Bush or Kerry?; The Birthday Cake; Gattaca; The Indispensable Man; 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 Aug. 8 - 14, 2004.

 
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Political Liberty
Articles showing a positive influence of political action on the cause of Liberty.
 
An interview with Michael Badnarik
        by Steven Sisson from The Augusta Free Press
Badnarik: "The Guardian -- a British newspaper -- ran a column by George Monbiot the other day in which he wrote that we 'can vote out the monkeys but not the organ grinder.' That's as apt a description of the 'major' parties as I've read. The Republicans and Democrats don't differ to any great degree on any important issue. If you vote for either party, you're going to get less freedom and more government. Voting Libertarian is the only way to express your desire for more freedom and less government at the ballot box."
 
Condemned
        by Steven Greenhut from The Orange County Register (via LRC)
"The court blasted the original Poletown decision as a 'radical departure from fundamental constitutional principles. ... [I]f one's ownership of private property is forever subject to the government's determination that another private party would put one's land to better use, then the ownership of real property is perpetually threatened by the expansion plans of any large discount retailer, 'megastore,' or the like'."
 
Whose Constitution Is It, Anyway?
        by John O. McGinnis from Wall Street Journal
"The American Constitution also differs from the (unwritten) British one in its source of authority. In 1789 the Framers drafted a specific text that the people themselves ratified in every state. It is this consensus that gives the Constitution its power and justifies the disregard of even democratically made laws that conflict with it. But the meaning of that consensus can be discovered only by referring to the words themselves and to their historical context--not by relying on the 'political-legal' interpretation that Mr. Kramer suggests. Constitutional interpretation based on politics places the people's own considered judgments at the mercy of rash and temporary majorities."
 
Life in Amerika
Articles depicting the negative impact of politics on Liberty.
 
The Making of a 'Terror' Tale
        by Chisun Lee from The Village Voice
"Like pretending to have a green card, standing in the street shooting footage of commercial buildings in an American city may not have been the savviest thing for the undocumented Pakistani man to have done. But it was perfectly legal. "
 

The Real Farm Subsidy Scandal

        by Nicolas Heidorn from The Independent Institute
"The result of subsidizing the rich, more landed farmers is that they can reduce the prices of their goods, making it much harder for small farmers to compete. Rather than being the small family farmers' savior, subsidies work against them. Why then do we have farm subsidies at all? Rich farmers are a powerful lobby in American politics."
 
Big Business Becoming Big Brother
        by Kim Zetter from Wired
"The ACLU released the Surveillance-Industrial Complex report in conjunction with a new website designed to educate the public about how information collected from them is being used. The report listed three ways in which government agencies obtain data from the private sector: by purchasing the data, by obtaining a court order or simply by asking for it."
 
Ordered Liberty without the State
Some people say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an interesting topic.
 
Order Out of Anarchy: The International Law of War
        by Gary M. Anderson and Adam Gifford Jr. from Cato Institute
"The international scene is characterized by anarchy, in the literal sense: there is no 'world government' capable of exerting its will via coercion on competing nation-states. However, the 'anarchic' community of nations is not lawless. There is, in fact, an elaborate and well-developed body of international law that functions, in theory, to constrain the misbehavior of actual and potential combatants."
 
Keeping the Woodlands Private
        by Brian Drake from Strike The Root
"My column engendered many questions, including this one: What would take the State's place in a free society? This is an excellent question, because the State does provide some worthwhile goods and services. However, it is naïve to suggest that the free market, left to its own devices, cannot provide them instead."
 
Order Without Law: Where Will Anarchists Keep the Madmen?
        by John D. Sneed from LewRockwell.com
"From a macroeconomic standpoint, the anarchist system will be a radical improvement over the current system. So-called 'crimes without victims' would no longer be prosecuted as crimes, and the serious crime currently stemming from monopolies in the various vice trades would be eliminated. More first offenders would be educated and rehabilitated than under the present system, and there would be direct profit incentives to keep youthful, casual offenders away from hardened criminals."
 
Spreading Decentralism
Articles demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.
 
