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Buzzard and I;
Permission Slips;
Minarchist's Dilemma;
War,
the God That Failed; 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 May 9-15, 2004.
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Political
Liberty
Articles showing a
positive influence of political action on the cause of Liberty.
Statement on the
Abuse of Prisoners in Iraq
by Rep. Ron Paul, MD from
LewRockwell.com
"Yet, Congress made it clear to the
administration from the very beginning that Congress wanted no
responsibility for the war in Iraq. If Congress wanted to be kept in
the loop it should have vigorously exercised its responsibilities
from the very beginning. This means, first and foremost, that
Congress should have voted on a declaration of war as required in
the Constitution."
McCain's Bane
by Matt Welch from Reason
"You know, you can't pass a law and then say
'Well, our intention was kind of generally to do good things.' Laws have
meanings, and they deal with precise purposes, and people vote for them
assuming that is what they are going to do."
The
road to Abu Ghraib
by Robyn E. Blumner from St.
Petersburg Times
"I was a judge at the competition
and found it heartening to know that these students appreciate
what makes our nation manifestly great. What is shattering,
however, is that they are light-years beyond our president. It
is time that George W. Bush had a civics education. Someone
needs to teach him the sagacity of the system of checks and
balances put in place 200 years before his swagger was born."
Life in
Amerika
Articles depicting
the negative impact of politics on Liberty.
Wars on drugs, guns, fathers
going well
by Vin Suprynowicz from Las Vegas
Review-Journal
"We all know that in today's
America, police can break into your house in the middle of the
night and terrify your half-clad family at gunpoint if they
have 'reasonable grounds.' But did you know 'reasonable
grounds' now include having too high an electric bill or
putting your garbage out too late?"
Romancing the Stoned
by Mary Starrett from
NewsWithViews.com
"What they don't say in those
ads is that antidepressant drugs, now taken by
ever-increasing numbers of people - young and old, male
and female- can cause, actually CAUSE depression. They
also fail to mention that rage, violence, suicidal
thoughts and actually following through with those
thoughts are all potential side effects."
To Neocons, Reality Is
'Treason'
by Paul Craig Roberts from
Antiwar.com
"It is close to impossible
for conservatives to get any but rah-rah
kick-their-terrorist-butts commentary on the Iraqi
conflict. Anyone who relies on Fox News, the Weekly
Standard, National Review or the Wall Street Journal
Editorial Page for understanding the US invasion and
occupation of Iraq is as propagandized as Germans during
the Nazi era."
Ordered Liberty
without the State
Some people
say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an
interesting topic.
by Anthony Gregory
from Strike The Root
"The dilemma I
always had, when contemplating the state's existence per se, was
envisioning how a state could possibly protect rights better
than it did [anything else].... I comprehended that the state,
properly defined, possessed a monopoly on force. ... So what
kind of force does it monopolize? The initiation of force. The
precise disease I envisioned the ideal state to combat."
Buzzard and
I
by Scott
Carpenter from quebecoislibre.org
"You, at all
times and in all places, have the ability to think and to
decide the fate of your own life. All roads and paths of
action lead back to the self. You have a choice Buzz: to
live by their rules or to live by the laws that nature has
set out for us as men. In fact it's always been your choice,
not theirs. All they can do is beat you up, imprison you or
kill you for failing to play by their rules."
Know Your Rights
by Michael Tennant from
Strike The Root
"Thomas Jefferson famously
delineated man's 'inalienable Rights' as 'Life, Liberty
, and the pursuit of Happiness.' ... In short, a right
is something to which everyone has a just claim which he
may exercise without denying the same just claim to
others."
Spreading Decentralism
Articles
demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.
Here,
Please Read My Pamphlet!, Part II
by Per Bylund from Strike The
Root
"It can be a lot of work trying
to keep everything from the stinking tentacles of the
government, but it doesn't have to be. What you are doing
when trying a libertarian life is actually a double treat:
Not only do you live a life as you would like to live it--a
morally acceptable life--but you also keep your money away
from the government, thereby fighting its powers."
What Guns Should You
Own?
by Brad Edmonds from
LewRockwell.com
"The only thing I can
say with certainty to someone I don't know is this:
An armed populace will experience lower crime rates,
less risk of foreign invasion, and less risk of
being subjects of a totalitarian government than a
disarmed populace."
