Embassy of Heaven
"Be wary of strong drink. It makes you shoot at tax collectors - and miss." -- Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
From this High Road thread about nazi licence-check stops in Missouri:
"See, people without proper government licensing are super dangerous. The problem is, when they're out driving, they pretend to be safe, and so you can't tell who they are by watching them drive. Instead, you have to set up checkpoints to find out if they're actually safe or just acting safe to trick people. It's for the children, you know." -- Ian
Tom Toles at Marc Brands Liberty - Gay Marriage and the Falling Constitution - cartoon commentary on the attempt to restrict marriage by constitutional fiat. Hehe. [smith2004]
# The Embassy of Heaven provides documents for people who have renounced wordly governments and been born again into the kingdom of heaven. They provide passports, drivers licenses, vehicle title, registration, & plates, business licenses, birth certificates, marriage registrations, and more. I don't think this is a joke. [clairefiles]
# Bill Whittle - Freedom - this is from way back in December of 2002, one of Mr. Whittle's first essays after starting his weblog. I was reminded of it because I found on my disk drive a saved copy of the first draft, which was originally posted as comments on Rachel Lucas' blog. I archived Rachel's version here. It is an excellent piece about why the second amendment is vitally important to American liberty.
# Rachel Lucas - I'm gonna need a Valium prescription now - Rachel is planning on an airplane trip next week. Flying scares her anyway, but she is aghast at the Women's Wall Street story about Middle Eastern men acting strangely on an airplane. [rachel]
If you'd told me on 09-11-01 that I would be writing rants like this in July 2004, I would not have believed you. Thought things would be "different" or something. I guess things are different, in that we're now even more stupid as a nation than we were then, because we can't be bothered to fix major security holes in our airports after the biggest terrorist attack in history. Go figure.I sent her the following:
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 20:22:46 -0400
From: "Bill St. Clair" <bill@billstclair.com>
To: blogmail at rachellucas dot com
Subject: Major security hole in airports
Rachel,
The problem is not a major security hole in airports. The problem is a major security hole in airplanes. There are pilots and flight attendants who are not armed. There are passengers who are qualified and willing to help with security, but who are not allowed to fly armed. Fortunately, guns are not necessary for security, hands and pens and belts are very effective, but guns are useful tools that our government should encourage law-abiding Americans to carry always and everywhere, ESPECIALLY airplanes.
Instead of passing the U.S.A. T.R.A.I.T.O.R. Act in the shadow of 9/11, Congress should have given us nationwide Vermont carry. That would be REAL security, distributed, dirt cheap, and effective.
-Bill St. Clair
# Kim du Toit - Two Americas - a pretty good essay on the schism between individualists and collectivists. Mr. du Toit hasn't realized, however, that anarchism is the ultimate "government" for individualists. He still thinks we need the state. And I won't try to talk him out of it. Waste of time. I will, however, repeat what I've said many times. I could live with the American Constitutional Republic if the Constitution were narrowly interpreted and rabidly enforced. That would mean dragging about 90% of the current crop of Congress Critters out of the Capitol building in chains, giving them speedy trials for treason, and lining those found guilty up against a wall to be shot. Likewise for a large part of the Executive and Judicial branches, both federal and state. I won't hold my breath. [kimdutoit]
# Loretta Hetzner at The Albany (NY) Times Union - Our civil liberties were slipping away long before Patriot Act - guess what? The Traitor Act ain't nothin' new. It's just another in a long train of abuses and usurpations.
Your July 11 editorial "Patriot shame" condemns those "insidious provisions of the Patriot Act" such as the government's ability to "search bookstores and library records" for reading habits. Our civil liberties are under attack! Rep. Michael McNulty comes to the rescue by voting with the Democrat block in an election year to strike that provision and save liberty. I find this curious. Where have you and McNulty been for the past few generations while our liberties have been legislated away?
Shall we start with the law that regulates smokers? Even Southern blacks were not segregated to stand in the cold when they wanted a smoke. Dare we remember the Second Amendment? A Crossgates Mall jeweler was recently robbed. He had the temerity to give chase and fire his licensed gun at the criminals. No one was hit or hurt. Still, the victim found himself before the judge. The criminals are free.
Where is the civil liberties crowd or Mr. McNulty when people who want to mentor kids or start a child care business must agree to fingerprinting and records searches? Seems a lot like guilty before proven innocent.
...
At what point did we forget civil liberties and enter the police state? So what is this sudden outrage over the Patriot Act all about?
# Charley Hardman - Justice Monitors New Microsoft Software - good commentary on the "Justice" department looking at the newest version of Windoze to decide whether Microsoft remains in compliance with their anti-capitalism "settlement". Bravo! [saltypig]
# Charley Hardman - 90% Of Whites Have Few Or No Black Friends - commentary from personal experience on a Guardian article claiming that if you don't have black friends, you're likely to "lack the empathy that close contact can bring." [saltypig]
unable to take anymore, i blurted out, "if you don't want to pigeonhole people, then why have we spent all these meetings plotting a strategy to do just that? don't ask what race and ethnicity they are at all. not pigeonholing doesn't get any simpler!"
# Kim du Toit - MYOFB - Kim discovers the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Hehe. [kimdutoit]
