Neocons Shred U.S. Military
# Garry Reed, The Loose Cannon Libertarian - Lost Principles Hotel - Mr. Reed labels as unlibertarian Logan Darrow Clements' idea of turning Justice David Souter's New Hampshire home into the Last Liberty Hotel.
Libertarians should never succumb to the egalitarian idea of justice that says everyone should get screwed equally. That's a concept of collectivism. Libertarians demand that everyone's rights be protected equally. Thievery through eminent domain is still thievery whether it's your house or David Souter's that's being stolen. Logan Darrow Clements belongs in nobody's Hall of Fame for going after Souter's house. He's just like every other eminent domain whore; only his target is different.
# Vin Suprynowicz at The Las Vegas Review-Journal - Sexual assault victim could go to prison - on the conviction of retired teacher Phyllis Dintenfass for "assaulting" a Taking Scissors Away screener, in self defense. I'm scheduled to fly to Vegas in September for a business conference. I rue facing those nazi goons. I'll probably just breeze through, but there is a definite possibility that I'll lose it and do something rash.
At the conclusion of the kangaroo trial of uppity groping victim Phyllis Dintenfass, U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic said TSA officers perform a vital service and are entitled to protection from assault.
In fact, these traitorous scum, who daily violate their sacred oaths to protect and defend our Constitution, do not perform a vital service, or even a marginally useful one, unless it's a "vital service" to condition an entire people to abandon our rights to privacy, dignity and to be free of unreasonable, warrantless searches. Most of this rigmarole was already in place on Sept. 11, 2001, and it stopped not a single intended hijacker -- not a one. It would not stop them today, since metal detectors do not pick up plastic box cutters.
The American populace is being conditioned with incredible speed to accept the conditions of a de facto police state with no regard to our privacy or dignity, let alone the solemn guarantees of the Fourth Amendment.
# Butler Shaffer at LewRockwell.com The Decline and Fall of Conservatism - on the death of conservatism at the hands of neo-conservatism. [jomama]
Conservatism lost its principled bearings, I believe, when it substituted anti-communism for individual liberty during the Cold War years. To be a "conservative" suddenly meant to be staunchly anti-communist, a position also taken by Adolf Hitler; and ought to have foreshadowed the future of a political philosophy -- originally rooted in anti-totalitarian premises -- that was to become twisted into its antithesis.
...
If there is any encouragement to be found in America's current madness, it is this: a healthy system can tolerate reactive, mindless rage for only a short period of time before plunging into an entropic freefall. We may be a society presently dominated by fools, but our civilization is too commercially and technologically sophisticated to long endure relationships based upon slapping people around, or putting "five in the noggin." The unfocused rage and preoccupation with collective violence that unites modern conservatives provides the route back to the "stone age" to which they like to speak of sending others, but to which they lead only themselves and their neighbors.
Like drunken teenagers who have stolen an expensive Rolls-Royce and taken it on a wild joy-ride, conservatives will likely find themselves failing to negotiate a sharp curve in the road and crash into a tree. The extent of the damage done to the car may depend upon what we do to limit their access to that which we value...
# Thomas L. Knapp - Stupid drug warrior tricks ... - Mr. Knapp did some research on the lethal dose of hydrocodone, an opiate-based pain killer his wife was prescribed. It was plenty high enough that he didn't need to worry about his kids mistakenly getting the pills. Unfortunately, thanks to the drug warriors, the hydrocodone was mixed with enough acetominophen to do liver damage if the kids downed a bottle of pills. Seems our masters in DC planned it that way to make it slightly harder for somebody wanting a high to safely extract the hydrocodone from Tylenol's active ingredient. [progressivenews]
# Thomas L. Knapp - Things fall apart ... - Not only has the U.S. lost the war in Iraq, though the neocons will never fully admit it, but they've shredded our military in the process, by abusing the trust of the volunteers and reservists who were sent to the unjusitifiable war in Iraq. [progressivenews]
Since going back to an all-volunteer force after Vietnam, the military has depended on incentives to get young men and women to enlist. One of those incentives -- unstated but definitely at play -- is that while the kid is building a college fund and learning a skill, there's a limit to the amount of tear-assing around the world on bullshit missions that's acceptable. Yes, every kid who signs on the dotted line knows, or should know, that there's a possibility of war in his or her future. But there's also been a basic trust that America's leaders would only take the country to war under certain conditions (the Soviets rolling their tanks into western Europe circa 1985; "peacekeeping" duty in Bosnia circa 1995). Catastrophic wars, yes. Short-term deployments for realpolitik, fine. Optional forever wars versus endless insurgencies in sandpits which represent no threat to the United States -- not. The GI Bill can buy a high level of dedication, but raw credulity sports a higher price tag.
# Kim Zetter at Wired News - Privacy Guru Locks Down VOIP - more on Phil Zimmerman's encrypted Voice over IP project. [progressivenews]
