A World RecreatedGold That Does Not Glitter; Save The Universe!; To be an Anarcho-Capitalist; 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.18-24, 2004.

 
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Political Liberty
Articles showing a positive influence of political action on the cause of Liberty.
 
Victim of Anti-Gun Hysteria Needs Your Support
        from Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership
"Between the time Hunter was released from jail and the day he was allowed to get his vehicle, Ohio's governor signed a bill making licensed concealed carry perfectly legal for Ohio residents. Once the law goes into effect a simple reciprocity agreement with his home state of New Hampshire could make today's 'felony' a perfectly legal and acceptable act tomorrow."
 
Resistance to Patriot Act Gaining Ground
        by Thanassis Cambanis from Common Dreams NewsCenter
"Across the Commonwealth, Republicans, gun lobbyists, and libertarians have taken up the call against the Patriot Act. So have a cadre of previously apolitical people such as Jake Beal, 25, a self-described computer nerd who is now leading the drive for a resolution against the Patriot Act in Somerville."
 
The Bush Immigration Plan: A step in the right direction
        by Anthony B. Bradley from Acton Institute
"A compassionate approach to immigration requires that we recognize the inherent dignity of all people regardless of their country of origin. The human person created for work finds life within the context of labor and family. If people desire work to provide for family and contribute to community life, then we should welcome and embrace them."
 
Life in Amerika
Articles depicting the negative impact of politics on Liberty.
 
Making the right to counsel vanish
        by Robyn E. Blumner from St. Petersburg Times
"Prosecutors are promising judges that protesters will not face jail time and then asking judges to remove the FTAA protesters' public defenders. It is a tactic designed to leave these defendants, many of whom are out-of-state students with few means, without representation."
 

Faking It - A Brief Textbook Of American Democracy  

        by Fred Reed from FredOnEverything
"Any attempt to weaken the central power will arouse powerful hostility. For example, the persecution of those engaged in home-schooling has nothing to with concern for the young. The public schools have little interest in education and for the most part seem to have little idea of what it is. The hostility to home-schooling is simply the response of those with a monopoly of power to the specter of superior competition."
 
The IRS has an Income Tax problem
        by Robert R. Raymond from People for Truth in Taxation
"Tens of millions of Americans no longer file the form 1040. Why is that? ...[P]eople sometimes have to make a choice between feeding their families or feeding Uncle Sam; people are tired of IRS abuses... The greatest abuse being the IRS's and our elected officials refusal to tell the people what law makes them liable to pay the Individual Income tax."
 
Ordered Liberty without the State
Some people say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an interesting topic.
 
One For The Hunter 
        by Catfarmer from The Price Of Liberty
"Hunter's dilemma concerns anyone with a reason to cross state lines. Lawlessness doesn't result from a shortage of laws: lawlessness results from the failure of law to command respect. Law fails to command respect when it is arbitrary, and enforced capriciously. "
 
The Spontaneous Redistribution of Wealth
        by Per Bylund from Strike The Root
"Every man has a need which should be fulfilled - by those capable of fulfilling it. They call to the state for help. The state uses its only means available to accomplish this task: coercion and violence. "
Part I: Division of Production Cost - http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/bylund/bylund1.html
Part II: Division of Purchase Price - http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/bylund/bylund2.html
 
What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist
        by N. Stephan Kinsella from LewRockwell.com
"To be an anarchist only means that you believe that aggression is not justified, and that states necessarily employ aggression. And, therefore, that states, and the aggression they necessarily employ, are unjustified."
 
Spreading Decentralism
Articles demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.
 
Sell oil for gold, not dollars 
        from Aljazeera.Net 
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad has said Saudi Arabia should sell oil for gold, not dollars, to avoid being "short-changed" by a decline in the US currency.
 
How to Fix Politics? Believe It or Not, More Politicians
        by George Kenney from Common Dreams NewsCenter
"The problem is this: In districts of 670,000 people, legislators tend to lose touch with voters. Campaigns become more expensive. Dollars come first, constituents second. Ordinary people can't afford to run for office."
 
Can't they shut these people up?
        by Vin Suprynowicz from Las Vegas Review-Journal
"In what was promoted as a 'unique chance to rewrite the law of the land,' listeners to the government-controlled British Broadcasting Company's Radio 4 'Today' program were asked to suggest a piece of legislation to improve life in Great Britain...."
 
The New World Hegemon
Depictions of the coming Imperial power
 
Currency Wars
        by Sean Corrigan from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"But if Europe is the region feeling most of the strain of Washington's inflationary blackmail, are there at least any prospects that the Americans might do less harm than good, at least domestically, and so give the lie to Issing's admonitions to them?"
 
Government and Religion: the two biggest criminal enterprises in history
        by Ron Beatty from The Libertarian Enterprise
"Where the problem began was when religion became a thing of state control and power, and prestige for the state. Now, all of a sudden, we have two gangs of thieves and liars competing for power."
 
