Recently in Libertarianism Category

During the time between I allowed my blog to go down, and the time I restored it, Google's crawlers did the understandably necessary thing, and culled the dead links from others' sites to mine. Not a big deal to me, but if there's any one reason to leave this site up, it's to service those engaged in public discussion of the unconstitutional outrage of the American Community Survey (ACS). About four years ago, I posted a short note commenting on Texas congressman Ron Paul's criticism of the survey entitled "None of Your Business!': the American Community Survey" which has become the very most heavily posted item here.

Folks, apologies once again for having let the site go down.

Today's QOTD is a bit of background on the graphic novel "Roswell, Texas" by L. Neil Smith and Scott Beiser, which has been serialized in webcomic form on the Bighead Press website. It's a kick, and I recommend it highly.

….This custom is so thoroughly ingrained that, when the Pink Nazis loot the Vatican. the survivors refugee out to former Catholic girls’ school in Brownsville, and a new Pope (the former Cardinal Fulton J. Sheen) takes over from the assassinated Pius XII, he orders that everyone working for the Church (including priests and nuns) comply with the letter and spirit of the law of the nation of which they are presently guests. That’s why you see a .22 Colt Woodsman — ” … only a Popegun, sir … ” — on the poker table at Pius XIII’s elbow.

….The only standing groups resembling a military are the Texas Rangers (of which there are damned few — “One riot, one Ranger”), and the Texas Air Militia, which only has half a dozen planes.

….With a thoroughly armed society (of course you can get out of gun-toting if you apply for a license _not_ to carry a gun and go through fingerprinting and psychiatric evaluation) who needs an army or the cops?

L. Neil Smith
"Taxes in the Federated State of Texas"

"I'm not a conservative complaining about liberals," Rodgers says. "To me the 'greater good' is a catch phrase for people trying to force you to do what they want. And it's both sides of the political spectrum; it's not a liberal thing only. You look at our current administration. They have all kinds of greater good things. For example, they have decided what can and can't be done with embryo research. They're forcing people to follow their dictates. If you look the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it's freedom from, not freedom to. The Bill of Rights doesn't give you a right to something, it gives you the right not to have the government do something to you."

T. J. Rogers, in a Metro interview

Libertarians should not be denying scientific fact. We should instead spend our time combatting the religious impulse of people to think the modern world is evil and that we must repent for our sins by living cruddy lives and waiting for (in their minds) our inevitable and justified doom at the hands of a wronged Gaia.

Perry E. Metzger

Scott Beiser and L. Neil Smith's Roswell, Texas is now online, serialized in webcomic fashion. I believe that my dear, recently deceased friend Chris Tame has a cameo somewhere in the comic's future.

L. Neil Smith finally does a real blog, "L. Neil Smith at Random", with comments enabled. I've long thought that Neil's writing would fit the format, and now I'm sure of it.

I'd suggest to you that instead of taking the ACS head on, that we ought to insist on a "mandatory" statement on the ACS form and in all conversations started by Census workers such as,

"Although the ACS is 'mandatory':

1.) This has never been tested in any court. And we aren't interested in having it tested before any court because we very well might lose.

2.) The Census Bureau has no enforcement powers and the Department of Justice has its hands full doing lots of other more important things. They'd probably laugh in our faces if we referred cases to them asking them to try and collect $100 fines.

3.) No one in the history of the US has ever been fined or prosecuted for refusing to complete the Census. So the probability of your being eaten by a man eating tiger that escapes from the zoo is greater than your being fined for not competing this survey."

suinmd

The Dissident Frogman has incorporated my Japanese translations of his popular "Support Denmark" banners into his multilingual contributions archive page.

My thanks to knowledgeable friends Mariko and Garth for their thorough critiques of my pre-final draft. Thanks also for feedback on the issue of translating the original phrase "the legacy of the West", which was problematic, by these people on the honyaku mailing list: Richard Thieme, Peter Durfee, Benjamin Barrett, J.C. Helary, and James Sparks.

Property "rights" are basically an epiphenomenon arising from respect for voluntary agreements. As such, if a society doesn't respect voluntary agreements, private property doesn't last long. You can't even decide who owns something unless voluntary agreements are respected.

Perry Metzger, by permission, from a private mailing list

Just saw a telecast version of this print article on Foxnews, "Cruisin' For Cash"; a small town (Littleton, Massachusetts) police chief, John Kelly, is using carside adverts - no tax money - to fund his police cruisers:

The chief says he felt he had little choice but to take an unusual, much-criticized step to upgrade his patrol cars. He’s selling advertising space on the quarter panels and rear bumper of patrol cars to pay for the new wheels.

12 grand a year for three years earns a local business the right to put a banner ad on the back and sides of a town police car. This allows Kelly to buy all new lights, sirens, radios, scanners, shotgun and assault rifle racks, and an on-board law enforcement laptop computer. Plus, it covers the entire cost of the vehicle lease. A local grocer, Donnelans, bought space to pay for the first new cruiser.

A year and a half ago, I posted "'None of Your Business!': the American Community Survey" in which I reported on Ron Paul's opinions on an illegal expansion of the U.S. Census. In the time since, by what admittedly are very modest standards compared to much more popular poltically-oriented blogs, the post has generated a consistent level of interest, not so much from what little I said, but from a snowball effect brought on by the increasingly large number of comments from people who've been harassed by minions of the American Community Survey.

Makes me glad that I didn't shut down my blog some months ago, as I'd considered doing.

A Livejournal blogger, harmlessinc, has linked to my article as a repository for real-life harassment stories.

Something about all this Mohammed image craziness has gotten under my skin. Large, nasty, violent crowds of adherents to a pre-medieval death cult have made it their mission to nullify the very concept of "freedom of speech," and this really, really pisses me off (notice that I'm now blogging again?) and I have chosen to vent. So, inspired by Michelle Malkin's courage in posting "the 12 forbidden cartoons, I've decided to lash myself to the mast and join my fellow blogbursters in posting all of them myself. Here they are:

The Dissident Frogman is actively maintaining and updating a blog entry with "Support Denmark" graphics in multiple languages. Translations in additional languages are forthcoming (Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Farsi, Arabic, Vietnamese, and Korean, to the best of my knowledge.)

Oh, yeah: go out and stock up on Havarti cheese... it's not only a show of support contra the recent Islamist boycotts and violence against the Danes (and random others in their neighborhood) but it's also damned fine cheese.

I had an offer to get some free stick time in a friend's friend's luxury (pressurized cabin, an aisle between the seats, etc.) airplane for a trip he and the other guy were making to CES in Las Vegas, but I'm getting ready for school on Monday, so I declined. I'm taking in some of the show's highlights by way of reportage, and just saw this on one of the gadget/gimmick blogs:

"Radar Scope sees through walls"

Fascinating, and a bit terrifying at the same time. It's a handheld device for detecting people on the other side of a (presumably radiolucent) wall. The display device looks milspec/ruggedized, and the printed matter pitches to military application, but I'm quite sure they're being pitched to police departments too. I wonder, what are the relevant U.S. laws with respect to using this device in warrantless searches? I believe SCOTUS has already ruled that "standoff" search techniques are not covered under the 4th Amendment.

As long as the government doesn't mandate "one-size-fits-all," I don't care what the private companies do. There will always be one or two renegades who will see the obvious market opportunities and offer various levels of security. Personally, I want to fly with the clothes-optional-guns-mandatory-girls-fly-free airlines.

Sandy Sandfort

FEMA, in fact, is an illegal organization. It's mentioned nowhere in the Constitution (which lists the lawful powers of the government in Article I, Section 8), nor did anybody ever vote about it, neither you nor I, nor even the Congress. It was created out of thin air by Presidential fiat, and given unprecedented power to override, at gunpoint, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the rule of law in general.

L. Neil Smith

The idea of a constitution, we’re told, is to limit government power. It’s supposed to bind the government to certain operational procedures that restrict its ability to violate rights. So a constitution cannot grant human rights; it can only spell out what are seen as the proper functions of government, and try to limit its ability to invade rights.

The US constitution came perhaps as close to this ideal as possible, until its meaning was perverted into a complete reversal, from restricting power to enabling it, from binding government to giving government a mandate for a thousand things to do to us.

But here is the problem. Constitutions by necessity leave the government as the primary enforcement agency. It’s like a memo: "Government to Self: don’t become tyrannical." It only works so long as the enforcement agent operates in good faith. If we remember that the worst rise to the top in government, as Hayek noted, we can have no realistic expectation that this good faith will last. Government gains not by adhering to its own restrictions, but by re-rendering them as positive mandates.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
"A Constitution for Iraq"

...the digital (PDF) version I'm reading now, but Charlie Stross tells his readers not to do so. I will, however, be buying several copies from Amazon as gifts to friends. Damn it's good!

If you can, within principle, take over and adopt whatever name your enemy calls you, do so. It shuts them up very handily.

L. Neil Smith

My teacher Dale Seago sent this reference to "Oppressive Knife Laws" to our dojo's mailing list. This summary dates from 1998, but is a nicely written short piece on the key features of this particular type of prohibitionism.

I recently did some driving through Nevada and California, working remotely from a number of hotels. I loaded up my iPod (which I connect to a Pioneer black box installed behind the dash, itself interfaced with the sound system's head unit) with music, podcasts, and audio books (almost all of it purchased on iTunes,) including an unabridged copy of:

"Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side to Everything," by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

I thoroughly enjoyed the 6 hours of sometimes humorous, often surprising and counterintuitive anecdote. I highly recommend it: I do enjoy economic storytelling, from Braudel to Postrel to Friedman Jr. and now these guys.

Anyone else encountered this book or its audio equivalent?

I will add the qualification here that the work does gloss over the correlation between concealed carry laws and violent crime, primarily since the authors took John R. Lott as the authority on the matter... which is a double shame, since there's much there to explore, and since Lott seems to have screwed the pooch with respect to the issue of academic integrity.

Curt Howland has pointed me to a relevant blog entry hosted by the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

A new online bookseller recommended by a member of my extropians mailing list: "Bill of Rights Press," for those hard-to-find titles that Laissez-Faire Books won't carry.

The Sci Fi Channel will be airing all episodes of Firefly starting 22 July 2005.

I think it was one of the Jeffersons who said history was a nightmare from which mankind was trying to wake. We're moving deeper, it seems, into REM.

Dr. Sean Gabb

Jim Lesczynski reports that "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on Comedy Central is repeating last night's new episode tonight at 4pm Pacific (7pm Eastern) time, with the 18 February 2003 segment in which he was featured, "Guns For Tots," spliced in.

Bruce Sommer informs me that Apple has released the online trailer for "Serenity," the film adaptation of Joss Whedon's tragically short-lived "Firefly" television series. It looks fantastic!

Cops are armed when civilians can't be, often with weapons civilians can't have. I can't tell you how sick I get of seeing notations in catalogs like Brigade Quartermaster that certain items are for cops only.

Cops live and operate within a strict hierarchy, usually with titles like "sergeant", "lieutenant", "captain", and so forth. Most of them wear military-style uniforms, and an argument can be made that so-called "plainclothes" operations ought to be outlawed. Increasingly, they wear military battledress and carry military weapons.

