Ender's Review: Dec. 19

The Nature of Justification; Politics and the Garden of Eden; Your Papers, Please; Mr. Deeds Goes To Town; 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 Dec. 19 - 25, 2004.

Table of Contents: (Click on the name to go to that section)
Political Liberty, Life in Amerika, Ordered Liberty without the State;
Spreading Decentralism, The New World Hegemon, Politics by Other Means;
Spontaneous Order, Nonspontaneous Disorder, War Is The Health Of The State;
Bits of History, War and Peace, Great Individuals In History;
Culcha', The lighter side, Deep Thought, Miscellany.

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Political Liberty
Articles showing a positive influence of political action on the cause of Liberty.

Justice Department To America: Lock and Load!
by Brian Doherty from Reason
"The empirical case as to whether in fact the police power of the state can efficiently protect our lives and property is settled pretty much every day in the favor of gun rights...for individuals, regardless of the overall result of studies like the National Research Council's."
http://www.reason.com/links/links122104.shtml

Canceling Iraqi Debt
by Patricia Adams from Cato Institute
"Unlike the formal arbitration process that Iraq wants, at which the legitimacy of debts could be examined, in the Paris Club process the debtors have no right to refute claims made by lenders. This cozy process suits governments and government agencies that make questionable loans to the likes of a Saddam, a Marcos, and a Castro, allowing them to remain in power, but they don't suit the captive populations of these dictators' regimes."
http://www.cato.org/dailys/12-25-04.html

How Important Is Equality before the Law?
by Nicholas Curott from The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
"[T]he struggle for liberty in the future will not be a struggle for equality before the law but for what [philosopher Roderick] Long calls 'equality in authority.' Revoking the authority of government administrators to interfere with persons and the peaceful use of their property would address these issues."
http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=6498

Life in Amerika
Articles depicting the negative impact of politics on the cause of Liberty.

A System of Injustice -- America Locked Up
by Paul Craig Roberts from CounterPunch
"Unless you believe that Americans are more criminally inclined than other humans, what can explain the US incarceration rate being so far outside the international mainstream? I can think of the following reasons: (1) In order to prove that they are 'tough on crime,' politicians have criminalized behavior that is legal elsewhere. (2) Many innocent Americans are in jail."
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts12212004.html

Unedited Footage
by Boris Karpa from The Libertarian Enterprise
"Any law is in part violence -- note the use of the word 'force' in 'enforce'. Let's say you had a neighbor who grew marijuana -- would it be fine for you to use force against him? It wouldn't, right?"
http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2004/tle301-20041219-06.html

Save The Tomato Children!
by Paul Krassner from New York Press
"However, there was a definite agenda permeating the unhigh court. Justice Antonin Scalia sarcastically stated, 'I understand there's whole communes in California planning on using marijuana for medical purposes'."
http://www.nypress.com/17/51/news&columns/paulkrassner2.cfm

Ordered Liberty without the State
Some people say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an interesting topic.

Anarchism & Justice - Part I: II. The Nature of Justification
by R.A. Childs, Jr. from The Last Ditch
"Now if we derive the notions of what is right for men from the standard and purpose of life and the causal conditions necessary to sustain it, then we can see that what is right for man, what is moral, and what is 'practical' or necessary for man to survive and prosper are all coextensive. Thus, I shall not be discussing the issue of the necessity of the State apart from or without reference to moral principles defining the social needs of man."
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/childs_aj_02.htm

Politics and the Garden of Eden
by Bob Wallace from Endervidualism
"Do any politicians ever feel guilt? Robert McNamara, who was one of the architects of the Vietnam catastrophe, and who has the blood of millions on his hands, has never shown any guilt about what he's done. But I'll bet he can be humiliated. Maybe that's why he's never seen anymore in public. What politician can tolerate being mocked and ridiculed?"
http://endervidualism.com/bwallace/politics_garden_eden.htm

Roads to Serfdom
by Jim Davies from Strike The Root
"And let's note first and foremost that when a government 'owns' roads, it owns not just the stones and tar but the entire management system. The alternative of private ownership for profit would transfer those functions along with the hardware, and there's the win-win-win."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/davies/davies16.html

Spreading Decentralism
Articles demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.

