Scythe Burner

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Thu, 19 May 2005 12:00:00 GMT

From The Federalist:

"The thought of American toilet superiority being vanquished by Cuba's weighed heavily on my mind. So, I conducted an experiment. I took a magazine. For the purposes of my experiment I chose a Newsweek magazine. I then tried to flush the Newsweek magazine down my American-made toilet. That was a mistake!" -- Frank Salvato

and:

"Police investigating the Wendy's chili finger case are now seeking help from Mexican law enforcement officials. So it looks like not only was there a finger in the Wendy's chili, it was there illegally. They think the finger might have snuck over the border and worked at Wal-Mart for a few weeks before it ended up in the chili." -- Jay Leno

# Claire Wolfe at The High Road - After The Fall Of Justice - billythekid posted one of Claire's old essays, and a discussion about jury nullification ensued. The "Wolfe's Lodge" version of this essay, "written for the Loompanics Unlimited summer 1998 catalog supplement", is here. I posted the following: [highroad]

I don't expect Cool Hand Luke or the other gummint apologists will change their tune, and I'm not going to spend the time to provide historical footnotes, but this is the way I remember the reason we have juries.

Before the time of the Magna Carta, the king and his minions arrested anybody they wanted for anything they wanted and submitted them to any punishment they wanted. The people grew tired of this. They demanded of the king that he must allow a jury of the defendents' peers to judge his guilt. If the jury voted to acquit, the king must let the defendent walk. They didn't just ask the king to do this, they demanded it, on penalty of death.

The defendents' "peers" would be people who lived in the area of the alleged crime, people who likely knew him and likely already had an opinion of his character, and of the alleged law and the characters of his accusers. They had plenty of pre-existing prejudices about the outcome of the trial. And rightly so.

The reason we have juries is to protect we the people from our government. Once the judge can control the jury, can force them to become judgers of evidence and not judgers of right and wrong, trial by jury becomes a farce. It becomes trial by government, and we're right back to where we were before the Magna Carta.

We need to once again remind the king that he will provide jury trials, fully-informed jury trials, where every juror is reminded at the beginning of every trial of his age-old right and duty to judge the alleged law as well as the alleged law-breaker, or we'll hang the bastard and his minions from the nearest lampposts.

# Bill Piper at Drug Policy Alliance - You've Been Drafted: Uncle Sam Wants You for the War on Drugs - James Sensenbrenner, the author of REAL ID, has done it again. H.R. 1528, "Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005", turns failure to squeal on a "drug trafficker" into a federal felony. Personally, I think Mr. Sensennbrenner is himself a felony. Most of the bill is unreadable without spending hours chasing references. Fortunately, it has no co-sponsors. I thought of writing Mr. Scythe Burner a letter, but I don't think he's reachable by anything traveling at less than 800 feet per second. [lrtdiscuss]

`FAILURE TO PROTECT CHILDREN FROM DRUG TRAFFICKING ACTIVITIES

`SEC. 425. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person who witnesses or learns of a violation of sections 416(b)(2), 417, 418, 419, 420, 424, or 426 to fail to report the offense to law enforcement officials within 24 hours of witnessing or learning of the violation and thereafter provide full assistance in the investigation, apprehension, and prosecution of the person violating paragraph (a).

`(b) Any person who violates subsection (a) of this section shall be sentenced to not less than two years or more than 10 years. If the person who witnesses or learns of the violation is the parent or guardian, or otherwise responsible for the care or supervision of the person under the age of 18 or the incompetent person, such person shall be sentenced to not less than three years or more than 20 years.'.

# Carla Howell and Michael Cloud at The Center for Small Government - The Small Government Pledge^SM - you can say one thing about Carla Howell. She's persistent. I am not currently voting, having decided that I cannot support the existence of the current political system, but I like the pledge for candidates.

# Bill Whittle - Sanctuary, Part 1 - A new essay from the master essayist. Part 2 is here. Mr. Whittle argues that soldiers should wear uniforms to protect the non-soldier. Those who don't are not honorable men, unless, like our revolutionary war fighters, they go far away from the civilian population. He doesn't consider what he would do should a foreign power, hugely better armed than America, invade the city where he lives. Then he moves on with a plan to save civilisation. And Pharoah visits a 7-11. Mr. Whittle has too much faith in the political system, but he's right that our civilisation is a sanctuary, and most of us have forgotten the brutishness of the cold reality that it keeps at bay. And, man, can he write! [whittle]

What's worse than crawling under your beloved house and seeing the foundations rotten with decades of termite damage?

NOT crawling under your beloved house and seeing the foundations rotten with decades of termite damage.

I've been away for a while, doing a little thinking. Usually, my thoughts for these past few years have started at home and then taken me to Iraq, and the war. Lately, though, I have been thinking about Iraq, and my thoughts turn more and more to home.

I started thinking along these lines six months ago, after a young Marine shot and killed a wounded Iraqi in a mosque in Fallujah

The ideas behind this little adventure we are about to embark upon have changed enormously since then. I have, quite frankly, been at a loss to know how to put so many wide-ranging snapshots together into this montage, this image, this idea of Sanctuary that I think holds the key to many of the problems we face today.

Stay with me -- our fist stop is not our destination, but it is a necessary one. So let me first take you on that original journey, and show you how events in Iraq can show us how to fight and win a much wider and deeper conflict, right here at home.

# Fred Reed at LewRockwell.com - Thoughts On Poverty - in America, most of the problems that poor people (and their apologists) complain about are their own damn fault. [lew]

If the poor of America were truly penurious, and forcibly kept so, I would see things differently. The sweated children of New York, the slaves of the South, the virtual slaves of the Industrial Revolution in England -- these had a cause for complaint. They suffered greatly, and had no way out.

Neither did they have the subsidized housing of today, the welfare, and the leisure consequent to these, nor free medical care, nor public schools which by law they had to attend, nor free libraries, nor the array of special and unearned privilege called "affirmative action." Today's poor do have them. They also live in a society that has begged them, prodded them, enticed them to do something with and for themselves. They haven't. They aren't interested. And neither, any longer, am I.

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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