Cops form a culture all to themselves, like professional soldiers, and usually have little to do with those who are not cops. They do call us "civilians". I never heard this term "little people" before. They also call us "assholes" and say that the public just consists of criminals who haven't been caught yet. I know because I was there at one time.

Yeah, I understand the theory that they're civilians, too. I repeat that it's bullshit. What they are, in fact, is an occupying military force, with strategic bases in every hamlet in the nation -- which is why they and their hangers-on lie to us and possibly to themselves about being civilians, too.

They are the very standing army that the Founding Fathers were afraid of.

And for good reason.

L. Neil Smith
In response last night to a post I made on a mailing list about how cops refer to non-cops as "civilians" when they, too, are in fact "civilians."

Indeed, I am opposed even to free market supplied "police" in the conventional sense. The potential - indeed, universal reality - of armed agencies abusing their power is such that I believe that it is foolish for individuals to delegate their use of just force and to rely on third parties. We need an armed citizenry, the "hue and cry", and the use of specialist/expert "martials" for arrest only in restricted cases.

Dr. Chris R. Tame
Excerpted with permission from a recent private correspondance

I just got back from a meeting of an organization of which I'm a member, and was talking with a Polish acquaintance at the potluck which followed. We were discussing the until-recent history of Russian occupation of his country, and he told me that some Poles he knew had during that time advocated "Layered Communism":

"Layer of Communists, layer of sand, layer of Communists, layer of sand..."

If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you're a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you're a moderate. If you don't want government to intervene anywhere, you're an extremist.

Joseph Sobran

On a mailing list I frequent, list owner Mike Lorrey took an unfair swipe at an old friend of mine, libertarian science fiction novelist L. Neil Smith. I forward the message in its entirety, and Neil took the time to respond to Mike in an essay released today, "Under False Colors."

Mike has quickly responded by taking the argument to his own blog, in a post counter-titled "Under Honest Colors."

How much time have you spent in the Western US?

Have you ever tried to buy a semi-automatic rifle in Canada?

Have you ever tried to order an "unapproved" video from Loompanics in Canada?

Have you ever tried to tell a Mountie to "Get a Warrant"?

None of these things work very well in Canada.

When Canada is as free as, say Montana, where a man stopped by a state traffic cop for driving 80 mph, with a beer in one hand, and pistol on his hip, can ask the cop "What the hell do you want?", and have the cop eventually just give up and walk off, then you can discuss with us how "free" Canada is.

As for the "we're doomed" crowd here ... The US is the healthiest patient in the World's tyranny cancer ward. If we don't win here, things are going to get very ugly.

Kristopher Barrett

They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give 'em ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years and, what the hell, we're not using it anymore.

Tom Skinner

Capitalism is the only moral social system because it allows each man to work for his own profit and because under a capitalistic system men only have to work with each other through voluntary action for mutual benefit. Capitalism maximizes wealth, prosperity and happiness.

Valara Forsythe

Alan Weiss now has a blog.

For a martial art to be a martial art, rather than some other form of physical expression (some other "art" entirely), its focus must remain on fighting. A truly accomplished warrior may renounce violence -- but only his or her mastery of violence makes this possible. If the style or system you study leaves you unable to defend yourself in a realistic self-defense scenario, it may indeed be an art -- but it is not martial at all. Its practitioners delude themselves if they believe that it is.

In the same vein, a martial art or martial artist whose attitude towards weapons is one of contempt, mistrust, fear, or condescension tells you volumes about its, his, or her "martialism." Weapons are force multipliers -- tools that perform the same function as hammers, levers, and pliers in that they make it easier to accomplish a specific task. As the purpose of a martial art is to deliver force against another human or group of humans, only the most ignorant of martial artists would dismiss or reject tools that make performing this task more efficient and less risky. There is no such thing as an immoral tool. There are only immoral tool users.

Phil Elmore

This just in from my distant friend James Bennett: his announcement today of the website supporting his new book "The Anglosphere Challenge." This seems like a very enticing book, and I plan to read it during winter school break.

Here richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician's corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.

Hilaire Belloc
"Epitaph on the Politician"

The New York Times is pushing hard on campus to pick up new student subscriptions for the paper edition: for the last few weeks, they've been giving away free copies, many of which end up as seat blotters on rainy benches. I picked up a copy last Thursday, and glanced through a fascinating and typically snide review of the Disney/Pixar flick "The Incredibles" which opened this last weekend. One of the reviewer's complaints was that the film apparently expressed, under the veil of comedy, an unrepentent disdain for mediocrity. The reviewer speculated that Ayn Rand was a likely influence on the filmmakers. Intruiging!

This morning, the first thing my o-chem professor asked me in lab was, "Have you seen 'The Incredibles'?" He was raving about it. I guess I should check this film out. Anyone seen it yet?

Anton Sherwood has moved his musings to a blogging system with a commenting facility and much friendlier navigation. No trivial feat, given that he's been blogging (in one place) since February 2002... this meant converting over 1400 postings! Take a look.

The infamous "Assault Weapons Ban" died today. I wish I had more time to express my happiness about this, but I'm extremely busy.

> I thought many on this list would take exception to the part where he
> says, "The rights of the people come from God."

Why should I care if you want to believe your rights are a form of celestial welfare?

e0ts

Thanks to David Purves for the pointer to an entertaining article published yesterday, "The Monetary Economics of Thurston Howell II (sic)," which I've discovered is also today the subject of intense discussion on Slashdot.

As [Charles] Adams writes, the Lincoln Cult is terrified that this truth will become public knowledge, for it if does, it means that Lincoln "destroyed the separation of powers; destroyed the place of the Supreme Court in the Constitutional scheme of government. It would have made the executive power supreme, over all others, and put the president, the military, and the executive branch of government, in total control of American society. The Constitution would have been at an end."

Exactly right.

Thomas J. DiLorenzo
"Lincoln’s 'Great Crime': The Arrest Warrant for the Chief Justice"

If you only encrypt important things, even without decrypting the message the simple fact it's encrypted means its important. This is information that you have given freely to whomever it is that is watching: "Pay Attention, This One Is Important."

I cannot stop the buggers from knowing everything about me if they decide I'm a target. But I can throw chaff. Encrypt everything.

As PGP's developer Phil Zimmerman said, "PGP is for small secrets."

Curt Howland

Q. How can you, an anarchist, be a lawyer?

A. My father was a physician. That doesn't mean he believed in disease.

Duncan Frissell

You might want to take note of the interconnection between purpose and action in the minimal State. The minimal State does not, for instance, build art museums, because it does not exist to promote art but to enforce agreements and provide mutual defense. In order to build an art museum, the State would need to acquire the resources with which to build it. If people are willing to donate those resources freely, there is no need for the State to build the museum — it could be built privately. If people are not willing to donate the resources freely, then the act of forcibly taking the needed resources turns the purpose of the minimal State on its head — instead of enforcing the decision by the participants to respect each other's lives and property so that their own lives and property will be respected, the State then becomes an agent for some to abscond with the property of others. I may think it is a good idea to build a home for orphans, but if I take your resources against your will to do it, whether I'm an official of the State or a private citizen, I have violated the truce. To obey the truce, I must convince you to voluntarily provide resources for my goals, whether by trading with you or appealing to your charitable instincts.

In short, if the justification of the minimal State is that it exists, at the behest of a collection of sovereign individuals, to enforce a mutually beneficial truce among those who choose to participate in it, and to organize mutual defense against those who choose not to participate by violating the truce, then that justification does not reasonably permit the expropriation of resources for the purpose of projects that are merely laudable.

Note that this view of the minimal State cannot provide a justification for initiating warfare in distant lands which are not a threat its citizens' safety, regardless of how laudable it might be to re-arrange the social structures of those foreign places to suit enlightened tastes. However, by the same token, neither position prevents individuals from engaging in such activities on their own, at their own risk and with their own resources.

Perry Metzger, in "What is the Role of the State?" today

There's something for everyone on a Dr. Bronner's [Magic] soap [bottle].

Even for officers and employees of the National Libertarian Party:

"Dilute! Dilute! Ok!"

Curt Howland

I'll tell you what I'd prefer our government's foreign policy to be, assuming we need to have a State at all. My proposal is pretty simple: Swiss-style armed neutrality. That means no invasions, no military threats, no foreign aid, no "covert operations", no military bases outside the country, no attempts to influence the internal affairs of foreign countries whatsoever.

No one blows up bombs in the streets of Geneva. No one from Switzerland gets kidnaped in third world countries to protest the evils of Swiss foreign policy. Wherever they go, at worst, people think of the Swiss as boring — it is rare that anyone feels the need to buttonhole someone from Zurich or Lugano and tell them off for what their government does.

The Swiss are not pacifists, though. They have a very strong militia for defense, and in times past when Europe was less peaceful, it would have been extremely costly for an attacker to invade them. Even if (in the case of particularly strong enemies) an invasion might have ultimately succeeded, it would have yielded very little of value at an astonishing expense.

Perry Metzger

Jeffrey L "the Hunter" Jordan is freed, with a few hundred dollars' fines (and months of expense and a lost job and other anguish,) and even gets to keep his own property. I first posted about this 8 months ago. I'm glad it's (mostly) over, with the exception of his upcoming expected fight with Verizon over their cowardly treatment of him. More news as it happens.

By the way, I did notice the glaring omission of the National Rifle Association in the list of those organizations that assisted Jordan. Figures.

Capitalistic competition is also why "child labor" has all but disappeared, despite unionist claims to the contrary. Young people originally left the farms to work in harsh factory conditions because it was a matter of survival for them and their families. But as workers became better paid—thanks to capital investment and subsequent productivity improvements—more and more people could afford to keep their children at home and in school. Union-backed legislation prohibiting child labor came after the decline in child labor had already begun. Moreover, child labor laws have always been protectionist and aimed at depriving young people of the opportunity to work. Since child labor sometimes competes with unionized labor, unions have long sought to use the power of the state to deprive young people of the right to work. In the Third World today, the alternative to "child labor" is all too often begging, prostitution, crime, or starvation. Unions absurdly proclaim to be taking the moral high road by advocating protectionist policies that inevitably lead to these consequences.

Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Prakash Chandrashekhar, a libertarian blogger in India, recommends L. Neil Smith's "The Probability Broach" on AnarCapLib.

The Washington Times today has a rather long, neutral article on the Free State Project in New Hampshire.

In Colorado, the state where I live, the constitution provides that no new law may be passed unless it is immediately necessary to protect the health and safety of the people of the state. The idea—which went along with discouraging professional politicos (especially lawyers) in the legislature and strictly limiting the number of days that it could be in session—was to keep state laws to an absolute minimum.

The result? The infamous "safety clause" rubber-stamped at the top of every item of new legislation, a standard "boilerplate" asserting—whether a proposed law subsidizes unicorn ranchers or designates an official state intestinal parasite—that the law is immediately necessary (natch) to protect the health and safety of the people of Colorado.

