The Last Food Fight

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 10:03:14 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JAN. 29, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
The Last Food Fight -- Clinton staff proves a class act to the end

At the time he published his book "Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House," Gary Aldrich was accused of exaggerating his reports of undignified conduct at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue -- everything from the Hillary Clinton throwing lamps, to prophylactics hung by the Christmas tree with care, to unusual sex acts in inappropriate places. Either that, or the feeling seemed to be that Mr. Aldrich was -- at the least -- a bit of a prude; a member of the hired help who had no business carrying tales.

But as the truth about the gang that has occupied the nation's first house for the past eight years -- setting records for the number of staffers granted "permanent waivers" from normally routine tests for illicit drug use, for instance, while continuing to hypocritically jail hundreds of thousands of young men of color for the same behavior -- the public may yet wish they had paid closer attention to Mr. Aldrich's warnings.

The Washington Post reports Bush officials moving into their offices last week found obscene messages left in copying machines, while the ''W'' key had been popped off many computer keyboards. (George Walker Bush had made a three-fingered ''W'' his signature salute in the waning days of his campaign.)

Initially, such incidents were portrayed as harmless hijinks. But by Thursday, Bush officials were describing serious damage -- including cut computer and telephone cords -- that has cost taxpayer money to repair.

According to a report in last week's Washington Times, Clinton staffers flying Air Force One to New York after the Bush inauguration virtually cleaned out the plane of anything that wasn't nailed down, from blankets and pillows to champagne glasses and tubes of toothpaste. Much of what couldn't be stolen was destroyed.

Meantime, while Senate ethics rules prevent her from accepting gifts worth more than $50 after her swearing-in as New York's freshman senator on Jan. 3, the Associated Press now reports Hillary Clinton skirted those rules by assigning her friend, Rita Pynoos of Beverly Hills, Calif., to solicit gifts from supporters worth more than $190,000 before the deadline -- sofas, easy chairs, rugs, paintings, china, abnd sculpture which will now be used to furnish the Clintons' two new homes: a five-bedroom house in Chappaqua, N.Y. and another five-bedroom home in the Embassy Row area of Washington.

Actress Mary Steenburgen and her husband, Ted Danson, gave $4,787 in china.

The Post further reports a high-ranking Bush campaign official has accused some Clinton staffers of taking White House paintings and trying to have them shipped to themselves. Others are said to have steamed official seals off office doors and tried to have those shipped. In response, the incoming Bush administration ordered all packages X-rayed starting at noon Saturday.

Ours is an informal nation. President Washington didn't wish anyone to bow before him, or call him "majesty." No one expects today's White House staff to wear starched collars on weekends. But liberal commentators may yet have cause to regret the eight years they spent ridiculing all warnings that Mr. Clinton and his staff were permanently eroding the respect formerly afforded the nation's highest office.

Sometimes the little things speak volumes about people's underlying attitudes. From the day they moved into the White House, Mr. Clinton's Best and Brightest have evoked hushed dismay among long-time Washingtonians with their sense of entitlement and their level of thoughtless arrogance -- staffers right up to the first family expecting Marine sentries to act as busboys and bellhops; men as distinguished as Vernon Jordan sent to chauffeur the president's mopsy to prestigious Pentagon job interviews.

It should thus have come as no great surprise when this sense of entitlement led Mr. Clinton to rent out the Lincoln Bedroom to Red Chinese agents bearing bags of campaign cash in exchange for classified missile technology -- when such disrespect for any person or institution not part of "their crowd" soon extended to the Clintons' savage defamation of their political opponents, of the credibility and purity and even sanity of each in the chain of women who reluctantly came forward to complain about Mr. Clinton's sexual aggression -- even to the arrogant and unjustified treatment of a church full of innocent women and children in Waco, Texas.

There is one bright side to these revolting displays. The desperation of the Clintons and their staff to skirt every rule, take every advantage, cart off everything that's not tied down, may at least show they've subconsciously realized Americans have begun to wise up to their act -- that they're not likely to get back into the White House again in their lifetimes.

And that would be a good thing.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available by dialing 252-0655; or via web site 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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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