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"At this point, we are so awash in documented wrongdoing that nearly anyone (in just one month's time) can be shown enough to completely neutralize decades of government brainwashing. The government on the other hand enjoys no such luxury. What has taken them decades to create cannot be regained in a month a year or even a lifetime. Once a person 'sees' the truth with their own eyes, the gig is up." Perhaps this should go in an Anti-political Liberty section, but I don't have one of those, yet.
http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/plummer/plummer1.html
"Write, write, write. Write for libertarian publications, write for conservative publications, write for liberal publications. Write letters to the editor of every publication you see. Hold meetings, in your home and elsewhere, to organize the Vote for No Incumbent campaign."
http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle336-20050911-02.html
"The Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act would simply acknowledge what the majority of Americans acknowledged up until 1865; we are a voluntary union and member states are bound by federal laws and are under federal protection only as long as a member state of the union remains within the union."
http://www.etherzone.com/2005/adam091405.shtml
"Many readers see a concocted militarization of civil society. They insist that these new precedents, together with the recent federal appeals court ruling that the White House has the power to seize American citizens and to hold them indefinitely on mere suspicion or accusation without charges or presentation of evidence against them, mean the overthrow of liberty and accountable government in the United States."
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=7235
"At this point, all I can say to the mainstream media is: Keep it up. Keep affirming your role as co-conspirators in the destruction of this country. Keep proving you're nothing more than shameless shills for the State. In the end, it is YOU who are creating the market for Alternative Media, establishing it as a legitimate/more reliable source, and cutting your own ties to the minds of the masses. Bravo."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/plummer/plummer2.html
"Terrorism is a monstrous crime, and those guilty of it hardly merit our sympathy. But without due process, it is impossible to protect the innocent. The whole reason we have due process is that the government cannot be trusted with unchecked absolute power over life and liberty. False imprisonment is a fundamental attack on justice and means that, in the case of an actual crime, the guilty have yet to be caught. Over hundreds of years, Western Civilization has developed procedural strictures on power -- from Habeas Corpus and Jury Nullification to the right of the accused to have an attorney and confront his accuser -- most of which are enshrined in the American Constitution and its Bill of Rights."
http://independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1570
"[D]oesn't it strike you as odd that the bunch of people who proclaim themselves as knowing more about economics and business and the market than everybody else on earth avoid the marketplace like poison? They have all gone to the government and asked to be granted non-profit status -- i.e., they have asked the government to protect them from the very economic forces they claim to advocate. Why don't the 'libertarians' quit running their mouths and show us by example how much they love the marketplace?"
http://endervidualism.com/salon/intvw/hoy.htm
"Neither the state nor the marketplace has a monopoly on wisdom, efficacy, or motivation. People can be well- or ill-motivated in either sector. The primary distinction between a political system, and a non-political, free-market system, is whether some people will be allowed to use violence against others to achieve their desired ends. By definition, the marketplace eschews coercive means; by its nature, the state is organized force."
http://lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer119.html
"One alternative to coup d'etat is a natural outgrowth of Konkin's counter-economics -- piracy. Libertarians are often said to be in favor of 'privatizing everything.' But privatization through state-conducted initiatives is in reality often just the fencing of stolen goods. The state says to its political class supporters, 'hang on to this asset, so it can be nominally privatized' -- without the original theft or the issue of inability of a bandit gang to legitimately own or trade anything being addressed. If state and political class assets are to both be privatized, then the only ethical way to do it is to acknowledge, as Rothbard did, that state-owned resources are in actuality unowned resources -- and thus, open to homesteading by those who are capable of being legitimate owners." Piracy is also timely and topical as Sept. 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day !!!
http://www.rationalreview.com/content/882
"Libertarians need wonder if the Official Disaster Planners, ensconced in their comfortable offices and spending millions in taxpayer money, ever made any plans for actually using those buses. Libertarians need wonder if they ever conferred with the actual people in their actual neighborhoods about using those buses. But then, does a chess master discuss strategy with his pawns? No wonder authorities didn't want to let the wayward bus people into the Astrodome. How can authorities be 'rescuers' if their damned 'victims' won't sit still on their rooftops and die while awaiting their righteous rescuers?"
http://www.freecannon.com/CollapseOfPC.htm
"In the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, dozens of neighbors banded together to protect their neighborhood. 'There's about 20 or 30 guys in addition to us. We know all of them and where they are,' Gregg Harris said. 'People armed themselves so quickly, rallying together. I think it's why [our] neighborhood survived'."
