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Bad Citizen; Assuming
Positions; "Crony capitalism"; Flower
Power; these articles have their titles and text in this color and
are featured this week in -
Ender's Review of the
Web
Web articles of likely interest to individualists found during the week of Jan. 4-10, 2004.
Comments and suggestions on the content and structure of this
review are welcome. To accommodate
such discussion I have created a Yahoo group for it.
That group is ERevD: EnderReviewDiscussion. Feel free to jump in
there at any time.
I am happy to receive addresses of potential readers of Ender's
Review who might like to receive a few trial issues and an
invitation to subscribe. Or, if you prefer, please, forward
this e-mail to those you think might be interested,
with the subscription information at the bottom intact.
Political
Liberty
Articles showing a
positive influence of political action on the cause of Liberty.
Time to Take
Rights Seriously
by Judd Legum from Center for American
Progress
"The
range of amicus briefs filed on behalf of Padilla underscores that
the case places core legal rights at stake. Along with those that
one might expect ... filing
briefs in support of Padilla’s position were the National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Association of the Bar
of the City of New York and Public Defender Service for the District
of Columbia."
Congress to Jump-Start the IRS?
by Joe
Blow from Strike the
Root
"The U.S. Treasury
cannot lose what it never had and what one person pays has
absolutely no bearing on what anyone else pays. The notion
of paying a 'fair
share' is a red
herring at best. The Internal Revenue Code is silent on the
issue, telling you all you need to know about that popular
urban legend.
Enough Is Too Much
by Adam Engel from
LewRockwell.com
"Don't
you think it's Time to stop whining and deluding ourselves
into thinking we're not despicable, weak …barnyard animals
for not doing what must be done to secure our individual
liberty and basic human freedoms? "
Life in
Amerika
Articles
depicting the negative impact of politics on Liberty.
Our right to be
left alone
by Robyn
E. Blumner from St.
Petersburg Times
"Unless
you are willing to live like Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, it
is nearly impossible these days to go about your business
anonymously. Every time you pull out your credit card,
peruse the Internet or roll through a toll booth with an
E-Z pass you leave a trail that can be traced."
The Bad Citizen
by Joel
Simon from The Libertarian Enterprise
"Eight months
ago...I
thought to behave like a good citizen for once. I got
a smog certificate for the truck. I made an
appointment at the DMV office. I made sure my
insurance was up to date, and that I had all the
correct forms in an envelope. I knew all this was
futile, but I just had to try."
Bush Grabs New Power for
FBI
by Kim
Zetter from Wired
"While
the nation was distracted last month by images of
Saddam Hussein's spider hole and dental exam,
President George W. Bush quietly signed into law a
new bill that gives the FBI increased surveillance
powers and dramatically expands the reach of the USA
Patriot Act."
Ordered
Liberty without the State
Some
people say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is
an interesting topic.
Anarchism as Constitutionalism, Part 2
by Roderick
Long from Strike The Root
"It
is vitally important to avoid conflating two very different
claims: a) that no legal institution has the right to employ
initiatory force against unwilling dissenters, and b)
that no legal institution has the right to employ
retaliatory force against unwilling dissenters."
Assuming
Positions
by
Catfarmer from The
Price Of Liberty
"It seems to go
without saying that one should take sides on any
divisive issue: that's a sinister hallmark of politics.
Political thinking leads people to take sides on every
contentious issue imaginable; peace requires that people
find ways to sustain harmony. Harmony requires
reciprocal respect between people, and nothing
undermines respect so completely as the habit of
confounding private opinions with appropriate
foundations for public policies."
Banishment
by Robert Klassen from
LewRockwell.com
"Every
local tavern has its own list of people who will not
be served. Every bank screens applicants for a
criminal record, and supermarkets will not cash
checks for some people. These are all forms of
banishment designed to quietly protect private
property, with no state coercion required."
Spreading Decentralism
Articles demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of
power.
Label Me
by Ronald
Bailey from Reason
"By the end of
this decade most of the sturm und drang over
labels will simply dissolve. Why? RFID and DNA. Cheap
near-microscopic radio frequency identification (RFID)
tags will be attached to nearly all products by 2010
making them easy to identify and track."
