Grassroots Movements; Free ImmigrationHell, no, she won't go; Gangsterism in the defense of liberty; 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 Feb. 15-21, 2004.

 
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Political Liberty
Articles showing a positive influence of political action on the cause of Liberty.
 
Hell, no, she won't go! 
        by L.Neil Smith from Rational Review
"I narrowly avoided getting drafted myself, during the Vietnam war. Ironically, worrying about the draft -- I don't play well in groups, I can't place my life in the hands of others, and I won't take orders from somebody dumber than I am -- gave me an ulcer, and the ulcer got me out of the draft. I whistled 'Alice's Restaurant' all through the physical."
 
Hey, Big Spender: What Part of NO Don't You Understand?
        by David Boaz from Cato Institute
"Go back a bit further, and you could say that what most voters wanted in 2000 was neither Bush nor Gore but smaller government. A Los Angeles Times Poll in September 2000 found that Americans preferred 'smaller government with fewer services' to 'larger government with many services' by 59 to 26 percent."
 
TLE Interviews Aaron Russo -- Part One
        Interview by L.Neil Smith from The Libertarian Enterprise
"Aaron Russo is becoming better and better known to libertarians as a celebrated movie maker who is fed up with the direction in which the Bush Administration is taking America, and seeks the [Libertarian] Party's Presidential nomination."
 
Life in Amerika
Articles depicting the negative impact of politics on Liberty.
 
What happened to live and let live?
        by Robyn E. Blumner from St. Petersburg Times
"The hoopla, in Massachusetts of all places - home of openly gay congressman Barney Frank - proves that even in the most enlightened corners of this nation all pretense of rugged individualism, with its live-and-let-live ethos, has been abandoned."

Ernest Money

        by Jacob Sullum from Reason
"Last fall Istook was offended by ads in Washington's Metro system in which Change the Climate said the government should 'Legalize and Tax Marijuana.' So he did what any intolerant, power-mad politician would do...."
 
Watch Out Gun Owners: The Republicans Are Selling Us Out Again
        by Michael Gaddy from The Price Of Liberty
"While many of us have been wondering just how old Dubya was going to handle the sunset clause in the Assault Weapons Ban, lo and behold the congressional Republicans have devised a way to rescue their boy and keep the AWB, all at the same time."
 
Ordered Liberty without the State
Some people say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an interesting topic.
 
"Almost pregnant" liberty 
        by Student of Life from Rational Review
"The question is: How can one be free if he cedes authority over himself to another? It's a pretty basic question and it is the source of my greatest bewilderment with libertarians. For those who do not readily see the point, it can be asked another way: How can one be free within the context of any government?"
 
Gangsterism in the defense of liberty:A reply to Randall Holcombe - Part One  
        by Ronn Neff from The Last Ditch
"Holcombe takes the position of free-market anarchists seriously, but he does not meet their arguments. Rather, he is concerned to redirect the discussion away from a debate between their position (which he calls 'orderly anarchy') and the defense of limited government, and into a discussion of 'how government institutions can be designed to maximize their protection of liberty.'"
 
Slackers, Arise!  Support the Anti-Party!
        by George F. Smith from Strike The Root
"The Anti-Party, of course, would have no candidates -- nonvoting slackers wouldn't have it any other way.  The party's focus would be on ideas. The Anti-Party would provide high profile, timely commentary that debunks the claims that government is necessary for a secure, prosperous, and free society."
 
Spreading Decentralism
Articles demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.
 
How to Deal With Your Big, Fat, Obnoxious Government
        by Roger Young from Strike The Root
"The State is a beast only provoked to action when doing so works to its advantage. Despite much evidence to the contrary, many continue to believe in the benevolence of the beast; that if enough of the right people approach it in just the right way, the beast will be moved to grant the wishes of its petitioners."
 
Fred Korematsu v. George W. Bush 
        by Nat Hentoff from The Village Voice
"Fred Korematsu has involved himself in this confrontation with George W. Bush because of what happened to him and all the other Japanese Americans treated as nonpersons during the Second World War."
 
The Withering Away Of The State, Continued
        by William S. Lind from LewRockwell.com
"Mercenaries mark the state's loss of its monopoly on war just as surely as do the rise of non-state actors. Mercs will work for whoever pays them, state or non-state player. The more roles they fill, the more irrelevant the state becomes."
 
The New World Hegemon
Depictions of the coming Imperial power
 
Eisenhower Was Right 
        by Jacob G. Hornberger from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"To gain an excellent understanding of the overwhelming power and influence of the military-industrial complex in American life -- and the tremendous damage it has done to our nation -- and the threat it poses to the freedom and well-being of the American people, I highly recommend The Sorrows of Empire by Chalmers Johnson...."
 
Kerry Tells Anti-War Movement to Move On - "It's Time to Get Over It" 
        by Mark Hand from CounterPunch
"Researchers and investigative reporters are fascinated with the neoconservatives, that group of American empire peddlers who turned George W. Bush into a junkie war criminal. A similar group, the New Democrats, has been pushing its own dangerous brand of U.S. hegemony but with much less fanfare."
 
