Ender's Review: Jan. 23-29, 2005

The Horror of Horror as Holiness; America's Socialized Health Care; Objective Journalism; The Shawshank Redemption; 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 Jan. 23 - 29, 2005.

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.

Free speech is bad words, too
by Robyn E. Blumner from St. Petersburg Times
"[I]n 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War, [Paul Robert Cohen] walked into the Los Angeles County Courthouse wearing a jacket with the words 'F-- the Draft' emblazoned on the back. For wearing a profane jacket, Cohen was charged and convicted of disturbing the peace. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail. The Supreme Court threw out his conviction on free-speech grounds."
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/01/23/Columns/Free_speech_is_bad_wo.shtml

The Bill of Rights: Searches and Seizures
by Jacob G. Hornberger from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"Thank goodness for the wisdom and foresight of our ancestors in protecting us from modern-day federal officials, especially through the express restrictions on search and seizure provided in the Fourth Amendment. How would U.S. officials operate without a Fourth Amendment and an independent judiciary to enforce it? Worse than British officials did with their general writs and writs of assistance! How do we know this? Because we've seen how they have operated with omnipotent power in occupied Iraq."
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0410a.asp

Changing of the Gavel
by Timothy Lynch from Cato Institute
"The good news is that United States v.Booker, the Supreme Court's Jan. 12 landmark ruling on the federal sentencing guidelines, has handed President George W. Bush and the new Congress a historic opportunity to make some fundamental changes that will set things right."
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3626

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

Drug War Shrinking Bill of Rights
by Radley Balko from FOX News
"Thanks to mandatory minimum sentencing laws, a judge in Utah recently had no choice but to sentence a first-time marijuana dealer to 55 years in prison (he had a pistol strapped to his ankle during the one-time deal, though he never brandished it). Frustrated but hamstrung by drug laws, the judge in the case noted that just hours earlier, he had sentenced a convicted murderer to just 22 years for beating an elderly woman to death with a log."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,145529,00.html

Alberto Gonzales speaks for himself ... sort of
by Nat Hentoff from Decatur Daily Democrat
"Before the confirmation hearing of Alberto Gonzales for U.S. attorney general dissolves into the mists of time, we should look at the official record of that day, noting it as a harbinger of his credibility as our chief law enforcement officer and guardian of the rule of law."
http://www.decaturdailydemocrat.com/articles/2005/01/26/news/opinion/editorial04.txt

Who Let the Dogs In?
by Jacob Sullum from Reason
"Even leaving aside the possibility of deliberate deception or honest error by police officers eager to turn a hunch into probable cause, the dogs themselves make mistakes, responding to subconscious cues from their handlers, alerting to food or residual odors of drugs that are no longer present, mistaking items associated with drugs for the drugs themselves, and so on."
http://www.reason.com/sullum/012805.shtml

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

The Sociopathic Cult
by Butler Shaffer from LewRockwell.com
"This Remnant may remind our children and grandchildren of a truth known to our ancestors: individual 'freedom' expresses itself as harmonious, integrated social behavior. If you refer to an etymological dictionary, you will discover -- as I did many years ago -- that the words 'peace,' 'freedom,' 'love,' and 'friend' have interconnected origins."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer96.html

War of The Words: Thoughts on War Talk by Arundhati Roy
by Catfarmer from The Price of Liberty
"While I am not about to give up my dreams of a free, peaceful, joyous anarchic existence, I recognize that other people may speak of similar dreams in different tongues. There is beauty in diversity, and diversity is beautiful: I say that knowing full well that someone, somewhere, is groaning, because 'diversity' is a word that has been politically abused. The moment a word enters the political vocabulary, it becomes corrupt."
http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/03/10/01/catfarmer.htm

Radical Solidarity and Moderate Anarchism
by Anthony Gregory from Strike The Root
"I believe that libertarian class theory is an important, even essential, component of anti-state philosophy. However, I also think it's misguided to hate everyone with state power, state influence, and ties to the state, which is a rather large and all-encompassing group, when you think about it. I believe that liberty will only come when people change their minds, and that libertarian anarchism is primarily a philosophical, not a political, movement."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/gregory/gregory4.html

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

Long live secession!
by Christopher Ketcham from Salon.com
"Like the original red-state secessionists, it is to the founding documents -- the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States -- that Naylor turns to buttress his belief in the morality and legality of secession."
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/01/25/secession/

Parents put kids in charge of school -- They decide what they'll learn, when
by Nate Trela from Detroit Free Press
"Unschooled students can be erratic in their educational development. Some excel across the board; some excel in a handful of subjects, and some fall far behind. The transition to a fixed schedule in college can be difficult. But unschooling has a following in every state...."
http://www.freep.com/news/education/unschool24e_20050124.htm

