Architecture of Liberal Democracy; Irrationality of Large Organizations; New Libertarian Movement; The Terminal; these articles have their titles and text in this color and are featured this week in -
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;
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"Banister left public practice as a CPA in 1993 to become an armed, criminal investigator in the IRS Criminal Investigation Division. But he says he resigned after six years because he was 'unable to resolve conflicts' between the way the IRS administered the federal income tax and his oath of office."
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44956
"After reaching the conclusion that the ruling does not invalidate the state's program, the Oregon Department of Human Services has resumed issuing medical marijuana cards, and expects to be caught up from a backlog of applications this week."
http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/062305mmjupdate.cfm
"When you elevate your government to the role of a god, it can give and take what it wants from you. No amount of respect and admiration for an inanimate object will change this. If you give up your right to desecrate the flag, you give up your right to criticize your government. And if you give up your right to criticize your government . . . well, you give up your rights."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/morris/morris8.html
"Thomas also wrote an excellent dissent which I'm sure had Jane Jacobs nodding approval. He called the decision 'far-reaching and dangerous,' and noting correctly that those displaced by urban renewal and 'slum clearance' over the years have tended to be lower-income members of minority groups. 'The court has erased the Public Use Clause from our Constitution'." Alexander Cockburn praising Clarence Thomas, indeed we live in interesting times.
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn06252005.html
"The FBI will write its own subpoenas -- just as British customs officials in the colonies did before the American Revolution -- using general search warrants (writs of assistance) to go into homes and offices at will to look for contraband. These raids so inflamed 18th-century Americans that the 'general search warrant' was one of the precipitating causes of our revolution.'
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0526,hentoff,65319,6.html
"Mr. Sensenbrenner's jail-centric approach reflects a broader social phenomenon, and a troubling one. The criminal sanction is supposed to be a last resort, reserved for the most serious offenses to civil peace. But more and more, it's becoming government's first line of attack - a way for lawmakers to show that they're serious about whatever is the perceived social problem of the month."
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3883
"The long progress of human history was a steady erosion of authority. Monarchs, aristocrats, popes, fascists and communists are kaput and entirely discredited as 'liberators.' They still exist, obviously, and billions of faithful serfs continue to sanction Leaders to absolve themselves of individual responsibility and self-government. But an unconquered minority of thoughtful men and women worldwide won't wear chains for anybody. For these best and bravest, liberty and justice are the essential purpose of political struggle."
http://endervidualism.com/wdevoon/arch_lib_democracy.htm
"[I]t is up to you, dear reader. It always was and it always will be. Much as the state and the parasitical classes that feed off of it try to obscure things, the truth about the state, the law, and obedience to it are as obvious as the air you breathe in and out every moment of your life. My formulation of it all is this: It is your life, so you can decide. Not much as a formal syllogism, but hopefully easy to understand."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/massoud/massoud13.html
"As unusual as their ways of transportation and dress code may have been, they found ways around it to bring their wares to the people and supply them with their needs. Their reoccurring appearance made them a reliable source of supplying the community with goods that would have been more difficult to come by during those years."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/barnhart/barnhart34.html
"Neither America nor anyone can turn Afghanistan into a modern state, aka Brave New World. In attempting to do so, we have launched broadscale assaults on Afghanistan's rural economy and culture, guaranteeing that the Pashtun countryside will eventually turn against us. Afghan wars are decided in the countryside, not in Kabul."
http://www.counterpunch.org/lind06222005.html
"[T]he biggest security risk to your financial and identity information? It's the IRS. According to a congressional report released Monday, April 18, the IRS leaks like a sieve. Therefore, if you want to keep your identity secure, your money safe, and your life private, it's clear you not only want to start using cash, you also don't want to supply the IRS with anymore info!"
http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle324-20050619-04.html
"The idea of a public trial is to ensure that government prosecutorial actions are exposed to public view, so as to discourage abuses of prosecutorial power. The old English Star Chamber, whose proceedings were held in secret and which was a model for prosecutorial abuse, comes to mind. So does Germany's People’s Court under the Hitler regime."
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0502a.asp
"[A]s long as the 'dark side' of humanity is being exploited for political ends, the same deadly games will continue; the political show will go on. The costumes may change -- no more brown-shirts, knee-high black boots, or swagger sticks; and no martial music to accompany a goose-stepping choreography. Plastic-encased ID cards will replace swastika armbands as indicia of authority, while 'ATF' jacket insignias will take the place of 'SS' lapel pins."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer109.html
"[T]he Downing Street memos and the media coverage they are receiving are already giving the Bush administration fits as they try to slow down a train that has already left the station. British Prime Minister Tony Blair's early decision that it would be a fool's errand to challenge the authenticity of the papers has prevented the White House from labeling them spurious. Thus, the administration has concluded that smoke, rather than denial, is what is indicated."
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050622/fixed_is_fixed.php
"Guantanamo violates the Geneva Conventions, international and U.S. law. There are reports that in the rest of the secret U.S. gulags in Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Diego Garcia, even worse crimes are being committed against those suspected of anti-U.S. activities."
