| No human being has the right -- under any circumstances -- to initiate force against another human being, nor to threaten or delegate its initiation. The Zero Aggression Principle |
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July
16, 2007 Libertarian
Commentary on The News,
08 - 14 July, 2007 A Happy Bastille Day to all – a bogus national holiday built on a bogus “popular” assault on an all-but-abandoned prison, in the name of “liberty, fraternity, and equality” that led to tyranny, chauvinism, and the equality of the guillotine. This week, I have a lot of stories about the thugs that inhabit the “sacred” halls of the Capitol, and I am finding myself completely out of patience with the whole lot of them. As Mark Twain once said, they are America’s only native criminal class. I’m thoroughly sick of them all, and I suspect my readers are also. But they aren’t the only pests this week, as you shall see! Thugs: This is almost being done the right way – except that Congress shouldn’t be using the purse strings to enforce an executive order! It should be using money to force compliance with law, not decrees. Mama's Note: True, but it's rather refreshing to see congress have enough backbone to take a slap at the imperial vice pres. anyway. Too bad they can't do the same with the imperial president. (Read the rest here) [Two full pages again!]
"Islamist
Terrorism" and the US Role: a response to Ivan Eland Ivan Eland's excellent work is well known to all who read TPOL and other on-line and hard-copy libertarian publications. His article last week makes some excellent points, but needs to be answered in some particulars. Hence, this response, with my utmost respect and regard to Ivan. His analysis is incomplete and therefore, his recommendations, if implemented, might lead to a worse problem than the one we are living with, today. Ivan's original article: U.S. Role in Islamist Terrorism, published on July 2, 2007. All quotes from Ivan's article are for the purpose of commentary and response, and not intended to violate his copyright or his rights to his work in any way. (Read the rest here)
Signing
Statements Erode Constitutional Balance Recently, the General Accounting Office studied nineteen instances where the President issued so-called “signing statements.” In such statements, the President essentially begins the process of interpreting legislation – up to and including declaring provisions unconstitutional—hence often refusing to enforce them. The GAO study found that in nearly 1/3 of the cases studied, the administration failed to enforce the law as enacted. This approach is especially worrisome for several reasons. First, these signing statements tend to move authority from the legislative branch to the executive, thus upsetting our delicate system of checks and balances. Next, these statements grant the President power not given by the Constitution, allowing him to usurp powers of the judicial branch. Finally, the idea of agencies refusing to enforce the law as enacted sets precedent for the type of run away administrative actions our constitution was expressly enacted in order to avoid. (Read the rest here)
The
Deadliest Catch: A Tale of Exceptional Men A mayday alarm pierced the metallic walls of the Coast Guard outpost on Kodiak Island. The Ocean Challenger, stranded 90 miles off the Alaska Peninsula, was being pummelled by water surging two stories high. In the words of pilot Jerred Williams, "The waves were so high you actually got white caps at the top of the wave." Suddenly the boat capsized. In those frenzied moments the crew launched a life raft, but alas, the seas were too high. Three men died in that October 18, 2006 disaster: David "Cowboy" Hasselquist, 51, Walter Foster, 26, and Steve Esparza, 26. Only one crew member, Kevin Ferrell, survived. (Read the rest here)
From
The Archives The days of World War II, even Vietnam, seem a bit tame compared to the nearly universal hatred the world feels toward the USA. Country after country, even those whose roots we share back to colonial days, are letting America know they hate George W. Bush and his cabal of globalist warmongers and elite imperialists. When Bush II decided to go to war against Iraq at the same time he was "pleading" with the United Nations to help, and they were asking for more time to establish a case against Saddam Hussein, he turned the tide of opinion of an entire planet against the United States. None of us alive today have ever seen such world-wide hatred of the US. That's because none has existed in our short history of two hundred and twenty-some years. The US has been the object of sympathy, sometimes disdain, disagreements, allied efforts against those whom the world agreed were suitable for removal by war. But Bush's War, his defiance and arrogance, and that of his staff, have made all Americans the subject of the world's wrath, ire and disgust. (Read the rest here)
The