Why Do Iowans Like to Caucus But Iraqis Don't?
        by Ivan Eland from Antiwar.com
"Unlike the Iowa version of the caucuses, open to everyone, participants in the Iraqi version, under the current administration plan, have to be either selected by the Iraqi Governing Council...or chosen by local government officials who are cooperating with the U.S. occupation authority."
 
Politics by Other Means
War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.
 
Bill Clinton on Steroids
        by Harry Browne from HarryBrowne.org
"On the day some Republican is being led to the guillotine on a trumped-up charge of abetting terrorists, he'll probably be mumbling, 'Thank God for George Bush. Al Gore would have shot my dog as well.'"
 
Lies, damn lies and Republican rhetoric revisited
        by Thomas L. Knapp  from Rational Review
"The Busheviks have finally awakened to the fact that their man is cruisin' for an electoral bruisin', and they're not a bit happy about it. But, having turned their cannon loose on deck for three years, they seem at a loss as to how to get him chained the hell down and pointed in the right direction."
 
State of the SotU 
        by Julian Sanchez from Reason
"Start with a confident survey of achievements, creating a sense of 'we-ness' with your audience, then bring out the fnords. People hasten to include themselves psychologically in this positive 'we,' and they're stuck there when you invoke the threats 'we' face and ask whether 'we' will 'turn back' or 'falter and leave our work unfinished.' "
 
Spontaneous Order
Articles showing decentralized successes.
 
A World Recreated
        by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. from LewRockwell.com
"A decline in the power, might, and influence of the US is not the same thing as a decline in America; quite the opposite. The only real downside is the transition: the US government may increasingly behave like a dying and rabid animal, posing a danger to its random victims."
 
How Does Money Acquire its Value?
        by Frank Shostak from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"Originally paper money was not regarded as money but merely as a representation of gold. Various paper certificates represented claims on gold stored with the banks. Holders of paper certificates could convert them into gold whenever they deemed necessary."
 
Online games to generate real - and academic - riches
        from NewScientist.com news service
"But as well as providing financial riches, some researchers believe the virtual communities built within these complex artificial worlds may also provide academic riches by providing a unique new way to study social, economic and legal phenomena."
 
Nonspontaneous Disorder
Articles showing centrally planned disasters.
 
Bush, Marriage, and Iraq
 
        by Thomas Kearney from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"In other words, President Bush wants to use tax dollars forcibly taken from American citizens to fund programs whose effectiveness cannot be measured, in order to mollify the 'family values' wing of the Republican Party. It is a classic example of robbing Peter to buy the votes of Paul."
 
Nationalized Health Care Will Cut Costs? It Just Ain’t So!
        by Gene Callahan and Robert Murphy from The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty
"Plans that lower prices of a good will logically prompt consumers to demand more of it. Those of us who have been caught between insurance plans know that certain 'indispensable' visits to the doctor or dentist can often wait until our coverage is restored and somebody else has to pay for them."
 
All Politics is Local: How Broadcasters Want to Silence Satellite Radio
        by Radley Balko from Cato Institute/TechKnowledge
"Of course, any time a new competitor comes along with a new business model offering consumers new choices, the old guard gets its dander up, and inevitably turns to the federal government to protect its turf, and preserve market share."
 
War Is The Health Of The State
War is the ultimate State intervention in society.
 
The Defense Budget Is Bigger Than You Think
        by Robert Higgs from The Independent Institute
"Lodged elsewhere in the budget, other lines identify funding that serves defense purposes just as surely as -- sometimes even more surely than -- the money allocated to the Department of Defense (DoD)."
 
The Speech To End All Speeches
        by Joseph R. Stromberg from LewRockwell.com
"Mr. Bush tells us how US conquests are creating a better world: 'Businesses are opening, health care centers are being established, and the boys and girls of Afghanistan are back in school.' 'Back in school'the true American’s test of progress, as that notion is understood in Greater New England."
 
The Fog of Cop-Out - Robert McNamara 10, Errol Morris 0
        by Alexander Cockburn from CounterPunch
"It reminded me of films of Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and then head of war production. Speer loved to admit to an overall guilt. But when he was pressed on specific nastiness, like working Jews or Russians to death in arms factories, he would insist, eyes ablaze with forthrightness, that he knew nothing of such infamies."
 
Bits of History
The Past seen with a fresh look.
 
Captain Meriwether Lewis
        by Dick Cheatham from LewRockwell.com
"He believed, like Jefferson, in the virtue of a democratic republic, one where citizens understand life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and have the courage and energy to act to defend and extend those things."
 
No need for voting machines
        by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster from Liberty For All 
"The model that our Founders had in mind when they were working out the forms for America's elections were clear and simple. Stand up and be counted. Literally."
 
