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Crossing Jack; Freedom, the Future, & YOU;
Psychological Marginalization;
Left's
wartime betrayal; 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 Apr. 11-17, 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.
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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.
Taking Rights
by Russ Madden from Atlas
"As Leonard Read phrased it (in the book of
the same name), 'anything that's peaceful' must be respected and
tolerated by other people and especially by the State. Indeed, the only
proper purpose of the State is to ensure that the sphere of our freedom
is not violated."
Whose Justice?
by Rep. Ron Paul, MD from
LewRockwell.com
"The US Constitution is the supreme
law of the land in America. Congress needs to exercise its
constitutional power over federal courts and send judges a
strong message that Americans will be governed by American law
only."
The
obverse side of history
by L.Neil Smith from
RationalReview.com
"Should I repeat that? Maybe I
should. We must persuade people to vote for third party
candidates -- any third party candidates -- and not to vote
for any incumbent, with the exception of Congressman Ron
Paul."
Life in
Amerika
Articles depicting
the negative impact of politics on Liberty.
Campaign reform as gag rule
by Robyn E. Blumner from St.
Petersburg Times
"Money and politics can no more be
separated from one another than could Eng and Chang, the
original Siamese twins. This is why I support erasing all
limits on individual contributions. As long as there is
disclosure, voters can decide for themselves whether a
politician has been bought and by whom."
From Dawn to Decade-nce
by Radley Balko from Tech
Central Station
"As the ten-year anniversary
of the Contract With America approaches, Republicans
currently in power would do well to go back and reread the
document. They've grown comfortable and complacent.
They've succumbed to the very seductions and trappings of
power that they ran and won against in 1994."
Boys Will Be Boys...Or Will
They?
by Linda Schrock Taylor
from LewRockwell.com
"Our boys need to have their
'boy' needs met. They certainly do not need to be
drugged into a stupor so they will sit quietly, whisper,
and stay out of the teacher's hair. They need to be kept
away from the TV and taught to read early so that their
imaginations and interests can be stimulated by a
variety of books. They need to be challenged in school
and life.... "
Ordered Liberty
without the State
Some people
say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an
interesting topic.
by Don "Lobo"
Tiggre from The Price of Liberty
"This fact, the fact
that people cannot be enslaved against their will -- the fact of
freedom -- is a hard one that makes most people uncomfortable.
But it _is_ a fact, and it certainly has a bright side, a
beautiful, almost unbearably bright side. It means that we can
be free, if we would only choose to be that way."
Don't Play Their Games
by Johan R:son Sjöberg from
anti-state.com
"If you haven't much wealth to
hide, you need to create it. It is necessary for the
enlightened to create system-independent revenues. There are
many ways this could be done. It all comes down to the
question of supply and demand."
The Media and Power
by Per Bylund from Strike
The Root
"The symbiosis between the
media and the government is the main reason I distrust
whatever is on the news. Next time you watch the news on
television, take a moment to count how much news
originates from the government or bureaucracy, and how
much is really a result from investigative, trustworthy
journalism."
Spreading Decentralism
Articles
demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.
A Knock
on the Door in the Night
by Pierre Lemieux from Le
Quebecois Libre
"What could have been dangerous
and scary in other circumstances illustrates how private
firearms are useful as last-resort protection, and crime
deterrent. Now that laws practically outlaw self-defence,
thugs have quickly got the message; hence the epidemics of
home invasions."
The 9/11 Commission
Sideshow
by Butler Shaffer from
LewRockwell.com
"When nineteen men,
armed only with box-cutter knives, can precipitate
what has transpired in these past thirty-one months;
and when suicide bombers can wreak the devastation
they have, it should be evident that the capacity to
conduct wars has become thoroughly decentralized."
The Day I Learned
to Shoot
by Jonathan David
Morris from Strike The Root
"This all sounded so
unofficial and spooky. But, then, in retrospect,
I realize I live in a fantasyland, police-state
here in New Jersey. Most folks probably learn
how to shoot from their dads by age 11 -- or
hell, from their moms by age 12."
The New
World Hegemon
Depictions of the coming Imperial power
Bush's Imperial Echo of General Maude
by Jacob G. Hornberger
from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"If only the president had
acknowledged that by abandoning our founding
principles of republic in favor of empire, our nation
has strayed off course, with disastrous consequences
not only for the American people but also for the
people of the world."