L. Neil Smith

I always opposed the National Libertarian Party's adoption of the Statue of Liberty as its logo. The idea was typical of the LPUS at the time, and oddly appropriate, both the statue and the LPUS being hollow and devoid of meaningful content. The statue was co-opted by statists so long ago that our using it offered nothing but negative publicity, very nearly as negative, for instance, as having an office in the Watergate.

There were some who greatly preferred the porcupine as a national LP symbol because it's all about defense, although those of us in the west who know it personally, know that the little animal is stupid and destructive.

I, myself, prefer the skunk. It's quick and clever. Predators are even more anxious to avoid its defense system than the porcupine's quills. Some species will simply crouch and spray, but what I wanted was the type that stands on its front paws, throws its back feet into the air, and joyously lets you have it with style and grace. It would have made a hell of a logo, but the Nerfies were too fastidious for that.

L. Neil Smith

I, like L. Neil Smith, didn't know until recently that the Statue of Liberty had been completely shut down since 11 September 2001, only recently re-opened "following about $7,000,000 worth of police state alterations." In an irony of circumstance that inspired the article's title, "Hollow Woman," the re-opening ceremony was presided over by a real-life hollow woman, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, whom Neil knew from her days in the Colorado Libertarian Party.

I often keep the Fox News Channel playing in the background while I work, and the last couple of days I've heard the occasional newstwit breathlessly report on incidents of "price gouging" during and after the recent hurricane there. I'd been wanting to comment on the idiocy of the whole "price gouging" thing, but have been knee-deep in work. Doug Allen, I think, has said what I wanted to say (thanks Patri) in 'The "G" Word."

The real difference the media doesn't get is the difference between an anarchist and a "nihilist." Most modern reporters can't even define the word - but it is what they mean when they say "anarchist."

I regret the loss of my language almost as much as the loss of my freedom.

Kathryn A. Graham

Monica White comments on L. Neil Smith's "Captain Bligh’s Revenge," in which he informs us (I'd not known) that the British government is intent on wrecking the tiny society of Pitcairn Island: stealing their guns and imprisoning those who don't conform to their standards of marriage practice.

Most of America's health care is private, so many assume it operates as a free market. In truth, it is dominated by the government, resulting in high costs and stifling bureaucracy.

The federal government effectively socializes 86% of all health spending, a greater share than in 17 other industrialized countries, including Canada (though other features make these systems less free).

By discouraging individual responsibility, the government guarantees irresponsibility. We pay less attention to our health and demand more care — with little regard to the costs we impose on others or the rising prices that result. (Should it surprise us that health insurance is unaffordable for millions?) Those footing the bill — employers, insurers and the government — try to impose responsibility in ways both offensive and harmful (read: managed care).

Michael F. Cannon

This jackass needs to have the first amendment tattooed on his scrotum. Then he needs to be beaten like a red-headed stepchild and put in stocks on the ferry ramp for about 3 weekdays.

Then we need to get rid of all these brownshirt "security screeners" before we find ourselves living in Nazi Germany.

Frank Ney, referring to an incident involving a Port Authority thug (Hoboken Ferry) 2 days ago

Like every partnership, marriage should fit the individuals it unites, rather than be a "one-size-fits all" proposition defined by those outside the relationship. Each marriage should be what the partners want it to be—no more, no less. Ideally, the terms of marriage should be defined ahead of time with procedures to modify them as necessary.

Just as anyone can engage in a business relationship, any individuals should be able to enter into a marriage. Government's role in a business partnership is to simply enforce, not dictate, its terms. Government's role in marriage should be the same.

Michael Badnarik

As Congressman Ron Paul has said, "To many politicians the American government is America and patriotism means working for the benefit of the state." Thus, on a crude level, the draft appeals to patriotic fervor. This, according to Congressman Paul, is why the idea of compulsory national service, whether in the form of military conscription or make-work programs like AmeriCorps, still sells on Capitol Hill. Conscription is wrongly associated with patriotism, when it really represents collectivism and involuntary servitude.

Ronald Reagan said it best: "The most fundamental objection to draft registration is moral." He understood that conscription assumes our nation's young people belong to the state. Yet America was founded on the opposite principle; that the state exists to serve the individual. The notion of involuntary servitude, in whatever form, is simply incompatible with a free society.

Michael Badnarik

Claire Wolfe recommends the Firefly series in this article, "Hardyville in Space."

If we have learned anything over the past 18 months it is this: that the first rule of politics - power must never be trusted - still applies. The government will neither regulate itself nor be regulated by the institutions which surround it. Parliament chose to believe a string of obvious lies. The media repeated them, the civil service let them pass, the judiciary endorsed them. The answer to the age-old political question - who guards the guards? - remains unchanged. Only the people will hold the government to account.

They have two means of doing so. The first is to throw it out of office at the next election. This works only when we are permitted to choose an alternative set of policies. But in almost every nation, a new contract has now been struck between the main political parties: they have chosen to agree on almost all significant areas of policy. This leaves the people disenfranchised: they can vote out the monkeys but not the organ-grinder.

George Monbiot

Among the most gruesome consequences of fiat money, and of paper money in particular, is its ability to extend the length of wars. The destructions of war have the healthy effect of cooling down initial war frenzies. The more protracted and destructive a war becomes, therefore, the less is the population inclined to support it financially through taxes and the purchase of public bonds. Fiat inflation allows the government to ignore the fiscal resistance of its citizens and to maintain the war effort on its present level, or even to increase that level. The government just prints the notes it needs to buy cannons and boots.

J.G. Hülsmann

A second fallacy is the idea of war as an engine of prosperity. Students are taught that World War II ended the Depression; many Americans seem to believe that tax revenues spent on defense contractors (creating jobs) are no loss to the productive economy; and our political leaders continue to believe that expanded government spending is an effective way of bringing an end to a recession and reviving the economy.

The truth is that war, and the preparation for it, is economically wasteful and destructive. Apart from the spoils gained by winning (if it is won) war and defense spending squander labor, resources, and wealth, leaving the country poorer in the end than if these things had been devoted to peaceful endeavors.

H.A. Scott Trask

Chris Claypoole has some interesting commentary today inspired by his recent reading of Eric Raymond's essay "Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun."

I had already known that disarming the public was a standard tactic of repressive governments. I have always been a "no compromise" supporter of the right to bear arms, but from the perspective of the right to self-defense. I had not made the connection between bearing arms (not merely gun ownership, but carrying as a normal part of life) and development of a responsible adult. The kind of person that will take responsibility for his/her actions, regardless of the consequences, motives, or lack of full information. Which means that this kind of person tends to think before acting when possible, and act decisively from a sound set of ethical principles when necessary.

This brings me to the tangential epiphany: When Robert A. Heinlein wrote that "An armed society is a polite society," I had always thought he meant that people tend not to act like an asshole if it might get them ventilated. Now I believe that what was also, and more importantly, meant was that people in an armed society grow up polite because they are armed! Knowing that a careless act or moment of unguarded anger could ruin your life and end someone else's will make the vast majority of people act more responsibly.

Orkut.com and Chris Claypoole both inform me that Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik hits the half-century mark today. Congrulations on your continued survival!

The government doesn't produce any wealth. Factories, software companies, farmers, and others are the ones producing wealth. All the government can do is make it harder for people to produce wealth or take wealth from one person and hand it to another. It can't actually make the pie larger on its own, but it can manage to drastically reduce the size of the pie by interfering. Only the people actually doing productive work can increase the size of the pie.

We see extreme cases of this in the third world. The reason people in Africa live in shacks and have to wear our cast-off clothing is not because we're mean and keep them from having all the wealth we've stolen from them. They have little wealth to steal in the first place. They are poor because their governments are run in a way that makes the creation and retention of wealth impossible. Unlike the booming Asian economies, where foreign factories are welcomed, few foreign companies "exploit" the poor of Africa, because the African governments have made running factories and businesses nearly impossible. Even indigenous entrepreneurs are regulated, shaken down and taxed into oblivion. If you want to make the poor wealthier, you have to stay out of the way of people who want to produce wealth. The more you get in the way, the poorer people will be.

Perry Metzger

Robert LeFevre taught us that capitalism is simply the postponment of consumption today, so that resources may accumulate, allowing us to much greater things in the future.

I think he quoted von Mises, who pointed out that taking the time and making the effort to prepare a stick so that you can knock down fruit that's higher up on the tree, instead of simply plucking and eating the fruit you can reach by hand, is the fundamental act of capitalism.

That being the case, in any conflict that ever existed between capitalism and anything else, capitalism won several hundred years ago. The real struggle is whether we will practice private capitalism, or some other form that will seize your stick for the community, or "merely" license it, and either claim your future fruit production for "all mankind" or limit how much you can take at any given moment, idiotically "saving" it for future generations (by which time it shall have rotted or be eaten by birds).

Me, I'm a private capitalist, as much as I can be in this nation of fourflushers and cheeseheads.

L. Neil Smith

...to fix the "market failure", the government must somehow actually act to supply the missing good, either directly or via government contracts. Because there is no market discipline enforcing the efficient delivery of government services, these services are often supplied in a stunningly bad manner. You can't go to the competing DMV — there is none — so you wait on line for hours to get your drivers license. Why should we expect that the efficiency with which, say, national defense or other purported "public goods" will be supplied would be any greater?

So, here is the crux of the problem with the "let the government supply the public goods" argument: there is no evidence the government can supply putative "public goods" with any greater efficiency than the market that has "failed". Indeed, one might even get less efficiency than one started with. Why, then, is government intervention any better than the "market failure" we started with?

Perry Metzger

A few weeks ago, on a mailing list I run, it was reported to me by a good friend that the present management of the Extropy Institute disavows free-market libertarianism as its politico-economic root. As a matter of fact, we're told, extropianism was never about liberty and its deepest ramifications. To those people, I have a large number of examples from the early history of the extropian movement which contradict that claim, such as this reprint of a short declaration by law professor Tom Bell, writing in 1988 as "T.O. Morrow," a piece called "Economics and Politics" (words in brackets below added by me for clarification):

As information processing systems, good economic and political systems must meet the same standards that apply to any of their kind; they must achieve their ends efficiently. Researchers such as Friedrich Hayek have demonstrated that the most efficient economic and political systems are those that exert a minimum of control, allowing spontaneous orders to flourish. Economic and political systems must furthermore advance (trans)human ends. Extropy [magazine] takes the [editorial] point of view that these two qualifications are entirely compatible; the most efficient economic and political systems are those that maximize human liberty. Thus the best economic systems are free market, and the best political systems libertarian. (Libertarians assert that the state, if one is neccessary, should permit all acts except assault, theft and fraud.) Extropy [magazine] will pursue such free market and libertarian analyses of economic and political systems, working toward the day when economic and political systems serve us, rather than we them.

(T.0. Morrow, '88-'98. All Rights Reserved. Please attach this paragraph to all copies. Fully attributed noncommercial use of this document hereby permitted.)