Why America Is Not
Safer
by Paul Sullivan
from the Independent Institute
"The President of
Afghanistan is more like the mayor of Kabul. He
controls a very small part of the country. The
Taliban remain operational in the country-. They
are waiting in the hills, supported and
nourished by certain groups following a tribal
code of duty called the Pukhtunwali."
The New
World Hegemon
Depictions of the coming Imperial power
by
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. from LewRockwell.com
"War is
idealism in the same way that Communism and Nazism
were idealism: the fanatical dream of people who
insisted that the world conform to their vicious
imaginings, and just so happened to get hold of the
power of the state and used it to make their 'ideals'
happen. They are the people who give us killing
fields. War too is a god that has failed."
The Coming Backlash Against Outrage
by Norman Solomon from
Antiwar.com
"Many politicians and
pundits are saying the worst aspect of this crisis
is that it presents a colossal PR problem for the
United States. That kind of verbiage tells us a lot.
Such an extreme self-focus represents the promotion
of national megalomania over genuine decency."
Torturing the
Truth
by L. Neil Smith
from The Libertarian Enterprise
"Lord Acton, who
said famously that 'power corrupts and absolute
power corrupts absolutely', also observed that,
in the end, no one is fit to rule anyone else.
The torture and abuse going on in Iraq and
Guantanamo and elsewhere is the kind of thing
that always happens when you give people power
over other people."
Politics by Other Means
War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.
The Crimes at
Abu Ghraib Are Not the Worst
by Robert Higgs
from The Independent Institute
"Relatively few of
the people slain were 'terrorists,' Baathists,
or even insurgents. Most were noncombatants;
thousands were women, children, and elderly
people. The military euphemism for these
deaths is 'collateral damage,' but they are
actually murders. After all, they did not
happen by accident; in the circumstances, they
were as predictable as the sun's rising in the
east."
The Gray Zone
by Seymour M.
Hersh from The New Yorker
"The roots of
the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the
criminal inclinations of a few Army
reservists but in a decision, approved last
year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,
to expand a highly secret operation, which
had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda,
to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq."
Sadism in war
old habit
by Eric
Margolis from Toronto Sun
"Just as the
Vietnam War was personified by a photo of a
terrified, naked girl fleeing a blast of
napalm, so George Bush's 'liberation' of
Iraq will inevitably be remembered by the
horrifying photo of a hooded prisoner
standing on a box with electric cables
attached to his fingers."
Spontaneous Order
Articles
showing decentralized successes.
Maybe Clarke and Rice Are Both
Right
by David R. Henderson
from Tech Central Station
"The reason comes from
the economic thinking of Nobel economist Friedrich Hayek, the man
who pounded the final intellectual nail in socialism's coffin. And
on 9/11 there were two pieces of evidence that there's a better
way than trusting our security to centralized planners, evidence
that was hidden in plain sight."
Good News
About Gas Prices
by Stephen Moore from Cato
Institute
"High gas prices could be a thorny
political issue as we enter the spring and summer months, when
travel across the country rises. But travelers should take
solace in the fact that we now pay less for gas, adjusted for
inflation and wages, than our parents and grandparents ever
did."
Give back to
the people their common law rights - Why politicians should stop
trying to 'develop' the common law
by Dr Brian Benfield from
Libertarian International
"The common law is therefore a body
of 'unwritten' general rules prescribing social conduct,
enforced by the ordinary courts and characterised by the
development of its own principles in actual legal controversies
and by the doctrine of the supremacy of law."
Nonspontaneous Disorder
Articles
showing centrally planned disasters.
by Sunni
Maravillosa from The Price of Liberty
"[I]n the spirit
of clarifying the English language ... why not call all
these sham pieces of paper exactly what they are? ...
Referring to licenses and such as permission slips is a
subtle but effective way of encouraging non-libertarians to
think about how much each American's right to 'life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' has been eroded."
Anti-Freedom Conservatism
by Sheldon Richman from The
Future of Freedom Foundation
"So there you have it.
Big-government conservatism, or its synonym,
neoconservatism, stands for a powerful state in pursuit of
'conservative ends.' There are problems, to be sure, with
the Barnes-Kristol thesis. What are 'conservative ends'?"