The Madness of President George
by Llewellyn H.
Rockwell, Jr. from LewRockwell.com
"Why is he one of the
most dangerous? Because he autocratically heads the
most powerful and well-armed state in the history of
the world. He not only has his finger on the button.
He has access to many thousands of weapons of mass
destruction, and has shown himself to be willing to
use them against anyone he regards as a foe."
The Crack-Up
by Chris Floyd from
The Moscow Times
"And what a
sickening spectacle these 'leaders' presented
last weekend: George W. Bush and Tony Blair
piously kneeling in prayer on Easter Sunday,
pledging their fealty to Jesus Christ and His
teachings of mercy and lovingkindness -- while
ordering missile strikes on crowded cities...."
Politics by Other Means
War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.
Laziness in the
Face of Mortal Danger
by Ivan Eland
from Antiwar.com
"The laziness with
which the administration treated a potentially
fundamental threat to America's citizens and
their homeland occurred principally because
there were no vested interests pushing action.
Instead, interest groups were pressuring for
U.S. interventions in far-flung places
overseas."
A New Enemy!
by Jacob G.
Hornberger from The Future of Freedom
Foundation
"The 'newest
Hitler' who provides yet another
justification for the invasion of Iraq and
the continued occupation of that country is
Muqtada al-Sadr, an Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim
whose father was killed by the old 'new
Hitler' -- Saddam Hussein."
It Depends On
What Your Definition of "Lies" Is.
by Anthony
Gregory from The Libertarian Enterprise
"If Kerry wins
this November, and next year we libertarians
find ourselves circumstantially alongside
conservatives again in our criticisms of the
state, remember how strangely these partisan
Bush apologists define the word 'lies.' And
then ponder -- seriously ponder -- how much
you would agree with them on what their
definition of 'freedom' is."
Spontaneous Order
Articles
showing decentralized successes.
Dangerous Minds: Hernando de Soto
by Gene Healy from
Cato Institute
"For years, statist
development experts had sought top-down solutions, operating under
the implicit assumption that poor people in the Third World were
largely incapable of entrepreneurship. De Soto utterly rejected
that patronizing viewpoint, and, beginning in his native Peru,
focused on the lack of formal property rights as the source of
poverty in poor countries."
Peripatetics
-- There's Still Work to Do
by Sheldon Richman from The Freeman
"Why stop at national boundaries? If
Buy American is well advised, why not Buy Pennsylvanian? Or Buy
Scranton? Or Buy Elm Street? Indeed, the logic ought to apply to
each household or person. Anyone who refused to 'import' goods
and services from others would surely never find himself
unemployed. And his trade account won't be in deficit either.
But he'll have a dismal standard of living."
Journalism,
Competition and Objectivity
by Tibor R. Machan from Strike The
Root
"Competition is a kind of quality
management device. At the least it presents the consumer of news
reports and news analyses with a wide variety of sources and
that is itself a means by which these consumers may well obtain
a nearly objective understanding of some situation that is the
focus of interest in the media. It isn't necessary that every
reporter practice objective reporting -- it could emerge from
competing reportage alone. This is precluded by a managed,
non-competitive press."
Nonspontaneous Disorder
Articles
showing centrally planned disasters.
April 15: The American
Citizen's Final Exam
by Anthony
Gregory from Strike The Root
"Government
education is responsible for the attitudes of so many
Americans that allow the state to get away with its worst
crimes. As my friend Stony pointed out to me, the
government's perspective, concerning its school system,
could be summed up as follows: 'We taught you everything you
know.' It's kind of creepy when you think about it."
Washington's Biggest Crime
Problem
by William L. Anderson and
Candice E. Jackson from Reason
"During the last century,
especially in the last three decades and in the aftermath
of the September 11 attacks, Congress has made federal
crimes out of an astonishing array of behavior, much of
which is already prohibited by state law, could be better
addressed with civil penalties, or is considered wrongful
not because it violates anyone's rights but only because
Congress says so."
Pure Poison
by L. Neil Smith from The
Libertarian Enterprise
"They're all crazy as bedbugs
-- it's as simple as that -- with a craziness both
murderous and evil. Our political system was designed or
has evolved, one hopes inadvertently, to filter out any of
the wise, principled, sane majority among us, and put the
killer-crazies -- individuals who would poison us to
protect us -- in power over us, instead."
