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Here There be Monsters;
History Unthwarted; Of
Love and Lust;
How Hitler Became a Dictator;
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 June 27-July 3, 2004.
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Political
Liberty
Articles showing a
positive influence of political action on the cause of Liberty.
What Unites America? Unity in
Individualism!
by Edward Hudgins from The Objectivist
Center
"America is rightly described as the land of
the individual -- of individual opportunity, of individual initiative,
of individual rights. But what is the philosophic basis of this creed
and thus of our country? First, each one of us has a right to our own
lives. ... Second, individualism acknowledges that each of us is capable
of running our own life. ... Third, because each of us has an equal
right to our own life, individualism means we must respect the rights of
others. ... Fourth, individualism means that the role of government is
to protect our equal liberties, not to restrict the freedom or take the
money of one in order to benefit another."
If You Have To Vote for a President
by Walter Block from
LewRockwell.com
"[T]here really is no choice for
anyone who favors peace, an end to imperialist ventures all
around the world, limited government domestically, private
property and free markets: The Libertarian Party, imperfect as
it is, is simply the only choice."
Shuffling to the sound of the Morlocks' dinner bell
by Vin Suprynowicz from Las
Vegas Review-Journal
"I will vote for a candidate who
-- if he had his way -- would end the insane war on drugs; end
the income tax; restore my God-given and constitutionally
guaranteed firearms rights; protect the rights of all
Americans to medical privacy; end the noxious daily trampling
of our Bill of Rights in the nation's airports; pull us out of
the deadly, illegal and unconstitutional war in Iraq; and put
the U.S. military back to work tracking down the real culprits
of Sept. 11."
Life in
Amerika
Articles depicting
the negative impact of politics on Liberty.
It's campaign reform vs. free
speech
by James P. Pinkerton
from Newsday
"So the battle between 'campaign
finance reform' and free speech will continue. Campaign
finance 'reformers' have a goal: the full funding of politics
by the government, sweeping away all private contributions.
This is a vision of politics as a tidy process, in which
omniscient regulators purge the 'coarseness' and 'corruption'
of the current system. And both parties seem eager to help
stifle freedom, attacking the First Amendment in the name of
short-term partisan advantage."
Campaign Finance Reform, Censorship and Michael Moore
by Anthony Gregory from
LewRockwell.com
"Well, at least now the
American Left is starting to see the evils of campaign
finance reform. In years past, no matter how intelligently
... we attempted to point out to them that the First
Amendment itself was at stake, they would argue back that
we libertarians were actually defending the right of
corporations to bribe Senators so they could poison our
water and sell unsafe cars."
The Mental State of Our
Union
by Jonathan David Morris
from Strike The Root
"I can run off a list of a
million and one things that make me proud to be an
American, and having a computer chip in my head is not
one of them -- nor will it ever be, unless they program
me to say otherwise. I don't want to sound like an
alarmist. ... But there's a clear and present danger
here. Anyone who can't see this has far too much faith
in the goodness of government."
Ordered Liberty
without the State
Some people
say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an
interesting topic.
by Cat Farmer from
Endervidualism
"A group of men
determined to free the world of other people's tyrannies will
enslave the world for the sake of their own and call that
freedom. They're good citizens, and when I exercise
self-restraint by not voting, I'm a slacker. At least I'm still
free to OD on disgust. If abstinence from casual sex is
responsible, how can abstinence from sleazy politics be
irresponsible? "
Time, Distance and Shielding
by Joe Blow from Strike The
Root
"Years ago, in another lifetime,
I was intimately familiar with the handling and employment
of a large portion of the U.S. strategic nuclear weapons
inventory. One of the first things that you learn in that
arena is how to minimize your exposure to the Bad Thing:
radiation. You use three simple methods: time, distance, and
shielding. You minimize exposure by minimizing the time
spent in close proximity to the warheads and by maximizing
both distance and shielding between yourself and the
warheads. These same methods can also be employed to
minimize one's exposure to a much more pervasive, but just
as deadly, Bad Thing: the State and its agents."