Germans bridle at language law
        by Luke Harding from The Observer
"A committee of bureaucrats introduced the reforms -- known as neue Rechtschreibung, or new spelling -- six years ago to make the complex language easier to learn. Since then opposition to the changes has grown. It culminated in Germany's two leading publishing houses, Axel Springer and Der Spiegel, announcing on Friday that their publications would revert to the old spelling."
 
Let's Get Government Out of the Marriage Business
        by Jennifer Keenan from The Foundation for Economic Education
"Why should the government be involved in this area of our lives? Since marriage is a private choice, it should be left to the individuals concerned. Then churches, synagogues, mosques, and even Las Vegas chapels could preside over and confirm the marriages of which they approve."
 
Rap secession
        by Chris Parker from BenningtonBanner.com
"Dorset Town Manager Tom Glavin said residents have been calling town hall in recent days complaining about their new tax bills, which include school tax rates that jumped 25 percent this year. He said he's upset and wants to learn more about secession because the town is sending $7 million to the state in school taxes this year but that, because of Act 68 legislation effective July 1, Dorset could only expect to get back about $3.6 million for its school budget."
 
The New World Hegemon
Depictions of the coming Imperial power
 
Police State USA
        by Rep. Ron Paul, MD from LewRockwell.com
"Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. ... As one Member of Congress stated to the press last week, 'people who don't want to be searched don't need to come on Capitol grounds.' What an insult! The Capitol belongs to the American people who pay for it, not to Congress or the police."
 
Are we scared enough yet?
        by David T. Wright from The Last Ditch
"John F. Kerry's doing a lot better than expected in the polls, and Bush's approval and disapproval ratings are nowhere near as good as he would like. While the 'security' types have gleefully taken the opportunity to strengthen the police state and enhance their power, for Bush himself this latest episode seems to have given new meaning to the term 'silly season' applied to the month of August in Washington. Tom Ridge himself, it is rumored, is pretty ticked off at being forced to make a big fuss over nothing."
 
$40 million to an Iraqi criminal -- America gets suckered again
        by Jim Moore from Ether Zone
"It must be our self-destructive mind-set at work. Every time we choose someone to run a puppet government, and catch the insurgents, we invariably pick some bearded boob who couldn't catch a cold at the North Pole."
 
Politics by Other Means
War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.
 
Bush or Kerry?
        by Butler Shaffer from LewRockwell.com
"With politics representing the dregs of society, it is difficult to speak of any further collapse of this system. Still, George Bush has diminished the presidency far more than any other man during my lifetime. He even makes Nixon and Clinton look honorable and statesmanlike by comparison!"
 
Kerry for president?
        by Doug Casey from WorldNetDaily.com
"No matter how you slice it, in the end the American voter is, yet again, confronted with a pair of horrible choices. As a consequence, I expect that, except for the pathological 20 percent I mentioned earlier, most Americans won't be voting for a candidate, but rather against a candidate."
 
A Divisive Campaign Would Be Welcome
        by Sheldon Richman from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"What American politics needs is a heightened division between two particular groups: those once called taxpayers and the tax-eaters -- the people who produce wealth and the people who either take it or live off it. The tax-eaters are not mostly poor people. They are middle- and upper-class types who include bureaucrats, consultants, grant-collecting academics, farmers, corporate interests, and other affluent recipients of government largess."
 
Spontaneous Order
Articles showing decentralized successes.
 
Two Kinds of Competition
        by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. from LewRockwell.com
"Competition in the marketplace is of a different sort. It leads to relentless improvements in quality. The enterprise that performs its job with excellence relative to others promising similar goods and services succeeds. The marketplace is always open to new entrants who can show the existing producers how to do the same thing better or do something else entirely."
 
The 3 'E's of the Minimum Wage
        by bkMarcus from The Libertarian Enterprise
"Should libertarians abandon principles and persuasion in favor of symbolism and emotional manipulation? Perhaps we should focus more on public relations and advertising than on philosophy and economics. No.... But persuasion requires more than reason. It might be less about teaching and more about helping people unlearn certain mental reflexes."
 