Brady Wrong on Automatic Weapons
by Benedict D. Larosa from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"[R]oughly half the machine guns in the United States are owned by civilians; the other half are in the hands of police departments and the military. Texas leads the nation in the number of automatic weapons in civilian hands. The true number is undeniably higher, since official statistics don't account for those unknown to authorities. Yet there is no mayhem in Texas or elsewhere in the nation by civilians wielding automatic weapons. There is no return to the days of Al Capone."
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0412g.asp

Fallujah: Little Stalingrad
by William S. Lind from Antiwar.com
"If we look at Fallujah through that lens, the parallels become clearer. It is not certain we will ever fully control Fallujah, just as the Germans never took full control of Stalingrad. Nevertheless, we will claim a tactical victory."
http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=4201

Make a Difference Day
by T. Norman Van Cott from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"Those who produce all these 'things' make huge differences in Americans' lives. Is it an understatement to say this latter difference making dwarfs anything that occurs on the fourth Saturday in October? Not at all! "
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1697

The New World Hegemon
Depictions of the coming Imperial power

It Can Happen Here
by Rep. Ron Paul from Antiwar.com
"I'm afraid of creating a society where the burden is on citizens to prove their innocence, rather than on government to prove wrongdoing. Most of all, I'm afraid of living in a society where a subservient populace surrenders its liberties to an all-powerful government."
http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=4189

Don't Make a Federal Case Out of It
by Gene Healy from Cato Institute
"Moreover, a federal government focused on everything from cockfighting to steroid use is a federal government that's not focused on truly national issues. Case in point: In the months leading up to the September 11 attacks the FBI was engaged in an 18-month-long sting operation at a brothel in New Orleans that netted 12 prostitutes. September 11 should have concentrated the mind wonderfully as to proper federal priorities, yet federal law enforcement to this day continues to behave like the local vice squad."
http://www.cato.org/dailys/12-20-04.html

Forgive, Forget, Pass the Buck
by Harry Goslin from Strike The Root
"No doubt it was real easy for President Bush to sign off on this debt forgiveness. There is probably quite a bit of uncomfortable and potentially damaging paperwork attached to all that old debt somewhere in the mix. Seeing how our government is so incompetent at keeping track of things, writing off that debt whole-hog is probably the smartest thing to do. "
http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/goslin/goslin3.html

Politics by Other Means
War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.

Elections: The Ultimate Sinkhole
by Erich Mattei from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"The human capital expenditure in this case is not merely nonproductive, as it would be when sedentary for a time or partaking in leisure, but it is indeed counter-productive having been expended on perpetuating a cause that actually robs from productive capacity -- the political process."
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1693

Tyrannus in Titula
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. from LewRockwell.com
"Far from hating our values and hating our freedoms, their resistance is actually a sign that they have embraced a prime value of ours (throwing off the usurper). Whether they are doing so to bring about an Islamic dictatorship, a secular strongman, a complete breakdown of the nation, or democratic freedom, we cannot know. But the principle that drives the resistance is a simple one: the tyrannus in titula is always subject to removal."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/titula.html

Dracula Landlords and Charter Schools
by Neal McCluskey from Cato Institute
"So charters often start with their necks already between Dracula's fangs, and they have the teeth marks to prove it: CER reports that on average, charters receive smaller per-pupil allotments than traditional public schools, and, unlike traditional public schools, often must pay for facilities with those funds. Moreover, hostile politicians are constantly threatening to force new standards on charters, to shrink them, or to shut them down completely."
http://www.cato.org/dailys/12-23-04.html

Spontaneous Order
Articles showing decentralized successes.

Peace, Social Harmony, and Enterprise
by Rev. Robert A. Sirico from Acton Institute
"I'm often asked what the biggest intellectual barrier to understanding liberty is. I believe it is this: many people are unwilling to consider the idea that society contains within it the possibility of self-organization. To put it another way, some people have a difficult time understanding what makes for cooperative human settings that can thrive and develop in the absence of an overarching human design."
http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/comment/article.php?id=234

Can Trade Bring Poverty?
by Robert Murphy from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"Americans account for a large fraction of world consumption, and hence it is empirically very likely that they will benefit tremendously from the combined effects of the various trends that have been dubbed 'globalization'."
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1699

Altruism? Bah, Humbug
by Radley Balko from Cato Institute
"Capitalism has proven to be the best way of creating wealth because it trusts that the collective wisdom millions of people voluntarily engaging in millions of mutually-beneficial transactions every day is the best way for an economy to allocate its resources."
http://www.cato.org/dailys/12-24-04.html

Nonspontaneous Disorder
Articles showing centrally planned disasters.