Why Can't We All Win?
by Lex Concord from The
Libertarian Enterprise
"With so much at stake, it's
no wonder that the political bickering has grown more
heated than ever. The losers really lose, and the
winners really win -- even if the winners are supported
by less than 25% of the population, as is usually the
case. ... But why does it have to be this way? Why can't
we all win? Why not let every voter live under the
government they vote for?"
Spreading Decentralism
Articles
demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.
Let Me
Be Free
by Russell Madden from ATLAS
Magazine
"My student implicitly saw my
beliefs as wrong, depraved, evil, vicious, criminal, unjust,
sacrilegious, blameworthy, vicious, indecent, reprehensible,
and oppressive. I was and am saddened by such outlandish
judgments and accusations against someone who seeks only to
be left alone to live my life in peace."
A Sovereign Iraq: Now,
the Hard Part
by Patrick Basham from
Cato Institute
"Looking to the future,
if Iraq is to be remade as a beacon of Islamic
democracy, how should the new political system be
configured? The introduction of federalism - the
division of power between the central and regional
governments - may best allow for the true nature of
Iraqi society."
Tag-Teaming the
Hunter
by Carl Bussjaeger
from The Libertarian Enterprise
"But DeSanto and
Verizon forgot that tag team matches generally
involve teams in both corners. Jordan is not
alone; he is backed up by activists, writers,
speakers, lawyers, civil rights organizations,
and anonymous individuals from around the
world."
The New
World Hegemon
Depictions of the coming Imperial power
Global Eye -- Beggar's Banquet
by Chris Floyd from
TheMoscowTimes.com
"The Court's barrage of
complex, multilayered opinions left plenty of wiggle
room for White House weasel-worders to continue their
pursuit of unbridled presidential power. After all,
the Regime has publicly defined the entire world as
the 'battlefield' of the war on terror. 'Enemy
combatants' are everywhere, and Bush's arbitrary power
to bestow this mark of Cain on anyone he pleases was
not rejected in principle by the Court, which
practically begged the Regime's rubber stamps in
Congress to come up with some 'enabling acts' to
sanctify the Leader's tyrannical longings. Bush's
authoritarian claims will simply be slapped with a new
coat of paint -- a nod to limited judicial review,
some butt-covering legislation -- then trotted out
again."
Dissing the Republic To Save It - A conversation with
Chalmers Johnson
by Marc Cooper from
L.A. Weekly
"As Lord Byron said, 'I
would have saved them if I could.' I mean, I like
living here. But I think we are trending like the
Soviet Union was in 1985. If I had said then that
the Soviets were five years away from extinction,
you'd have said I had spent too much time inhaling
exotic substances around Berkeley."
Democracy and
Schutzhaft
by Joe Blow from
Strike The Root
"With this decision
the court has approved Schutzhaft Light. It does
not require a charge to be brought, only that a
hearing be held. Once that hearing is held, a
prisoner can still be held indefinitely. ...
When it comes to wartime, the military will
always remain superior to any form of judicial
review of its actions."
Politics by Other Means
War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.
Role Reversal
by Paul Craig
Roberts from LewRockwell.com
"It is Al Gore,
not conservative Republicans, who invokes
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin
Franklin, and James Madison. It is Al Gore who
says, 'We cannot depend upon a debased
Department of Justice given over to the hands
of zealots,' who are determined to create a
presidency unconstrained by law or the
Constitution, the better to impose their
political will."
The Bush
Dialogues
by Jesse Walker
from Reason
"But the
interviewer actually wasn't rude to Bush at
all. She was fair and professional, posing
challenging questions but never in a
belligerent manner; she exhibited no
'gotcha' tactics, and when she interrupted,
it was to bring Bush's rambling replies back
on point. The president seemed unfamiliar
with the idea that a journalist might want
some say in the direction of an
interview...."
Three Steps to
Sanity
by Patrick J.
Buchanan from Antiwar.com
"War, Clausewitz
reminded us, is but the extension of
politics by other means. All wars, even wars
in which terror is the weapon of choice of
the enemy, are about, as Lenin said: 'Who?
Whom?' Who shall rule whom? And even in an
Arab world where monarchs and autocrats now
rule, the victors will be those who win the
hearts and minds of Arab peoples."