http://www.gunowners.org/no02.htm
"They were armed with an arsenal gathered from the neighborhood -- a shotgun, pistols, a flare gun and a Vietnam-era AK-47. They were backed up by Gregg Harris, who lives in the house with Pervel, and Pervel's 74-year-old mother, Jennie, who lives across Pelican Street from her son and is known in Algiers Point as 'Miss P.' Many nights, Miss P. had a .38-caliber pistol in one hand and rosary beads in the other."
http://www.oxfordpress.com/news/content/shared/news/nation/stories/09/10KATRINA_ALGIERS.html
"Make no mistake. The state did not fail in New Orleans. It succeeded. It did just what its logic drives it to do. It acted in the interests of its masters, a handful of the privileged. Before the universal protection of citizens' lives, it put the selective securing of property. And when reconstruction begins we will again see lives displaced by the manipulation of the market as the forced reconstruction/gentrification of New Orleans begins, as it has begun in cities all over the country."
http://lewrockwell.com/orig6/rajiva1.html
"The US invasion of Iraq was based on the deliberate suppression of fact. The invasion was not the result of mistaken intelligence. It was based on deliberately concocted 'intelligence' designed to deceive the US Congress, the American public, and the United Nations."
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts09162005.html
"The perversion of foreign aid is that it creates a dependency that makes it very difficult to eliminate it in the future because of the suffering this might bring. That is not to say people in rich countries should not be free to make private donations. Of course, they should and they do. But unlike private donors, governments are driven by political pressure to persist in their policies at the expense of citizens who have no choice in the matter."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1571
"This natural progression from being a liberal democrat of conservative views to a libertarian and then to a market anarchist was a common path that many if not most of us followed. As one's understanding of political philosophy increased along with one's life experiences the migration from conservative to libertarian or even anarcho-capitalist was a logical progression of thought for many."
http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/001407.html
"Can anyone in Washington or Baghdad's Emerald City see this opportunity? ... Perhaps Clausewitz's most central point is that war and politics are always intermixed. We cannot win the war in Iraq. But just as war may come when politics fails, so politics must take the lead when a war is being lost."
http://www.counterpunch.org/lind09152005.html
"Four years after 9/11, those limits are less narrow than they were. But mass media and politicians still facilitate the destructive policies of the Bush administration. From Baghdad to New Orleans to cities and towns that will never make headlines in the national press, the dominant corporate priorities have made a killing. Those priorities hold sway not only for the Iraq war but also for the entire 'war on terrorism'."
http://www.antiwar.com/solomon/?articleid=7222
"The division of labor enables individuals together to produce more total goods even when some people are less productive at everything than others are. ... Everyone can prosper, albeit at different rates. If you need proof, compare what the official 'poor' in the United States own today against what they owned 30 years ago. If you haven't thought about this before, you will be astounded."
http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=7194
"[I]t is precisely the higher prices that occur in response to disasters that encourage the conservation of scarce goods. While private charity and good will are important after a disaster, we must also recognize the need to harness individual incentives to promote the common good as well. That means letting prices adjust to reflect the new economic realities that Katrina caused."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1569
"But how can the market and private enterprise and voluntary human action handle such a catastrophe? The answer is that the spontaneous order coordinates in three ways. One is by the price system, for commercial exchanges, as enterprises respond to profit and loss. The second is with voluntary sympathetic action, private charity. The third is with association in equality. The error people make about free markets is to believe that it consists of millions of atomistic individuals whose actions cannot be coordinated to respond to crises other than by central planning. But historically, human beings are always, already, in community. In a free society, they form voluntary local associations: land trusts, cooperatives, civic associations, condominiums, and proprietary communities."
http://www.progress.org/2005/fold420.htm
"If a private-sector employee performed as badly as the federal, state, and local governments performed before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina, he would be summarily fired. But the governments will claim their budgets were too small and proceed to extract more money from the taxpayers. That's how the political world works. And it's part of the reason that governments perform as miserably as they do."
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0509d.asp
"FEMA's boorish behavior underscores it real purpose, which is always to spend its budget and get good press doing it, because such activities will reflect well on the public sector. Contrast that with the goal of private relief organizations such as the Salvation Army or the Red Cross. Because their spending is limited to voluntary donations, they have a greater incentive to spend their funds in ways that bring the most benefit."
http://www.mises.org/story/1908
"[I]f there is a message in Hurricane Katrina, it's not that taxes are too low. Indeed, federal tax revenue is $225 billion higher than a year ago -- and up more than 50 percent in the last decade. Federal spending has been rising fast, too: It's back up to about 19.5 percent of gross domestic product, almost exactly the average of the postwar era. The problem is that it's much more fun politically to spend billions on highly visible, $225 million bridges to nowhere in Alaska than on stronger levees in New Orleans. In any case, America had large surpluses in the late 1990s, and nothing was done then to strengthen the levees either."
http://www.detnews.com/2005/editorial/0509/11/A19-309958.htm
"In the outpouring of individual compassion and cooperation following the disaster in New Orleans, the state discovered a threat to its existence. Political systems thrive only through division and conflict; by getting people to organize themselves into mutually-exclusive groups which then fight with one another. This is why 'war is the health of the state.' But if people can discover a sense of love and mutuality amongst them, how is the state to maintain the sense of continuing conflict upon which it depends?"