This was, as mentioned, published in the paper version of Extropy magazine (a copy of which I own), and is notated "online version, edited Nov. '96." I plan to publish many more such examples as I run across them, at my convenience. Why? Well, while I do acknowledge that the term "extropian" has been diluted to the extent it's indistinguishable from standard socialist transhumanism - and this is a tragic thing - I will not stand for the historical revisionism being pushed by some of those in the existing "extropian" movement... especially since I've been around that movement from the very beginning, and will not drink the Kool-Aid.

An excellent essay by Eric Raymond, "Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun: What Bearing Weapons Teaches About the Good Life." (Thanks to Steve Pegram.)

To believe one is incompetent to bear arms is... to live in corroding and almost always needless fear of the self — in fact, to affirm oneself a moral coward. A state further from the dignity of a free man would be rather hard to imagine. It is as a way of exorcising this demon, of reclaiming for ourselves the dignity and courage and ethical self-confidence of free (wo)men that the bearing of personal arms, is, ultimately, most important.

This is the final ethical lesson of bearing arms: that right choices are possible, and the ordinary judgement of ordinary (wo)men is sufficient to make them.

The Libertarian Enterprise has moved to a new location.

So, there are folks in Washington who must go in to the office every day and think they are involved with keeping our networks secure, when in fact nothing they do has any impact on the problem at all. This kind of thing appears to be a common feature of large bureaucracies. I've been struggling to come up with a pithy word or metaphor for it without much success. The only thing that pops into mind for me today is the Aztec priesthood. Those where the folks who thought that if they didn't cut out someone's heart every day, the sun would stop rising.

It is sort of the inverse of a "Cargo Cult." Instead of your actions bringing about no results even though you think you're doing everything right, the results you want keep happening even though your actions have nothing to do with it at all, and you are convinced you are the cause.

Perry Metzger

My old friend Perry Metzger gave in today and finally started a blog. Now to convince him to add a comment mechanism...

Anton Sherwood has found an interesting advocacy of the right to keep and bear arms... as a campaign issue by liberal Democratic editorial cartoonist Ted Rall, "Democrats for Guns: Why Kerry Should Stand Up for the Second Amendment":

The best argument for coming out as a pro-gun nut relates to the need for an adjustment to the long-term strategy of the Democratic Party. For too long, both parties have treated the Constitution like a Chinese menu. Republicans whittle away at the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and smear opponents who exercise their First Amendment right to free speech. Democrats rail against the states rights expressed by the Tenth Amendment and absurdly argue that the placement of a comma reflects the founders' original intent to limit gun ownership to members of 18th century militias. Aside from its fundamental intellectual dishonesty, our politicians' take-some-leave-others attitude deviates from most citizens' belief that every section of the Constitution holds equal weight.

First of all, the Founding Fathers loathed a democracy, calling it a tyranny of the majority. The United States is not a democracy. The United States is a constitutional Republic based on private party and individual rights. In the 1860s we passed the 13th amendment, which presumably eliminated slavery and it took well over 100 years to erase the racial hatred between the whites and the blacks. How does the American government think that they can go into another country and
override thousands of years of culture? It is not our job to export anything except products and services.

Michael Badnarik

Security is an important aspect of a good life, but if you live in a society where a government potentate can nullify your citizenship and completely strip you of your rights just because he doesn't like your looks, with no real accountability for his actions, then you are not secure at all.

Self-defense is as basic a bodily function as eating and defecating, and cannot truly be delegated -- unless you want to live life as an effective cripple, or as someone else's property.

Scott Bieser

Personally, while I like [L.] Neil [Smith]'s idea in Hope of a "Bill of Rights Party", I think a better idea would be a "Mind your own damned business party":

Don't like guns? Don't own one, and mind your own damned business!
Don't like homosexuals? Don't associate with them, and mind your own damned business!
Don't like pagans? Don't associate with them, and mind your own damned business!
Don't like nuclear power? Don't use it, and mind your own damned business!
Don't like hunting? Don't hunt, and mind your own damned business!

See how easy it is? All the individual has to do is live and let live, follow the basic precepts of ALL major religions, as far as love, tolerance and respect, and mind their own damned business!

Ron Beatty

There is, however, one advantage to government: it keeps society's worst criminals out in the open where we know where they are and what they're doing. That they manage to fool some people into thinking they're saints instead of devils is simply a learning experience for those fools.

Bill St. Clair

Walking through the city in a skirt so short that it’s possible to see what you’ve had for breakfast may be asking for a couple of raised eyebrows, but certainly doesn’t sanction assault or rape. If another human decides to harm you in some way, it was still an independent decision, irrespective of the triggering events.

Another I’ve heard is that women choose to wear the hijab in order to prevent objectification in a sexist world. This implies to me that the male form is the norm - the standard to which women must aspire - and the only way to do that is to completely hide any physical differentiation with the aid of several yards of material. I completely reject the idea that one gender should hide its attributes from another in the attempt to receive equal rights.

Monica White

First, we see that "public goods" are rare things. There's a great collection of essays by economists called "The Theory of Market Failure" edited by Tyler Cowan, which includes descriptions of the way private organizations historically built lighthouses, and the market for honeybee pollination (lighthouses and pollination are both classic examples of public goods in econ texts which are in the real world not public goods.)

Second, even if we are confronted with a public good, given the general incompetence of a non-market signaled monopoly organization with an unchecked budget at accomplishing anything, why would we imagine the organization would be able to figure out the "true" demand for the public good and supply it at the economically efficient level? Also, why do we imagine that the extraction of funds from all sorts of weird tax sources in any way properly reflects the "true" consumption of the good by the populace? "Solving" the public goods problem with government is like searching for your car keys under a street light 500m away from where you dropped them because the light is better there. Sure, it makes you feel as though you are doing something, but does it actually get you any nearer to your goal?

Perry Metzger

Jackie D at Samizdata reprints a recent article by Hollywood screenwriter Robert J. Avrech, "Jews and Guns":

Ariel [Avrech's recently deceased son] was always amazed at how many Jews - Shomer Shabbos Jews - aligned themselves with the advocates of gun control, in reality a movement to banish the private ownership of guns by lawful citizens. During the Los Angeles riots of 1992, Karen and I, Ariel and Leda were inside a film theatre. Abruptly, an angry mob congregated outside; soon they were trying to break down the doors. Trapped inside, we were all terrified. I held Leda in my arms; she shivered like a frightened rabbit. Karen held Ariel's hand.

"Don't worry," I said with false confidence, "the police will be here soon."

But the police did not arrive that night, nor did they protect the city from arson and widespread looting. In fact, we watched in disbelief as news cameras captured images of police officers standing idly by while looters gleefully committed their crimes.

A few days later, I bought a gun.

I bought a gun because I realized that the day might come again when the people who were sworn to protect us would once again choose not to.

Anyone who thinks Objectivists are lacking in humor haven't met some guy named Steve. Heck, I just noticed that an acquaintance of mine (and friend of my friend Alan Weiss), Amanda Phillips, is featured on this page, "Hot Objectivist on Objectivist Action" (or, for those of us steeped in Monty Python, "The Society for putting Objectivists on top of other Objectivists".)

...the first highways were in fact privately funded, and, it can be argued that Xerox's networking protocols were better than TCP/IP at the time, but that's all another story. The general point is, sure the government does some good sometimes, just as even that crazy neighbor who no one suspected would go off and kill 50 peoples always seemed so quiet and did great things for the community playground project. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. I can
point at dozens of things the government has done reasonably well, but there is no feedback mechanism that rewards the bureaucrats who did the good things and punishes the idiots who run the DMV for doing bad things, so there is no likelihood those seeds will sprout into oaks.

Meanwhile, though, dumb companies that piss off customers go under all the time, and good ones make people rich. It isn't that the same sort of idiots who run government agencies can't get their hands on companies for a while -- it is that they can't keep running things that way for long before the well runs dry.

Perry Metzger

Texas congressman Ron Paul, in today's "Texas Straight Talk", reports on an incredibly intrusive expansion of the American census, the "American Community Survey":

You may not have heard of the American Community Survey, but you will. The national census, which historically is taken every ten years, has expanded to quench the federal bureaucracy’s ever-growing thirst to govern every aspect of American life. The new survey, unlike the traditional census, is taken each and every year at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. And it’s not brief. It contains 24 pages of intrusive questions concerning matters that simply are none of the government’s business, including your job, your income, your physical and emotional heath, your family status, your dwelling, and your intimate personal habits.

The questions are both ludicrous and insulting. The survey asks, for instance, how many bathrooms you have in your house, how many miles you drive to work, how many days you were sick last year, and whether you have trouble getting up stairs. It goes on and on, mixing inane questions with highly detailed inquiries about your financial affairs. One can only imagine the countless malevolent ways our federal bureaucrats could use this information. At the very least the survey will be used to dole out pork, which is reason enough to oppose it.

Keep in mind the survey is not voluntary, nor is the Census Bureau asking politely. Americans are legally obligated to answer, and can be fined up to $1,000 per question if they refuse!

Well, isn't this this grand: national concealed carry for cops has become a reality, but the rest of us have to go state-by-state for our "permits" to exercise our fundamental civil right.

I never hear good news emanating from that cesspit of a state, New Jersey. Apparently, they're proposing yet another outrageous law, in this case the first tax on a medical procedure in American history:

The bill, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Wayne R. Bryant and Democratic Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, imposes a 6 percent tax on certain cosmetic medical procedures that are directed at improving the patient's appearance and that do not promote the proper function of the body or prevent or treat illness or disease.

James R. Rummel passes on a fascinating account of harassment of the Pink Pistols contingent by goons at the Stonewall Union gay pride march. The offending security guard - and her goons - seem to have bought hook, line & sinker the dogma that people with guns are predators, while in fact (in this case) they are usually protectors. If you read into the comments, you'll see where a legally savvy person notes the legal basis for taking the guard and her 20 goons to court, in some detail. Interesting indeed.

Anders Monsen informs us of the publication by Brad Linaweaver and J. Kent Hastings of "ANARQUÍA: An Alternate History of the Spanish Civil War," which sounds like a great deal of fun in the vein of L. Neil Smith's "The Probability Broach." I'm a fan of Linaweaver's work, such as his excellent "Moon of Ice," which comes to market far too rarely.

If a politician isn't comfortable with any individual being able to walk into a hardware store, pay cash for any firearm without producing identification or signing a single scrap of paper (and that individual being able to carry that protection concealed or open), then that politician does not support freedom.

Gun-control laws only disarm potential victims, thus creating a safe work environment for criminals - kind of like an OSHA for felons. And criminals won't be deterred from getting a weapon because of a law. Criminals don't follow laws. Any attempt to rid the world of a tool that would give my 130-pound wife a fighting chance against a 230-pound man would be immoral.

Ernest Hancock

Bob Tipton has written a brilliant little piece I recommend.

This is nasty and upsetting news from Steve Pegram: "Rocket Hobbyists Dropping Hobby" due to hamfisted, jackbooted regulation by the goons of the BATF. Just when we're seeing the spirit of innovation in rocketry and space travel rekindled, the government is working to snuff that spirit. This crap needs to be fought... which seems to be happening by default, since many rocket hobbyists have chosen to ignore F-Troop anyway.

