Apr. 3 - 9, 2005

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The God of Diverse Pseudonyms; Slavery and National ID; The Hardest Sell; The Miracle Worker; 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 Apr. 3 - 9, 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.

The Grassroots Resistance to the Patriot Act -- A Model for Political Organizing When There's No Party of Opposition

      by Dave Lindorff from CounterPunch

"Opponents of the PATRIOT Act should also be contacting their congressional representatives, as the issue is now before Congress, to demand an end to the law. The Act (drawn up with no hearings, reportedly by Chertoff, who at the time was Ashcroft's right hand man in charge of terrorist prosecutions), and passed almost without opposition and no discussion by both houses of congress, came with a time limit, which expires this year. If it is not renewed, its provisions automatically expire."

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff04052005.html

The Bill of Rights: Eminent Domain

      by Jacob G. Hornberger from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"Given the power of eminent domain, it should be limited to acquiring property for the legitimate functions of government. For most people, there is no such thing as 'just compensation' for their home or business, especially given that value is subjective. Oftentimes, people simply aren't interested in selling or moving, no matter how high the price."

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0412a.asp

The Pope's 'Seismic Shift'

      by John Nichols from The Nation

"Wise souls will for centuries ponder the accomplishments and the missteps of the man who began his earthly journey as a Polish boy named Karol Jozef Wojtyla and ended it as one of the most recognized and respected figures in the world. But one aspect of this pope's legacy is not up for debate. During John Paul II's pontificate, the Catholic Church closed the loophole that had served as all-too-many justifications for the taking of the lives of prisoners of the state."

http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=2301/

Life in Amerika

Articles depicting the negative impact of politics on the cause of Liberty.

On Campus, Free Speech at Odds With Tax Funding

      by Wendy McElroy from ifeminists.com

"On March 22, David Huffman spoke out in the University of New Hampshire's (UNH) student newspaper against being excluded from an on-campus public event. He was excluded for being male. The incident spotlights the shell game being run on state campuses across North America under the guise of free speech."

http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2005/0406.html

Bush Should Feel Doctors' Pain

      by Radley Balko from Cato Institute

"Over the last several years, hundreds of physicians have been put on trial for charges ranging from health insurance fraud to drug distribution, even to manslaughter and murder for over-prescribing prescription narcotics. Many times, investigators seize a doctor's house, office, and bank account, leaving him no resources with which to defend himself. A few doctors have been convicted. Many have been acquitted. Others were left with no choice but to settle."

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3727

Hearing No Evil -- Rosy visions of the PATRIOT Act

      by Julian Sanchez from Reason

"What's striking is how weak the case for the PATRIOT Act's vital necessity as an anti-terror measure appears even when we focus on the Department of Justice's handpicked examples, as provided in their 'Report from the Field.' Law enforcement's proud displays of PATRIOT's effectiveness involve drug interdiction, computer hackings, child pornography, gambling, and a variety of other crimes notable for not being terrorism."

http://www.reason.com/links/links040605.shtml

Ordered Liberty without the State

Some people say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an interesting topic.

The God of Diverse Pseudonyms

      by Cat Farmer from Endervidualism

"God and government are opposing concepts of ultimate authority - one reigns over man by virtue of a personal relationship with man and exerts authority from within that is consistent with individual liberty, while the other exerts authority over man by forceful domination from without and is inimical to individual liberty, operating under the theory that individuals are incapable of self government."

http://endervidualism.com/catfarmer/god_div_pseudo.htm

What About the Bad Guys?

      by Mark Davis from Strike The Root

"The real question is whether the state monopoly or free-market competition is the most efficient and effective means of providing security for the lives, property and liberty of people. It's really not that close of a competition when fearful myths are exposed and the state is seen as the sham that it is."

http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/davis/davis6.html

A Breaking Point?

      by Butler Shaffer from LewRockwell.com

"Our current turbulence need not result in an entropic freefall. The response to turbulence can be a creative one, generating new systems in which 'order' arises out of fluctuation; in which freedom and an openness to change represent the health of any system; and in which organizations are looked upon only as tools to be used, and not as structures to be revered and preserved."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer103.html

Spreading Decentralism

Articles demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.

