Justice Dept. determined to prove there <i>is</i> a Jabberwock

Justice Dept. determined to prove there is a Jabberwock

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 10:03:06 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED NOV. 28, 2000
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Justice Dept. determined to prove there is a Jabberwock

Decades ago, the Justice Department Anti-Trust Division brought a famously huge and complicated legal action against IBM, contending Big Blue had illegally monopolized the American market in computers.

Of course, it wasn't literally true -- it rarely is. It's practically impossible to create a real "monopoly" without some exclusive grant of power from the government. The problem with the free market (from the point of view of your hypothetical would-be "greedy robber baron") is that as soon as one make or model of product grows popular enough with consumers that the manufacturer is tempted to start hiking prices, new competitors spring up with more innovative technology, offering "better for less."

Protectionists once sternly warned that if the American consumer allowed the Asian nations to "capture" the television-set manufacturing business, they'd use this new-found "monopoly" to jack up prices. But in fact -- while finding an American-made TV today is a quest that could keep Don Quixote busy for a week -- the price of a TV set (even a cable-ready set with numerous other once-undreamed-of features) has fallen by a factor of three or four even in nominal dollars -- far more if inflation is taken into account.

Who would have imagined, when the first huge color consoles entered the wealthiest American homes in the late 1950s, that the day would someday arrive when it was cheaper to throw a TV set away and buy a new one, than to pay a repairman a hundred bucks to take one apart and poke around inside with his soldering iron?

To establish a real "monopoly," some government agency has to authorize the use of armed force to eliminate the protected group's competition (see: "operating a bank without FDIC approval"; "administering safe vitamin B injections in a doctor's office for purposes not sanctified by the FDA"; "practicing law without a license.")

But does the Justice Department look into the cartels managed with the assistance of the FDA, the FDIC, the FSLIC, and the American Bar Association?

A somewhat embarrassing thing happened to the Justice Department on the way to court with its big IBM anti-trust case, all those decades ago. Turns out the geniuses who established the so-called "monopoly on computers in America" had decided there was no future in this "personal computer" thing -- the market for computers was limited to a few thousand big mainframes for banks and insurance firms and the like; no one was ever going to sit at home and goof around with something called a "mouse" ... whatever that was.

Before the Byzantine government lawsuit could drag to its close, based on one monumentally bad decision and under the pressure of free market competition, IBM's vaunted computer "monopoly" slipped away like water through a sieve. The government's anti-trust lawyers quietly closed their briefcases and tiptoed from the room.

What is the likelihood the next administration -- whoever takes the oath of office on Jan. 20 -- will discover itself similarly embarrassed by the ongoing (and now eerily familiar) Microsoft anti-trust case? The Washington-state software giant filed an appeal in federal court Monday, asking for a ruling that federal judge Thomas Penfield Jackson erred in finding that Microsoft established an unfair monopoly when it offered Windows OS users its Internet Explorer software at no extra charge -- and that the firm must thus be broken up under government supervision.

"Revealing a profound misunderstanding of the antitrust laws, the District Court condemned Microsoft's competitive response to the growth of the Internet and Netscape's emergence as a platform competitor, conduct that produced enormous consumer benefits," Microsoft said in its filing.

Oral arguments in the landmark case are set for late February.

If this were a gambling town, someone might just want to establish a pool, giving odds on when the ever-changing market will have shifted enough to require the Anti-Trust gang to again echo the words of the late and lamented Emily Litella:

"Never mind."

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and editor of Financial Privacy Report (subscribe by calling Niles at 952-895-8757.) His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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An Important Invitation from Vin Suprynowicz
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Will rewrite nation's history to suit new tenant

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History

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

End the War on Freedom

Justice Dept. determined to prove there is a Jabberwock