Bear in mind this was written in the 1930's, a time when the role of medicine was far more profoundly focussed on service to the individual, rather than as a tool of social engineering (a path we've been headed down for a few decades):

Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality. It is impossible to find a hygienist who does not debase his theory of the healthful with a theory of the virtuous. The whole hygienic art, indeed, resolves itself into an ethical exhortation. This brings it, in the end, into diametrical conflict with medicine proper. The true aim of medicine is not to make men virtuous, it is to safeguard and rescue them from the consequences of their vices. The physician does not preach repentance; he offers absolution.

H. L. Mencken

Many have heard the now-famous quote by H.L. Mencken, "Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Well, here's another instance of it in action, reported by The Guardian: "Britons caught on camera as shots of cruise ship orgy shock Cyprus."

Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik has a blog.

My friend Franklin sent along this ironic bit of news from Saudi Arabia: "Saudi: Foreigners can carry guns."

If money becomes more important than making good art for you, you will become a hack. But money attaches you on the audience or the reader. It forces deadlines out of you. It makes you focus. It forces you to edit, to rewrite, to start over. And above all, to make choices. When there's no money, then there's the deadly freedom that kills all artists. You should fear it, because it will make you indulgent and self-obsessed, and above all, boring. It will drive you to write that 1,200-page novel entirely from the point of view of an ant just about to get eaten. It will make you a performance artist. Who wants that?

Paul Bibeau

A few days ago I picked up a pristine copy of the book "Letters of Ayn Rand" which is a fascinating comilation of Rand's personal and business correspondance over a span of decades. The book seems to be selling everywhere at remainder prices, about US $6.

Melissa Seaman passes along this interesting bit of local TV news coverage of the strength of the Libertarian Party in Austin, Texas, home of national candidate Michael Badnarik.

Eric Pavao reports that Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik of Austin, Texas will be interviewed by Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly tonight.

The success of SpaceShipOne feels like a reward for my faith. I can’t say I’m terribly surprised – relief is more the word. If I were anywhere near the Mojave desert instead of freezing through a London summer, I would have travelled myself to witness it.

It’s a shining example of what like-minded people would say is the ultimate freedom – the freedom to create, to produce, to take risk, to try and also to fail. The freedom that can only fully be realized where our money (our very lives) isn’t taxed away for a variety of hare-brained political schemes and our lives aren’t regulated to the point of absurdity.

Most Americans reading this would have paid for NASA through their taxes – where’s your return on investment? I’m willing to bet that the VCs who stumped up for SpaceShipOne are looking forward to some long term return on their money.

I hope that those who advocate the big-government nanny state for various reasons sit up and take notice this week. This is what we humans are capable of – without the interference, guidance or regulation of beaurocracy.

Monica White

Bill of Rights Nullification by the US Supreme Court:

They have nullified the first: you have to be a politician to criticise a politician on TV or radio before an election.

They have nullified the second, repeatedly, since 1934.

They have nullified the third: we are now serfs, via taxation. We don't directly quarter the troops... they wouldn't lower themselves to live in our hovels.

They have nullified the fourth: there is no such thing as an illegal search anymore.

They have nullified the fifth: remaining silent is now unlawful.

They have nullified the sixth: you only get a speedy trial if the Supreme Court decides you deserve one, jurors are subordinated to the judges, and you can be tried secretly or get no trial at all if you are declared a "terrorist."

They have nullified the seventh: unless your civil case involves the exchange of 21 antique silver dollars, you have no right to a jury trial.

They have nullified the eighth: if you are declared a terrorist, it's torture and Gitmo time for you.

They have nullified the ninth: apparently the commerce clause and vague language about the common good cannot be contradicted by a later AMENDMENT.

They have nullified the tenth: no Supreme Court judge since the 1803 Marbury decision has obeyed that one.

The United States Supreme Court has finally nullified every one of the Bill of Rights amendments through judicial fiat. The destruction of rule of law in the U.S. is now complete.

Kristopher Barrett

This is the in-flight face of the first non-government, privately-financed test pilot to earn American astronaut's wings:

The success of a party can be determined by the number of gatecrashers. And we do have friends who've been knocking away on the virtual doors of the cartel. MadMan is devising a logical test of libertarianism. Get ready to jump through the hoop and clear the hurdles!

Any more wanting to join us in the battle against the evil forces of socialism, illogic, and unfreedom? Drop me a line.

Yazad Jal

I have come to the conclusion that the reason people don't just "throw the bums out" and vote for freedom, is that they genuinely are afraid of their neighbors. They fear freedom for other people, thinking that regulation is the only thing that stands between themselves and violent death.

Handguns are an excellent example. Someone who wouldn't think twice about balancing their own checkbook, and "looking both ways" before crossing the street, dreads a handgun because it represents no longer relying on those regulations for personal safety.

They cannot admit that regulations do not provide "safety", so anything that reflects badly on those regulations is itself anathema. They fear what firearms in private hands truly represents.

This adds yet another layer to hoplophobia. It makes it still harder for someone with the condition to admit they are irrational, because they might honestly say they do not "fear" guns.

They fear their neighbors. What an awful fear that must be.

Curt Howland

Abolishing the FCC does not mean airwave anarchy. What it means is returning to bottom-up law rather than the top-down process that has characterized telecommunications for the last 80 years...

...If the FCC had been in charge of overseeing the Internet, we'd likely be waiting for the Mosaic Web browser to receive preliminary approval from the Wireline Competition Bureau.

Declan McCullagh (cited by Anton)

If we assume that the individual has an indisputable right to life, we must concede that he has a similar right to the enjoyment of the products of his labor. This we call a property right. The absolute right to property follows from the original right to life because one without the other is meaningless; the means to life must be identified with life itself. If the State has a prior right to the products of one's labor, his right to existence is qualified. Aside from the fact that no such prior right can be established, except by declaring the State the author of all rights, our inclination (as shown in the effort to avoid paying taxes) is to reject this concept of priority. Our instinct is against it. We object to the taking of our property by organized society just as we do when a single unit of society commits the act. In the latter case we unhesitatingly call the act robbery, a malum in se. It is not the law which in the first instance defines robbery, it is an ethical principle, and this the law may violate but not supersede. If by the necessity of living we acquiesce to the force of law, if by long custom we lose sight of the immorality, has the principle been obliterated? Robbery is robbery, and no amount of words can make it anything else.

Frank Chodorov
Out of Step: The Autobiography of an Individualist (1962)

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

Ronald Reagan

You did hear that the Boston transit system now has the authority to stop you and demand ID, your itinerary, and your reason for travel, didn't you? Failure to produce all three will result in your expulsion from the transit system and probable arrest on suspicion.

Folks that can't see the similarities between this nation now and the Germany of the 1930's are both blind and stupid.

Frank Ney

Today's the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy. I'm reminded that a couple of weeks ago, a couple of friends of mine and I went shooting at a rifle range in northern California, taking a number of weapons including an M1 Garand rifle which probably saw action in WWII. Here, my friend Andy Chen, a brand new shooter (and 18 y/o college classmate), fires my other friend's Garand:

This was Andy's first time out shooting... and on steel reactive targets set out at 100 meters - after having been briefed on safety and weapon operation - he kept up with us two trained, experienced shooters, at least on the sandbag rests. He's spent his high school years reading military history, and knows an incredible amount of factual data on weapons history. He's also used to playing first-person shooter games - in which I've never been interested, thinking them useless for training - causing me to start to re-think my opinions of twitch games.

An older gentleman at an adjacent shooting stall took some time to discuss the Garand with Andy, pointing out that he had ordered his own Garand (which he was also shooting) from the U.S. federal government's Civilian Marksmanship Program, which I've heard about over the years, though I'd bought my own past two Garands from commercial sources.

I'm encouraging Andy to join a local CMP-affiliated club and shoot a match this summer, so that he can be eligible to buy at least a "rack grade" rifle for as low as $350... shipped Fedex directly to his door (yes, they do that)! I don't see Garands selling at gun shows for less than around $800 nowadays. Here's a very detailed and interesting account, with photos, of the experiences of two CMP participants in the purchase and shooting of their own CMP Garands.

It's especially worth noting, for California residents, that a Garand is "Kalifornia legal", making it an excellent rifle to keep locked in the trunk of one's car... just in case. Also note that a number of companies (such as Smith Enterprises) do "tanker conversions" to shorten the overall length, and one can convert the weapon to .308 caliber.

It is a shame that the precautionary principle is not applied to government regulation: in the absence of any overwhelming proof that it will work, such regulation ought to be prohibited.

Antoine Clarke

Huh... Peggy just got physical mail advertising the products of:

Omaha Steaks, Inc.
10909 John Galt Blvd.
Omaha, Nebraska

I had the pleasure of first meeting Barbara Branden very briefly at the November 1987 Future of Freedom Conference (FoFCon) in Culver City, California, but didn't engage her in conversation, since she was on her way to a talk at that convention centered around "The Passion of Ayn Rand," her biography of novelist Ayn Rand, with whom she had been associated professionally and personally for a number of decades. Her book had been published the year before, and I'd bought my own copy as soon as it hit the bookstores (this was the pre-Amazon era).

At the end of March this year, a few weeks ago, I finally got the chance to chat with Barbara in a comfortable venue where she was wasn't being shuttled around to talks, in the course of other business: her apartment in southern California. What a lovely, intelligent, funny and benevolent lady she is! I must once again thank my friend Glenn Cripe, who had business to conduct with her that afternoon, for allowing me to tag along with his crew, and of course to Barbara for her warm hospitality... and for autographing that book I bought 18 years ago.

I found out from posters to the smith2004-discuss list this morning that C-SPAN keeps video archives of recent shows available for downloading. A search for "libertarian" on their website yields all the video coverage of the recent Libertarian Party nominating convention in Atlanta along with a follow-up interview (which I'm playing now) with the newly nominated presidential candidate Michael Badnarik.

All of us must begin telling everyone we know—especially if they're not libertarians—that if they're fed up with this mess the Republicans have made in Iraq and Afghanistan, if they want to see the USA Patriot Act go down in flames, along with all the unconstitutional intrusions and limitations that it has inflicted on us, if they want to see drug laws, the income tax, and federal gun laws repealed, and if they don't believe life under a Kerry Administration would be any better than it has been under Bush, their only option is to see both "major" parties shocked and embarrassed by a high turnout for Michael Badnarik.

L. Neil Smith

Here's a film I heard about on the smith2004-discuss list a few months ago and placed on my Netflix rental queue: Interstate 60, a bizarre road flick with Gary Oldman, Christopher Lloyd, Kurt Russell and Chris Cooper. No one I've spoken to about this film has heard of it, which is too bad: it's great. I won't give a comprehensive review here, and no spoilers, but I will say I hurt myself laughing during the protagonist's stopover in "Morlaw".

Cargo Cult Libertarians observe that successful Republican and Democrat politicans wear suits and power ties, that successful Republican and Democrat politicians exude confidence, that successful Republican and Democrat politicians shy from the radical, and that successful Republican and Democrat politicians take a smooth, milquetoast, middle of the road, "well, Bob" approach in media interviews.