Lies About Guns
by Doug Hagin from Intellectual Conservative
"The[y]
may argue all day about wanting to reduce
violent crimes yet they argue against Americans
arming themselves. If they were to get their way
there would have been more, many more victims of
violent crimes, not fewer in this nation."
Central Vermont
Town Eyes Joining New Hampshire
from TheChamplainChannel.com
"Tired
of sending $20 million a year in taxes to
the state and getting $1 million in state
aid in return, officials in this ski resort
town are considering leaving Vermont and
joining New Hampshire."
The
New World Hegemon
Depictions of the coming Imperial power
Experimental Economics, Indeed
by
Joseph R. Stromberg from Ludwig von Mises
Institute
"...[T]he
US authorities will probably do as they please,
emboldened by their firm belief that the whims and
fancies of US policymakers are, in our times, the
only possible source of international law."
Leave Revolution in Saudi
Arabia to the Saudis
by Amir Butler
from Antiwar.com
"However, Saudi Arabia is not America. It
was founded on the basis of Islam and Islam has
provided the guiding principles for the nation.
The idea that religion should be separated from
the affairs of the state is viewed as a heresy."
Sorrows of Empire:
Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic
from
LewRockwell.com
"Reminding
us of the classic warnings against
militarism – from George Washington’s
farewell address to Dwight Eisenhower’s
denunciation of the military-industrial
complex – Johnson uncovers its roots deep in
our past."
Politics by Other Means
War, rumors of war, and politicians
fomenting war.
Democrats, We
Are Begging You
by Llewellyn
H. Rockwell, Jr. from LewRockwell.com
"What
the Democrats need is a wholesale
ideological gutting. They need to purge
all anti-liberal sentiment in their party.
They need to embrace their 19th-century
heritage of opposing: centralization,
protectionism, war, and government
control."
Drug Warriors
Try to Censor their Opponents
by Ted
Galen Carpenter from Cato Institute
"The
most ominous proposal for repressing
pro-drug reform speech comes (not
surprisingly) from the United Nations.
The UN's International Narcotics Control
Board has issued a report implicitly
calling on member states to criminalize
opposition to the war on drugs."
Open Door Policy
by Karen
Kwiatkowski from The American
Conservative
"In
my study of the neoconservatives, it was
easy to find out whom in Washington they
liked and whom they didn’t.
... To find out whom they didn’t
like, no research was required. All I
had to do was walk the corridors and
attend staff meetings."
Spontaneous Order
Articles
showing decentralized successes.
A Reply to
Schumer and Roberts
by George Reisman
from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"Despite everything I
have said about falling wages and prices, it should be
realized that under a system of fiat money, such as we have
today, it is practically impossible that the general level of
money wages will actually fall in the United States."
Harm's a Two Way
Street
by Walter E.
Williams from Cato Institute
"If you're allergic
to tobacco smoke or just find its odor unpleasant, and I
smoke in your presence, I harm and annoy you. However, if
I'm prohibited from smoking a cigarette in your presence,
I'm harmed because of a denial of what I find a pleasurable
experience."
Wal-Mart: Immoral Monster?
by Joe
Blow from Strike the
Root
"Of
course, just because these people may prefer to pay double
for consumer goods in no way obligates any store to sell
them at that price. If a viable mass market existed for
consumer goods at double the Wal-Mart price, stores would be
falling all over themselves to deliver. How many of them
have you seen lately?"
Nonspontaneous Disorder
Articles
showing centrally planned disasters.
Flower
Power
by Jacob
Sullum from Reason
"Louisiana
appears to be the only state in the nation that treats
unlicensed florists making unauthorized arrangements as
a public menace."
They Pry
Them from Our Cold Dead Fingers
by Sharon
Harris from LewRockwell.com
"That big
yellow school bus takes our children to huge
government buildings where most of their waking hours
are spent. Where each day begins with an invocation of
loyalty to the state. Where their most treasured
spiritual values and symbols are banished."
An
urban legend
by Walter E. Williams
from Townhall.com
"None
of these cases, and many others, differs in principle
from the Merv Grazinski urban legend. What's common to
all of them is the absolution or the attempt at
absolution from personal responsibility."
War Is The Health Of The State
War is the ultimate State intervention
in society.
"Crony capitalism" -
It's not personal --
only business
by Nicholas
Strakon from The
Last Ditch
"That
system, to give it a name, is state capitalism.
