportunity to change the world.
# Jerry Pournelle - Colin Powell's Memorial Day Message - sent to Mr. Pournelle by a serving officer. Nicely said. [pournelle]
# Kathryn A. Graham at Libertarian Scribe - Handguns - A Moral Imperative: Have We Been Duped? - great short explanation of why even if it were possible to destroy every gun on the planet, it would be a really really bad idea. [survivalarts]
I know you've all heard the argument that if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns, so I won't talk about that today. Let's play a little game instead. Let's pretend that every single gun on this planet can be destroyed. Let's pretend that enterprising souls won't make any zip guns in their garages. Firearms are completely gone -- history. Not so much as a slingshot left. It's over.
This would be the end of a terrible chapter in human history, wouldn't it?
Oh, no. It wouldn't be the end of Hell. It would be the beginning!
It would be Mayhem. You, your wives, your kids, and your friends -- you would all be at the mercy of every gorilla with a knife, a club, a set of brass knuckles, or even a good-sized rock. No one alive today remembers when might was right, but we'd learn about it again in very short order. Pool cues and fire pokers would be the order of the day. No woman would be safe, ever again, and damned few men. You'd stop carrying a wallet and shift to a money belt, and then it would just be a question of time before everything you own was taken from you, and probably your life as well.
It would be absolute horror, and it would be inevitable.
...
Is it moral to carry arms? You bet it is! When I enter your home or your business with a firearm, concealed or otherwise, I am tacitly agreeing to share with you the responsibility for defending your property and your family. When I eat in the same restaurant, I am prepared to shed my blood in your defense. There are survivors of the horror at Luby's in Killeen, Texas, who would appreciate what I am saying here.
# Roderick Long at Strike the Root - Libertarianism in One Sentence - this article is the source of the quote at the top of today's entry. Very well said. [root]
# Rory Blyth at Neopoleon .com - Finding Jesus at TechEd - Mr. Blyth was accosted by ten, count 'em, ten Jesus freaks while walking back to his hotel minding his own business. He treated their speaker respectifully, but he shares with us here what he was thinking. Hehe. [survivalarts]
# TRTNational - the national Tyranny Response Team web site is back up. I used to link to it in my left side-bar, but it started pointing to a porn site, so I changed that link to the New York TRT. Looks like someone is trying to restore the TRT to its former glory. The front page rant is not signed, however, so I don't know who I'd be talking to if I sent email their way. [highroad]
# Joel Rosenberg at The High Road - Traffic stop searches - a fictional account of how to properly deny a search of your car at a traffic stop, excerpted from Mr. Rosenberg's novel, Home Front. [highroad]
# Gunner at No quarters - Crime in progress? - President Bush was given Saddam Hussein's personal handgun as a trophy. He keeps it at the White House. This very likely puts him in violation of section 7-2502 of the DC Code, which is punishable, according to section 7-2507.06, by up to a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail. [gunner]
# Vin Suprynowicz at The Las Vegas Review-Journal - An easy-to-read starter kit - recommends that you read Claire Wolfe's The Freedom Outlaw's Handbook: 179 Things to Do Until the Revolution, when it is released by Loompanics in July, and that you avoid, like the plague, Caitlin Kelly's Blown Away: American Women and Guns.
# NeuClear.org - NeuClear Personal Trader now works for me via Java Web Start. Of course, you need to install Java 1.4 first, 14.7 megs for the Windoze version. Unless you have a Mac with a recent version of OSX. Java 1.4 comes with the box.