Power Corrupts
"The message goes like this: The terrorists, they hate us for our freedoms and therefore the solution is our government will take away those freedoms. It's like, wait a minute, that doesn't even make any sense." -- Michael Kielsky
# Jeff Head - Retaking Wake Island - a third excerpt from the fifth and final volume of Mr. Head's World War III series, Dragon's Fury. He's still expecting the book to ship in late August or early September.
# Ron Beatty at The Libertarian Enterprise - Survey of the Bill of Rights: Article 1 - the first in a series of essays, each to cover one of the articles of the first ten amendment to the Constitution. [tle]
# L. Neil Smith at The Libertarian Enterprise - Captain Bligh's Revenge - commentary on the British confiscating the handful of guns owned by residents of Pitcairn Island. [tle]
# Charley Hardman - Letter to a Friend - one of Mr. Hardman's LewRockwell.com articles. Why, though Mr. Hardman is anti-government, it is not fair to characterize him as negative. [saltypig]
Government programs such as TANF are, foremost, based on force. In the name of helping some, others are threatened with violence if they do not give up their property. Before moving forward to the many other problems with TANF, let's examine my assertion that it's based on force, because that statement often provokes disgusted, contrary sighs from those who hear it. It is, however, undeniable.
Let's say that I refuse to participate in the supply side of TANF -- in other words, that I refuse to pay taxes. Well, you say, then I would simply receive a letter requesting that I pay "my taxes." That is hardly violence. Okay, I've received that letter, and I still refuse to participate in the supply side of TANF. Let's just go down the chain of events: Government will not ignore my non-participation. It starts with a letter, then more letters, eventually threatening my credit rating and my ability to keep my property. In time, government representatives with guns will visit my home to take my property. If I resist such an intrusion, they will attempt to "arrest" me (a polite word for government-sanctioned kidnapping "by the people"). If I attempt to meet such force with force, stronger forces will finally be brought down on me, resulting in my death.
# Garry Reed, The Loose Cannon Libertarian - Toys for Tarts - chasing users of sex toys is sure easier, and safer, than chasing real criminals. Why else would some cops waste their time and our money doing it? Oh, I forgot. Power corrupts.
Burleson must be the safest town in Texas.
No more rapes, robberies or racketeering. No more murders, muggings or misdemeanors. All parking fines have been paid, all noxious weeds have been mowed and littering has ceased to exist. The last of humanity's most dangerous desperados, the casual pot-smoker, has been tracked down like a deadly dingo and jammed into a jail cell for life.
How else could any municipal police department justify expending its citizen's taxbucks, and manpower, on a sex toy sting operation?
...
Two of three [Birmingham, AL] judges, hanging slothlike from a judicial bench rather than sitting upright upon it, came up with an oxymoronic ruling. Stating that "the Constitution doesn't include a right to sexual privacy" is like saying "An old dirty sock doesn't include a right to sexual privacy." Of course not. Our rights are not derived from old dirty socks or triple fudge brownies or rusty bicycle spokes or the price of tea in China or state and federal constitutions or any of a trillion other things the sloth-judges might have managed to conjure up.
Human rights come from being human. Constitutions come from humans who create constitutions. The purpose of constitutions in America is, first, to create governments, and then to strictly limit the powers of those governments. If a government, including the judicial slice of that government, is not specifically authorized to do something, it has no authority to do it.
While I haven't read the Bama constitution, I'm betting that the document doesn't grant judges the explicit right to meddle in the private affairs (pun intended) of consenting adult Bamians. Therefore, they have no right to meddle.
# Claire Wolfe at Backwoods Home Magazine - SKScapades - a lesson in how not to bury your gun if you want to find it in an emergency later on. [claire]
"Oh comon, Claire. You remember. Back when the Feinstein-Dole Gang had just hit us with the Brady Law and the 'ugly-gun ban.' Back when we still had six more years of Billary and no idea we'd eventually get stuck with her in the Senate. Back in 1994. We all buried an SKS someplace."
"Mm," I said.
"I din't," said Janelle-the-Waitress, coming over to pour my cup of vaguely coffee-like substance. "I was in high school and all I ever buried was that bra I stole off of that snooty Tiffany while she was ... oh, but I better not tell ya 'bout that, either."
The guys gazed wonderingly after Janelle as she turned and trotted back toward the kitchen. Me, I sat and remembered those days. Ruby Ridge and Waco were painfully fresh in mind. The spooky Twentynine Palms Combat Arms Survey and its even spookier answer to Question 46 were circulating, to great alarm. And the baby Internet (and its predecessor, FidoNet) was rife with wild rumors about U.N. troops, black helicopters, and concentration camps in the heartland.
In short, it was a lot like today, except back then people were still arrested and charged with crimes instead of being "detained" for years without charges, trials, or lawyers. We didn't have Total Information Awareness, TIPS,* Carnivore, and biometrics back then. Subcutaneous ID chips were just a paranoid wierdo tale. And we still had - partly - privacy, travel without checkpoints, and the right to keep and bear nail clippers.