Spontaneous Order
Articles
showing decentralized successes.
The Austrian Threat to Poland?
by D.W. MacKenzie
from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"Mises and Hayek were
quite explicit in their writings about economic science explaining
means rather than ends. All the (Austrian) economic scientist
assumes is that people have some ends, be they selfish,
altruistic, or even irrational. What concerns us are the means by
which people best obtain those ends."
Free the
Schools!
by Harry Browne from
HarryBrowne.org.
"While it might seem far-fetched to
even discuss the idea of getting government completely out of
education, it really is a practical possibility. More and more
parents are becoming fed up with government schools --
demonstrated by the burgeoning home-schooling movement."
We Want...
Information
by Julian Sanchez from Reason
"Readers of Robert Anton Wilson will
be familiar with what he's called the SNAFU Principle: Because
subordinates tend to tell superiors what they want to hear, the
higher up any hierarchical ladder you go, the more distorted the
picture becomes. The person with the most authority in the
system will likely be the most ignorant -- even when it isn't
George W. Bush."
Nonspontaneous Disorder
Articles
showing centrally planned disasters.
The Fallacies of Shrimp
Protectionism
by Don Mathews
from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"As shrimp
farming has expanded, world shrimp production has increased
and shrimp prices have fallen. Shrimp prices are now so low
that they threaten the market survival of U.S. shrimp
trawlers. So the trawlers have turned to the U.S. government
and its antidumping law to protect themselves, not from
dumping, but from market competition with their more
efficient foreign competitors."
The World's
Biggest Oxymoron
by Jim Davies from Strike The
Root
"Because everybody is said to
'own' 'public property,' NOBODY owns it. ... 'Public'
property has no owner, so either it's not property, or
else it's not public. It's ... the World's Biggest
Oxymoron. 'Public Property' is not merely an offense to
the laws of grammar, it tends to violate the laws of
economics. And that means MONEY, folks; yours and mine."
People for the Prussian Way
by James Ostrowski from
LewRockwell.com
"The defects in public schools
are inherent in their nature. It's virtually self-evident
that, like any taxocracy, public schools will be run for
the benefit of those who have the power: politicians,
bureaucrats and special interest groups. The problem is
the power; the politicians, teachers' unions and
bureaucrats have it; the parents, taxpayers and students
don't."
War Is The Health Of The State
War is the ultimate State intervention in
society.
'Fahrenheit 9/11' or
'Farce and Hype 7-11'
by Ivan
Eland from The Independent Institute
"Nevertheless, in his relentless quest to put lipstick
on a pig, President George W. Bush crowed that, 'the
Iraqi people have their country back.' Similarly, Paul
Bremer, the outgoing proconsul, patted himself and his
Bush administration employers on the back by bragging
that there was 'no question the liberation of Iraq was a
great and noble thing'."
Iraq and Global Victim
Disarmament: The Ugly Truth
by Anthony Gregory from
The Libertarian Enterprise
"What we have been seeing
in Iraq for the last fourteen or so months is the
quintessential example of international gun control.
The torture, the killing, the lies, and the blood of
10,000 innocent Iraqis in the streets are all the
result of a campaign waged, or at least originally
claimed to be waged, to enforce an international
weapons law."
SHOVELING COAL FOR SATAN
-- Christopher Hitchens collects check from Microsoft,
calls Moore a coward.
by Matt Taibbi from New
York Press
"One friend I know
describes working in the media as shoveling coal for
Satan. That's about right. A worker in a tampon
factory has dignity: He just uses his sweat to make a
product, a useful product at that, and doesn't lie to
himself about what he does. In this business we make
commodities for sale and, for the benefit of our
consciences and our egos, we call them ideas and
truth. And then we go on the lecture circuit. But in
99 cases out of 100, the public has more to learn
about humanity from the guy who makes tampons."