Economics 101
        by Walter E. Williams from Townhall.com
"Admittedly, the 5 mph speed limit is an extreme example, a reductio ad absurdum. Nonetheless, it illustrates the principle that our actions shouldn't be guided by benefits only; we should also ask about costs."
 
Nonspontaneous Disorder
Articles showing centrally planned disasters.
 
Federally Regulated Hospitals: Worse Than World War II
        by Ralph R. Reiland from LewRockwell.com
"Referring to 'a culture of lawsuits in America, a litigation culture,' President Bush stated ... that the American health care system 'looks like a giant lottery,' and 'somehow, the trial lawyers always hold the winning ticket.' In fact, what looks more like a lottery is taking a chance on a hospital and hoping to come out alive."
 
The War on Fat
        by Jacob Sullum from Reason
"Although thin people who exercise seem to be the healthiest group, overweight people who are physically active are healthier than thin people who are not. ... The more important question is why any of this is the government's business."
 
An Open Letter to Neelie Kroes, EU Competition Commissioner-designate
        by Jude Blanchette from The Foundation for Economic Education
"Competition does not need innumerable sellers (as posited by the 'perfect competition' model); rather, freedom of entry is the bedrock of the competitive order. Given the dispersion of knowledge, the freedom of an entrepreneur with potentially valuable information not yet perceived by others is crucial to the discovery process. Regulatory hurdles act as inhibitors of new knowledge and should be eliminated."
 
War Is The Health Of The State
War is the ultimate State intervention in society.
 
The Meaning of Nagasaki
        by Anthony Gregory from Strike The Root
"Nagasaki shows, as well as anything else, the essence of our government at work. Having utterly destroyed Hiroshima with the debut of the single most potent weapon of mass murder in world history, the US government gave Japan only three days to respond to the outrageous terms of unconditional surrender the Allies had demanded. Only three days...."
 
Saddam, Chalabi, and Allawi Epitomize U.S. Foreign Policy
        by Jacob G. Hornberger from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"Every day, more and more Iraqi people are being killed or maimed in order to support the new Iraqi dictatorship of Iyad Allawi. When those victims or their survivors or their friends or relatives end up retaliating against the United States with terrorist acts, will the feds not immediately treat us to 'They attacked us for our freedom and values'?"
 
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire
        by Karen Kwiatkowski from LewRockwell.com
"The film provides an explanation for the obvious continuity between Cold War policies and those of the present. It examines long-term neoconservative thinking and how this peculiar version of Jacobin utopianism ascended from its rather inauspicious political roots. The film explores the dangerous territory of how the post 9-11 national shock was carefully cultivated by neoconservatives in Washington to support their own long-held objectives in the Middle East."
 
Bits of History
The Past seen with a fresh look.
 
The Indispensable Man
        by Ryan McMaken from LewRockwell.com
"For in a true republic, Mason tells us, such vigor and energy can always be found in the people. Certainly, the Greek Republics, the States of Holland, the Swiss Cantons, and indeed, the American colonies themselves -- all without national leaders -- had defeated mighty kings and armies through the fruits of a free citizenry. The pre-occupations with vigor and energy 'have been strongly insisted on by all monarchical Writers,' Mason reminds us, and he remained unconvinced."
 
Another Sibling in the Flation Family
        by Sean Corrigan from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"Then, as the dollar -- for so long propped up only by the purchases made, largely unwillingly, by all the other central banks -- plummeted and as war broke out in the Middle East, the oil producers decided they would not sell their resources artificially cheaply for depreciated paper, an aversion naturally heightened by the fact that some of these same resources were being used to fuel their enemies' assault tanks and jet fighters."
 
Bombers Turn to Butterflies Again
        by Norman Solomon from Antiwar.com
"The music and other creative energies that drew 400,000 people to an upstate New York farm that weekend rejected the Vietnam War and the assumptions fueling it. Thirty-five years later, the Jimi Hendrix rendition of the 'Star-Spangled Banner' could still serve as an apt soundtrack for U.S. foreign policy, with bombs bursting in air over urban neighborhoods across much of Iraq."
 
War and Peace
Articles showing the nature of War.
 