Tokyo Lets Loose Lapdogs of War 
        by Chalmers Johnson  from Common Dreams NewsCenter
"After his reelection as prime minister in September, Koizumi railroaded a vote through the Japanese Parliament endorsing the dispatch of Self-Defense Forces troops to Iraq, even though he acknowledged that this was probably a violation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution."
 
Politics by Other Means
War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.
 
Kerry: He's Peaking, Already - Campaign Diary 
        by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair from CounterPunch
"Kerry agrees with Bush about the tax cuts. He agrees with him about the Patriot Act. He agrees with him on trade. He agrees with him on the war. Why change horses, Bush will ask the American people. 'I can manage things better,' Kerry will respond. What else can he say?"
 
Find Me a Way To Do This
        by Morgan Reynolds from LewRockwell.com
"Find me a way? Any old way? Such talk might work in a James Bond movie, where the license-to-kill good guys follow the script and all ends happily and Bond gets the girl again. But such a message is incredibly dangerous in a real government."
 
George Bush, Make-Believe President 
        by Sydney H. Schanberg from The Village Voice
"President Bush's war in Iraq, oddly, has begun to remind me of the floating craps game in Guys and Dolls. In the classic musical, the 'guys' have to keep moving the venue from one hiding place to another -- to avoid getting caught playing an illegal gambling game. The president, with much bigger stakes, keeps moving his rationale for the war (as he rolls the dice) -- to avoid getting caught playing with the truth."
 
Spontaneous Order
Articles showing decentralized successes.
 
Art, Faith, and the Marketplace
        by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. from LewRockwell.com
"If you like The Passion, and you like Mel's vision in having seen a need where others did not, and the saga of the film and all the obstacles inspire you, remember that none of this would be possible without the institutions of the market economy. To make a movie like this requires more than a good story and courage."
 
Free Immigration - Part 1
        by Nathan A. Barton from The Price Of Liberty
"In a world with very little freedom left, the freedom to travel might mean little. But in our world, with constant change and great differences in the amount of liberty found in various places, it is very important. Freedom to travel is certainly as important as freedom of speech, religion, etc. because it is tied so closely to them."
 
Here's How to Defend Marriage
        by Harry Browne from HarryBrowne.org
"Marriage is a noble institution; it signifies to one and all that two people regard each other in much higher esteem and intention than was the case in previous relationships. Only the individual can evaluate that esteem and that intention. So why in the world would we want government defining what marriage is?"
 
Nonspontaneous Disorder
Articles showing centrally planned disasters.
 
Censorship Is Not Solution for Trashy TV 
        by Wendy McElroy from ifeminists.net
"But the next time there is a Janet Jackson incident, pro-regulation voices will declare, 'the fines were not enough.' Then, talk of license revocation, and of extending decency standards to cable or satellite radio, will arise with fresh momentum."
 
Dairy farmers ask, 'Got free speech?'
        by Vin Suprynowicz from Las Vegas Review-Journal
"The Cochrans are suing the federal government for requiring them to participate in the dairy promotion program. You've seen those ubiquitous 'Got milk?' ads on TV and billboards? Well, the Cochrans are asking, 'Got free speech?'"
 
Where the Jobs Went
        by Alan Reynolds from Cato Institute
"With the nation's highest dependence on high tech and IT jobs, San Jose was at the epicenter of the 1996-2000 tech boom, but also of the subsequent shake-out."
 
War Is The Health Of The State
War is the ultimate State intervention in society.
 
Resisting Intervention
        by Alan Bock from Antiwar.com
"It is difficult for a country that welcomes opportunities to initiate preventive wars to remain free and prosperous for long, for war is not only the health of the State, it is the antithesis of peaceful commerce."
 
The Neocon War on Peace and Freedom
        by James Bovard from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"Unlike some enthusiasts of Bush's wars, Frum and Perle do not talk about temporary abridgments of privacy; instead, the new Über-Surveillance State will presumably be with us forever."
 
Yes, Minister!
        by Uri Avnery from Strike The Root
"Common sense would say: Bush & Blair were 'deceived,' because they wanted to be deceived. Bush and the Neo-cons who have taken over Washington had decided from the beginning to attack Iraq, mainly in order to control the oil, and the tales of WMD were designed to provide a pretext that would frighten the masses."
 
Bits of History
The Past seen with a fresh look.
 
Background of the Middle East Conflict, Part 3
        by Wendy McElroy from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"Against the advice of the American State Department, Truman supported the establishment of a Jewish state. The State Department worried that a pro-Zionist stand would drive the Arabs toward the Soviets."
 
Executive Order 9066--FDR's Enduring Legacy
        by Michael Powers  from Strike The Root
"The mass roundup of Japanese Americans on the west coast began in March 1942 and lasted for eight months. It included women, young children, infants, and the infirm."
 
The Origins of Nazism
        by Ludwig von Mises from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"That Prussia's Parliament was only a sham and that the army was the main stronghold of Prussia's absolutism was not new to them. It was exactly because they knew it that they fought in the great conflict."
 