Bits of History
The Past seen with a
fresh look.
by Jacob
G. Hornberger from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"For their
part, the German people quickly accepted the new order
of things. Keep in mind that the average non-Jewish
German was pretty much unaffected by the new laws and
decrees. As long as a German citizen kept his head
down, worked hard, took care of his family, sent his
children to the public schools and the Hitler Youth
organization, and, most important, didn’t involve
himself in political dissent against the government, a
visit by the Gestapo was very unlikely."
Harry S. Truman:
Advancing the Revolution
by Ralph Raico from
LewRockwell.com
"Truman's predecessor
had vastly expanded federal power, especially the
power of the president, in what amounted to a
revolution in American government. Under Truman,
that revolution was consolidated and advanced beyond
what even Franklin Roosevelt had ever dared hope
for."
The Apotheosis of the
Psychopaths
by Doug Valentine from
Strike The Root
"Now, amazingly, the CIA
has installed Dr. Iyad Allawi, one of its foremost
terrorists, as Iraq's prime minister. According to
published reports, Allawi began his career in the
killing business in the 1960s on behalf of Saddam
Hussein; but in 1978, he switched to the CIA after
Hussein tried to kill him. In 1991 Allawi co-founded
an anti-Saddam, CIA-front organization, the Iraqi
National Accord (INA) ... which, in the early 1990s,
under CIA direction, sent agents into Baghdad to
blow up government facilities, as well as movie
theatres and school buses full of children."
War and Peace
Articles showing the
nature of War.
by
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. from LewRockwell.com
"War,
these people know, isn't like a real game of chess.
You don't checkmate; instead you sweep your hand
across the board, declare yourself the winner, and
dare your opponent to disagree. The crucial thing is
to pretend that the people are chess pieces made of
wood and stone rather than flesh and blood."
Iraq: A Failure
Without Borders
by William S. Lind
from Antiwar.com
"Non-state forces such
as al-Qaeda use a very different map. Their map
has no state boundaries on it; they only think of
the dar al Islam, the Islamic world, and the dar
al harb, the world of war. For them, our presence
in Iraq and Afghanistan is an invasion, not of two
countries, but of the dar al Islam."
The American
Revolution and Iraq
by William Marina
from The Independent Institute
"Such a sea-change has
occurred in Iraq, as continued American occupation
and misuse of power has resulted in increasing
numbers of common Iraqis seeing America's
involvement -- and America's hand-picked
replacement government -- as illegitimate."
Great Individuals In History
Some people stand out
from the crowd.
Musical
Composer - Richard Rodgers : June 28, 1902
from Composers
Online
"The impact of
Rodgers's shows, both in terms of popular
appeal and in their influence on other
writers, was tremendous. Both Oklahoma!,
which is often pointed to as a turning point
for the modern musical comedy, and South
Pacific (based on James Michener's Tales
from the South Pacific) were awarded
Pulitzer Prizes."
Movie Maker -
Mel Brooks : June 28, 1926
from IMDB
"[W]hile the
fears of 'inside' material, and too-Jewish
humor remained, the cowboy-movie spoof
Blazing Saddles (1973) pulverized
audiences, and pointed Brooks in a new
direction: parody. It also established his
'stock company' of actors, and had him
working for the first time with cowriters.
(Richard Pryor was one of the
screenwriters of Blazing Saddles[,] Gene
Wilder cowrote Brooks' next great success,
Young Frankenstein (1974), a hilarious
horror spoof."
Educator -
Ruby Middleton Forsythe : June 27, 1905
from The
African American Registry
"In 1938 she
began teaching in a one-room school on
Pawley's Island, the only educational
facility available to Black people on the
island. She received her degree in
education from South Carolina State
College in 1956 and was awarded an
honorary doctorate in 1988."
Culcha'
Books, Movies, TV,
Media, Music, poetry, etc.
A Tale of Two Movies
by Justin Raimondo from
Antiwar.com
"Fahrenheit 9/11 is, in
short, the best of films, and the worst of films. It
is, in effect, two entirely different movies. ...
What really comes across in this film is Moore's
feeling for American soldiers in the field, rooted,
I believe, in his empathy for ordinary people, and -
dare I say it? - his unambiguous patriotism." This
review is a very good analysis of the movie.