Terror and Propaganda -- Seeing Through the Other Side's Eyes
        by William S. Lind from CounterPunch
"But propaganda is itself revealing. It allows us to see our enemies as they see themselves, and the self-image of al-Qaeda that emerges from this account is one that should concern us. The seamless blending of ancient and modern, of divinely protected heroism and technological competence, is potent. That is particularly true when, as in this case, al-Qaeda's opponent is the hired troops of a corrupt regime -- a regime America depends on to keep the oil flowing."
 
Impressions of a Quiet City
        by Mike Rogers from LewRockwell.com
"Persisting from the distant past, the souls of the people who died here [Hiroshima] seem present. So very many times over the last one thousand years this place had violently changed hands. It was the birthplace of many famous samurai -- It is also their resting place."
 
The failed occupation
        by Jonathan Freedland from The Guardian
"Bit by bit, the intellectual foundations of this war are crumbling to dust. No WMD; no outright end to human rights abuses; no democratic breakthrough. Even the most basic facts of the war are now in dispute - including the continued American-British attempt to pretend it's over."
 
Great Individuals In History
Some people stand out from the crowd.
 
Filmmaker - Alfred Hitchcock : Aug. 13, 1899
        from MysteryNet: The Online Mystery Network
"Despite his penchant for murder, mayhem and shock, Alfred Hitchcock and his family led a quiet and unostentatious life, preferring the comforts of home to the Hollywood milieu around them."
 
Early Women's rights - Esther Hobart Morris : Aug. 8, 1814 
        from Women of the West Museum
"Morris lobbied the twenty-two members of the territorial legislature. In 1869, upon the urging of his wife, Julia, William Bright introduced a suffrage measure to the legislature. Passage of this landmark suffrage law that same year helped make Wyoming famous as the 'Equality State.' Other laws that passed that year gave married women the right to own property, the right to serve on juries, and equal pay for female teachers."
 
Mathematician / Computer Scientist - Marvin Minsky : Aug. 9, 1927
        From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Marvin Lee Minsky..., sometimes affectionately known as 'Old Man Minsky', is an American scientist in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of MIT's AI laboratory, and author of several texts on AI and philosophy."
 
Culcha'
Books, Movies, TV, Media, Music, poetry, etc.
 
The Birthday Cake
        by George W. Cordero from Sense of Life Objectivists
"In the course of talking about our fathers, my friend related to me the story that became the basis of  The Birthday Cake. While he spoke, my friend became increasingly emotional, and by the end of his story he was in tears. I was so moved by it that I asked him if I could retell his father's life in the form of a short story."
 
Bill the Galactic Hero
        by Bob Wallace from Strike The Root
"He has a lot of adventures ... and what finally makes him a Galactic Hero is when he accidentally blows up a Chinger warship that is about ready to vaporize the spaceship he is stationed on. ... Vaporizing the red dot does the trick, and in an instant he goes from zero to hero. And in Harrison's mind, being a hero ain't such a great thing, considering what happens to Bill afterward."
 
The First Time I Ever Heard Emmylou Harris - A Memoir
        by Mike Hoy from Loompanics Unlimited
"He put on a record, and soon I was listening to the clearest, most beautiful singing voice I had ever heard. I asked him who it was, and he said, 'Emmylou Harris.' I had never heard of her, but the wonder of her voice stuck in my mind like a dart hitting a bull's-eye."
 
Movies Special
Only movies and movie related
 
Gattaca (1997)
        Reviewed by Tom Ender from Endervidualism
"Where there is a demand the market will provide solutions through those willing to work at the margins. Vincent discovers ... entrepreneurs who skirt the rules of the genetically determined order. He meets a matchmaker who pairs him with Jerome (Jude Law: Wilde). Jerome is a former Olympic class athlete who has had an accident and broken his back. ... However, Jerome has what Vincent lacks - the body matter ... needed to satisfy the genetic ... sampling of Gattaca. Vincent has the desire and Jerome has the necessary means....Together they can get Vincent into space."
 