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer118.html
"As we've seen since 9/11 and what Robert Higgs has compellingly argued ... crises are indispensable for state growth. Government's approach is to make a half-hearted show of preventing them while often increasing our vulnerability, then seize the opportunity when calamity arrives. The state not only 'mobilizes its resources,' it expands them – rewarding the well-connected at the expense of everyone else."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/smith/smith1.html
"It isn't necessary to argue that 9/11 fundamentally changed the world-view of the Dark Suits; I won't argue it; I don't believe it. I'm contending only that the attack injured the Suits and shook them enough to disrupt their close management of the imperial System and provide an opening for the Likudniks to seize or consolidate their power in Washington."
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/lights137.htm
"With the advent of the Great Depression, the push on the part of federal officials to break free of their enumerated-powers straitjacket with respect to government welfare and economic regulation became too powerful, even for the federal courts. The argument was that since people were suffering all over the country from an 'economic emergency,' only the federal government could provide the necessary relief and, therefore, not even the Constitution should stand in the way of such an aim."
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0505a.asp
"Gaius Marius was elected consul four more times, and deservedly so. He defeated both the Teutoni and the Cimbri, killing some 165,000 Germans, and in doing so intimidated their Celtic allies into retreating from Cisalpine Gaul. Rome was saved, but at the price of its liberties. Within 20 years, Rome fought a civil war, was invaded twice by its own legions and endured two reigns of terror at the hands of its purported leaders. And 59 years later, Gaius Julius Caesar was not only elected consul for the fifth time, but dictator-for-life, effectively bringing an end to the Roman Republic after 466 years."
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46274
"After WW2 there was increasing pressure on the rail roads to convert from steam to diesel, as well. In 1945 almost all freight was transported by steam or electric. Within 10 years there were very few steam locomotives left in North America. In Europe this process took a little longer, steam finally being driven out in the early 1960's. This conversion process was a layer cake of disasters for both rail and the public."
http://porkupineblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/great-train-robbery.html
"To Americans of the late 19th century, 'allegiance' was a feudal concept denoting subservience to a master. Americans considered themselves sovereigns, not subjects. They feared that the natural supremacy of the individual over his government, as reflected by the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed in the constitutions of the United States and of the several states, might eventually be overturned by the ideas expressed in the Pledge."
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0505d.asp
"The 'war on terror' has brought into sharp relief the true nature of state power, and more importantly, the state's inability to fulfill its stated purpose of defending you and me against 'terrorists.' It's terrified we may discover the Emperor has no clothes, so is throwing all it has into the military and propaganda end game. What's more, the 'war on terror' cannot be won. It cannot be won because it is a war fought by states against non-states - using the old methods of state-to-state warfare."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/macgregor/macgregor4.html
"'What we see as significant is that they are considering using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear powers in preemptive first strikes,' said Ivan Oelrich of the Federation for American Scientists (FAS) about both the NPR and the new Doctrine. The Doctrine would also appear to contradict the administration's oft-stated claim that it is significantly reducing the role of nuclear weapons in its global military strategy."
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=7246
"Even after its Vietnam debacle, the U.S. military cannot effectively conduct counterinsurgency warfare. In Vietnam, U.S. forces destroyed villages to save them. The same is happening in Iraq and Tall Afar is a prime example."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1567
"Condorcet took a leading role in the 1789 French Revolution, which he saw as embodying a great hope for his 'rationalist' reconstruction of society. However, he voted against the execution of the Louis XVI and opposed the arrest of the Girodins. As a result of these principled moves, Condorcet was denounced as a traitor by the Jacobins and went into hiding in 1791."
http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/condorcet.htm
"Raised in rural central Pennsylvania, hampered by the lack of a formal education and nearly bankrupt by the time he was 30, Milton S. Hershey went on to become not only one of America's wealthiest individuals, but also a successful entrepreneur whose products are known the world over, a visionary builder of the town which bears his name and a philanthropist whose open-hearted generosity continues to touch the lives of thousands."
http://www.hersheys.com/discover/milton/milton.asp
"In 1934 she won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role opposite Clark Gable in the Frank Capra film, 'It Happened One Night.' Colbert epitomized witty sophistication when she starred in Preston Sturges' classic screwball comedy, 'The Palm Beach Story,' oppostite Joel McCrea."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudette_Colbert
"Stanley Kramer is well-known as a producer/director who made films with a significant degree of social and political relevance. On The Beach is solidly in that category, being the first movie that made a real impact in showing what consequences of nuclear war might be. It also shows how individuals may differ in facing the end of their lives, but still maintain courage in the face of death. The performances are all outstanding."