Individual, opportunistic bribery and sweetheart
deals with specific companies arise naturally from
the system, to be sure, but only as a miasma arises
naturally from a dung heap. Under American state
capitalism, the ruling class, standing outside the
official regime, purchases or at least rents the
entire state apparatus."
The International Terror-and-Drug Cop Is On the Beat
by
Jacob G. Hornberger from The Future of Freedom
Foundation
"Never
mind that people possessing drugs thousands of
miles from U.S. shores are unlikely to be
violating U.S. drug laws. Never mind that the
seizures of their ships have been conducted
without probable cause or judicially issued
warrants."
America: The real danger lies within
by Eric
Margolis from The
Toronto Sun
"For
America's hard right...the
Bush administration's aggressive foreign policy of
world domination, and utter contempt for
international laws and old allies, marks a new era
of national greatness."
Bits of History
The Past seen with a
fresh look.
Charity is Best Left to the Private Sphere
by
Adam B. Summers
from
Reason Public Policy Institute
"Even more
important than Cleveland's observation that
Americans tend to be a very charitable group by
nature was his insight to the corrupting influence
of government handouts. "
Lincoln’s Presidential Warrant to Arrest Chief
Justice Roger B. Taney
by
Charles Adams from LewRockwell.com
"If
Lincoln obeyed the Court’s order thousands of
those arrested illegally would have been freed.
Lincoln and most Northerners, during the war,
accepted the Machiavellian doctrine that the end
justified the means, when the end was to
preserve the Union, and was to be achieved
regardless of the Constitution...."
What Has Government Done to Our Families?
by Allan Carlson
from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"Viewing this rivalry between state and
family, it is important to understand that a
basic level of 'dependency'
is a constant in all societies. ...
Under the domain of liberty, the natural
institution of the family ...
provides the protection and care which
these 'dependent'
people need."
War and Peace
Articles showing the
nature of War.
Draft Creep
by
David Wiggins from LewRockwell.com
"We are
on your side. We always were. Now, stop loss has
taken away your freedom. You had no say in the
matter. If you want to defend anyone’s freedom,
start by defending your own! Refuse this
involuntary servitude called stop loss."
Global Eye – Dark Skies
by Chris
Floyd from The
MoscowTimes.com
"The
mass British counter-raids aimed at 'breaking
the enemy's morale'
were targeted almost exclusively against the 'lower
orders,'
who died by the hundreds of thousands in the 'area
bombing'
that neither broke civilian morale nor
substantially hampered German war production
(although it did waste the lives of thousands
of allied airmen)."
With Friends Like These,
U.S. Enemies Don’t Seem As Bad
by Ivan
Eland from The
Independent Institute
"The
excessive demonization of the admittedly
autocratic Iran, North Korea, and Iraq allowed
the administration to build public support for
an aggressive invasion of Iraq as well as
hard-line policies toward these 'rogue'
states. But a more appropriate moniker might
be 'axis
of exaggeration'.”
Great Individuals In History
Some people stand out
from the crowd.
Economist -
Jean-Baptiste Say : Jan. 5, 1767
by Larry J.
Sechrest from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"...J.B.
Say was in a number of ways truly a
precursor
of the Austrian School, but one must not
leap to the conclusion that he was a
full-fledged Austrian who was simply
ahead of his time."
Agronomist/Researcher - George Washington
Carver : Jan. 10, 1864?
from Iowa
State University
"He
was born in about 1864 ...[TE:
one resource I use said Jan. 10, but I
suspect that is a guess] on the
Moses Carver plantation in Diamond
Grove, Mo. His father died in an
accident shortly before his birth, and
when he was still an infant, Carver
and his mother were kidnapped by slave
raiders."
Historian
- Lord [John]
Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
: Jan. 10, 1834
from The
Acton Institute
"Although
he never finished his anticipated
universal history, Lord Acton planned
the Cambridge Modern History
and lectured on the French Revolution,
Western history since the Renaissance,
and the history of freedom from
antiquity through the 19th century."
Culcha'
Books, Movies,
TV, Media, Music, poetry, etc.
Buckley
Gets It
Wrong
by Justin Raimondo
from Antiwar.com
"The purge of dissident elements within
the conservative movement did not lead to the
triumph of the Right, however, but to the
victory of 'big
government conservatism.'."