Before A New Hope: THX 1138
        by Jon Bradley Snyder from starwars.com
"THX 1138 was George Lucas' first feature film and first crack at science fiction. Thirty-three years after its 1971 release, THX 1138 has been obscured by the success of subsequent Lucasfilm projects, but it's not forgotten. THX 1138 was a unique filmmaking achievement that remains compelling and relevant to today's audience...."
 
Can't Blame the Big Ape
        by Jesse Walker from Reason
"[Fay] Wray might occupy a unique place in film history. ... [H]ardly anyone remembers the other hundred-odd flicks she appeared in. But hardly anyone remembers the name of her character in Kong either: It's always 'King Kong and Fay Wray,' the fictional gorilla and the actual actress. Who else has absorbed a role so completely but only played it once?"
 

The lighter side

Humor, satire, cartoons, parodies, food, popular music and other things to amuse.
 
Kerry Unveils One-Point Plan For Better America
        from The Onion
"Delivering the central speech of his 10-day 'Solution For America' bus campaign tour Monday, Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry outlined his one-point plan for a better America: the removal of George W. Bush from the White House."
 
Bin Laden Speaks Out -- On Citicorp, Spider-Man 2 and those Marisa Tomei rumors.
        by Matt Taibbi from New York Press
NYP: Isn't that…silly?
...
OBL: Oh. Yes, of course it is silly.
NYP: Then why do it?
OBL: Because the world is silly. It must be dominated by silly people. And I am a very silly person.
NYP: Is George Bush silly?
OBL: Sometimes I lie awake at night and worry that he is sillier than I am.
 
Indecipherable Chatter Turns Out To Be Bush -- Trying to Confuse Evildoers, President Says
        by Andy Borowitz from BorowitzReport
"The intelligence community, who had long thought that the mangled, incomprehensible messages might be those of a terror mastermind, had been frustrated in their attempts to decode them because they appeared to be spoken in a language bound by no discernible rules or logic."
 
Deep Thought
Scientific and scholarly studies, philosophical essays, in-depth and longer articles.
 
Not So Bad
        by Russell Madden from Atlas magazine
"Yes. Things are not so bad...as long as we use the worst alternative as the guide for making our judgments. To those who use the 'It's not so bad. It could be worse.' rationale, we should not complain when the government passes another restrictive law or regulation; we should not gripe when we discover there are more and more things we are required to do or are forbidden to do and less and less we are allowed to do. We should just accept what trickles of liberty remain to us and 'be thankful' we don't live in a dictatorship."
 
Intelligence services are not intelligent
        by Leon Hadar from TheBusinessTimes on AsiaOne
"Hayek throughout his life attacked what he called scientism -- the imitation in the social sciences, including in the fields of economics and political science of the methods of the physical sciences. It was these very limitations of human knowledge which, in Hayek's view made the market so important, because it created, conveyed and revealed information in a way no other human institution and certainly no government agency could ever emulate."
 
The Transhumans Are Coming!
        by Ronald Bailey from  Reason
"Well-meaning though transhumanists may be, their efforts are apparently giving some people the willies. ... Resist longer and happier lives, better health, stronger bodies, and smarter brains? The prospect sounds incredibly dangerous to me! It must be stopped!"
 
Miscellany
Articles not easily classified.
 
John Perry Barlow 2.0
        Interviewed by Brian Doherty from Reason
"In my heart of hearts I'm with you. I'm an optimist. In order to be libertarian, you have to be an optimist. You have to have a benign view of human nature, to believe that human beings left to their own devices are basically good. But I'm not so sure about human institutions, and I think the real point of argument here is whether or not large corporations are human institutions or some other entity we need to be thinking about curtailing."
 
Pledging to give in order to receive
        by Jerry Davich from nwitimes.com
"The LifeSharers philosophy makes more sense than the current system of organs being given to those who are most critically in need of them, he said. 'The simplest solution would be a mandatory rule that potential recipients of legal age must have previously agreed to be donors,' he said."
 
Satan the Politician
        by Bob Wallace from The Price of Liberty 
"What we are dealing with here are three things: the lust for power over others, the lust for attention, and the lust to destroy. And if those three traits don't describe Satan, politicians, and the State, I can't think of anything else that does."
 
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