http://endervidualism.com/agora/on_beach_1959.htm
"Yes, it's time once again for the annual Hardyville Freedom Film Festival -- the world-renowned moment when my little mid-nowhere town of Hardyville becomes bigger than Cannes, Venice, or Telluride. This is the stellar event, the only one of its kind, that annually showcases great freedom films of every era and any part of the globe." There are some excellent nominations and your vote has some chance of helping select winners.
http://www.backwoodshome.com/columns/wolfe050915.html
"You wouldn't know it from the blathering of countless columnists, but while Katrina was busy disproving some non-existent policy of 'small government,' private citizens from Wal-Mart to New Orleans hoteliers proved their ability to keep functioning in an unreal city. It's a start--not only for the city's will to rebuild itself, but also for the inhabitants who hope to stick it out until then." I first read Dahlgren more than thirty years ago. Coincidentally, I started rereading it in fits and starts a while back.
http://www.reason.com/hod/bb091305.shtml
"I found 'Mars Shall Thunder' to be an engrossing story despite its quirks. While there are no explicit pro-freedom speeches from characters, nor polemics lurking in the omniscient perspective, it is ultimately a story of the right to self-determination, and succeeds in subtly delivering that message."
http://www.endervidualism.com/salon/books/devoon.htm
"[T]he Alliance of the Firefly universe is not New Camelot forging a path to the New Frontier. It is like most real governments: brutal and oppressive at its worst, annoying or indifferent at its best. Rather than a vehicle for uniting diverse cultures, it is a force for vested interests to maintain their status of privilege."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/crosby3.html
"Wake up, television executives of America: Jon Stewart - the wiseacre host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show - knows more about your business than you do."
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.09/stewart.html
"Forensic investigators say the digit is an index finger, measuring nearly three-quarters of an inch, and bearing a small signet ring embossed with a tree design. A spokesperson for Kellogg's, Keebler's parent company, denied responsibility for the incident." There is also this almost true short piece at the Onion.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40515
"The color-coded system consists of five different colors, each corresponding to the government's degree of sluggishness, Mr. Chertoff explained, using a chart and a pointer to demonstrate the system for reporters."
http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=1215
"Singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson wrote 'Men At Sea' for the Pirate film 'Yellowbeard' and sang 'Black Sails in the Moonlight' on an album produced by former-Beatle John Lennon. With a nod towards these swashbuckling forays, the Harry Nilsson Web Pages honors 'Talk Like a Pirate Day' each September 19th by automatically translating itself into pirate-speak. For those who cannot wait for 'Talk Like a Pirate Day,' a preview is available at http://pirate.harrynilsson.com/." Ahoy, matey. Thar she blows.
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/9/emw283410.htm
"People just don't want to listen, and they really do not understand the dangers of power. At least not in the sense we do. How come people so eagerly support a leader and so decisively oppose liberty? One not too edifying explanation might be the evolutionary change in the composition of the brain."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/bylund/bylund2.html
"Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), the most important thinker who has ever lived, advanced a body of thought with respect to the development of the components of a market economy. He analyzed the economic processes surrounding him and endeavored to delineate the place of economy within a society that included commercial buying and selling. It follows that Aristotle's economic writings continue to attract the interest of contemporary thinkers. His economic thought (especially his value theory) is insightful but occasionally contradictory and inconsistent."
http://www.quebecoislibre.org/05/050915-11.htm
"To date, the most notable thing about activists' response to new reproductive technologies has been the lack of it, especially when compared to the clamor surrounding every other aspect of abortion. It sometimes seems as though the two extremes want to shout rather than consider solutions."
http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2005/0914.html
"No one disputes that fingerprinting is a valuable and generally reliable police tool, but despite more than a century of use, fingerprinting has never been scientifically validated. This is significant because of the criteria governing the admission of scientific evidence in the US courts."
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18725174.500
"Our proposal to shield the Earth from the rays of the sun is in truth no significant departure from public policies you already undertake: your zealous application of the precautionary principle, your usurpation of individual rights for the public good, and/or your previous efforts to eradicate bad habits and unhealthy choices in the interests of socialized medicine."
http://www.techcentralstation.com/091405E.html
"Chungking is what New York would be if New York were a big city. We’re talking forty-storey high rises that somehow don’t look as dull as ours, massive highways and bridges. Every time we landed the airport turned out to have been completed four years ago, one year ago, what have you. Those cities aren’t Guadalajara. They’re Chicago."
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