March 01, 2005

For Me, But Not for Thee
By Lady Liberty

Most Americans seem to have at least a limited understanding of the Bill of Rights. They may be unclear as to whether or not the Bill of Rights grants them specific rights or not (it doesn't; it acknowledges certain rights and prohibits the government from interfering with them). They may not understand even the clearest verbiage of the first ten amendments (determining all too often, for example, that "the people" in the Second Amendment refers to the National Guard, but that "the people" in all of the other amendments means "the people"). But as a whole, they "get" at least the idea of the Bill of Rights, and we might assume that any specific misunderstanding or ignorance could be addressed by education and example.

Another problem concerning the Bill of Rights is more serious. It has nothing to do with knowledge per se, but is rather the tendency of some to believe that certain of the amendments apply to them, but not to certain defined or undefined others. Rarely is this type of assumption more clear than in the case of certain religious factions, namely the fundamentalist Christian. (Read the rest here)

Libertarian Commentary on The News
By Nathan A. Barton © 2004

First of the month! Do you know where your guv-mint representative is at? Up to no good, of course - that's a given. But it is a good idea to know where the varmint is at, lest they be signing or doing something that we will all regret, without any advanced warning. Least, that's my opinion, partner! Like the rest of this column.

Smoking gets its own "Kyoto Treaty"
BBC News [UK]
"[T]he World Health Organization's tobacco control treaty comes into force on Sunday. It is regarded as smoking's answer to the Kyoto agreement -- only with teeth. Ratified by 57 countries, including the UK, the document sets out a programme to reduce the number of people smoking across the world. Under its terms governments have promised to introduce smoking bans, tobacco advertising restrictions and health warnings on cigarette packets, draw up anti-smuggling strategies and agree to increase tax on tobacco sales. " (02/27/05)

Just what we need, another agreement to combat something that probably doesn't need combating, and which governments will, as usual, fail miserably at. Oh, and an excuse to create more rules and gather and spend more money - something government doesn't need more excuses to do, either. (Read the rest of the Commentary here)

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Features From The Last Issue

Terri Schiavo Is Each Of Us - Sentenced To Die As Useless By Dorothy Anne Seese Libertarian Commentary for Monday

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