The Saturday Night Special of the New Millennium
Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Tue, 14 Jun 2005 12:00:00 GMT
From muth:
"There is nothing indispensable about a state role in education. Parents don't expect the government to provide their children's food or clothing or medical care; there is no reason why it must provide their schooling. An educated citizenry is a vital public good, of course. But like most such goods, a competitive and responsive private sector could do a much better job of supplying it than the public sector can. Imagine how diverse and vital American education could be if it were liberated from government control. There would be schools of every description -- just as there are restaurants, websites, and clothing styles of every description." -- Jeff Jacobyand:
"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, and brutal violations of common sense and common decency." -- H.L. Mencken
# Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) at The School of Cooperative Individualism - Our Country, Right or Wrong! - Mark Odell linked to another copy of this essay in yesterday's comments. Twain's opinion of U.S. imperialism. Good rejoinder to Jeff Cooper's comment that since we're in Iraq, we've got to win. No, we don't. We should just get out. Not one more drop of blood should be shed. [google]
I pray you pause and consider. Against our traditions we are now entering upon an unjust and trivial war, a war against a helpless people, and for a base object -- robbery. At first our citizens spoke out against this thing, by an impulse natural to their framing. Today they have turned, and their voice is the other way. What caused the change? Merely a politician's trick -- a high-sounding phrase, a blood-stirring phrase which turned their uncritical heads: Our Country, right or wrong! An empty phrase, a silly phrase. It was shouted by every newspaper, it was thundered from the pulpit. ...And every man who failed to shout it or who was silent, was proclaimed a traitor. To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, "Our Country, right or wrong," and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that this phrase is an insult to the nation?
# Lou Michel, Dan Herbeck and Susan Schulman at The Buffalo News - In the Gun Factory - three hoplophobes piss on Hi-Point Firearms, maker of "the cheapest semi-automatic handguns in the U.S." Criminals' weapons of choice (almost as frequently found at crime scenes as Smith & Wesson). Bah, humbug. [scopeny]
But Deeb's guns rapidly became favorites - some say the favorite - among young criminals in America's cities.
His company, critics say, makes the Saturday night special of the new millennium, but with added firepower. "They are a lot more powerful," says Buffalo Deputy Police Commissioner Robert Chella.
"Hi-Point is now the premiere manufacturer of cheap handguns and a very cheap 9mm assault rifle," adds Kristen Rand, with the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