Let parents do their job -- and even snoop
by Robyn E. Blumner from St. Petersburg Times
"Parents have a fundamental liberty interest in raising their offspring. This right has been repeatedly recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court, from 1923, when the Supreme Court ruled that the due process clause protects the right of parents to 'establish a home and bring up children,' to as recently as 2000, when the court said 'so long as a parent adequately cares for his or her children (i.e., is fit), there will normally be no reason for the state to inject itself into the private realm of the family'...."
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/12/19/Columns/Let_parents_do_their_.shtml

National sales tax
by Walter E. Williams from Townhall.com
"People have advocated a national sales tax or a flat income tax for years, and I don't want to rain on their parade. But here's my prediction: Congress will never enact a sales tax or a flat tax. Why? The two most powerful congressional committees are the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. Both dispense tax favors to different Americans that come at the expense of other Americans."
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20041222.shtml

Limits on Chinese Imports Harm Low-Income Americans
by Sheldon Richman from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"Competitive pressure makes people better producers. If the American textile and apparel industry is to have a future, it must find ways to meet the competition. Seeking shelter and conspiring against consumers won't help. Besides, how dare the industry ask government to forcibly interfere with our right to trade with whomever we please! "
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0412h.asp

War Is The Health Of The State
War is the ultimate State intervention in society.

The Iraq War -- A Catastrophic Success
by Robert Higgs from The Independent Institute
"The beauty of all this increased spending, of course, is that every dollar of it lands in somebody's pocket. Those to whom the pockets belong make a practice of lobbying hard for increased military spending, and they are prepared to compensate in various ways, some legal and some not, the politicians and bureaucrats who steer the money their way."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1441

Libertarians and the Warfare State
by Anthony Gregory from LewRockwell.com
"The more the warfare state grows, the more we must oppose it. Now is the time for the true defenders of liberty to stand up, and repeat the self-evident truth that war is the health of the state and the principal scourge on civilization."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory50.html

Neocons Target Rumsfeld -- Rumsfeld, His Critics and the Draft
by Gary Leupp from CounterPunch
"While the neocons generally avoided military service, Rumsfeld is an ex-Navy officer who remained in the reserves until he joined the Gerald Ford administration (1975-7) as the youngest-ever Secretary of Defense. His Vietnam era experiences made him a strong advocate of an all-volunteer army; the draft had ended in 1973, but draft registration was suspended during Ford's term."
http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp12252004.html

Bits of History
The Past seen with a fresh look.

"Your Papers, Please!" -- The Origin and Evolution of Official Identity in the United States
by Carl Watner from voluntaryist.com
"To Hoover and other government officials, the national fingerprint system he developed 'represents an impressive resource for state surveillance' and power. 'Through this system the state has extended its eyes and ears over a vast territorial expanse and provided itself with a depth of memory unmatched by recollections of individual bureaucrats'."
http://www.voluntaryist.com/articles/121a.php

The Christmas Truce
by Laurence M. Vance from LewRockwell.com
"No one knows for certain where and how the truce officially began. What is known is that men from both sides up and down the front agreed on informal truces for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. "
http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance27.html

The politics of the Christmas story
by James Carroll from Boston Globe
"[I]f the story were told today with Roman imperialism at its center, questions might arise about America's new self-understanding as an imperial power. A story of Jesus born into a land oppressed by a hated military occupation might prompt an examination of the American occupation of Iraq. A story of Jesus come decidedly to the poor might cast a pall over the festival of consumption. A story of the Jewishness of Jesus might undercut the Christian theology of replacement."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/12/21/the_politics_of_the_christmas_story/

War and Peace
Articles showing the nature of War.

The Exploitation of Soldiers
by Butler Shaffer from LewRockwell.com
"The American political establishment -- whose interests transcend Republican and Democratic party lines -- seems as intent on pursuing its violent ambitions for world domination as did ancient Rome, prior to its collapse. The consequences of such an undertaking will be rendered all the more troublesome by the unwillingness of most Americans to 'just say no!' to the narcotic of state power."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer94.html

Kill Missile Defense Now
by Ivan Eland from The Independent Institute
"Reagan's Star Wars program was grandiose and a financial black hole for taxpayers, many conservatives have used modern-day missile defense programs to rally the faithful around their hero's legacy. At every turn, President Bush compares himself to Reagan, and the continuance of missile defense has been a concrete manifestation of that phenomenon."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1440

Blowback from Iraq: Global and Growing
by Ronald Bruce St. John from AlterNet
"As the Thai case demonstrates, blowback is seldom limited to a single event or action. Too often, blowback leads to more blowback, resulting in a prolonged, downward spiral of destructive behavior. The policies of the Sharon government in the West Bank and Gaza offer an excellent example of the downside of blowback."
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/20794/

Great Individuals In History
Some people stand out from the crowd.

Natural Philosopher - Isaac Newton : Dec. 25, 1642
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"In 1661 he joined Trinity College, Cambridge.... At that time the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes, Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665 he discovered the binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton

Reformer - Samuel Smiles : Dec. 23, 1812
by Lawrence W. Reed and John Blundell from Mackinac Center for Public Policy
"Live and trade with integrity and you lift all you meet, not just yourself, he argued. Character, the sum of one's choices and actions, is of paramount importance; indeed, Smiles called it 'the crown and glory of life' and the very thing upon which 'the strength, the industry, and the civilization of nations,' depend."
http://mackinac.org/article.asp?ID=6469

Chanteuse/Actress - Marianne Faithfull : Dec. 29, 1946
From Swingin' Chicks
"With her looks, her friends, her impromptu career, Marianne was the embodiment of swingin' London."
http://www.swinginchicks.com/marianne_faithfull.htm

Culcha'
Books, Movies, TV, Media, Music, poetry, etc.

Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (1936)
Reviewed by Tom Ender from Endervidualism
"Some might say that Longfellow Deeds doesn't understand Capitalism. The truth of that would depend on what one means by Capitalism. From the suggestions he makes to the board of the Opera group to change the operation of the music house and its productions to end large deficits, Deeds seems to have a good understanding of how to run a business. When he says that it isn't natural for people to want to work for nothing, Deeds seems to show a good understanding of the market."
http://www.endervidualism.com/agora/deeds_goes2town.htm

Gabbo Gets Laid -- 2004: The Year of Puppet Sex
by Jesse Walker from Reason
"The creatures were relegated to children's entertainment until Jim Henson and some others brought them a little closer to the mainstream, paving the way for more adult treatments of the medium. 'It was only a matter of time before the more "fast lane" pop-culture people picked it up,' she concluded."
http://www.reason.com/links/links122304.shtml

The Freedom Outlaw's Handbook -- 179 Things To Do 'Til the Revolution
by Claire Wolfe, published by Loompanics; from Laissez Faire books
"Wolfe is such a bracing writer that you'll find yourself churning through every offering despite yourself. "
http://lfb.com/cart/affiliate.php?code=10571&stocknumber=PT8888

The lighter side
Humor, satire, cartoons, parodies, food, popular music and other things to amuse.

Burn Christmas Burn -- This holiday season, set everything on fire.
by Matt Taibbi from New York Press
This is an extremely anti-Christmas article, but it is very funny in an exceedingly warped way.
http://www.nypress.com/17/51/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

Recalled Holiday Toys
from The Onion
These are some very questionable toys.
http://www.theonion.com/infograph/index.php?issue=4051

Happy Holidays From Bushy Claus!
by Mark Fiore from The Village Voice
Animated cartoon
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0451/fiore.php

Deep Thought
Scientific and scholarly studies, philosophical essays, in-depth and longer articles

Post-modern Herods -- The aborting of Christmas
by Andy Nowicki from The Last Ditch
"The birth of Christ, the incarnation of God as man, is held by Christians to reinforce the dignity and value of every living human soul, living and dead, born and unborn. Contra the pagans, who saw some lives as of great value but others as expendable and lacking in worth, the Church held to the doctrine that all human life is sacred, being created in the image and likeness of God."
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/nowicki_christmas04.htm

Restoring Christmas
by Alan Bock from Antiwar.com
"Jesus was actually suggesting social and intellectual jujitsu against illegitimate authority -- with the clear implication that any form of merely human authority is illegitimate since all are equal in the eyes of God. Considering by how long Christianity ... has outlasted the Roman Empire, perhaps he had something."
http://www.antiwar.com/bock/?articleid=4209

Food: The Coming Assault
by Tibor Machan from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"One public policy disaster begets another and another -- but governments never go out of business because of their mismanagement and the malpractice of their administrators. Instead, they dump the results of these on us all, even if we had nothing to do with the matter."
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1694&id=75

Miscellany
Articles not easily classified

People Who Live in a Fishbowl Often Don't Make Good Choices
by Ali Hassan Massoud from Strike The Root
"In the final analysis, such things as money, fame, and all the rest aren't enough. They are the human sacrifices of American pop culture. They make the Faustian bargain with the gods of celebrity and so get to live out the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but in the end like Dr. Faust, must give their souls over to the satanic powers of the pop culture."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/massoud/massoud11.html

Red Ryder's maker shuns publicity
by Melissa Nelson from The News Journal
"Despite the cult popularity of the movie, and the zest for Daisy and Red Ryder memorabilia among collectors, the company has for years shunned publicity. Recent negative news could contribute to the company's desire to keep a low profile. Last year, Daisy settled a lawsuit brought by the government that alleged defects in 7.5 million pellet-BB rifles marketed to shooters age 16 and older."
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/business/2004/12/24redrydersmakers.html

It Takes a Grinch to Ban Christmas
by Catfarmer from The Price of Liberty
"I spied the ancient hulk Of a sleigh, once so cheery; Now decrepit and dull As the old man was weary. A sign, 'Reindeer for Sale' Was propped near the sleigh, Reindeer were out of stock, (Or, perhaps, gone astray)."
http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/04/12/24/catfarmer.htm

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