David Hackworth, RIP
"The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.'
"Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.' "
-- Sen. Barry Goldwater
# Brought the first pictures from my new Canon Powershot A95 into the computer last night. Wow! 2592x1944 pixels. 1.4 to 1.9 megs from the camera. Over 600K when compressed further by saving in Windoze Paint. Here's an image of the bulletin board in my office, scrunched to 519x389:
# Claire Wolfe - Col. David Hackworth Is Dead - read his obituary at hackworth.com. I remember respecting some of Mr. Hackworth's opinions, though I didn't read much that he wrote. There's a High Road thread. [claire]
# George Potter at The Claire Files Forum - Couple of poems - good short anti-war bits. [clairefiles]
# Lew Rockwell at LewRockwell.com - The Glory of War - Glorious! How the state pulls the wool over the eyes of the man in the street, to whom war offers nothing but loss. Loss of liberty. Loss of property. Loss of progeny. [lew]
War is the devil's sacrament. It promises to bind us not with God but with the nation state. It grants not life but death. It provides not liberty but slavery. It lives not on truth but on lies, and these lies are themselves said to be worthy of defense. It exalts evil and puts down the good. It is promiscuous in encouraging an orgy of sin, not self-restraint and thought. It is irrational and bloody and vicious and appalling. And it claims to be the highest achievement of man.
It is worse than mass insanity. It is mass wallowing in evil.
# Murray N. Rothbard at LewRockwell.com - Do You Hate the State? - a classic from a man who, like me, thoroughly hates the state. On the difference between the two types of liberty lovers. [sunni]
Perhaps the word that best defines our distinction is "radical." Radical in the sense of being in total, root-and-branch opposition to the existing political system and to the State itself. Radical in the sense of having integrated intellectual opposition to the State with a gut hatred of its pervasive and organized system of crime and injustice. Radical in the sense of a deep commitment to the spirit of liberty and anti-statism that integrates reason and emotion, heart and soul.
Furthermore, in contrast to what seems to be true nowadays, you don't have to be an anarchist to be radical in our sense, just as you can be an anarchist while missing the radical spark. I can think of hardly a single limited governmentalist of the present day who is radical -- a truly amazing phenomenon, when we think of our classical liberal forbears who were genuinely radical, who hated statism and the States of their day with a beautifully integrated passion: the Levellers, Patrick Henry, Tom Paine, Joseph Priestley, the Jacksonians, Richard Cobden, and on and on, a veritable roll call of the greats of the past. Tom Paine's radical hatred of the State and statism was and is far more important to the cause of liberty than the fact that he never crossed the divide between laissez-faire and anarchism.
# bob lonsberry - Who Should We Let Be Free? - emotional argument for lowering the drinking and NY handgun permit age to 18. I commented:
Good article. Riddle me this. Why should there be any government-mandated age limit for anything? Why should there be any government-issued permit for anything? Some people are ready to drive at twelve. Others will never be safe behind the wheel. Some people are ready to shoot at ten. Others, never. Europeans have served wine to their kids for centuries. Few problems.
Yes, there are average ages when people are responsible enough to handle certain activities/substances, but responsibility varies radically from person to person. Why put us all in the same box? Why not go back to the old-fashioned method of law enforcement? People who run afoul of natural law suffer the natural consequences. People who initiate force get hunted down, arrested, and brought to trial. Those of us who are capable and responsible do our best to mentor the incapable and irresponsible, recommending, without pointing a gun to their heads via legislation, that they refrain until ready.
# ELP - Laser Turntable - an optical reader for old vinyl records. $15,000. More if you want to play 78s or random sizes. Hehe. [brad]