Bill Wilson and the Drug War
by Radley Balko from Cato
Institute
"The same mindset that finds a
symbolic victory over alcoholism more important than a
deathbed drink for a sick man can see fit to justify a
25-year prison term for an oxycodone-using MS sufferer and
handcuffing an elderly post-polio marijuana user to her
bed at the point of a gun."
War Is The Health Of The State
War is the ultimate State intervention in
society.
Criminal Negligence
by Chris
Floyd from The Moscow Times
"Not only
was Zarqawi allowed to live and thrive, but massive
resources were also diverted from the battle against
Osama bin Laden in order to launch an unprovoked war of
conquest and occupation in the most volatile region on
Earth."
So if Iraq is Vietnam,
What is the War on Terror?
by Anthony Gregory from
LewRockwell.com
"Vietnam was a hot battle
in the Cold War. It was only one theatre in a
frightfully epic conflict between the United States
and its allies, and the USSR and its. Iraq is,
similarly, only one frightful installment in the War
on Terror nightmare."
The Few, the One and the
Two
by Matthew Bryan from
Strike The Root
"The beheading of a
civilian American hostage by hooded demons claming
allegiance to al Qaeda is now juxtaposed against the
images from Abu Ghraib. We are in the midst of a
grisly match of one-upmanship. Two zealots, each
assured of the divine rectitude of their hypocritical
sanctimony, led us here."
Bits of History
The Past seen with a
fresh look.
Not the Same Old
Hickory
by Amy H.
Sturgis from Reason
"When she
[Tori Amos] sings those lyrics in Nashville, she's not
far from National Park Service markers that note where
the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail land route
winds past the city. Equally close, and equally a part
of Nashville, sits the Hermitage, the historic home of
the very president who made the Trail of Tears a
reality: Andrew Jackson."
The problem with the
17th
by Bruce Bartlett from
Townhall.com
"When senators
represented states as states, rather than just being
super House members as they are now, they zealously
protected states' rights."
The Rousseau of the
Right
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
from LewRockwell.com
"Far from being a
champion of capitalism, Hamilton was a champion of
economic interventionism. Historians have long
thought of him as 'among the most eloquent defenders
of state activism in the economy,' writes Schweikart."
War and Peace
Articles showing the
nature of War.
Andersonville: Earlier
War Crimes 'Abuse' Trial
by
Douglas Herman from Strike The Root
"In
Washington and New York, then as now, the shock and
outrage (after the fact) convinced people of their
inherent decency. Newspaper editors opined of the
tragedy of war, the carnage and loss, conveniently
forgetting their criminal complicity. The true
pornography of war ... whether the grim photographs
of skeletal prisoners of Andersonville or the
stripped and beaten Iraqi civilians of Abu Ghraib,
is the willingness of so many otherwise decent
people to support, encourage and partake in it.
A Visit to the
National Constitution Center
by Jim Castagnera
from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"What do these three
historical examples have in common? Well, here's
my take on them. They all sprang from a shared
sense that we were under attack and that the
perceived threat justified an extraordinary --
essentially an unconstitutional -- response. And
they were all regretted later."
Plan to Get Out Now
or Face a Disastrous Defeat - Bush's Waterloo?
by William S. Lind
from CounterPunch
"The disastrous course
of America's war in Iraq has created a new task
for the Great General Staff, in the form of more
contingency planning. America needs to make sure
it has a plan in the file for a fighting
withdrawal from Iraq."
Great Individuals In History
Some people stand out
from the crowd.
Writer - Ariel
Durant : May 10, 1898
by Jerrilyn
Jacobs from My Hero Project
"When Chaya was
14 she transferred from the New York City
public schools, where she had gone
sporadically, to the anarchist-inspired
progressive Ferrer Modern School. Her
teacher was Will Durant."
Scientist -
Pierre Curie : May 15, 1859
from Official
Web Site of The Nobel Foundation
"Curie's
studies of radioactive substances were
made together with his wife, whom he
married in 1895. They were achieved under
conditions of much hardship - barely
adequate laboratory facilities and under
the stress of having to do much teaching
in order to earn their livelihood."
Economist -
A.R.J. Turgot : May 10, 1727
by Murray N.
Rothbard from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"In the
history of thought, the style is often the
man, and Turgot's clarity and lucidity of
style mirrors the virtues of his thought,
and contrasts refreshingly to the prolix
and turgid prose of the physiocrat
school."
