index -- Price of Liberty

Rewriting the Past
by Bob Wallace

I am not a fan of the director David Lynch. He massacred Dune, Eraserhead was an obscenity, Blue Velvet an over-the-top joke. The main reason The Elephant Man was so good is because he didn't write it, only direct it.

Yet, I have to give him the highest kudos for Mulholland Dr. Why? Because it's about the nearly-univeral, narcissistic tendency for people to rewrite their pasts not only so they appear better than they really are, but so they can win. This tendency causes a tremendous amount of grief not only on celluloid, but in the real world.

Does anybody really doubt that Lynndie England is compulsively telling everyone who'll listen that she didn't like what she did in Iraq? That she didn't enjoy it, even with those stupid grins on her face? That it wasn't her fault? It was someone else's? Someone made her do it? (Read the rest here)

The 17th Amendment: A Backhanded Acknowledgement of State’s Rights
By Jeff Adams

For several years now I’ve been heard organizations and individuals advocate repealing the 17th Amendment. Usually the reasoning is based on the problems with ever-centralizing, ever-growing government, the move of the American republic towards a democracy (read ‘mobocracy’), and the advocacy of State’s Rights.

Unfortunately, most Americans are too ignorant of their own history to understand that the United States isn’t a democracy, but a union of representative republics. Anyone who bothers to actually read the U.S. Constitution will see clearly we are a union of sovereign states, each guaranteeing ‘a republican form of government.’ The idea of the founders was to have a strictly limited federal government, with the states handling the bulk of governmental matters (hence the constitution calling the federal government the ‘agent’ of the states; a subordinate role for the federal government to the state governments.) The argument about State’s Rights usually falls on deaf ears as being a ‘Southern thing’ and an idea that died in the War Between the States. But that would only be true if the constitution died at the same time (which some would argue it did). American Nationalists (read neo-cons, faux patriots who scream “my country right or wrong,” and socialists) reject State’s Rights as an idea that was ever valid, but that would require a person to reject historical facts. (Read the rest here)

Military Legal Blitz - One Grunt Down!
By Ted Lang © 2004

Astonishing! Amazing! Can you believe this, and in secret, bureaucratic, police state America! In exactly three weeks of breaking the Iraqi POW torture scandal, we not only have a conviction, but sentencing as well. Now that’s got to be the absolute height of United States government efficiency!

In an Associated Press article entitled, “U.S. Soldier Is Sentenced to a Year in Prison for Iraq Abuse,” published in The New York Times on May 19th, exactly three weeks to the day that CBS aired the Abu Ghriab prisoner abuse photos on 60 Minutes, one of the hapless victims of the war crimes planned and perpetrated by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, was sentenced to a year in prison. “Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits received the maximum penalty Wednesday - one year in prison, reduction in rank, and a bad conduct discharge - in the first court-martial stemming from the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghriab prison,” states the article by Scheherezade Faramarzi and Katarina Kratovac and others. (Read the rest here)

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Last update 05.19.04

Think the Unthinkable: Partition Iraq
By Ivan Eland

Did you miss our last issue? Click Here for the Archives

Price of Liberty Forum

New Topic 05.05.04- Take a look and get involved.

"Rants and Rumblings"

How can anyone "support" this invasion of Iraq, especially with the proof of U.S. forces using torture and murder on top of everything else? What is it going to take to end this nightmare?

As Hunter's trial date comes ever closer, it likewise becomes ever more important to rachet up the pressure in Ohio. Every day that comes with charges still lodged against Hunter should bring a geometrically increasing quantity of letters to the prosecutor and local newspaper editors in support of our friend and RKBA.

Letters to the prosecutor
Remain polite, as always, but since Mr. DeSanto has not seen fit to move to dismiss, be more insistent.. Stress the ridiculousness of the charge (carrying with a license). Point out that even before Hunter was indicted, Ohio itself formally accepted concealed carry. Question the wisdom of taking the case to a jury. Wonder if the money wasted is worth it to salve the pride of the Highway Patrol trooper who violated the rights of a man who was minding his own business. Ask if there aren't criminals he could be after. (Read the rest here)

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Last updated on 04.27.04