End the War on Freedom

# mASS BACKWARDS - New Hampshire - a couple of photos from a U.N. flag burning in Keene. [kimdutoit]

# Alan Singer at Counterpunch - A Very Dangerous Democrat: An Encounter with Senator Charles Schumer - Mr. Singer asked Mr. Schumer a simple question, and Schmucky exploded. scopeny

I confess, I did not anticipate Schumer's aggressiveness, arrogance, level of nastiness, impulsiveness and closed mindedness. This is a man considered a liberal and he has Presidential ambitions. Anti-war groups have tried to meet with him hoping to sway his views. There is nothing to sway here. He is a dangerous man.

# Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com - The Great Crime Spree of 2004 - your government at work. [grabbe]

If 2003 was the year of the liars, as I opined last year, then 2004 was the year of the war criminals, starting with Time magazine's designated Man of the Year, criminal-in-chief George W. Bush. It was Bush who presided over the torture and abuse not only at Abu Ghraib but in U.S.-run dungeons from Guantanamo to Afghanistan -- and spare me the cries of protest that he didn't know, and Abu Ghraib was an "isolated incident."

To begin with, he did know. Thanks to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the president's personal responsibility in this disgusting saga has been revealed, along with the existence of FBI internal memos and other material that cite a previously unknown Executive Order authorizing torture at Abu Ghraib and other prison facilities.

Bush, the Janus-faced ruler of an empire of hypocrites, loudly announces a "global democratic revolution" even as he whispers to subordinates that torture is okay: he's a liar and a criminal.

Lynndie England had her day in court: when will Bush have his?

...

In any event, if 2003 was the year of the liar, and 2004 the year of the war criminal, then let 2005 be the year of justice. That is not a prediction, but only a hope.

# Charley Reese at LewRockwell.com - Perspective - accidents killed 30 times as many Americans as terrorists in 2001. And there hasn't been a year before or since that comes close on the terrorist score. Yet everybody is worried about the terrorists. Go figure. Mr. Reese wishes for a return to George Washington's foreign policy. [lew]

As for the war in Iraq, that, too, should be viewed in perspective. We've been there since March 2003, and we've lost about 1,300 soldiers. To be brutally realistic, that is not a particularly high toll for a guerrilla war. Far more Iraqis are dying than are Americans. The news media are in a no-win situation. If they report individual deaths, people will get the impression that the war is more intense than it actually is. If they don't, they will be accused of a cover-up. What we have to realize is that a certain number of Americans are going to die as long as we stay in Iraq. That is the price of an imperialistic foreign policy. The insurgents cannot drive us out in open battle, but they can nibble away at us indefinitely.

What ought to enrage Americans is that all this blood and treasure is being spent at best as a favor for the Iraqi people. Other than the usual war profiteers, the American people will receive no benefits at all from this war, even if it is declared a success. I wish everyone health and happiness, but if it had been my choice, I'd have been damned if I would have spent 1,300 American lives and $200 billion just to relieve the Iraqi people of their homegrown dictator. Iraq was never a threat to America, and never would have been a threat.

However, if the American people wish to lavish lives and treasure on a crusade to relieve other people of their own evil governments, then rejoice, for there are plenty of hellholes in which we can bleed out. I expect we could spend and die in the Congo for several years, and that's only one of several places where people live a hellish existence.

# Michael Gaddy at LewRockwell.com via The Price of Liberty - All Government Is Evil - some tales of infamy from the Confederate side of the War of Northern Aggression. [price]

I am an anarchist, as defined by Robert LeFevre. I believe that government contributes nothing of value to the individuals it governs. No matter what political party is in control, like a leech or a tick, government attaches itself to the body of freedom and feeds on the life-giving blood of that body, while imparting the Lyme disease of corruption, fear, pestilence and war. Finally, that decaying host/body of freedom and liberty is totally destroyed by the parasite called government.

People of a wicked and criminal nature are drawn to the stench of government like flies to manure. Even those of integrity who engage in service to the State find themselves administered and controlled by those who are wicked and criminal. They eventually learn, that if one is to advance in this government service, they must take on the characteristics of their leaders.

I am also a proud Southerner -- born and bred. I revel in the writings of Thomas DiLorenzo, Professor Clyde Wilson, the brothers Kennedy and Michael Grissom, but thanks to my grandfather, who lived into his one hundredth year and an insatiable thirst for history, I know that the fledgling government of the Confederacy was just as cruel and wicked as any other.

# Mike Wasdin at Strike the Root - The War on Humanity - Mr. Wasdin thinks that we need to declare war on government before its war on us, conveniently labelled a war on "drugs", imprisons us all. [root]

I'm sure everyone would have a different barometer to determine what freedom is, but to me there could be no greater gauge than looking at how many people a particular country puts into cages. How could a country that has the highest incarceration rate per capita claim to be the freest country? I find it obscene that anyone would consider the United States, the freest country in the world!

As of 2003, over 6.9 million people were under some form of correctional supervision in the United States . Said another way, as of today, we have about seven million people in this "free" country either in jail, prison, probation or parole; that's one in 32 adults. As of December 2003, we have 2.1 million people in cages, most of them for non-violent "crimes," and the majority of those are drug-related.

For every 100,000 of population, there are 686 people in cages. The United States has more people in cages than any other country on earth. Worldwide, there are about nine million people in prison. Most of the other countries have incarceration rates of 150 per 100,000. By comparison, the United Kingdom has a rate of 139 per 100,000. In the United States , one of every 75 men are in jail. If you go further and break this down by race, about eight of every 75 black men are in prison.

...

Every year more money is spent on the Drug War, and every year more people are put into cages because of this war. If we were going to win this war, it would have been won by now. Before drug prohibition, we did not have a drug problem in this country. Just like alcohol prohibition, the government in its infinite wisdom has created a problem where one did not exist.

# Joel Spolsky at Joel on Software - Advice for Computer Science College Students - write English, program in C, learn microeconomics, get good grades in everything, write lots of code in class, both America and India need more good programmers, program in the summer, preferably at Joel's company.

Most college students, fortunately, are brash enough never to bother asking their elders for advice, which, in the field of computer science, is a good thing, because their elders are apt to say goofy, antediluvian things like "the demand for keypunch operators will exceed 100,000,000 by the year 2010" and "lisp careers are really very hot right now."

I, too, have no idea what I'm talking about when I give advice to college students. I'm so hopelessly out of date that I can't really figure out AIM and still use (horrors!) this quaint old thing called "email" which was popular in the days when music came on flat round plates called "CDs."

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