War Is The Health Of The State
War is the ultimate State intervention in
society.
by Anthony
Gregory from RationalReview.com
"War is the
health of the state, and those on the Left who love the
state more than they hate war will put up with the
latter if it means they can employ millions in
involuntary servitude toward the creation of their Brave
New World."
Amid Blackwater, the tip
of an iceberg: Privatizing war
by Ronald N. Neff from
The Last Ditch
"But let's not lose sight
of things. The war is not evil to the extent that it
is privatized. The privatization is evil to the extent
that it is part of the war effort. Private enterprise
does not corrupt war; war corrupts private
enterprise."
The Labor Theory of War
by Anthony Gregory from
LewRockwell.com
"In a free market, I doubt
that a company would have been able to convince the
American people to spend hundreds of billions of
dollars -- about a thousand dollars per person -- to
pay for the Iraq War. Americans would have done their
homework and researched the credibility of WMD
allegations before they were convinced the war was
worth it to them."
Bits of History
The Past seen with a
fresh look.
The US Was Once
Considered a Rogue Nation
by Robert
May from LewRockwell.com
"Though it
may be hard to believe, before the Civil War, people
in Latin America, Western Europe, and even the faraway
Hawaiian kingdom were convinced that the United States
had become a base for terrorists. No one then actually
used the term 'terrorism' for unauthorized attacks on
other countries. Rather, these criminals were called
'filibusters.'"
Robin Hood, Friend of
Liberty
by Adam Young from
Ludwig von Mises Institute
"As so much in legends,
the historical truth isn't what matters. Instead it
is the legendary deeds of Robin Hood that excite us.
The man who challenged the state, who dared to take
what the rotten government claimed to own, the man
who not only did these deeds himself, but also
recruited others to help him and in doing so, gained
the trust and affection of his people."
A Report on Mesopotamia
by T.E. Lawrence from
Antiwar.com
"We say we are in
Mesopotamia to develop it for the benefit of the
world. ... How far will the killing of ten thousand
villagers and townspeople this summer hinder the
production of wheat, cotton, and oil? How long will
we permit millions of pounds, thousands of Imperial
troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be
sacrificed on behalf of colonial administration...."
War and Peace
Articles showing the
nature of War.
The Numbers Game - The
real Vietnam Syndrome is amnesia.
by Matt
Taibbi from NewYorkPress
"With
58,000 looming in the background, we are starting a
new count, which is up to about 640 as of this
writing. Do we even count the number of Iraqi dead?
Maybe in the daily battle reports, but you have to
really look for a running total. I've seen numbers
ranging from 10,000 to 15,000, but it's never
anything like the concrete numbers we grimly and
tearfully assign to coalition deaths."
Footsoldier: The
Achilles Heel in America's Quest for Empire
by Douglas Herman
from Strike The Root
"We came to the rescue
more than once, and many of us know elderly
relatives who sacrificed the best years of their
lives (literally) for a very real ideal of what
America once stood for. Yet, ask one of those old
veterans of World War II what America now stands
for and you may get a puzzled or cynical silence."
The Marines' "How To"
Handbook for Empire
by William Marina
from Independent Institute
"What no one bothers
to mention is that the great Marine Corps hero
General Smedley Butler (two Medals of Honor, in
combat), who actually fought in most of these
wars, turned against all of this interventionism
(a kind of early whistle blower). In his 1934
book, War is a Racket, he listed the nations in
which he intervened for U.S. global
neo-mercantilism...."
Great Individuals In History
Some people stand out
from the crowd.
Libertarian -
Thomas Jefferson: Apr. 13, 1743
by Jim Powell
from The Freeman
As far as I am
aware I have not previously repeated an
individual from one year to the next, nor do
I usually emphasize people who have been in
public office, but with Tom Jefferson I will
put aside these guidelines. Jefferson is
exceptional in many ways. Although he was
not perfect (who is?), he thought and wrote
better than he lived. His personal failings
do not substantially weaken the ideas he
championed.
Actress -
Julie Christie : Apr. 14, 1941
by Stephanie
Zacharek from Salon
The most
honest and revealing of actresses, she
speaks a language of her own that we
instantly understand.