From this, they hypothesize that if they, as Libertarians, wear suits and power ties, exude confidence, shy from the radical, and take a smooth, milquetoast, middle of the road, "well, Bob" approach in media interviews and public appearances, that they will magically become successful Libertarian politicians.

Needless to say, it doesn't work that way. Voters who want cuddly, well-dressed, moderate, confidence-exuding, "well Bob" politicians already have them. We call them Republicans and Democrats. The LP's future, if it has one, lies precisely with those Americans who sense a need for a radical, in your face, "well, Bob, fuck the conventional wisdom" alternative.

Thomas Knapp

One of the benefits of being myself - being open about my passions and not worrying overmuch about getting along with everyone - is that occasionally, someone I've never heard from introduces himself or herself and extends a hand in friendship, knowing who I am and what I stand for.

This happened again today, this time from somewhere I'd least expected: India, in the form of an articulate fellow named Yazad Jal, a thoroughgoing and studious anarchocapitalist, who'd taken note of me from a couple of running battles I'd been having with a few people on the Atheists community on Orkut.

After taking a quick look at Yazad's Orkut profile, and seeing immediately that he didn't seem like a flake (believe me, I've met a couple of crazies in the last year), I checked out Yazad's blog. I'm impressed: he's a very solid, intelligent, articulate and funny individual who's been writing fairly regularly for a couple of years, and has some interesting things to say about the political and economic problems of India. Visit his blog and make friends. If you're a fellow Orkuteer, introduce yourself to him and make friends there.

I remember the odious BBC television licensing fee from my days in London long ago, but had thought the fee had been repealed. Not so, reports UK-resident Australian Monica White:

For those of you who don’t live in the UK, you may be interested in the phenomenon that is the TV License – I was truly surprised by it a year ago. Essentially, if you have a TV or receiving equipment, you are obliged to pay the government £121 per year to view the BBC channels.

Don’t watch the BBC? I’m afraid that TV Licensing doesn’t believe you. EVERYONE who owns an operational set must watch the BBC. They're compelled to. There’s something in the water.

TV Licensing ‘Enquiry Officers’ also seem to get a hoot out of slapping £1000 fines onto anyone within spitting distance.

landlord, cowboy, brotherhood, yacht, cult, primitive, addict, alumni, American, elderly, illiterate, mankind, penmanship, teenager, third world, uncivilized, underprivileged, unmarried, widow or widower, masterpiece or mastery.

Just some of the words you won't find in an American textbook because an anti-bias committee has airbrushed the literature.

It's funny when a line Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind" changes from "How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?" to "How many roads must an individual walk down before you can call them an adult."

Yazad Jal

The lovely Monica White informs me a few minutes ago that she has a blog, Th'inkwell. I'm really happy to see it! Welcome to the blogosphere, Monica!

Michael Lorrey reports on Orkut community Libertarians the results a few minutes ago of the presidential candidate nomination at the national convention in Atlanta, Georgia:

LP 3rd ballot

256 249 423 Michael Badnarik winner
246 244 Gary Nolan
258 285 344 Aaron Russo
xxx 005 011 NOTA [None Of The Above]
015 others

All single digit vote candidates dropped on 1st ballot.
NOTA is never dropped.
Nolan is dropped on 2nd ballot.
Shock. Badnarik was thought to be trailing in third place.
Nolan speaks to convention and endorses Badnarik.

I'm happy, I like Mike, I met him in November at the LPNH convention, where he gave one of his Constitution classes.

I'm happy too: these results give me some confidence that the Libertarian Party is serious about its founding principles. Congratulations to Badnarik! I'm looking forward to seeing whom he chooses as running mate... I hope he doesn't choose Nolan in a quid pro quo for having thrown his support to Badnarik after the 2nd round of voting.

A few days ago, my friend Glenn Cripe told me about this fascinating business venture: The Liberty English Camp (Lithuania).

Is it moral to carry arms? You bet it is! When I enter your home or your business with a firearm, concealed or otherwise, I am tacitly agreeing to share with you the responsibility for defending your property and your family. When I eat in the same restaurant, I am prepared to shed my blood in your defense. There are survivors of the horror at Luby’s in Killeen, Texas, who would appreciate what I am saying here.

I will never, never need to ask some poor cop to die for me. I value my own life enough to defend it myself. I carry arms proudly, as a free American.

Do you?

Kathryn A. Graham
"Handguns - A Moral Imperative"

Just because I'm feeling like it: a plug for my friend Jeff Chan's Right to Keep and Bear Arms website.

My wife Peggy just got back from 9 days travelling between New York, Boston, Washington, and Philadelphia on a "planes, trains, & automobiles" trip with her older brother visiting from Hong Kong. She mentioned some the killer deals she'd seen for bus service - the "Chinatown to Chinatown" service - on some bus company between New York and Boston, for only $10!

Well, sitting here writing, I just now saw a little newsclip on Fox News mentioning the service, which is run by a company called Fung Wah Bus. The busses look cleaner and newer than the rolling homeless shelters run by Greyhound, and the latter's lobby organization, the American Bus Association, is freaking out, claiming the new bus company (and Chinese ones like it) must be doing something wrong, "cutting corners" and such, and snidely insinuating that the Chinese company is operating illegally, since it's running daily service rather than "charter".

I say give the Chinese companies our business. Screw Greyhound, the Amtrak of the busways!

I believe it was Dr. Johnson who said famously that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." It is also the first refuge of an idiot. My loyalty is to the ideas on which this country was founded, not to the two-century-long string of governments that have done their best to destroy them.

L. Neil Smith

I don't normally post more than one formal "quote of the day", but this one from Adam Michnik (I don't know who that is) coming via Chris Claypoole deserves immediate posting:

As a rule, dictatorships guarantee safe streets and terror of the doorbell. In democracy the streets may be unsafe after dark, but the most likely visitor in the early hours will be the milkman.

Ah, yes, the benevolent Swedish model of democratic socialism. Here's an interesting piece, "Sweden and the Myth of Benevolent Socialism"; an excerpt from a Washington Post article of 1997 is included in the piece:

From 1934 to 1974, 62,000 Swedes were sterilized as part of a national program grounded in the science of racial biology and carried out by officials who believed they were helping to build a progressive, enlightened welfare state...In some cases, couples judged to be inferior parents were sterilized, as were their children when they became teenagers.

Margot Wallstrom, the Swedish Minister of Health and Social Affairs, told the Post that "there was nothing secret about the sterilization program. It was carried out in the light of public debate at a time when Swedes believed they were creating a society that would be the envy of the world." The Swedish Institute for Racial Biology, founded in 1922, was the first national institute of the kind. The Swedes were also the first to sterilize the mentally ill, beginning in 1934.

Between 1934 and 1976, when the Sterilisation Act was finally repealed, 62,000 people, 90 percent of them women, were sterilised. 15-year-old teenagers were sterilised for "crimes" such as going to dance halls. One woman was sterilised in 1960 for being in a motorcycle gang. Orphans were sterilised as a condition of their release from children's homes. Others were pinpointed on the basis of local neighbourhood gossip and personal grudges. Some were targeted because of their "low intelligence", being of mixed race, being gypsies, or for physical defects.

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

William Pitt (1759-1806)

I regret to say that we of the F.B.I. are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce.

J. Edgar Hoover

Michael Reed strongly recommends to me in email Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan as "an absolutely knock-out sci-fi novel", so I've put it in my queue. I've not read it yet, so I'd welcome opinions.

I don't generally read science fiction nowadays, having gotten increasingly picky as time goes by (and science fact often holds more fascination for me the better educated I become). I did however take a weekend recently to relax with Ken Macleod's Dark Light and Engine City, which were a mixture of disappointment and amusement for me. I've read all his work so far, and will continue to do so, but the man seems to be afflicted recently with the problem Heinlein had during the late period of his life when he was stricken with a cerebral arterial blockage: at some point near the end of each story, he seems to simply get tired, and tries to wrap up the story abruptly.

My bedside reading the last couple of days: Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics: A Citizens Guide to the Economy, Revised and Expanded, a fantastic book I very highly recommend.

Well, it didn't take long for this to happen. We've been "adopted" by a stray dog. This is Pesky.

I found him at our gate, shivering and obviously starving, a couple of days ago. At first, it was a toss-up: have him put to sleep, or try to nurse him back to health. In the end, his sweet disposition won me over. If he's this nice of a dog when he's near death, he must be a genuinely nice dog. I'm keeping a watchful eye on him, however, just in case he starts to show menace. One of the side benefits of being always armed is that I can be comfortable taking controlled risks with something like an unknown dog. In an unarmed society, there would be only one route for dogs like Pesky - some gov-goon would show up and either shoot him on the spot, or lock him up for a few days until he was gassed.

Bob Tipton

Competitive systems can operate to check each other's excesses. Consider the codes governing the relations between U.S. corporations and their shareholders. The fifty states compete to offer standard corporation codes; companies can either use these default terms or tailor specific provisions in their corporate charters. (A company does not have to be physically headquartered in a state to claim it as the corporation's legal domicile.) Agreeable state rules, backed by well-established case law, can significantly cut the cost of doing business. The competition among states for incorporations and the taxes they bring makes legislatures responsive to new ideas and changing business conditions.

Equally important, company managers can't get away with adopting just any code that makes their lives easy. These rules govern a two-way agreement—between the business (essentially, its managers) and the shareholders. Opportunistic managers who try to use state laws to help themselves at the stockholders' expense are checked by another source of competition: the financial markets. So, for instance, when Pennsylvania passed a law designed to make hostile takeovers difficult, protecting managers but making stock less valuable, pressures from falling stock prices pushed most of the state's publicly traded companies to opt out of the law's provisions. Few other states adopted the same law, lest they lose incorporations.

The legal scholar Roberta Romano, who calls this federalist system of competing rules "the genius of American corporate law," writes: "As the Pennsylvania experience illustrates, the federal system provides a safety net against the consequences of harmful state laws. Some jurisdictions will have no or only mild takeover regulation, and this constrains how much other jurisdictions can act in this area and how much firms can take advantage of value-decreasing laws, especially when major commercial states such as Delaware and California have less onerous laws." Having many sources of competing rules, rather than a single, national standard, makes finding good rules—and eliminating or limiting bad ones—more likely.

Virginia Postrel
The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress, p145 (from Chapter 5, "The Bonds of Life")

Fuck euphemisms. Dammit. Some would have us believe that a woman raped and strangled with her underwear is somehow morally superior to one that put two rounds into the chest of that motherfucker, saving future women from his predation.

Though I suppose the recent photos of abuse in Iraq point out again that people can be abusive, not just men.

God fucking dammit.

Rapists should meet a wall, and at least one .30 bullet. Fuck. My girlfriend was reading a study to me last night on at least one American college campus that had over 60% of the male respondents answer that they might, when "rape" was substituted with "force intercourse", or similar verbiage.

Stop rape. Go armed, and love yourself enough to know that you are fucking WORTH DEFENDING.

John Shirley

Do you really think that innovation will come to a grinding halt without the FBI confiscating computers and spying on P2P networks? Please.