Actor Marlon Brando
Dies at 80
by Bob Thomas from
MyWay.com
"But his private life
may best be defined by a line from 'The Wild One,'
in which Brando, playing a motorcycle gang leader,
is asked what he's rebelling against. 'Whaddya
got?' was his reply. ... His most famous act of
rebellion was his refusal in 1973 to accept the
best actor Oscar for 'The Godfather'."
X2 X-Men United
by Lady Liberty from
Endervidualism
"X2 ... is more about
broad strokes and action than about subtle drama.
The special effects are superlative, particularly
the morphing scenes involving Mystique and the
disquieting teleportation of Nightcrawler.... The
story is exciting and fast-paced enough for action
fans, yet has some meat to it so as not to
disappoint those moviegoers who appreciate a plot
with their adrenaline."
The lighter side
Humor, satire, cartoons,
parodies, food, popular music
and other things to amuse.
Sort-of-ocracy
by Mark Fiore from The
Village Voice
It's sort of great! Maybe.
Democracy, well sort of….
The Onion presents:
Good-Citizenship Tips
from The Onion
"Though some take it for
granted, U.S. citizenship comes with certain
responsibilities. Here are some tips for being an
active, involved citizen…."
Inspired by Iraqi
Handover, Bush Holds U.S. Election Four Months Early
by Andy Borowitz from
BorowitzReport
"Inspired by the early
handover of sovereignty in Iraq, President George W.
Bush employed the element of surprise once more last
night, holding the U.S. presidential election four
months early. The election, about which only top Bush
administration officials were notified, went
exceedingly well for the president, who carried all
fifty states and garnered approximately one hundred
percent of the vote."
Deep Thought
Scientific
and scholarly studies, philosophical essays,
in-depth and longer articles.
by Bob Wallace from
Endervidualism
"People
who think they can have security
-- to be enfolded all their
lives in the arms of the
Mommy-State -- and freedom are
Borgifying themselves, only they
don't know it. They think
they're going to have security,
but what will happen is that
their 'security' will disappear,
and so will their freedom."
A
Supreme Reason to Celebrate the
Fourth of July
by Jacob G. Hornberger from
The Future of Freedom
Foundation
"On this Fourth of July, we
should be thanking our lucky
stars for the wisdom and
courage of our Founding
Fathers and the Framers not
only for including the right
of habeas corpus in the
Constitution and for enacting
the Bill of Rights to protect
us from the president, the
Pentagon, and the Congress,
but also for instituting a
judicial branch of government
with the power to ensure that
the other two branches comply
with those hallowed
guarantees."
The Limits of Central Banking
by Gary North from
LewRockwell.com
"You should do what you can to
make yourself resistant to the
web of debt that sustains the
present world economy. You
should have reserves that are
not part of the debt system.
These reserves must be
non-digital. It's not enough
to have a money market fund.
You need some currency, some
silver coins, and some gold
coins."
Miscellany
Articles not
easily classified.
Words...
by Mary Starrett from
NewsWithViews.com
"Vitamins and herbal
supplements bring in well over $20 billion dollars a
year. The drug companies want a piece of the action.
Therefore, expect to see more and more attention
focused on the 'danger' of vitamins. The next logical
step will be the prescribing of these natural
substances to better 'protect' the consumer."
America Is Not a Free
Country
by Doug Newman from
Strike The Root
"Today, millions of
Americans still buy the lie that America is a free
country. Hitler knew the power of the lie: if you
lie to people often enough, they will believe
anything. And while we are not at the Hitler phase
yet, we will arrive there if we keep (a) believing
everything our government -- or at least our
preferred faction of the government -- says and
(b) believing we are a free nation. You cannot
have it both ways. Sadly, some people will not
clue in until the death camp phase. I pray
fervently that enough Americans wake up before
then."
A Hole in the Head,
Part I
by Bob Wallace from
The Price of Liberty
"If I had my way, I'd
close down the AMA and ADA in the next nano-second.
Let doctors and dentists get on their toes and
compete, instead of being protected from
competition by the State and its AMA/ADA
bureaucracies. Maybe then they'd get up-to-date
treatments...even if they are almost 50 years
old."
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