Jailbait No More

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 14 Jun 2004 12:00:00 GMT

From smith2004:

"Libertarians for Bush" are like "Jews for Hitler". -- L. Neil Smith

Bruce Hammond at Marc Brands Liberty - Ashcroft and the Geneva Convention - Flash animation commentary on Ashcroft's opinion of the Geneva Conventions. Not funny. [smith2004]

# Al Barger at Culpepper Log - Olsen twins turn 18 - Mary-Kate and Ashley are of age as of yesterday. I'm staying home with my sick son today or I'd hear all about it on one of the morning drive shows I listen to. Rolling Stone has my favorite (pants-on) photo (and, no, I don't know where you can find a pants-off photo). Yum. There are a bunch of countdown sites. E-online has an article entitled Mary-Kate & Ashley: Jailbait No More. Hehe. [culpepperlog]

# I finished reading Robert A. Heinlein's For Us, the Living. Interesting book. Short enough to read in a few hours. Mostly lecture, but some action and a little sex and intrigue. The economic system he proposes is the most interesting part of the book. Eliminate the federal reserve. The government prints money and gives enough to each person to live. A freer society with much more privacy produces enough to eat up this growth in the money supply that would otherwise cause inflation. I'm not much of an economist, so I don't know if his system would work, but it does satisfy one of the problems with gold-backed currency. Entrepeneurs are constantly creating more real wealth. If there aren't more dollars chasing that wealth, then deflation will result or, as Heinlein propounds, over-production, material on the shelves of producers but not enough money in the hands of the people to buy it. From pp. 88-90:

At a caucus of the Libertarians it was proposed and agreed to that a small representative committee draft and submit to the caucus an amendment in the form of a new constitution which, if adopted and ratified, would supersede the old constititution in toto...

I won't go into the munutiae of the document but serveral changes are worthy of note tonight. The most important was the addition of a new restriction on the power of government. Henceforth no law was constitutional that deprived any citizen of any liberty of action which did not interfere with the equal freedom of action by another citizen. Pardon me, I have stated that badly. These are the words of the new constitution: 'Every citizen is free to perform any act which does not hamper the equal freedom of another. No law shall forbid the performance of any act, which does not damage the physical or economic welfare of any other person. No act shall constitute a violation of any law valid under this provision unless there is such damage, or immediate present danger of such damage resulting from that act.'

Do you see the significance of that last provision? Up to that time, a crime had two elements; act of commission and intent. Now it had a third; harmful effect which must be proved in each case, as well as the act and the intent. The consequences of this change can hardly be exaggerated. It established American individualism forever by requiring the state to justify in each case its interference with an individual's acts. Furthermore, the justification must be based on a tangible damage or potential damage to a person or persons. The person damaged might be a school-girl injured or endangered by a reckless driver or it might be every person in the state endangered by the betrayal of military secrets or injured by manipulation of commodity prices, but it must not be some soulless super-person, the state incarnate, or the majesty of the law. It reduced the state to its proper size, an instrument to serve individuals, instead of a god to be worshipped and glorified. Most especially it ended the possibility of the majority oppressing any monority with that hackneyed hoary lie that 'the majority is always right.'

In another place in the constitution, corporate persons were defined and declared to have no rights of any sort except wherein they represented rights of real persons. Corporate persons could not be damaged. An act committed against a corporate person must be shown to have damaged a real person in order to constitute an offense. This was intended to clip the wings of corporate trusts which threatened to crowd out the man of flesh and blood.

Another new civil liberty was defined, the right of privacy. You will understand that better as you study the code of customs...

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Previous Posts:
An Open Letter to George W. Bush
Bill to Bush: Stop It
AWC G2 Bullpup
The Padilla Doctrine
Rick Stanley Raided by Forty Goons
I'll Have to Check Your Bag, Comrade
Have You Decided Yet Whom to Vote Against?
"Illegal Combatants" My Ass!
I Don't Recall
The Deadly Cancer Attacking America

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair