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Bell Curve of Pinky and the Brain;
How to Avoid Work;
Team America: World Police;
Footloose; 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 Oct. 10 - 16, 2004.
Table of
Contents: (Click on
the name to go to that section)
Political Liberty, Life in Amerika, Ordered Liberty without the State;
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Articles showing a
positive influence of political action on the cause of Liberty.
Badnarik's Plans for America
by Michael Badnarik from Le Québécois Libre
"Michael Badnarik is the Libertarian
Presidential Candidate in the upcoming US election. His 'Plans for
America,' touches on several issues such as The War in Iraq, Civil
Liberties, the Economy, Crime, Health care, Immigration, Gay rights,
Minorities' rights, the War on Drugs, Gun Control..."
Robed heroes of liberty
by Robyn E. Blumner from St.
Petersburg Times
"In a 120-page ruling, Marrero
struck down a section of the USA Patriot Act that gave the FBI
wide-ranging surveillance authority without having to get a
judge's approval. … Marrero recognized the danger: 'It is
precisely times like these that demand heightened vigilance,
especially by the judiciary, to ensure that, as a people and as
a nation, we steer a principled course faithful and true to our
still-honored founding values'."
Hemp On Rye
by Lisa Sorg from AlterNet
"On the federal level,
votehemp.com rated presidential candidates on their stances on
U.S. hemp cultivation: Bush received an F for the DEA's
proposed rule; Kerry received a failing grade because he did
not follow up on a promise to complete the hemp survey.
Independent Ralph Nader, Green David Cobb and Libertarian
Michael Badnarik received A-pluses for supporting the
legalization of industrial hemp."
Articles depicting
the negative impact of politics on Liberty.
The Brownshirting of America
by Paul Craig Roberts from
CounterPunch
"Today there is no one to correct
a lie once it is told. The media, thanks to Republicans, has
been concentrated in few hands, and they are not the hands of
newsmen. Corporate values rule. If lies sell, sell them. If
listeners, viewers, and readers want confirmation of their
resentments and beliefs, give it to them. Objectivity turns
listeners off and is a money loser."
A Tragedy in the Capital
by David Borden from AlterNet
"The District of Columbia saw
a tragedy last week. Jonathan Magbie, a 27-year-old
quadriplegic medical marijuana patient, died while under
the care of the D.C. court and jail. Magbie had been
arrested for marijuana possession, and Judge Judith
Retchin sentenced him to 10 days in jail, despite
recommendations from officials against it. Her reason?
There was a loaded gun in the car with him. But Magbie
didn't use the gun on anyone. And now I've learned it
wasn't even his."
Boycott the "Two-Party"
Charade!
by David Brownlow from
NewsWithViews.com
"Despite all the huffing and
puffing, Bush and Kerry were together on almost every
issue -- from invading countries that never threatened
to harm us, to the further expansion of a federal
government that, by almost any objective measure, is
spinning wildly out of control."
Some people
say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an
interesting topic.
What You
Love Will Be Used Against You
by Jeff Snyder from LewRockwell.com
"This, then, is what it comes to:
the state uses a man's sense of responsibility against him, to
divide him. That which a man loves is used against him, held
hostage to obedience to the state's laws."
CHAOS . . . The State of the
State
by Mark Reynolds from Strike
The Root
"Do you know how you can tell
when someone from the state is lying? You can tell when
their lips are moving. The father of lies is the state. And
the big lie is the one propagated that we 'need' the state,
for without it, there would be chaos. Yet if you can discern
it, the state is the author of chaos. The state seems to be
an amplifier for all the worst attributes of man. Without
it, one man can do very little damage, but with the state,
the cumulative effect is war, famine, death and
destruction."
SpaceShipWON,
GovernmentZero!
by Michael Bradshaw from
The Libertarian Enterprise
"Americans got rich and
developed the highest culture Mankind has ever seen by
going to the Western Frontier -- as free Men who
understood anarchy and capitalism, which are free
enterprise. Now all of Mankind can start going to the
high frontier to do the same -- on a limitless scale.
This can only be done by escaping governments through
free-market space flight."
Articles
demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.
by Claire Wolfe
from Backwoods Home Magazine
"[A] lot of
employers are now starting to cut off health care plans or
scale back their pension funds. One of the big things that's
kept people in jobs is that they've been bound by these
'silver chains.' Benefits. Start taking away the chains and
both people and big employers have more incentive to go for
independent contracting - because they feel they don't have
so much to lose."
Howard Stern and the
Future of Media Censorship
by Adam Thierer from
Cato Institute
"Radio 'shock jock'
Howard Stern is bolting to satellite radio, signing
a five-year deal with SIRIUS beginning in 2006. His
transition from broadcast to satellite radio signals
a tectonic shift in the center of media power away
from traditional providers to new types of outlets
and technologies."
Time To Go Shopping
by Al Doyle from
LewRockwell.com
"You can count on an
increase in globalism and State Department
intervention in the affairs of other nations
under Bush or Kerry in 2005 and beyond. That
means more U.S. soldiers overseas, and won't
they need lots of ammo? Call it a variation of
World War II-style rationing, as civilians are
forbidden to buy ammo over the counter until the
alleged 'emergency' ends. Don't say 'it can't
happen here.' There have been occasional
shortages of ammo and primers since 1992, when
gun owners stocked up in anticipation of bans
and rising prices."
Depictions of the coming Imperial power
Antiwar Arguments for War
by Anthony Gregory from
Antiwar.com
"At a minimum, the United
States needs to pull out of Iraq and reduce its
interventions in the Middle East. More ideally,
America should return to its noninterventionist
foreign policy that kept it mostly at peace for more
than a century."
Puppet Government
by Brian Doherty from
Reason
"The flick undoubtedly
supplies some ammunition to those who find Bush's
foreign policy criminally reckless. The Bush style
is here boldly exemplified by a superteam of
Blackhawk-like special forces (three men, two women,
five clichés) who fly around the world trying to
foil the schemes of America's terrorist enemies and
their everpresent WMDs. In the process they quite
blithely destroy the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the
Sphinx, and a Great Pyramid, as well as many lives
both innocent and guilty."
Problems insoluble
only if you're stupid
by Vin Suprynowicz
from Las Vegas Review-Journal
"So how do the folks
in Washington respond to the fact that happy
Afghan farmers are once again making an honest
living producing a crop which is a Godsend to
mankind? ... Needless to say, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld was first into the breach,
announcing last month that 'coalition forces' in
Afghanistan will soon have another task to
distract them from tracking down Osama bin Laden
-- burning poppy fields."
War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.
The great
debates -- Aiming beer bottles at the telescreen
by David T.
Wright from The Last Ditch
"What a pair. As
I've noted before, Bush has a certain
chimplike quality about him, while Kerry, who
towers over Bush, is truly one of the most
bizarre-looking humans I've seen in a while.
His head looks as if it has been squeezed in a
hydraulic press. With the 'mute' button on,
the general impression was of some kind of
zombie game show, with Cheetah and Lurch as
the contestants."
Tales from the
Bushiverse
by Julian
Sanchez from Reason
"For as the
debates are also making clear, the president
exists in a strange parallel realm, a kind
of Lake Woebegone version of America, where
all the deficit reduction packages are
strong, all the WMDs are good looking, and
all the students reached by NCLB are above
average."
It's My Party,
and They'll Lie (and Kill) If They Want To
by Michael
Tennant from Strike The Root
"In short,
principle takes a back seat to politics. The
conservative response to a government crime
depends first and foremost on which wing of
the Government Party is perpetrating it."
Articles
showing decentralized successes.
Profit, Loss, and Pluto
by Robert P. Murphy
from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"Beyond the obvious
implications for sci fi buffs and other space enthusiasts, the
episode sheds light on the versatility of free enterprise. Most
obvious, we see that the government is not necessary for space
exploration; engineers and pilots do not suddenly become smarter
when they are hired by NASA. Indeed, because a free market in
space industries would be open to all competitors, we have every
reason to expect technological innovation to be much quicker than
in a monopolized space program."