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2005/06/19/1095168-sun.html
"If only the congressional Democrats who oppose this war -- or say they do -- would drop the partisan blinders and combine with Republicans such as Jones, Ron Paul, and others to hold this administration accountable for its actions in Iraq. For the life of me, I can't imagine that Rep. John Conyers, who chaired mock hearings on the war in the House basement the other day, thought to extend an invitation to his antiwar colleagues on the other side of the aisle."
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6392
"We all know where this is headed. Sooner or later there is going to be a serious discussion in this country about a draft.... The Republicans will fiercely resist any talk about it, while the 'pragmatic' Democrats, ever on the lookout for an opportunity to look tough, will drag them kicking and screaming into dat dere brier patch."
http://www.nypress.com/18/25/news&columns/taibbi.cfm
"This erosion of support has emboldened some thinking members of Congress to propose a resolution calling for the president to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq by October 1, 2006. The sponsors of the resolution come from across the political spectrum, including a liberal, a moderate, a conservative, and a libertarian. Although the resolution does not specify a date for the completion of the draw down, it is a long overdue exercise of Congress's underused constitutional role of determining whether, when, and where U.S. forces are in harm's way around the world."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1524
"We live in a state capitalist economy where the state has cartelized most industries: by anti-competitive regulations; by subsidies to operating costs that render corporations artificially profitable at sizes far above maximum economy of scale; and by subsidies to capital- and skill- and R&D-intensiveness that artificially increase the minimum feasible size and otherwise raise entry barriers. We live in an economy, in short, where the average corporation has all the internal inefficiencies and irrationalities of a planned economy--but is able to survive because the taxpayers foot the bill for so many of the diseconomies of scale."
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/06/on-irrationality-of-large.html
"When law and public policy favor the system of eminent domain and the use of publicly owned lands and waters for whatever happens to be in democratic demand, the result is akin to a zero sum game: the favored policy or law wins and the disfavored one loses. Whereas in the free market there are many demands that get satisfied to a greater or lesser extent."
http://www.mises.org/story/1844
"The film posits a criminal conspiracy behind a devastating economic depression. That's only half the story -- Austrians know that the criminal intervention is a conspiracy of bankers and politicians -- but that's already more than I ever expected to get from Hollywood film writers. As Murray Rothbard would say: their suspicions are right, even if they don't have all the detail...."
http://www.bkmarcus.com/blog/2005/06/der-fledermaus-mann-fngt.html
"As things stand, the majority rules. Governments may take private property and give it to anyone they like; all they must do is proclaim that this serves a public purpose. How in principle can one show otherwise? The Court has spoken: it will not second-guess such decrees."
http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=6991
"The government's insistence on solving problems related to health care in this country have yielded dismal results. The cost of health care has spiraled over the last three decades and can be linked to a rise in government funding and regulation. Innovations in treatment and prevention have been stifled and accesses to certain treatments have been blocked by government bureaucrats."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/antunez/antunez7.html
"[T}hough Canadian politicians can't give their citizens a date certain when there'll be no more waiting, they're determined to deny them alternatives to waiting for government-provided healthcare. I'd bet you the rent money that Prime Minister Martin and members of the Canadian Parliament don't have to wait months and years for a medical procedure."
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20050622.shtml
"That murderous contraption, as libertarians are well aware, is the State: fueled by looted wealth and the illusions of its citizens, it runs over lives and crushes all that dare stand in its way. Yet it needs constant infusions of legitimacy as it wreaks havoc and devastation, and that is the role of the War Party and its intellectual spokesmen, laptop bombardiers of the Brooks-Boots persuasion."
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6429
"How has the line between the police and the military become so blurred? Or better yet, degraded and eroded? There must be an explanation. Could it have anything to do with the War on [Insert Whatever]? Whenever people say, 'There ought to be a law' what they're saying, even though they rarely understand it, is that ultimately the police should be allowed to stick a gun in someone's face -- or even kill them -- to make them follow the law, no matter how stupid or immoral that law is."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/wallace213.html
"The strategic importance of Uzbekistan for the United States far transcends Afghanistan, for the American military presence there provides Washington with significant leverage in the vital heart of energy-rich Central Asia, with its oil and gas fields stretching eastward from the Caspian Sea to [the] border of China."
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_uzbek.htm
"What happened then, in both cases, is that the hardcore activists fell aside (or at least out of press coverage) in favor of those arguing for moderation in the pursuit of Power. We are now reaping the results of those choices."
http://wconger.blogspot.com/2005/06/building-new-libertarian-movement.html
"The first modern welfare state was a Machiavellian strategy on the part of Otto von Bismarck, the architect of the German Empire. There was nothing ideological about it. Bismarck knew that the impoverished masses were in favor of liberalism. The poor of the 19th century understood that free markets and free trade would improve their lives, and they recognized mercantilism, protectionism, and other forms of statist privilege as the enemies and oppressors of common people. "
http://www.bkmarcus.com/blog/2005/06/we-are-all-bismarckians-now.html
"Even sadder, those who adhere to the ideals of the founders are a distinct minority in this land. Those who stand on the side of true liberty, true religious freedom as the founders intended, limited government, free enterprise and the rights of men are considered radicals today, just as they were in 1776. This being the case, what we need today is a return to radicalism."
http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/05/06/20/adams.htm
"Bush's Iraq war is the first war for which Americans have not known the reason. The reasons they were given by their president, vice president, secretary of defense, national security advisor, secretary of state, and the sycophantic media were nothing but a pack of lies."