War and Peace
Articles showing the nature of War.
 
Are Libertarians Guilty of 'the Kitty Genovese Syndrome'?
        by Gene Callahan from LewRockwell.com
"Those of us who are opposed to the US launching 'wars of liberation' might be forgiven if we declare that we would have more faith in the depth of the interventionist's concern if he were putting his own life, or at least his own money, on the line."
 
Hair Trigger Planet
        by Alexander Zaitchik from New York Press
"In a sign of the changing times, nostalgic Cold Warrior William Safire blurted out in his Feb. 9 syndicated column something that has rarely been said in polite company since 1989: that the central mission of NATO is still to 'contain the Russian bear'."
 
What Would Abe or George Do?
        by Michael Tennant from Strike The Root
"If the father of our country had felt the need to lead the country into war, it is safe to assume that he would not have done so under false pretenses or changed the rationale halfway through the war."
 
Great Individuals In History
Some people stand out from the crowd.
 
Scientist - Galileo Galilei : Feb. 15, 1564
        by Robin Chew from Lucid Interactive
"Galileo' observations with his new telescope convinced him of the truth of Copernicus' sun-entered or heliocentric theory."
 
Suffragette - Susan Brownell Anthony : Feb. 15, 1820
        from Women In History
"First person arrested, put on trial and fined for voting on November 5, 1872. Unable to speak in her defense she refuse to pay 'a dollar of your unjust penalty'."
 
Philosopher/Mathematician - Alfred North Whitehead : Feb. 15, 1861
        by A. D. Irvine from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"According to Whitehead, religion is concerned with permanence amid change, and can be found in the ordering we find within nature, something he sometimes called the 'primordial nature of God'."
 
Culcha'
Books, Movies, TV, Media, Music, poetry, etc.
 
Freedom Book of the Month for January, 2004
        Reviewed by Sunni Maravillosa from Free-Market.Net
"Financial Reckoning Day: Surviving the Soft Depression of the 21st Century is an interesting, amusing blend of history and current events geared toward understanding markets, money, and the manipulations thereof."
 
Goodbye, Space Child
        by Charles Paul Freund from Reason
"Politically mandated futures don't develop, because the forces behind them are artificial. While many of the scientific achievements of the space program were certainly impressive (and many have indeed changed people's lives), the cultural Space Age that author Topham examines in his pages was an illusion."
 
The Debates of Liberty
        by Christopher Mayer from LewRockwell.com
"McElroy has chosen to focus on a few of the many debates that were carried on in pages of Liberty. Many of these have a contemporary ring, as they are still matters of debate today."
 
The lighter side
Humor, satire, cartoons, parodies, food, popular music and other things to amuse.
 
I'll do it yooooour wayyyyyy
        by Dave Barry from Miami Herald
"For the past few months, as I have traveled around this great nation talking about my campaign for president, the one question I have heard most often from the voters, in these troubled times, is: 'President of what'?"
 
Osama Bin Laden Found Inside Each Of Us
        from The Onion
"In light of the new counter-terrorist intelligence, Attorney General John Ashcroft has urged lawmakers to expand the Patriot Act to allow federal investigators to search within the hearts of all Americans."
 
Attack of the Gay Agenda!
        by Mark Fiore from The Village Voice
Animated cartoon required Flash.
 
Deep Thought
Scientific and scholarly studies, philosophical essays, in-depth and longer articles.
 
Grassroots Movements and Giants In Haystacks
        by Cat Farmer from Endervidualism
"No matter how strange or insignificant a person may seem, or how unimpressive he may appear, he has the potential to be a giant somewhere within him.  Look in the mirror: you have the potential to be a giant somewhere within you, and if you laugh at that thought, chances are you'll have laughed at the previous thought too."
 
Professors and Intelligence
        by Steven Yates from LewRockwell.com
"Professor Brandon stated that 'stupid people are generally conservative' when he either meant to say, 'conservative people are generally stupid' or wanted us to infer this."
 
The War of Janet's Nipple
        by L. Neil Smith from The Libertarian Enterprise
"The way to freedom is not through subtlety. You can't fool a people into wanting it, or sneak up on them the way that Libertarian Party LINOs ('libertarians in name only' -- who have a great many cognitive dissonance problems of their own) invariably insist on and demand."
 
Miscellany
Articles not easily classified.
 
Arguments versus Fallacies
        by Tibor R. Machan from LewRockwell.com
"The fallacy of ad hominems is resorted to by countless people in these contests, even ones who could often make their case stick quite rationally."
 
Crouch Down
        by Mary Starrett from NewsWithViews.com
"Critical thinkers knew early on that the sanitized version of what happened on 9-11 never did pass the smell test."
 
We Are sheep -- and That's Not an Insult!
        by Kalaong from The Libertarian Enterprise
"We are sheep. But some of us remember the good old days before the shepherd came, when we ran like the wind and leaped like grasshoppers and were warm all year round and didn't see almost all our children die for no reason at all."
 
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