Ranching the
Redds: Private Owners as Environmental Stewards
by J. Bishop Grewell from
abetterearth.org
"They wanted to make sure the
experience would remain affordable to locals, but they also
wanted to reduce the impact on the streams. However, in return
for these fees, anglers are guaranteed a congestion-free
atmosphere of no more than six rods during the peak season. The
Milesnicks are often half-booked for summer reservations by
December."
The Minimum
Wage: Discarding Basic Economics
by Robert Carreira from The
Foundation for Economic Education
"There is perhaps nothing more
rewarding than to see the light bulb illuminate as students
learn to think economically, and, in doing so, learn to dispel
for themselves the economic myths they have been fed over the
previous 12 years of their education. The first step in this
process is to teach them the laws of supply and demand, and how
these laws interact to determine market-clearing, or
'equilibrium,' prices."
Articles
showing centrally planned disasters.
The Welfare State Rewards
Liars
by Sheldon
Richman from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"Our parents
teach us not to take other people's things, and most of us
observe that rule as adults. That poses a problem for the
welfare state: how to make sure that we don't apply the
'thou shalt not steal' rule to its activities. The
government solves that problem mostly through its schools,
where children are subtly taught that what the government
does is not stealing and that being a recipient of
government benefits is not receiving purloined property."
The Corruption of American
Higher Education
by Alexandra Cervini from The
Foundation for Economic Education
"Unlike the system we have now
-- where universities receive a stream of federal funding
-- the privatization of colleges and universities will
force recipients of private dollars to produce successful
results in order to stay competitive and qualify for
further private funding. Colleges that reject government
money prove this point (Grove City College, Hillsdale
College, The King's College and others)."
Corporations are not
capitalism
by Vox Day from
WorldNetDaily.com
"Not everything to which the
idiot Left is hostile is necessarily good. It is
impossible to assert that the age of untrammeled
corporatism has been friendly to individual liberty or
prosperity, especially when real wages have been falling
for three decades -- they are 14 percent lower than they
were in 1972."
War is the ultimate State intervention in
society.
War Gave Us Caesar
by Adam
Young from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"The
messianic presidency as we know it arose with the
unprecedented regime of Abraham Lincoln, which
established a novel set of justifications for its
assumption of previously unrecognized executive
war-making authority and spending and policing powers.
With Congress in recess, Lincoln called out the state
militias, suspended habeas corpus, and blockaded the
seceding States, in the process becoming the model of
successive 'war presidents'."
The State as Serial
Killer
by Bob Wallace from
Strike The Root
"The victims of the worst
serial killer in the world are but a drop in a lake
compared to the political victims of Mao Tse Tung, Pol
Pot, Stalin and Hitler. They are still but a drop
compared to the victims of Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR.
They're a drop compared to what Bush has done, and to
the murders that will be committed by those who come
after him. The State is the worst serial killer in the
world."
Muzzling soldiers is
nothing new
by Col. David H.
Hackworth from WorldNetDaily.com
"The brass are going nuts
trying to stop this electronic tsunami of truth that's
washing over the land courtesy of a generation of
sharp kids who've been armed with computers since age
4. ... So the brass have reverted to the weapon
they've used to silence warriors since long before
Caesar was running Rome: intimidation. The troops are
being warned: Shut up; and if you don't button it,
you'll be drummed out of the service."
The Past seen with a
fresh look.
The Resurrection of
'America First!'
by
Patrick J. Buchanan from Antiwar.com
"[T]he
foreign policy routinely disparaged as 'isolationism'
is always on the table. It is the foreign policy most
deeply rooted in America's history, heart and vital
interests. It is no more going to be 'extinguished'
than is Christianity. It is our oldest tradition.
Though that tradition may be dismissed by our foreign
policy elites as antiquated, selfish and
un-idealistic, it is the elites who are out of touch.
They do not know the country they live in. They do not
know the American people. They never have."
The Three Stooges in
Iraq, and the U.S.'s First Stooge
by William Marina from
The Independent Institute
"With the turmoil in
Iraq, the advocates of U.S. intervention there admit
it may take decades to bring democracy to that
nation, as if time were the crucial ingredient. It
has now been 106 years since the United States
intervened in the Philippine Islands -- how does
economic development and democracy there measure up
to American promises?"
The Politics of
Presidential Spending
by R.W. Bradford from
Liberty magazine
"All this must come as a
shock to the overwhelming majority of Americans who
believe that Democrats are spenders and Republicans
want to cut government spending. The simple fact is
that during the past 34 years, government spending
has grown significantly faster when a Republican has
sat in the White House."
Articles showing the
nature of War.
The Objectivist Death
Cult
by
Justin Raimondo from LewRockwell.com
"Every
war is a test, and, with this war we face our
greatest test. Most libertarians, I am glad to say,
are rising to the occasion: others -- swept along by
the rising tide of militarism and statism,
enthralled by the rhetoric of warmongering
demagogues, blinded by narcissism and hubris -- are
falling by the wayside."
Protecting America or the President's Reelection
Chances?
by Ivan Eland from
Antiwar.com
"For example, if
Saddam Hussein had possessed a few nuclear weapons
and long-range missiles that could have hit the
United States, the Bush administration probably
would have been deterred from invading Iraq. But
it is scary to think of a similarly aggressive
future U.S. administration that believes an
imperfect missile shield would protect America
completely from any missiles launched from a
nation under U.S. attack."
A Draft -- One Way or
the Other
by J. Douglas
Allen-Taylor from AlterNet
"I've never been in
combat, and veterans may want to correct me if I'm
in error, but from everything I've read and
believe, morale is a significant factor in any
war-making machine. All things being equal, a
soldier who wants to fight -- or believes that
it's her or his duty to fight -- will be a better
soldier than one who is fairly pissed off about
being on the battlefield. And so, in the long run,
the military's 'stop loss' policies could lead to
some significant problems."
Some people stand out
from the crowd.
Pioneer -
William Penn : Oct. 14, 1644
by Jim Powell
from The Freeman (via Quaker.org)
"By creating
Pennsylvania, Penn set an enormously
important example for liberty. He showed
that people who are courageous enough,
persistent enough, and resourceful enough
can live free. He went beyond the natural
right theories of his friend John Locke and
showed how a free society would actually
work."
Actress -
Lillian Gish : Oct. 14, 1893
from The
Official Website of Lillian Gish
"Not only was
Lillian Gish born in the right era, but
she was also born with the ethereal beauty
and grace to make her a star in the silent
film industry. If Mary Pickford was the
silent cinema's greatest personality,
Lillian was its greatest actress."
Comedian -
Lenny Bruce : Oct. 13, 1925
by Nick A.
Zaino III from The Boston Globe
"First of all,
he had a breakthrough with style because
it wasn't just plain stand-up now, it was
like a little theater where he would play
all the parts. And also, his satirical
targets were all taboo, from organized
religion to nuclear testing to racism to
abortion rights." Paul Krassner speaking
about his friend Lenny Bruce.
Books, Movies, TV,
Media, Music, poetry, etc.
Reviewed by Tom Ender from Endervidualism
"No
longer is the battleground in small towns to keep
'Slaughterhouse Five' out of the school library.
However, today it may very well be to keep Harry
Potter or Huckleberry Finn, depending on whether the
group interested in censoring is from the 'right' or
the 'left', from those same shelves. There are few
towns today that outlaw dancing, but 'raves' are
subject to even more severe prohibition than that
depicted in 'Footloose'."
Team America:
World Police
Reviewed by Rory L. Aronsky from filmthreat.com
"Trey Parker, Matt
Stone, and a set of like-minded twisted
individuals have concocted an absolutely
incredible laugh-until-your-head-splits-apart
comedic satire that doesn’t care about where to
stop, but how to make it all worth your overpriced
ticket." Amen. This movie is hilarious. It should
offend all the right people and probably a few
extra (not too surprisingly Ebert doesn't "get
it"), but
it is funny, very funny.