Reefer Refugees

      by Martin A. Lee from AlterNet

"Not everyone who flees to Canada wants to be high-profile like Boje and the Kubbys. Some find the means to stay and blend in with Vancouver's burgeoning ganja scene, while others hitch a ride on the underground reefer railway (an elusive network of safe-houses and sympathetic contacts) that transports them further up the coast or into the mountains of British Columbia where they can lie low and, if need be, disappear."

http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/21674/

Will the Boom Continue?

      by Doug Casey from LewRockwell.com

"Because of the absurd War on Terror, anyone from the Middle East who keeps substantial capital in the U.S. has to be an imbecile. But where, then, to put their money? Before Dubai, there was no place within the Arab culture that was safe. Now there is. It's safer than America, and much more profitable."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/casey9.html

How to Deal with a Threatening Island

      by N. Joseph Potts from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"Cuba needs a sponsor -- an economic one first and foremost, and after that, a military one, just like the Soviet Union used to be. Like international entrepreneurs everywhere, young Cuban managers now travel to Shanghai and other commercial centers in China. The president of China, Hu Jintao, visited Cuba in 2004 even while Chinese cargo vessels unloaded in Cuban ports under the watchful eye of American satellites, which for all their acuity, cannot see inside crates and containers."

http://www.mises.org/story/1777

The New World Hegemon

Depictions of the coming Imperial power

Democracy, Birds, And Snails -- Oh...Hell

      by Fred Reed from FredOnEverything

"We are seeing I think that letting people govern themselves doesn’t work. I don’t say that it is undesirable, but merely impractical. (Letting them think they have power, however, is splendidly sensible, as it keeps them quiescent.) More succinctly, democracies aren’t stable. They tend toward well-fed dictatorship. Why? Because the bright, grasping, and conscienceless inevitably rise."

http://www.fredoneverything.net/ItAin'tBurundi.shtml

Whitewashing Rumsfeld

      by Nat Hentoff from The Village Voice

"In my recent column 'Defendant Rumsfeld' (March 23-29), I had space for only a small part of the extensive, documented cases of torture and other abuses in the ACLU and Human Rights First lawsuit filed on March 1 against the ever self-confident Rumsfeld."

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0514,hentoff,62692,6.html

The dangerous death penalty

      by Vox Day from WorldNetDaily

"The inescapable truth is that people have far more to fear from their own government than they do from violent criminals living in their midst. In the 20th century, national governments killed an estimated 185 million people -- far more than the 8.4 million murders estimated to have been committed by criminals."

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43625

Politics by Other Means

War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.

Democratic Relativism

      by Sheldon Richman from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"But political and moral matters, such as the proper scope of government or when force is permissible, are within the grasp of nearly everyone. Republicans did not switch on education or Medicare or nation building because a trusted specialist advised them to. They switched because the political cultural circles they move in shifted (as a strategy to win)."

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0412b.asp

Another Commission Recommends Bureaucratic Buffet to Fix U.S. Intelligence

      by Ivan Eland from The Independent Institute

"The recommendations of the two panels are typical of such 'independent' commissions in the nation's capital. Usually composed of ex-members of Congress and former high-level bureaucrats, they instinctively prescribe adding bureaucracy as a remedy for any ill. Furthermore, they usually get so wound up in what to recommend that they lose sight of the original problem that they were asked to examine."

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1490

The Republicanization of the Democratic Party

      by Anthony Gregory from LewRockwell.com

"The moral in all of this is that partisan politics is a failed approach to securing liberty, that both parties are committed to expanding their power as they merge and become increasingly indistinguishable. Neither party wants to give up power, so they both compete mainly by offering more government to snag the voters they do not yet have."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory69.html

Spontaneous Order

Articles showing decentralized successes.