Culcha'
Books, Movies, TV,
Media, Music, poetry, etc.
Jimi Hendrix: Anti-War
Forever
by Douglas Herman from
Strike The Root
"A year before, at
Woodstock in the summer of 1969, Jimi Hendrix
performed an infamous, antiwar version of The
Star-Spangled Banner, adding luster to his already
considerable reputation--along with boxer Muhammad
Ali--as an outspoken antiwar advocate."
Blue Kentucky Grrl
by Jesse Walker from
Reason
"This year especially,
we've heard a lot of casual stereotypes about Red
America and Blue America. ... Against that
backdrop, Lynn is a reminder that life is never so
bland or so simple. She's both traditionalist and
feminist, both clear-eyed and nostalgic, and now
she's recorded an album that is both unmistakably
punk and undeniably country."
Is UPN afraid of the
future?
by L.Neil Smith from
RationalReview.com
"America, perhaps
uniquely in history and in the world, needs to
believe in the future, like children and other
living things need to breathe oxygen. ... America
has always been about the future. When it has no
future to believe in, it loses focus. It gets
weird and perverse. It tries to build empires."
The lighter side
Humor, satire, cartoons,
parodies, food, popular music
and other things to amuse.
Bush Announces 'Operation
Iraqi Re-freedom' - U.S. To Leave Iraq June 30, Return July
1
by Andy Borowitz from
BorowitzReport
"In his weekly radio
address, President George W. Bush announced that if the
new Iraqi government asks the United States to leave
Iraq on June 30 it will do so, but added that it will
return to Iraq on July 1, one day later."
Privatizing the Military
by Mark Fiore from The
Village Voice
Privatizing the Military -
A Department of Defense/Free Market Film
34 Congressmen Arrested
In D.C. Cockfighting Crackdown
from The Onion
"Of course, we were aware
of the longstanding cockfighting problem, but we were
shocked to catch so many highly placed lawmakers in
the act of betting on, training, and selling fighting
birds -- or, in the case of [Rep.] Tammy Baldwin
[D-WI], operating back-alley clubs."
Deep Thought
Scientific
and scholarly studies, philosophical essays,
in-depth and longer articles.
Collectivism Begins In Your
Neighborhood
by
Butler Shaffer from
LewRockwell.com
"Collectivism was not born in
congressional chambers or Ivy
League classrooms, but in our
willingness to abandon our
streets and neighborhoods to
institutional interests. But why
did we do so? From whence arose
our trust in collective forces
and fear of ourselves as
individual decision-makers?"
Free Markets, the Rule of Law, and
Classical Liberalism
by Richard M. Ebeling from The
Freeman: Ideas on Liberty
"An essential element of the
rule of law is that it
specifies what government may
not do to the citizenry. For
example, neither the
government nor its various
legal agents may hold an
individual without bringing
charges against him before a
judge within a specified
period of time."
Carl Menger On The Evolution Of
Institutions: The Case Of Money
by Edward W.Younkins from
quebecoislibre.org
"For Menger, the individual is
the unit of analysis because
it is only at the individual
level that meaning can be
assigned to actions. His
methodological individualism
is not atomistic. On the
contrary, it treats
individuals not as independent
and isolated but instead as
members of various types of
complex relational systems."
Miscellany
Articles not
easily classified.
Battling Leviathan--Enter
the Dragon
by Bob Jackson from Strike
The Root
"Likewise, individual
freedom fighters are going to continue to come in all
different shapes and sizes. They'll choose the paths
that best suit their skills and dispositions.
Intellectuals will write, activists will politic,
anti-authoritarians will segregate themselves, and
fed-up warriors will go down in blazes of glory. May
each to his own self be true."
What Will It Take?
by John J. Dwyer from
LewRockwell.com
"What I need to know is
what it will take for conservative Christians to cease
enabling 'our man in the White House,' George W. Bush,
to carry on his disastrous war against Iraq. The
effects of the sanctions our nation placed on Iraq
after the first Gulf War and kept on it for twelve
years did not do it."
Mean Girls
by Cathy Young from
Reason
"When given power over
others, some human beings (including women) will abuse
that power in sickening ways. This is a fact of life.
The responsibility of the US military was to prevent
such abuses or at least nip them in the bud."
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