Fahrenheit 911: Realizing An Afterimage
by Richard
Kostelanetz from NY Arts Magazine
"In my mind, the principal
afterimage in 'Fahrenheit 911' portrays the
President's paralyzed indecision after being
informed by a staffer that a plane had struck the
World Trade Center. Though Moore in his editorial
impatience did not use all seven minutes
reportedly taken in the Florida elementary-school
photo-opportunity the morning of September 11,
2001, his film contains more of Dubya’s pathos
than we’ve seen before, accompanied by Moore’s
devastatingly portentous narration."
Humor, satire, cartoons,
parodies, food, popular music
and other things to amuse.
Cheney Vows To Attack U.S.
If Kerry Elected
from The Onion
"In an announcement that has
alarmed voters across the nation, Vice President Dick
Cheney said Monday that he will personally attack the
U.S. if Sen. John Kerry wins the next election."
Wimblehack: Round 2 --
The Gorm Turns
by Matt Taibbi from New
York Press
"Do you go with the mean
old bastard who writes, without kidding, 'I am a Ken
Mehlman fan' -- or do you go with the loopy mystic
with the gay-porn moustache who blasted Dick Cheney,
of all people, for being soft on family values, and
spent the weekend buddying up to one of the rising
stars of the Christian nut-job set?"
Opposite Land
by Mark Fiore from The
Village Voice
"Where fiction is stronger
than truth!" You may already be familiar with this
idea as BizarroWorld.
Scientific
and scholarly studies, philosophical essays,
in-depth and longer articles.
by Bob Wallace from
Endervidualism
"What we've got, then, is a
fight over ideas. These ideas,
ultimately, end up ruling Mass
Man, once they percolate down to
him. ... This fight over ideas
is the most important one in the
world, because whoever wins
determines where Mass Man will
go. And Mass Man doesn't even
know it."
The Ethics and Economics of
Private Property
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe from
LewRockwell.com
"The idea of private property
not only agrees with our moral
intuitions and is the sole
just solution to the problem
of social order; the
institution of private
property is also the basis of
economic prosperity and of
'social welfare.' As long as
people act in accordance with
the rules underlying the
institution of private
property, social welfare is
optimized."
The Objectivist-Extropian
Synthesis
by Gennady Stolyarov II from
Le Québécois Libre
"The worldviews of both of
these intellectual movements
can be broadened substantially
by extending the scope of
Objectivism's influence in the
sciences, and Transhumanism's
power in the humanities.
Furthermore, each side can
find in the other intellectual
arguments in favor of
laissez-faire capitalism, from
various scientific and
humanitarian perspectives, to
supplement their already
existing arsenals."
Articles not
easily classified.
Nothing To Fear But
Nothing Itself -- 'Course, That's Something
by Fred Reed from
FredOnEverything.net
"Therapists see only two
classes of people, those who are in therapy and those
who ought to be. ('Are you saved?') They exhibit the
smug assurance of those who have seen the light, and
have Truth in a half-Nelson. The difference is that,
whereas religions usually say that you are responsible
for your bad behavior and you ought to stop it,
therapy tells you that you are never responsible for
anything. No. It was your childhood. Or some chemical
imbalance. The Church of Avoided Guilt."
How Conservative Is
George W. Bush?
by Anthony Gregory
from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"Would conservatives
feel the same way if Al Gore had become president?
If Gore, who unlike most Democrats voted in favor
of Gulf War I, had gone to war with both
Afghanistan and Iraq, would his war leadership
automatically exempt him from criticism for his
domestic welfare spending, the way it appears to
have done in the case of Bush? If Kerry wins, will
conservatives be silent about the new president's
welfare spending, as long as he wages a good war
every two years?"
First Things First
by Sunni Maravillosa
from sunnimaravillosa.com
"I plan on doing more
writing, now that I've the time and the motivation
again (thanks in very large part to Vin
Suprynowicz for the latter), and I'm looking for
other honorable ways to support myself and my
family. And I'll be here, o'course, with the
Conspirators, talking about all manner of things
relating to the never-ending quest for freedom."
Sunni opens a new blog.
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