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September
22, 2008 This is going to be a very short commentary, as I had it about 90 percent written when something happened, despite multiple saves, and I lost about six hours of work. This week stinks for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is losing this work, and a lot of what I think was pretty decent commentary. The month of September is rushing to a close, but the election isn't getting here nearly fast enough to be over, for my taste. The entire campaign, at virtually EVERY level, is making my stomach roil. The major news this week wasn't the elections, however. It was the economy, in which we watch the insane policies of the Congress (yes, and to some degree the GOP Bush Administration as well) have really started bearing "fruit" and we are watching one financial "institution" after another shake into a pile of small pieces of rubble, each quickly coated by a flood of small green pieces of paper produced and squandered by still more stupid acts of Congress. What caused this? Greed for money, coupled with greed for power and prestige by politicians, and with a refusal to stand up to the foolish policies of Congress. However, I do believe that the REAL economy is sound and if freed from the incredible burden of these parasitic government and financial entities: even though the dollar is near worthless and getting more worthless by the hour, we still have the people and the resources; the factories and oil wells and mines and truck stops and vehicles and everything else. Maybe if the parasites collapse fast enough, we can have a tremendous boom fed by the surplus freed from their greed. Maybe. (Read the rest here) See last week's Commentary here!
The
Man I Might Have Killed I woke up about midnight, hearing angry voices outside at the back of the house. There was no fence and people often wandered around at night, but their argument seemed to be escalating and getting closer so I got up and put on a robe. My little dog was barking up a storm. Looking out the front window, I saw a man standing by the front door of my car on the street, obviously trying to get into it and well illuminated by the full moon. I got the shotgun and opened the door a crack, then shouted at the man to get away from my car and go away. He just looked at me and went on trying to get into the car. Then I made a big mistake. (Read the rest here)
Green Laidlaw had been shot at. He'd been shot at a lot during one eventful period of his young life. A couple of them had even connected. Once in al Nasiriyah on the first tour, but that had been barely more than a scratch. He was almost embarrassed to take the Purple Heart. On his second tour, he'd been hit hard in the left leg. It was an inch shorter now, but after his rehab and discharge, he could still maneuver. Barely. But at least then he'd been fighting with other pros. This - well, this was an invitation to die with stupid newbies. They were a danger to themselves and a danger to him and it was a damned shame that a bunch of them were sure to die this day and it was all so preventable. Or at least, it had been. (Read the rest here) The
Freedom Calendar The Liberty-Lovers Strike a Blow for Freedom Every Month Calendar January – Second Chance to Observe National Bill of Rights Month, since virtually all sheep-like public school educated Americans, having no clue what a Bill of Rights is, ignored Bill of Rights Day in December. February – National Anti Drug War Month. Celebrate by getting your buddies together and dressing up like ninjas, then bash in the door of a SWAT cop at three AM, shoot his pot-sniffing dog, scream words you've heard on TV cop shows like "Freeze!" and "Hands on your heads!" and "Chew carpet, Punk!" and in general rip up the house and just terrorize the living bejesus out of the whole family before saying "Oops, wrong house" and leaving. (Read the rest here) Policy
is not Law According to political pundits, republicans are on the verge of losing more seats in the House and Senate in the November elections. If this happens and Obama wins the presidency, democrats will have free reign to push through their left-wing agenda with only token resistance by republicans. The democrats have already exposed their strategy for accomplishing this goal---simply tie every republican candidate to President Bush's "failed policies." (Read the rest here) Good
Ol' Girls Network Passes on Shelter Probe Subsidized by millions in taxpayer largesse, domestic violence coalitions operate in every state in the Union. While most groups have annual budgets in the $1-3 million range, some run much higher. For example the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, with its $26 million budget, seldom feels the need to recycle paper clips. Who are these coalitions accountable to? In almost every case, they answer to a hand-picked Board of Directors that is composed of the same persons who feather their own nests by making the decisions about who gets the coalition's grants. (Read the rest here) External