The Magic of Oil Prices

      by J. Bishop Grewell from A Better Earth

"As the world oil supply declines, it will become more costly to obtain. Just like a rare baseball card or vintage wine, its price will go up. Eventually, the cost of oil will reach a point where alternate sources of energy are cheaper by comparison. At that point, we will leave the expensive remaining barrels of oil buried in the earth and switch to wind, solar, fuel cells, fusion, or whatever technology is more affordable."

http://www.abetterearth.org/article.php/1017.html

A Threat to Freedom of Speech in England

      by Philip A. Luty from The Libertarian Enterprise

"Free Speech is the foundation from which every other right has been built, and by which every right currently enjoyed can be defended. The Luty family believes in the individual right of Freedom of Speech. We will not be silenced by pressure from those who would like to control what we say and how we say it, or what we may write in our books and show on our websites!"

http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle313-20050403-02.html

Survival Instincts Drive Americans' Discontent

      by Radley Balko from FOXNews.com

"It's human nature. That vestiges of the drive that kept us alive throughout the millennia makes malcontents of us now is an unfortunate blip in our psychiatry, but it's no reason to hold up progress, particularly when there are still so many people in the world who'd love to have the 'problems' we endure as Americans."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,152680,00.html

Nonspontaneous Disorder

Articles showing centrally planned disasters.

1040 Plunder

      by Lee S. Wishing from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"Believe it or not, the federal government is going to give me $646 of your money. The formula on Form 8812 -- the Additional Child Tax Credit form -- that determines I get an extra pile of dough is complex. I checked the calculation and it was correct. I called a tax accountant and he said it was correct. But is it right?"

http://www.mises.org/story/1779

Don't Count on Washington to Protect us From Looming Banking Crisis

      by Edwin Vieira, Jr. from NewsWithViews.com

"Have the American people no recourse, then? Is this country not a 'democracy'? Cannot political action at the 'grassroots' level force politicians to reform the monetary and banking systems before it is too late? Unfortunately, the answer is 'probably not', for several reasons."

http://www.newswithviews.com/Vieira/edwin6.htm

Stupid airport security

      by Walter E. Williams from Townhall.com

"On several occasions, having gone through screening without setting off any alarms, I've been pulled aside for additional screening. Imagine that you're there with a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) supervisor and I'm being subjected to additional screening. You offer him a bet whereby if Williams is discovered to be in possession of something that endangers security -- a knife, gun or bomb -- you'll pay him $5,000, and if I'm not, he'll pay you $100. Do you think he'll take your offer? I'm betting he wouldn't."

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20050406.shtml

War Is The Health Of The State

War is the ultimate State intervention in society.

Global Eye

      by Chris Floyd from The Moscow Times

"So let's have no illusions about where we are. Gangsters are in charge, and nothing and no one will be allowed to challenge their dominion. They are waging aggressive war to cement their position and that of their allies: the energy barons, the arms merchants, the construction and services cartels, the investment bankers."

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/08/120.html

Regime Change Was an Immoral Excuse for War

      by Jacob G. Hornberger from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"The attacks on 9/11 provided new impetus for regime change in Iraq, despite the fact that neither the Iraqi people nor their government had had anything to do with those attacks. But Bush knew that 9/11 had generated tremendous fear within the American people and that people placed tremendous faith in the federal government after those attacks: Americans were unlikely to question anything he said or did with respect to foreign policy."

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0504c.asp

Who's Better Off?

      by Hon. Ron Paul Of Texas from The Free Liberal

"We have lost our way by rejecting the beliefs that made our country great. We no longer trust in trade, friendship, peace, the Constitution, and the principle of neutrality while avoiding entangling alliances with the rest of the world. Spreading the message of hope and freedom by setting an example for the world has been replaced by a belief that use of armed might is the only practical tool to influence the world -- and we have accepted, as the only superpower, the principle of initiating war against others."

http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/000973.html

Bits of History

The Past seen with a fresh look.