Measures Would Allow Midwives To Oversee Home Births
by Margery Beck from Yankton Daily Press
"Nebraska is one of six states -- including Connecticut, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin -- that do not legally regulate, but do not prohibit, the practice of home deliveries by lay midwives, according to the Midwives Alliance of North America."
http://www.yankton.net/stories/012805/news_20050128018.shtml

The New World Hegemon
Depictions of the coming Imperial power

Shills, Paid and Unpaid
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. from LewRockwell.com
"The obvious examples of Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini stand out, but to a much lesser extent even the local mayor of your town benefits from the glow of power. People exaggerate the personal merits of people with power, romanticizing their personal histories and fantasizing about their 'vision' of the future."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/shills.html

Condi Rice: Misrule of Law
by Nat Hentoff from The Village Voice
"[T]he new secretary of state will defer to, of all people, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- the orchestrator of the administration's torture memos -- to make sure that American prisoners are not subject to some of the following techniques that have been reported by troubled FBI agents in Guantánamo, along with concerned counter-intelligence officers: attaching electrodes to private parts; chaining hands and feet in a fetal position for long periods of time without food and water; inserting lighted cigarettes into ears; and prolonged, severe beatings, among other persuasions."
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0505,hentoff,60589,6.html

Had A Ball -- All hail to Queen Laura's dress.
by Matt Taibbi from New York Press
"The moment of our conception was a rejection of the very idea of kings. All of that goes out the window whenever we have a presidential inauguration. The urge to turn the White House into Buckingham Palace (or, more to the point, Camelot) is one of the oldest and most shameful traditions of the media age, but this disgusting phenomenon always heats to whiteness during inauguration week, regardless of what party is ascending to power."
http://www.nypress.com/18/4/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

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

This Plastic Moment
by Justin Raimondo from Antiwar.com
"This plastic moment will soon pass: in the next few weeks we either commit ourselves to a long, bloody course of empire in the Middle East, or we withdraw with honor and our dignity intact. Which will it be?"
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=4540

The Word Thieves
by Stephanie R. Murphy from LewRockwell.com
"Apparently, it's not enough for the political elite to steal our peace of mind by fomenting hatred of Americans with inane foreign policy; our health and happiness through excessive regulation of our own bodies; our money through taxation. It seems that they wish to steal our words, too."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/murphy-s5.html

What Do You Know About Freedom?
by Fred E. Foldvary from The Progress Report
"The real reason for the federal nudity ban is political. The President is supported by religious conservatives, and he needs to provide these supporters with some benefit in return. Religious conservatives have been rewarded with the privilege of having their social conservativism enforced by law, contrary to true liberty. Religious conservatives either don't understand freedom or else don't agree with it, since they seek to impose their particular values on all society."
http://www.progress.org/2005/fold388.htm

Spontaneous Order
Articles showing decentralized successes.

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
by Joseph Janes from American Library Association
"The worlds of software and operating systems have seen an increasing number and variety of options, largely due to the open source movement. There's a growing interest in them, but their use and visibility remain low due to unfamiliarity, inertia, and caution. They hold great potential and promise...."
http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/inetlibrarian/2005columns/internetJan05.htm

Should we save jobs?
by Walter E. Williams from Townhall.com
"During the seven years from 1995 through 2002, Drezner notes, U.S. manufacturing employment fell by 11 percent. Globally, manufacturing jobs fell by 11 percent. China lost 15 percent of its manufacturing jobs, and Brazil lost 20 percent. But guess what. Globally, manufacturing output rose by 30 percent during the same period."
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20050126.shtml

If You Are So Smart...
by William Anderson from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"Ultimately, the power of the ABCT [Austrian Business Cycle Theory] is not whether some economists of the Austrian School rolled the dice on some day trades and made money. The power of the ABCT is grounded in its ability to explain the underlying causes of the boom-and-bust cycle."
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1730

Nonspontaneous Disorder
Articles showing centrally planned disasters.

America's Socialized Health Care
by Lawrence Wilson, M.D. from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"Through licensing and other laws enacted in the early part of the 20th century, one group, the American Medical Association, controls how many medical schools exist, how many students enroll, what is taught in the schools, the availability of hospital residencies, and, indirectly through licensing laws, who will get jobs in medicine."
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0409g.asp

A Consensus Society
by Russell Madden from his web pages
"Pure democracy. Majoritarianism. Collectivism. Consensus. By any name, the notion that the 'good' is defined by how many people support it; that any policy garnering the most votes can and should be imposed on an unwilling minority; that no area of life should be off-limits to the 'will of the people': all these beliefs are profoundly dangerous. They have been used throughout history to justify not only the most heinous actions imaginable but also those that are the most petty and intrusive upon our day-to-day existences."
http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdocs/Consensus_Society.html