This whole DMCA bs isn't about protecting intellectual property. It's about the recording, movie, and software industries believing that for the time being it's more cost effective to manipulate legislation than to cut prices enough that consumers will opt for paid distribution channels.

Here's a hint-- how many people do you know who pirate books via photocopy? That's right, not many. Why? Because most books (certain textbooks and tech manuals being the exception) are priced such that it is simply not worth the effort to stand there and photocopy them. Technologies change. Media corporations that can't/won't keep up will go out of business and good riddance.

Alex Bokov

As far as anarcho-socialists getting jobs, it's not really a problem. When's the last time you went to a record store or a $tarbuck$ and got waited on by a kid in a button down shirt and khakis?

Socialists buy health insurance all the time. They just want us to chip in.

John 8=$

When Monica and I spent some time in Malaysia it was an interesting experience.

We were in the capital, KL. Something to know about Malaysia is that it is the most Westernised Muslim country. As an example, people from the fully fundamental places that want to experience 'Western Decadance' will be allowed to go there by their government because it is not a secular country under the surface.

Most of my recollections about it were negative. I was there with a Chinese friend. Something to note is that Malaysia has three predominant cultures - Malay, Indian and Chinese - in that order of population. Wealth and power, however, goes in the opposite direction with the 3-5% of Chinese owning most of the country.

There's a major reason for this. The Chinese people (on the whole of course) work damn hard, and the Malays don't - they don't need to. There are laws saying that there must be X% of Bumis (the local name for Muslim Malays) working in every business and other such crap.

I also tried to put an ad in the local paper but couldn't because it needed to go to a government office to be "checked" before being printed - they had true government censorship.

As to the people, I'd never seen so many women covered up before. In Australia there are many Muslim women around so you can get used to it even if you don't like it. Seeing this many in a place that for all other appearances was Western (ie: in the malls with Nike stores or in the KFCs) was weird. (Incidentally the fashion was to wear a dark dress with a white head scarf... when you look down the mall over their heads at them (I'm tall and they are generally short), and when they cluster, they look like lots of little bowling pins ready for a big bowling ball :)

We grilled (nicely of course, just in case) a taxi driver as to why they don't eat pork, even though there were good historical reasons for desert dwellers not to eat pork due to trichinosis, but no longer. And also why women have to be wrapped up.

His answer was that pork has things in it that are like cancer. If you eat it even once you will die, not right away, but you will have long term problems.

As to the women, historically it's just to protect their beautiful faces from harsh winds and sand storms, and now it's just a fashion - nothing more.

Yeah... right. that's why I saw many beautiful Chinese women in short skirts and business jackets, or thousands of beautiful Indian women in saris or other dresses but NEVER in three weeks saw a single Malay woman uncovered.

Matthew White

IMHO firefighters are the only true heroes in this country. They sustain a far higher risk of injury and death than any cop or military person, they frequently do it as volunteers, and they don't get nice fancy medals like purple hearts or congressional medals of honor for the lives and property they save.

That being said, private fire fighting is how the practice started, and non-profit private organizations is how I think it should be run. The ONLY advantage that public fire departments have is that their very expensive equipment can be purchased with borrowing at much lower rates of interest because the government has the power to tax.

Mike Lorrey

[Occasional blog contributor and fulltime friend Tom Burroughes returns to us with his own endorsement of the Firefly series - Russell]

I have watched a lot of science fiction in my time, and although many films and television shows have hit great heights of drama and special effects wizardry, such as Babylon 5, very few have ever really engaged me emotionally and in humorous ways to the extent achieved by the Firefly series, now available in Britain on a DVD format.

I bought the whole set last week and it is one of the best investments I have made in a long time. I think it is a notch above B5 (high praise indeed), and I love the way it weaves in the culture of the old West with the format of a science fiction adventure. The cast are excellent, particularly the lead actor playing the ship's captain, who has a sense of humour so dry it sounds like Clint Eastwood at his best. The women are great -- frequently more than a match for the men, and ahem, very easy on the eye indeed.

The core of Firefly, as Russell has already noted, is its unmistakably libertarian sense. These adventurers, smugglers and desperadoes are up against a totalitarian world government; they are unabashed traders and entrepreneurs, fun-lovers, individualists, not to mention serious partygoers when required. Think of a series containing elements of Robert A. Heinlein, L. Neil Smith and Eastwood's finest Western, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and you will get what I mean. Oh, and throw in some superb country backing music for good measure.

I find it very distressing that as yet, Joss Whedon's creation has only made it to one full series. Back here in Britain, where our domestic TV drama is a swamp of tragic soap opera crud and the occasional historical re-reun, Firefly is like a shot of brandy to a half-drowned man. What a great series. More, more!

There is a central myth about British science and economic growth, and it goes like this: science breeds wealth, Britain is in economic decline, therefore Britain has not done enough science. Actually, it is easy to show that a key cause of Britain's economic decline has been that the government has funded too much science...

Post-war British science policy illustrates the folly of wasting money on research. The government decided, as it surveyed the ruins of war-torn Europe in 1945, that the future lay in computers, nuclear power and jet aircraft, so successive administrations poured money into these projects--to vast technical success. The world's first commercial mainframe computer was British, sold by Ferrranti in 1951; the world's first commercial jet aircraft was British, the Comet, in service in 1952; the first nuclear power station was British, Calder Hall, commissioned in 1956; and the world's first and only supersonic commercial jet aircraft was Anglo-French, Concorde, in service in 1976.

Yet these technical advances crippled us economically, because they were so uncommercial. The nuclear generation of electricity, for example, had lost 2.1 billion pounds by 1975 (2.1 billion pounds was a lot then); Concord had lost us, alone, 2.3 billion pounds by 1976; the Comet crashed and America now dominates computers. Had these vast sums of money not been wasted on research, we would now be a significantly richer country.

Terence Kealey
Wasting Billions, the Scientific Way
The Sunday Times, October 13, 1996

I do not know what you mean when you say you do not agree with me on the VN war. Are you referring to opinions expressed by Oscar of GLORY ROAD? If so, be assured that my fictional characters speak for themselves, not for me--and, in any case, that book was written six years ago. My private opinion of the situation in 1968 I have never expressed publicly.

Robert A. Heinlein in a personal communication (letter)

Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big enough majority in any town?

Mark Twain (1835-1910) in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The mind likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and resists it with similar energy. It would not perhaps be too fanciful to say that a new idea is the most quickly acting antigen known to science. If we watch ourselves honestly we shall often find that we have begun to argue against a new idea even before it has been completely stated.

Wilfred Batten Lewis Trotter, English surgeon (1872-1939)

Penn & Teller are back for another season of the excellent BULLSHIT! debunking series on Showtime. Set your PVRs: there's an episode tonight.

Aaron reminds me that today is the 2nd annual BAG (Buy A Gun) Day!

The concept of porn invading our homes all by itself is simply the right-wing equivalent of the left-wing nonsense of guns (ahem) pulling their own triggers.

Dave Aronson

After a 2nd major round of revision on my 2003 tax paperwork (the 1st preparer was, well, not entirely prepared for me), I've managed to squeeze several hundred dollars more deductions from a pile of receipts and am re-submitting to another preparer tomorrow. I can relax now, a bit.

I do wish that presidential election days - for that matter, all election days - were fixed to the 16th of April.

One of my regular gym workout times coincides with the CNN news show "Lou Dobbs Tonight", which is usually playing on one of the overhead TVs in the aerobics machine areas where I warm up. The show is broadcast with closed captioning, so I can usually follow it if I care. Last night's show, apparently, was a continuation on the "Exporting America" theme that Dobbs seems to be so passionate about. One of the guests was Walter Wriston, chairman emeritus of Citibank (which they acknowledged), but who is also in my recollection the author of "The Twilight of Sovereignty: How the Information Revolution Is Transforming Our World".

Wriston was giving Dobbs a run for his money, effectively skewering Dobbs' anti-offshoring populist arguments ("American jobs are being shipped offshore! This is bad!"), pointing out that the principle of comparative advantage is as true now as it was in the 19th century (see Ricardo). After the segment with Wriston, Dobbs had a roundtable of business journalists, including Steve Forbes, with whom he was particularly nasty. He really has a hard-on about "shipping jobs overseas". In a weird sort of way, he seems the lefty mirror-image of Bill O'Reilly, the nasty little populist of the religious right on Fox News. Both of them seem to be shilling for each of the major Boot On Your Neck political parties.

I know the offshoring issue is a hot button issue with Dobbs, because a week or so ago I saw him try to skewer Marc Andreesen on the same issue. Marc also acquitted himself well. Dobbs hates that.

My friend Dave sent me a pointer to an updated version of the "Have Geiger Counter, will travel" site maintained by Elena, the Ukrainian biker (see my original post of 2 days ago).

Apologies for Bob Tipton for not having gotten back to him in email, but I'd like to take the time to announce here that he's launched an interesting new blog, "Serenity: A diary of our family's experience in moving to the country." Included is a review of handgun training at Storm Mountain and other interesting material. Oh, and he does post photos; I'm a sucker for eyecandy, so I like that.

Stephen Turnbull writes... on the Free Software Business mailing list, "If you have a job because somebody else is prohibited from offering the product at a lower cost, you're not on salary, you're on welfare."

Further, I would say that if your job depends on subsidies or tariffs, you're not working for a living, you're begging for one.

Russell Nelson

The textures of life that so fascinate dynamists are full of such historical surprises. Consider a strange fact about doughnut shops in California: More than 80 percent are owned by Cambodian immigrants. Doughnuts are not a Cambodian food; indeed, Cambodians don't even like them that much. But when Ted Ngoy fled to southern California in the 1970s and got a job in a doughnut store, he realized the possibilities. Here was a niche that matched his skills (or lack thereof) and had potential to grow. The business required hard work but little start-up capital and little English. Ngoy soon owned several doughnut shops. He hired and trained many other refugees, who then started their own stores, hiring and training still more immigrants. Over time, the community developed special expertise and suppliers, making it much easier for a Cambodian immigrant to California to get started in the doughnut business than in other ventures. By 1995, Cambodians ran almost 2,500 of the doughnut stores in California. They also expanded the market, giving Los Angeles one doughnut shop for every 7,000 residents—ten times the concentration in Phoenix.

The doughnut story is surprising, but not a random accident. It represents a complex order of selection and feedback: A perceptive entrepreneur discovers an opportunity. His knowledge spreads through communal networks, which develop specialized product, labor, and capital sources. More and more Cambodians learn how to make doughnuts, and how to make them well. Competition among shops improves doughnut quality, and the mere presence of so many stores reminds potential buyers of their product, leading to more sales. This legacy, an example of what economists call "path dependence," does not keep non-Cambodians from owning doughnut stores or block Cambodian immigrants from other businesses. It was not predetermined, nor does it guarantee any particular future. But it makes some choices more likely than others.

Virginia Postrel
The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress, pp49-50

Terry Egan passes on the stunning news, written up by Ricky James, that the Firefly DVD series has been officially issued to the viewing libraries of all U.S. Navy ships.