Filmmaker -
Charlie Chaplin : Apr. 16, 1889
from
CharlieChaplin.com
"Charles
Chaplin was one of the rare comedians who
not only financed and produced all his
films (with the exception of 'A Countess
from Hong Kong'), but was the author,
actor, director and soundtrack composer of
them as well."
Culcha'
Books, Movies, TV,
Media, Music, poetry, etc.
by
Russell Madden from Atlas Magazine
"In
exploring the intersection -- the crisscrossing --
of Jack's inner soul with the external threats he
faces in serving his clients, we come to a better
understanding of this individual who stands, alone,
at the crossroads between legality and criminality,
between public life and private seclusion, between
order and chaos."
Theatre and the State
by Hans Frank from
Ludwig von Mises Institute
"...[W]e should not be
surprised when the Bush Administration turns its
attention to the arts.... The idea might be to
wean the arts community from its ideological
connection from the other party and toward the GOP
and its ideology. Whether it will work is
immaterial because there is no cost to the
Republicans for trying since they are, after all,
spending other people's money."
Was Nathaniel
Hawthorne a Paleolibertarian?
by H. Arthur Scott
Trask from LewRockwell.com
"Not quite, but
Hawthorne was certainly a classical liberal, a
Jeffersonian, and a cultural conservative.
Nathaniel Hawthorne and his friend Herman Melville
were Democrats when it was the party of both
liberty and conservatism, standing for leaving
things alone and keeping the government in its
cage."
The lighter side
Humor, satire, cartoons,
parodies, food, popular music
and other things to amuse.
Clearing Up The Confusion
by Paul Boutin from Wired
News
"In an interview with Wired
News, Stephenson, who rose to fame on cyberpunk-themed
novels including Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, said his
interest in money and markets dates back to 1994...."
Onion Infograph
from The Onion
Changes made to The Statue
of Liberty which is set to reopen in July.
Prolific science-fiction
author to be honored at Nebula Awards
by Dorman T. Shindler
from Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"Throughout his career,
Silverberg has edited more than 60 anthologies,
published more than 100 books and written at least
three times as many stories and essays."
Deep Thought
Scientific
and scholarly studies, philosophical essays,
in-depth and longer articles.
by Sunni Maravillosa
from Endervidualism
"Because of a fear of being
marginalized simply for being
different -- a fear that is
sadly justified -- an
individual's potential is
limited. The world is dimmed for
a loss, the scope of which we
will never know. That's
infinitely more tragic than
trying and failing."
Just Ignore Them
by Roderick Long from Strike
The Root
"This is one of the advantages
of anarchism as a political
program. Those who seek to
replace one system of
governmental control with
another cannot achieve this
goal by ignoring the
government; they have to take
active steps to seize the
reins of power, probably by
violence. But not so for
anarchists."
Advantages of Nuclear Power
by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD
from LewRockwell.com
"This is perhaps the greatest
advantage of nuclear power,
coupled with new technologies
like thermal depolymerization.
It will better enable our
country to follow the advice
its first President gave us in
his Farewell Address -- to
conduct dealings with other
nations in the marketplace,
not on the battlefield."
Miscellany
Articles not
easily classified.
Theologian Charges White
House Complicity in 9/11 Attack
by Nick Welsh from Santa
Barbara Independent
"There's nothing the least
bit wild-eyed or hysterical about David Ray Griffin. ...
In his latest book, The New Pearl Harbor -- released
just two weeks ago -- Griffin all but accuses the Bush
administration of taking a dive on September 11 and
giving Al Qaeda terrorists an unobstructed shot at the
World Trade Center."
Feeling a Draft
by Paul Craig Roberts
from Antiwar.com
"Moderate Shiite clerics,
who have been attempting to hold the US to its promise
of democracy and elections, have indicated that an
attack on Najaf would lead to a generalized Shiite
uprising. Such an uprising would involve huge numbers.
The calls for more US troops would be urgent. The only
source of those troops is to reinstate the draft."
The Feudal and Socialist
Nature of Taxation
by Tibor R. Machan from
Strike The Root
"You are born and despite
never having been asked whether you choose to sign up
for various benefits, when they are delivered to you,
you are forced to pay up. That's exactly how organized
criminals collect funds from those whom they
'protect.' If you do not pay, the protectors will come
and get you and hurt you -- in the case of the
government fine or even jail you good and hard."
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