Slavery and National ID: A Portent of Things to Come?

      by Carl Watner from voluntaryist.com

"[T]he whole premise of National ID is that the government owns the citizen, and must provide the citizenry with identification, beginning with a state-issued birth certificate. In principle, this is just the same as it was during the time of American slavery. Every Negro was presumed a slave unless the government (or his master, actually ex-master) documented that he was a free person."

http://www.voluntaryist.com/books/nis/slavery_natl_id.php

Still the State's Greatest Living Enemy

      by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"He also acquired knowledge during his forays with diverse ideological groups: from the Left, he came to fully appreciate the power of protest and from the right, he came to fully appreciate the political implications of cultural institutions as well as the moral necessity of decentralized politics."

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1788&id=79

Florida, Rome and Monaco

      by Jim Davies from Strike The Root

"Small countries nestling between bigger ones in Europe, and scattered around the Caribbean, have specialized in offering theft-protection services to those who manage to make a buck or two, and under [Rainier's] leadership, Monaco was in the top rank. Good for him!"

http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/davies/davies8.html

War and Peace

Articles showing the nature of War.

In Defense of John Paul II, Peacemaker

      by Justin Raimondo from Antiwar.com

In life, the War Party attacked him: now they pretend to mourn his death

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=5441

Empty Rhetoric for Veterans

      by Congressman Ron Paul from The Price of Liberty

"We can best honor both our veterans and our current armed forces by pursuing a coherent foreign policy. No veteran should ever have to look back and ask himself, 'Why were we over there in the first place?' Too often history demonstrates that wars are fought for political and economic reasons, rather than legitimate national security reasons. Supporting the troops means never putting them in harm's way unless America is truly threatened."

http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/05/04/06/ronpaul.htm

The Anti-War Pope

      by John Nichols from The Nation

"John Paul II was an early, consistent, passionate and always outspoken critic of the president's scheming to invade Iraq. The Pope went so far as to meet with world leaders who were close to Bush, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, in a high-profile attempt to prevent the war. Finally, the Pope sent a special envoy to Washington -- Cardinal Pio Laghi, who has long been close to the Bush family -- to try and derail the administration's rush to war."

http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=2308

Great Individuals In History

Some people stand out from the crowd.

Writer - Washington Irving : April 3, 1789

      from Literature Network

"In 1832 Irving returned to New York to an enthusiastic welcome as the first American author to have achieved international fame. He toured the southern and western United States and wrote The Cayon Miscellany(1835) and A Tour Of The Prairies (1835)."

http://www.online-literature.com/irving/

Medical Pioneer - Joseph Lister : Apr. 5, 1827

      from UK Online

"Opposition was great In England and the United States mainly against Lister's germ theory rather than against his 'carbolic treatment.' Edinburgh was regarded as a provincial centre, despite the ancient fame of its medical school. Surgeons were prepared to await for clear proof that antisepsis constituted a major advance. Lister knew that before the usefulness of his work would be generally accepted he must convince London."

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/b.gardner/Lister.html

Singer - Billie Holiday : Apr. 7, 1915

      by Scott Yanow from LadyDay.Net

"During 1935-42 she would make some of the finest recordings of her career, jazz-oriented performances in which she was joined by the who's who of swing. Holiday sought to combine together Louis Armstrong's swing and Bessie Smith's sound; the result was her own fresh approach."

http://www.ladyday.net/life/yanow.html

Culcha'

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

The Miracle Worker (1962)

      Reviewed by Tom Ender from Endervidualism

"The story, both Oscar-winning performances, as well as the work by the other supporting actors and the excellent direction of Arthur Penn, who was also nominated for an Oscar, make The Miracle Worker a must see movie."

http://endervidualism.com/agora/miracle_worker_1962.htm

The Hippie and the Redneck Can Be Friends

      by Jesse Walker from Reason

"Once the ideals and fashions of Haight-Ashbury had leaked into the rest of the country, there was no predicting the ways they'd be adapted to local circumstances. By this point, those rednecks weren't just jeering the same sheriff as the hippies. Some of them were growing their hair, smoking weed, and listening to trippy music."

http://www.reason.com/0504/cr.jw.the.shtml

The Language of Love for Polyamorists

      by John von Radowitz from Scotsman.com

"They believe in free love and multiple relationships, but not casual sex, and enjoy feeling 'frubbly'. As a group they practice 'polyamory' -- the latest social phenomenon to cross the Atlantic to Britain, it emerged today. Polyamorists have relationships that are wide open. Despite having numerous partners, they are emotionally committed and do not cheat."