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts06212005.html
"Saddam Hussein's regime showed ruthless disregard for the rights of its citizens. But the oil-for-food program, with all of its flaws, did save lives and many more could have been saved had their been more revenue available and had the UNCC showed more urgent compassion for humanitarian concerns."
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/kelly.php?articleid=6440
"Today, after nearly four years since 9/11, the American people still do not know that thousands of lives can be jeopardized under the unspoken policy of 'protecting certain foreign business relations.' The victims family members still do not realize that information and answers they have sought relentlessly for almost 4 years has been blocked due to the unspoken decisions made and disguised under 'safeguarding certain diplomatic relations'."
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/06/con05208.html
"The events of All Quiet on the Western Front are those in the daily routine of soldiers who seem to have no past or future apart from their life in the trenches. It's title, the language of routine communiqués, is typical of its cool, terse style, which records the daily horrors of war in laconic understatement."
http://remarque.org/about_remarque.html
"[S]he turned down a role in the musical 'On The Twentieth Century' because she found the role - of a dotty woman impersonating an evangelist - to be too tawdry. The role went to Imogene Coca."
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0622450/bio
"The boy was also deeply influenced by the jazz style of Chicago guitarist George Barnes, the western swing of Sons of the Pioneers picker Karl Farr and the Kentucky fingerpicking stylist Merle Travis, all of whom he listened to on the radio."
http://www.misterguitar.com/bios/chetbio1.html
"The Terminal uses a very specific and unusual situation as a microcosm to make perceptive criticisms of American society. ... As an agent of the State, Frank Dixon provides a capsule version of what is skewing American society. Stanley Tucci is almost as dislikable playing Dixon, as Tom Hanks is admirable in his role as Viktor. Spielberg's direction is masterful."
http://endervidualism.com/agora/terminal_2004.htm
"Faced with bad publicity and local bans on comics, the major publishers adopted the Comics Code Authority. Officially, the code was meant to clean up comics. Unofficially, it was meant to put EC Comics out of business. In addition to prohibiting profanity and 'excessive' violence, the Code decreed that government officials and institutions could not be portrayed in any way that would 'create disrespect for established authority'."
http://www.reason.com/0506/cr.fh.the.shtml
"The hidden lesson of Episode III is that the Dark Side triumphs in societies when Good adopts its methods. When those who claim to be the guardians of good against the threat of evil adopt the methods of evil, what distinguishes them from evil? How are they any different?"
http://www.mises.org/story/1834
"The 14 democratic member nations of the Middle Eastern Union unanimously voted to declare war on the U.S. Monday, calling the North American country a 'dangerous rogue state that must be contained'." Future News from 2056 this week.
http://www.theonion.com/2056-06-22/news/1/
"Dr. Colson McLeod, who supervised the study, said that with the proliferation of reality shows on nearly every cable TV network, it is nearly impossible to find an American who has not already had his home, car or face made over by a team of experts."
http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=1158
Animated flash cartoon
http://villagevoice.com/news/0525,fiore,65314,9.html
"We reject the idea that psychology, however humanistic and liberationist, can be a general provider of salvation. This is not to say that psychology has not made impressive progress."
http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/0000000CABF8.htm
"Nineteenth-century German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss used to joke that he could calculate before he could talk. Maybe it was no joke. Recent work casts doubt on the notion that language underlies mathematical ability and perhaps other forms of abstract thinking."
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=00082FD0-4578-1289-837D83414B7FFE9F
"The attempt to apply logic to a disagreement is always based on formal parallels. Their purpose is to separate the underlying principle from the distractions of particular circumstance. Sometimes this involves finding less emotional examples, and sometimes it requires more emotional ones. "
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/marcus3.html
"After all, the last refuge of a scoundrel is patriotism, and the scoundrels infesting the capital, who put this country into an unwinnable and pointless war based upon lies, along with the gutless sycophants in Congress who backed them, are now being increasingly called to account by an American public finally grown weary of the war and the lies. What to do? Dredge up that moldering corpse -- the flag protection amendment."
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff06242005.html
"When Mark Fisher protested quizzing his 12-year-old daughter about oral sex (among other topics), the school authorities asserted their right to gather such information without his consent. The questionnaire is not limited to Massachusetts; it is nationwide."
http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2005/0622.html
"What are the Derys and Ms. Kelo to think about their city council persons? What are they to think about their neighbors who fail to stand up for their property rights by denouncing these politicians, shunning them like the plague and voting them out of office? The only moral feelings they can have are resentment, and a sense of violation and deep injustice."
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/mediacenter/articles/ehudgins_rff-kelo-fascism.asp
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