Robbing Peter to Pay Peter
by Christopher Westley from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"It is a practice [forced savings] I impose on my son several times a year. But what might work well for one time and place may not work in others. It is the fatal conceit, inherent in socialism, to take what might be a good idea for one person and force it on the rest of society, with the help of the government's monopoly on the right to use force."
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1732

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

Why I Am Obsessed with War
by Harry Browne from HarryBrowne.org.
"I've written over and over about these wars. You might say I'm obsessed with war. And you'd be right. I'm obsessed with war because of what war really is. And because of what war is doing to America."
http://harrybrowne.org/articles/ObsessionWithWar.htm

Bush's Second Inaugural - A Party Without Virtue
by Paul Craig Roberts from CounterPunch
"At home the casualties are the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. Republicans explode in anger when a liberal judge creates a constitutional right. But they sit in silence when the US Department of Justice (sic) creates the right for Bush to decide who has constitutional protections and who has not."
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01252005.html

Defying Terrorism
by weebies from Strike The Root
"While no sane person would contemplate using nuclear weapons, we are dealing with persons whose grasp of reality is tenuous as best. Bush and his gang are Jacobin madmen who do not let reality stand in their way. These megalomaniacs are more than willing to sacrifice everything others hold dear to advance their insane ideas and reign of terror. Freedom lovers need to be very clear on this issue and vehemently oppose all wars of aggression and state terrorism."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/weebies/weebies4.html

Bits of History
The Past seen with a fresh look.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush: Some Unsettling Similarities
by Robert Higgs from The Independent Institute
"Both Roosevelt and Bush presided over a huge spurt in the growth of government financed in substantial part by running up debt. Under Roosevelt, domestic spending and economic regulation mushroomed prior to the gargantuan military buildup of the war years; under Bush, domestic and military spending and regulation all have zoomed upward."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1452

That Kind of Uncle
by L. Neil Smith from The Libertarian Enterprise
"Our culture has had an important lesson over the past fifty years that much of it is trying to ignore. It's dangerous out there. It always was. But it can be made safer, even while elected and appointed officials, with the help of the mass media, are working overtime to make it more dangerous. Tell your children. Tell your grandchildren."
http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle303-20050123-02.html

Legacy of Communism: Learned Helplessness
by Stephen Browne from Foundation for Economic Education
"The problem is what psychiatrists used to call 'learned helplessness' in the days before PC. After two generations of working in this kind of environment, these people haven't got the inner resources to live as even marginally self-sufficient adults."
http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=6587

War and Peace
Articles showing the nature of War.

Objective Journalism And Hen's Teeth -- In Search Of The Impossible
by Fred Reed from FredOnEverything
"Without profound ideological commitment, you will come to loathe the military command. This will happen regardless of whether you think the particular war necessary. The military lies, and lies, and lies. The flacks of the armed services, like any other PR types, do not recognize truth and falsehood as legitimate categories, but only positive and negative. They will tell you over and over with chirpy optimism things that you know by daily observation to be false. Everything is hunky-dory."
http://www.fredoneverything.net/ObjectiveNews.shtml

Should Iran Be The Next Target?
by Ivan Eland from The Independent Institute
"Surgical attacks on Iran could also have other negative consequences in the region and around the globe. The Iranians could retaliate by making the U.S. occupation of Iraq even uglier than it is at present. They could feed money, arms, and fighters into the Iraq war or stir up Shi'ite populations against the U.S. occupation."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1453

Brothers in Arms
by Douglas Herman from Strike The Root
"Whether as a common soldier pressed into a war he cannot understand, or those of us back home shining the light on the cowards who sent the soldiers there, the front lines shift but the enemy remains the same. The Terminator was difficult to kill, but he was a cardboard character compared to the Hydra of lies we all face today."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/herman/herman1.html

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

Musician/Composer - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart : Jan. 27, 1756
from essentialsofmusic.com
"Our picture of Mozart depends upon where we focus. Was he a brilliant, successful composer or a child prodigy who never grew up? Was he a facile composer who created nothing original or a composer of great emotional depth? He was all of these and more."
http://www.essentialsofmusic.com/composer/mozart.html

Writer/Mathematician/Logician - Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll): Jan. 27, 1832
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"His facility at word play, logic, and fantasy has delighted audiences ranging from the most naïve to the most sophisticated. His works have remained popular since they were published and have influenced not only children's literature, but also a number of major 20th century writers...."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll

Entertainer - Maria von Trapp : Jan. 26th, 1905
from myfavouritethings.homestead.com
"The life of Maria von Trapp is a fascinating story of triumph in the face of adversity. ... Prior to Maria's arrival at the von Trapp home, the children already had an appreciation of music. They loved to sing, and their father would often accompany their songs on the guitar, violin, and mandolin. Maria encouraged their passion for music...."
http://www.myfavouritethings.homestead.com/mariastory.html

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

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Reviewed by Tom Ender from Endervidualism
"There are other good prison movies ... those mentioned here also point out the high value of individuality and the destructive nature of the individual's most persistent opponent: the State. The Shawshank Redemption is no exception. However, it is also about perseverance, the effects of time, freedom, slavery and especially hope. Andy Dufresne never gives up hope for freedom. He never stops working toward that goal."
http://endervidualism.com/agora/shawshank_redemption.htm

Beware the Ides of March
by Stephen W. Carson from LewRockwell.com
"The assassination of Julius Caesar did not stop the move towards Empire. Twenty-one years later Octavian, Caesar's adopted son, with the title of Augustus Caesar was named Emperor for life and given complete control of the State. The Roman Empire continued to grow."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/carson/carson21.html

An Anti-Imperialist's Reading List: Part One
by Joseph R. Stromberg from Antiwar.com
"I thought that this week I would sketch out a reading list for those wishing to pursue the themes dealt with in this column and at antiwar.com generally. Some of the works listed are popular, some are scholarly, but all contribute to building the framework needed if we are to gain a critical understanding of how these things -- 'war, peace, and the state' -- work and have worked down the years."
http://antiwar.com/stromberg/?articleid=4544

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

JDM Defines "Libertarian"
by Jonathan David Morris from The Free Liberal
"Anyway, there are many strains of libertarianism -- and we'll get to them in a moment -- but, basically, it can be boiled down into a single, four-word phrase: 'What’s this "we" stuff?' Another one that'll work is: 'To each his own.' These phrases describe the philosophy by which libertarians live."
http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/000665.html

What Do You Think? -- The Rice Confirmation
from The Onion
"After a delay caused by Congressional Democrats, Condoleezza Rice will be confirmed as Secretary of State this week. What do you think?"
http://www.theonion.com/wdyt/index.php?issue=4104

Advice for Iraq's New Democracy
by Mark Fiore from The Village Voice
"Congratulations, Iraq. The election is here...."
http://villagevoice.com/news/0504,fiore,60568,9.html

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

The Horror of Horror as Holiness
by Bob Wallace from Endervidualism
"Contrary to the delusions of the rabidly secular, humanity will never give up religion. Perhaps everything is religion, including secularism. ... Is not 'democracy' today being touted as the end to evil in the world? Wouldn't an end to evil and horror in the world actually be the end of the world? To immanentize the Eschaton? The problem is when religion is perverted."
http://endervidualism.com/bwallace/horror_as_holiness.htm

Hypothesis as thought-crime
by Norman Levitt from spiked
"Summers has committed the grave sin of proposing that mere common sense might have something to say in the face of relentless feminist dogma. He has deeply offended the sanctimonious. Their thought-police are on the march, rendering mere logic irrelevant."
http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/0000000CA8A7.htm

Johnny Carson more than just funny TV host
by Tibor R. Machan from The Yuma Sun
"By stepping back for those few seconds to reflect briefly on the moment, Johnny Carson probably managed to bring home to millions of his viewers ... the significance of something quintessentially and universally human, namely self-awareness or reflection, being in the position to observe and think about oneself and place oneself and what one is doing within a larger context, indeed, perhaps, within the known scheme of things."
http://sun.yumasun.com/artman/publish/articles/story_14535.php

Miscellany
Articles not easily classified

Removing Legal Incentives to Lie
by Wendy McElroy from ifeminists.com
"Unfortunately, the sensational headlines along with men's disillusionment are creating something of a backlash against women who make any allegations at all -- true or false. The backlash should be directed against the legal system itself for offering incentives to lie."
http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2005/0126.html

Take a Stand or, Words upon the Second Inauguration of a Tyrant
by Aaron Sutherlin from anti-state
"Let everyone within earshot know that there is one man, at least, one upright being who does not consent to be ruled by this spiteful bastard. Tell them you don't believe American soldiers are heroes, that you will dodge the draft should it be reinstituted. Defend universal drug legalization and advocate the abolition of the FDA. Let your support of gay (and plural) marriage be heard. Offend them all."
http://www.anti-state.com/article.php?article_id=461

John and Jane Relax
by Jim Davies from Strike The Root
"John and Jane lived together. I don't really know whether they ever underwent a marriage ceremony; there are no wedding photos on their walls, but they'd been together, so their neighbors say, for several years; so even if they never signed a bit of government paper, I guess they may still be man and wife, in 'common law'."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/davies/davies4.html

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