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4346001

The lighter side

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

Local Fox Affiliate Debuts Terror-Alert Van

      from The Onion

"Touting itself as 'the only channel with a terror-alert system designed to meet the specific needs of central Tennessee,' Fox News affiliate WMFB-TV Channel 11 debuted its terror-alert van Monday."

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4114

The Schiavo Trap -- A persistently vegetative public-service message.

      by Matt Taibbi from New York Press

"'And every one of those six thousand reporters repeated the accusation -- and a lot of other stuff,' I say. 'Because that's what we do these days -- we just shove anything that's good copy into print no matter how nuts it is, and then we justify it by saying, "Well, this other guy said it".'"

http://www.nypress.com/18/14/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

Commissions We'd Like to See

      by Mark Fiore from The Village Voice

Flash animated cartoon

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0514,fiore,62866,9.html

Deep Thought

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

The Hardest Sell

      by Scarmig from Strike The Root

"One of the great cornerstones of liberty is that the ends do not justify the means. It may be easier to make a thousand dollars by sticking a gun in someone's face, but that doesn't make it right. It is the principle of coercion that we abhor and wish to see chopped down at the root. It is easier to rally the police and demand they allow smoking or speeding or whatever the freedom du jour is rather than deal with the individuals seeking to limit our behavior. But the use of coercion sours that freedom."

http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/scarmig/scarmig1.html

I'm a Heartless Bastard

      by Jonathan David Morris from The Free Liberal

"Americans are great at making character assessments based on precious little information. ... Sprite commercials tell us, 'Image is nothing, thirst is everything,' but everyone knows that's just the image Sprite wants us to have of its product. Image is everything in America -- not because we’re superficial (though we are), but because image is all we have time for."

http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/000961.html

Trying the Free Market: Presumed Guilty

      by Anthony de Jasay from Library of Economics and Liberty

"The whole 'entitlements' theory of justice is going about it the wrong way round. The point to [be] prove[n] is not that each individual is entitled to the fruits of his efforts (or to what he has exchanged them for), but that somebody else is entitled to take such fruits away from him."

http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2005/Jasayguilty.html

Miscellany

Articles not easily classified

A Wolf in Banker's Clothing

      by Fred E. Foldvary from The Progress Report

"Wolfowitz did say that the oil of Iraq is the property of the Iraqi people. Will he generalize that to all natural resources, and will he recognize the corollary, that a worker's labor is not the property of all the people? Wolfowitz also declared that the best policy is freedom. We will see what he means by that. As to bringing a war wolf into economic development, what opponents of war are overlooking is that this appointment gets him out of the Pentagon! What is worse: messing up some third-world economies, or engaging in war?"

http://www.progress.org/2005/fold396.htm

The Economics of the End of Life

      by William Anderson from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"When medical care is tax supported, then people who in other circumstances would not be considered part of the decision making process, suddenly are given veto power. That is the nature of the political beast, and as long as government has been in existence, the beast has lived a very predictable life."

http://www.mises.org/story/1785

Freedom Riders on film

      by Robyn E. Blumner from St. Petersburg Times

"They had come to protest the distant cages - known euphemistically as 'First Amendment zones' - into which dissenters are corraled at every presidential visit. The video they made of the arrest is pure political theater. Here is the awesome power of the state amassed to rid the USF campus of a dire threat: messages critical of the president. If you didn't know better, you'd think the scene was something out of Castro's Cuba."

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/03/Columns/Freedom_Riders_on_film.shtml

 

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