Malcolmin the Middle 
        by Roderick T. Beaman from Ether Zone
"He told of his friendship with Redd Foxx and Muhammad Ali. It was as a minister of the Black Muslims that he catapulted to fame."
 
War and Peace
Articles showing the nature of War.
 
Mini-Nukes the New Defense – Or Threat?
        by Cristina Hernández from Antiwar.com
"Because it is such a controversial issue, the fact that presidential elections loom in November mean that Bush, who seeks another term, is likely to put the matter on hold."
 
The Army's 'Transformation'
        by William S. Lind from LewRockwell.com
"At the end of the day, my impression was that the big, green Army dinosaur has gotten its head up out of the swamp (apologies to you Ranger types, but from my vantage point it appears to be an herbivore). The question is whether it can evolve fast enough to match the speed of change in war itself."
 
Chalmers Johnson on garrisoning the planet
        by Chalmers Johnson from Tomdispatch.com
"Once upon a time, you could trace the spread of imperialism by counting up colonies. America's version of the colony is the military base. "
 
Great Individuals In History
Some people stand out from the crowd.
 
Futurist/author/comic - Robert Anton Wilson: Jan. 18, 1932
        from RAWilson.com
"Wilson further extrapolates, the Nietzchean alien gangster hibernates, and a Pavlovian apartment building slyly graduates from the Borg cube."
 
Libertarian Lawyer/Abolitionist - Lysander Spooner: Jan. 19, 1808
        from LysanderSpooner.org
"Although Spooner maintained something of a law practice throughout his life, his was not the usual lawyer's career. For one thing, be remained in continuous poverty. His writings, even the widely read works against slavery, seldom returned living expenses."
 
Aviatrix - Willa B. Brown: Jan. 21, 1906
        by Danuta Bois from Distinguished Women of Past and Present
"Also in 1937, she co-founded the National Airmen's Association of America with her flight instructor, Cornelius R. Coffey. The Association's goal was to promote African-American aviation."
 
Culcha'
Books, Movies, TV, Media, Music, poetry, etc.
 
Liberty: The Gold That Does Not Glitter
        by Jeff Jordan (The Hunter) from The Price of Liberty
"It is entirely possible from what I know of him that Tolkien indeed had some inner meaning relating to the struggle for freedom in mind. He was far more consciously anarchist than I realized until I started reading his letters some years after this first occurred to me."
 
Postal Pranksters
 
        by Jesse Walker from Reason
"Not all the satires are aimed at Western targets. ... Thompson has made a caning stamp for Singapore; a Chinese stamp depicting the Tiananmen Square crackdown; a South African stamp devoted to 'the necklace.'"
 
Minear To Adapt Moon
        from SCI FI Wire
"Genre TV producer Tim Minear (Angel, Wonderfalls) told SCI FI Wire that he has been hired to write a screenplay adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's 1966 SF novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress."
 
The lighter side
Humor, satire, cartoons, parodies, food, popular music and other things to amuse.
 
Election Coverage
        by Dave Barry from The Miami Herald
 
The State Of the Union Address - Infograph
        from The Onion
President Bush delivered the State Of The Union address Tuesday. What were his key points?
 

State Of The Union Updater

        by Mark Fiore from The Village Voice
New & Improved Version 3.0! 
 
Deep Thought
Scientific and scholarly studies, philosophical essays, in-depth and longer articles.
 
Puzzled monkeys reveal key language step
        from NewScientist.com news service
"Mastery of the underlying rule of recursion is the key to human flexibility, Premack believes, allowing humans to think in the abstract, use metaphors and comprehend concepts such as time."
 

Save the Universe!

        by Butler Shaffer from LewRockwell.com
"That 'entropy' is often a matter of perspective is generally overlooked by those who seek to sterilize and cleanse nature. One organism’s waste (entropy) may be another organism’s source of nourishment or a productive resource."
 
Who Benefits From Free Trade, and How
        by Robert P. Murphy from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"In this case, where the consumers are located in the country we're considering, the only way trade policy will alter the situation is to make the consumers worse off. And as we've seen, the general rule is that a tariff hurts consumers more than it helps producers."
 
Miscellany
Articles not easily classified.
 
Judging People by Their Character
        by Edwin A. Locke from NewsMax.com
"What has happened in the years following King's murder is the opposite of the 'I Have a Dream' quote.... Colorblindness now has been replaced with color preference in the form of affirmative action."
 
Libertarianism and Slavery
        by Marcus Verhaegh from LewRockwell.com
"Slavery is prima facie the most egregious violation of the libertarian ideal that no human has the right to use coercion against others, save to stop coercion."
 
Today Baghdad, Tomorrow Barsoom?
        by Roderick Long  from Strike The Root
"I long to see Mars and other planets visited, colonised, even terraformed. ... But I cannot endorse a space exploration program led by an institution both inept and criminal, and funded by extortion."
 
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