"A great country is being
propelled by the wrong forces"
by Laura Miller
from Salon.com
John le Carre talks about his
new war-on-terror novel, the "medieval
stupidity"
of the Bush administration's misuse of
intelligence, and why he wound up marching
against the war in Iraq.
(Subscription or single ad view for a day pass
required)
An early glimmer of
Heinlein's sci-fi future
by Geoffrey A.
Campbell from Star-Telegram.com
"Lost
novels are usually greeted with great fanfare
and loud hosannas. Truth be told, most of
these lost novels should have stayed lost."
Heinlein tried to destroy this book.
Review of
The Moon is A Harsh Mistress (Bonus
- for Heinlein lovers, like me)
Review
by bkMarkus
of Robert A. Heinlein's book
from BlackCrayon.com
"Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress tears at the heart of serious, freedom-loving readers. It was the first story to get many of us to seriously question the legitimacy of government."
The lighter side
Humor, satire, cartoons,
parodies, food, popular music
and other things to amuse.
Dead Animals With Salt
by Brad
Edmonds from LewRockwell.com
"Up
until maybe the mid 1600s, 'meat'
for the English was an idiom for 'meal'
or 'food.'
They referred to 'sitting
down to dinner'
as 'sitting
down to meat.'
This linguistic practice no doubt, and wisely,
lasted for hundreds of years."
That Pesky Bush-Hitler
Thing
by
Marc Ash from t
r u t h o u t
"Take
that German Justice Minister, Herta Däubler-Gmelin,
who compared Bush's dealings on Iraq to those of
Hitler. That really takes the cake, now doesn't
it? What do the Germans know of Hitler anyway?"
Maybe this is Satire, maybe not.
Pétanque's the best, bar none
by Dave
Barry from The
Miami Herald
"It's
a French word, roughly pronounced 'pay-TONK,'
but you have to get really nasal on the 'TONK.'
The only people who can say it correctly are the
French, who lift weights with their sinuses."
Deep Thought
Scientific and scholarly studies,
philosophical essays, in-depth and longer
articles.
Insanity Defense Has No Place in
a Free Society
by Sheldon Richman
from The Future
of Freedom Foundation
"Could he have chosen
otherwise? To answer no, one
would have to believe that
Hinckley had no choice but
to purchase a gun, book a
flight, board an airplane to
Washington, ascertain the
whereabouts of President
Reagan on March 30, 1981,
wait for him to exit the
Washington Hilton, and pull
the trigger several times.
Are we to believe that an
illness made him do all
this? "
Random Thoughts On The Decline
Of English
by Fred Reed
from FredOnEverything
"English grows ugly
and lapses into deformity.
My mail creaks under the
weight of misused pronouns
and homeless participles.
People seem to spell by
ear: 'Your'
and 'you’re,' 'it’s'
and 'its'
are mixed like salads. The
young assert that 'me
and him was talking,'
and really don’t know
better."
What Is the Objectivist View
of Free Will?
by William
Thomas from Navigator
"Today, people who
want to fly from
responsibility are greatly
aided by a view of man
that attributes our
actions to factors beyond
our control. ...
But to take such a
position seriously, one
has to deny free will and
accept its contrary,
determinism."
Miscellany
Articles not
easily classified.
A visit to Brudnoy
by
Brian McGrory
from Boston.com
"He
answered the door of his Back Bay condominium
yesterday looking like a shadow at high noon on a
summer's day. David Brudnoy has melted away. Already
thin, he has lost 50 pounds over the past few
months."
Queers for Capitalism
by Ari
Armstrong from Colorado
Freedom Report
"However,
while both the Old and New Testaments condemn
homosexuality, Objectivism's promotion of reason
and self-actualization has made for a quicker,
more complete acceptance of homosexuals."
Stupid Vogue
by Jeffrey A. Tucker
from
LewRockwell.com
"Stupid
Vogue accounts for how it is that otherwise smart
people could defend the preposterous propaganda on
Fox day after day, the howls of talk radio hosts,
the spewing forth of James Taranto in the Wall
Street Journal, the blathering lunacies of
political activists who consider a criticism of
Bush to be the equivalent of treason."
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