Articles Why I raise such an uncharacteristically philosophical point is this: many of my dearest friends argue against Liberty and in favour of statism as follows: "But in a libertarian society, how would we have roads?" and "But in an anarchy, how would we deal with a bully?" and "But if the state didn't tell us when to wipe our arses, how would we know when to do so?" et cetera. The unstated but omnipresent presumption is this: any change to the status quo of totalitarian statism would happen in a vacuum, and everything else would continue to (mal)function exactly as it had before. This is a false presumption and a real dumb idea. Heck, us rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth libertarians don't even advocate changing only one aspect of the oppressively regimented State in the first place, but even if we did, the effects of even one significant change in The Way Things Are Always Done could have widespread, unpredictable, unforeseen, surprising effects. In fact, changes always do. (Read the rest here) (Read the entire article at the source website. Use the back button to return.) Never
Forgive, Never Forget And just as the NRA presence can mean one thing to me, in the thick of the struggle, and another to hairsprayheads and Hollywood types, so can the presence—the very existence—of Sarah Palin. Both mean absolutely nothing, philosophically. Both mean absolutely nothing politically. But LewRockwell.com and Annette Bening (both of whom despise her) to the contrary, culturally, Palin and the NRA mean everything. The general public and the mainstream media are unaware of what you and I regard as the NRA's many grievous strategic and tactical shortcomings. They understand little of the deep and real differences between the pusillanimous NRA and genuine Second Amendment advocacy. Yet to have them all in an hysterical flap because the girl Republican Vice Presidential nominee is an NRA member, a hunter, an angler, and a hockey mom is a good thing, a wonderful thing, and a delight beyond describing. (Read the rest here) (Read the entire article at the source website. Use the back button to return.)
The
Future of Freedom Foundation To hear the media pundits and presidential candidates tell it, you’d think Adam Smith has been president for the last eight years and, with a Congress full of free-market advocates, had enacted an agenda of full-blown laissez-faire. Had that been the case, we would not be in the mess we are in economically. Alas, it has not been the case. (Read the rest here) (Read the entire article at the source website. Use the back button to return.)
The
Independent Institute Why does the price of gas increase immediately when a hurricane threatens supplies, even though the gas at the pump has already been paid for? Why does the price of gas in Seattle increase immediately when a hurricane threatens New Orleans or Houston? A popular explanation for rising gas prices is that it happens because unscrupulous, hard-hearted merchants see disasters as opportunities to take advantage of people in their time of need. It’s an emotionally attractive explanation that fuels popular outrage and inspires laws against “price gouging.” It’s also an explanation that is completely wrong. We can save ourselves a lot of angst, many of the pains associated with disaster recovery, and a lot of money in law enforcement resources by understanding why gas prices rise in the midst of disaster and by repealing laws against “price gouging.” Evil people don’t cause high prices. Supply and demand cause high prices. (Read the rest here) (Read the entire article at the source website. Use the back button to return.)
From The Ludwig von Mises Institute The Huntsville Times reported on September 12 that, in response to the looming threat from Hurricane Ike, Alabama Governor Bob Riley declared a formal state of emergency. The governor's declaration of emergency activated the state's price-gouging law, which makes "unconscionable pricing" illegal during times of emergency. The Times quoted Riley as saying that he thinks "a threat to public health is a strong possibility due to the shortage of fuels." Hurricanes don't cause shortages, however. Price controls do. (Read the rest here) (Read the entire article at the source website. Use the back button to return.)
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Right To Defend Ourselves This page is designed to help readers find resources and information to help them educate their neighbors, refute the gun-haters among them, and find new inspiration and hope in their fight to maintain a free society. Please send me anything you think might fit on this page. I will do my best to obtain permission to use it, if such is required, or will link to it here with a brief description.
A
raid gone wrong Ah, but it's so much easier and so much more fun to barrel into someone's house with big guns and storm trooper uniforms. The proliferation of SWAT deployments in this country is stunning, up from 3,000 a year in the mid-1980s to more than 40,000 now, according to Peter Kraske, who studies the militarization of policing as a criminal-justice professor at Eastern Kentucky University. Kraske's studies detail the spread of SWAT teams even to small towns - 75 percent of communities with a population under 50,000 have squads, he found. He attributes the growth to federal grants that help outfit the teams, surplus military equipment given to local police by the Pentagon, and seizure laws that let police cash in or keep contraband found during raids. (Read the rest here) Please
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