Independent Institute As Congress begins to consider the Iraq War funding bill, defections by important Republican Senators have caused a White House debate on whether to try to get ahead of the onrushing train to leave Iraq. In the Bush administration’s surreal parallel universe, this “post surge redeployment”—normal people would call this a withdrawal after a failed attempt at escalation—would consist of halving the number of U.S. combat forces policing dangerous areas in Iraq and letting the remainder conduct the less dangerous missions of guarding Iraq’s borders, training Iraqi security forces, and keeping al Qaeda off balance in the country. While this reduced footprint would be intended to slow Iraq’s downward spiral and allow the United States to keep coveted military bases in Iraq to protect Persian Gulf oil, it is not a viable long-term U.S. strategy. (Read the rest here)
The
Future of Freedom Foundation So the occupation continued, even as the nationalist security reasons were long since discredited. But there was still a hubristic element of American supremacism here, an idea that we knew what was best for them. Ironically, the same people who argue that the Muslims can handle democracy as well as we can also argue they can’t do it without us holding their hands, while we’re armed to the teeth—since we can hardly trust them to govern themselves. Once again, what had been a very nationalist justification for aggressive war became quite a different argument. Before it was the classic warmongering argument that we would have to kill foreigners, including many civilians, to save American lives. And if you didn’t go along with it, you cared more about foreign lives than American lives, and were thus un-American. Then, it shifted. All of a sudden, it was a matter of letting Americans continue to die so as to protect Iraqi lives. All of a sudden, if you were against American involvement since it compromised our security and consumed our wealth, you were some sort of isolationist who didn’t care about human rights abroad. It seems like there’s no end to the justifications for mass slaughter, all under the guise of protecting human life. (Read the rest here) (Read the entire article at the source website. Use the back button to return.)
Individual
Liberty - 101 Most people, including most political theorists, believe that once one concedes the importance, or even the vital necessity, of some particular activity of the State — such as the provision of a legal code — that one has ipso facto conceded the necessity of the State itself. The State indeed performs many important and necessary functions: from provision of law to the supply of police and fire fighters, to building and maintaining the streets, to delivery of the mail. But this in no way demonstrates that only the State can perform such functions, or, indeed, that it performs them even passably well. (Read the rest here) (Read the entire article at the source website. Use the back button to return.)
External Articles From pre-school to planning funerals, green is in. Very in. But green policies and decisions need to be based on more than a vague desire to save the planet. The principles of the natural sciences and economics must play an essential role -- a part of policy-making that often eludes politicians. The latest examples are the federal government's efforts to reduce the United States's dependence on imported oil (now more than 60 percent) by shifting a big share of the nation's largest crop, corn, to the production of ethanol for fueling automobiles. Good goal, bad policy. In fact, in the short- and medium-term, ethanol can do little to reduce the vast amount of oil that is imported, and the ethanol policy will have widespread and profound ripple effects on other commodity markets. (Read the rest here) (Read the entire article at the source website. Use the back button to return.) Pennsylvania
case reveals how McCarthy bill could threaten all gun owners You will remember that before the Independence Day break, the House of Representatives passed a McCarthy gun control bill (HR 2640) without any hearings, without any committee action… they put it on the Suspension Calendar and simply got a non-recorded voice vote. An important part of the legislative process is to introduce a bill in committee, to get both public and private observers to ask questions, make recommendations and offer comments on the bill. But for some reason, HR 2640 was not given this benefit. The bill was rammed through the legislature with very few Representatives present on the House floor… there was no recorded vote at all! So it’s not surprising that, having skipped much of the legislative process, there are still a lot of unanswered questions regarding HR 2640. In fact, these questions have only been magnified after an offhanded, tongue-in-cheek remark made at the Harrisburg Community College in Pennsylvania cost a man his gun rights for life in that state. (Read the rest here) (Read the entire article at the source website. Use the back button to return.)
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