Navy Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) recently signed a commercial sponsorship agreement with FireflyFans.net, a fan-based organization for the television series "Firefly," that will provide 250 DVD box sets of 13 "Firefly" episodes in support of the Navy's afloat library program.

I should have done this on the weekend... apologies for not having done so earlier: I'd like to warmly thank Bob Tipton, a reader of this blog and, I've found out, an investor in Project Ceres, the funders of L. Neil Smith's next science fiction novel, for having donated into the "Amazon Honor System" payment account for the upkeep of this blog. This was very generous of him, and I truly appreciate it.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when a baby gets hold of a hammer.

Will Rogers

To hate is sometimes necessary as is to love or to be indifferent.

No, I haven't turned into a psychobabbling Counsellor Troi, I'm simply stating that a psychologically healthy human constantly judges things according to his value system.

From choosing one ice-cream flavour over another to choosing one job or lover or mode of dress from an array of options - we are constantly making choices.

So far, my examples have been of choices where the person strives to choose the item of highest value, the thing that will aid their life the most. These things we say are 'better' or 'excellent' and our reactions are to 'like', to 'prefer' and to 'love' them.

Conversely, there are things that harm us as humans. Things like dictatorial governments, religions with tenets stating that infidels should be killed or laws in democratic governments that encroach on civil liberties. Any intelligent human being with a valid moral system will avoid these as much as possible, will choose not to live in a society with these kinds of negatives or will fight them if they see them springing up in their own society. These things are 'worse', 'harmful' and 'evil' - these are the things that we 'hate'.

So, I do hate Christianity - when it infiltrates government, when it is thrust at me, when I am forced in some way to use its false tenets to interact with reality. When it's simply a false belief system held by certain members of society, I really couldn't care less - although it's rather an enjoyable target for humor.

Monica White

Following on the success of the 1st San Francisco Bay Area / Silicon Valley MicroMiniShindig which was held in January of this year, the 2nd will be held in the same venue:

Day: Wednesday 31 March 2004
Time: From 8pm onward

Place:
Mountain View Tied House Cafe & Brewery
(in the big biergarten out back)
954 Villa Street, Mountain View, California 94041
Ph: (650) 965-2739

The first MicroMiniShindig attracted around 30 people, and was great fun; see pics and a short account in an earlier account on this blog here.

I've reserved a section of the same beergarden for 30 people, but if we have more this time (and I suspect we will), I'll need to plan accordingly. Leave comments on this blog entry with your RSVP if you're planning to attend.

As was the case last time, I have reserved the use of the TV in the beergarden (which I'm assured will function properly), and we'll be airing the 2nd and 3rd episodes of Firefly (we watched the pilot "Serenity" last time). This airing will start at 8:30pm, after some of us are at least a bit liquored up.

Alan Weiss, AKA "WINBEAR2" on the Prospero Firefly Forum, will be in town again, visiting from Austin, Texas.

Looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones!

Isn't it amazing that in this day and age, how many people answer questions from an investigator instead of refusing to make a nexus (noose) with a government agent?

Just as amazing, is the apparent numbers of people who do not realise they are in deep sh*t for making a false statement.

"I politely decline to converse" is the answer that works, especially if a Jury is involved later, tactically far better than "Piss off."

Then walk away, or close the door. Refuse to allow yourself to be drawn in further. Never revisit.

Julias No

Here's an update from Alcor re: yesterday's legislative alert:

MARCH 11, 11:40 AM MST UPDATE

Alcor sincerely thanks its members for doing a great job contacting the Representatives of Arizona in opposition to HB2637. Apparently, as a result of our collective deluge, we have overwhelmed the system. Our numbers maybe small, but we have clearly made a statement to the Representatives of Arizona. At this point, we ask you to discontinue making phone calls or sending email and faxes, unless you hear otherwise from Alcor.

Thank you for your support,

Alcor Foundation

Can't wait to see the outcome of the vote...

I got voicemail from Alcor alerting me to this a few minutes ago:

In spite of our conciliatory actions and assumption of good intentions on the part of Representative Stump, he has decided to move forward with a House vote on his bill TOMORROW (Thursday) without allowing the affected parties to complete negotiations. Apparently, it doesn’t matter to him that the primary parties impacted by this legislation agree that passing new law is unnecessary when an administrative solution can easily be achieved. Nor does it seem to matter to him that his bill is also strongly opposed by other organ donation groups, including the local Science Care, the Organ Donation Network, Life Legacy, and others. Furthermore, the University of Arizona, Midwestern University, and other academic organizations will be negatively impacted by this hasty legislation.

I first got wind of this about 3 weeks ago. I'll be writing a protest letter tonight, ASAP. I urge you to do the same.

What's the difference between the IRS and the KGB? The KGB doesn't expect you to provide the evidence against yourself.

Charles Curley

My friend Glenn Cripe today informed me that he and his Russian business partner Dmitri Kostygin have good news to share: "The next printing of Atlas and Fountainhead in Russian is due out next week!" In his mail he also send copies of the cover proofs for the 3 volumes of Atlas; here's a copy of the cover for volume 1:

Glenn notes:

We are also looking for sponsors. For $500, you get your name in all future editions of the books, a few free copies for your own use, a tax deduction, our undying gratitude, plus the chance to participate in changing the course of history! Inquiries should be sent to randinrussia@yahoo.com

It's worth noting that copies of Rand's works have found themselves into some interesting places in Russian society, such as the lending library of Vladimir Putin's chief economic adviser, a strong advocate of Rand's economic philosophy.

Precision, like justice, flows from the mind. The precise mind does not imagine a vast, shadowy collectivity like "the Jews" as the architect of its sorrows. The precise mind does not contemplate the destruction of hundreds or thousands of innocents in the attempt to make justice, however conceived. Those are the paths traveled by the savage mind, the mind consumed by formless fear and undirected hatred. The precise mind uses courts, and laws, and clear, specific, carefully negotiated agreements, and only when those have been exhausted, rifles.

Francis W. Porretto

Brian Micklethwait today on Samizdata comments on the myth of the "Wild West" that some of us have for years known as a myth:

One of the most potent anti-liberty memes has been that simple phrase, the "Wild West". Wild as in lawless, violent, murderous. And one of the most potent pro-liberty memes is therefore, if only because it negates the first meme, the fact that the Wild West was, in the words of a famous Journal of Libertarian Studies article by Terry Anderson, the Not So Wild Wild West.

This anti-"Wild West" meme deserves wider propagation.

I'm not making this up. I heard this on Fox News a couple of days ago, the day on which the affluent ski resort town of Killington, Vermont voted to leave Vermont and join New Hampshire, 25 miles east, under which it was originally chartered in 1761. They're doing this in protest of outrageous Vermont property taxes... $20 goes out, $1 returns.

The Fox News online article summarizing the event contains mention of a significant factor that was missing from the broadcast version: the active participation of members of the Free State Project at the historic vote! Read and see. Also check out the TV ads the FSP used to help incite the vote.

Good luck to them: they've got a hard fight to undertake in the Vermont legislature, which will not want to lose one of their primary cash cows.

Yes, we managed to conquer the whole of Mesopotamia with relative ease. But successfully occupying it and getting the populace to be our bitch when a sigificant percentage views us as unwelcome interlopers is a whole different ballgame.

We are not fighting a monolithic enemy in the form of another state's military. We are being drawn into a war of attrition against a myriad of Fourth Generation Forces (read: nonstate) with different motives and objectives and most likely operating wholly independent of one another.
These forces realize that they do not have either the mass or the firepower to openly engage us in anything resembling a pitched battle so they will utilize superior intelligence, concealment, and deception to deliver strikes from seemingly out of the unknown.

Yes, our casualties have been light. So far (of course, if we stick around long enough and the insurgents might just find an opening or get lucky and give us a replay of Beirut). But they need not inflict heavy casualties to win. They only have to CONTINUE inflicting casualties - and survive - in order to win.

We, on the other hand, cannot even dream of declaring victory with any kind of credibility until the entire nation of Iraq is pacified and all the Sunnis and Shiites and Arabs and Kurds and Turkmens are holding hands in the spirit of tolerance and diversity - enforced at the point of our bayonets - while being ruled over by the junta of our choosing.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

Mark Quon

J. Neil Schulman's two nonfiction books on Second Amendment matters cover the territory [a reader] describe(s) pretty well. For what it's worth, you're wrong, too, about the 18th century meaning of "regulated". Back then, it meant "adequately provided for" and even later, regulation meant "facilitation", not "interference" as it does today.

He makes an even more important point by consulting two well-thought-of grammarians. The phrase containing the words "regulated" and "militia" do not condition the rest of the article in any way. In fact, as you'll read, it actually works the other way. This may be the best argument ever, as people like Madison (who wrote the amendment) and Jefferson (for whom, essentially, it was written) were very careful with their words.

There were two types of militia back then: a government-sponsored "organized" militia into which men were often conscripted - the 15,000 troops that marched on Pittsburgh in 1794 were of this sort - and volunteer "unorganized" militia. Unfortunately, the general incompetence of the former has rubbed off historically to some extent on the latter, which actually had an excellent record. The best source on this is Jeffrey Rogers Hummell.

L. Neil Smith

Voting Libertarian does not waste your vote...

On the contrary, if your choice is between a scary Kerry and a big government liberty bashing Bush, then you waste your vote if you vote for either of them because with either you get the same outcome. On the other hand, if you vote libertarian, and the libertarian votes exceed the difference between the candidates (Florida anyone), then over time you influence the parties that do have a chance of winning, not to risk losing your vote again. Anyway, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it. I see only one difference between the candidates. Leftists typically prefer nominating judges who both agree with them politically and also hold the typically leftist view that social justice is dispensed from the bench. Rightists typically prefer nominating judges who both agree with them politically and also hold the view that the Judiciary should not make law, and should know its place. I prefer less-activist, textualist, old school judges who know something about judicial restraint.

Ethan Simon

Where, then, are the dissatisfied consumers? Where are the unhappy Alcor members? Where are the family members that wanted cryonics for a loved one, but were let down by it? There appear to be none. There are only people who don't understand cryonics, people who don't want cryonics, and people who don't like what they read in newspapers about cryonics. That is not sufficient justification for a majority to use government force to assume control of a technology desired by a minority with beliefs different from theirs.

Brian Wowk

I just now spoke to smith2004-discuss list buddy Rocky Frisco, who's laid up in hospital dealing with some issues consequent to an appendectomy. He sounds good (from what I can tell), and on the mend: no more surgical procedures, just careful postop inpatient monitoring... should be out by the end of the week.

He'll have a lot of list mail and personal mail to weed through! But considering the problems he could be having, these are happy problems.

Anyone ought to be able to sell any kind of gun they choose, anywhere they want. Anyone who chooses to, young, old, male, female, black, white, or green, or any shade between, ought to be able to walk into any store selling guns, pick one out, purchase it with the appropriate ammunition, load it, put in their pocket and walk out, no questions asked.

To the extent that idea frightens you, the anti-gun terrorists have won.

Reginald Firehammer

A whore should be judged by the same criteria as other professionals offering services for pay -- such as dentists, lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, etc. Is she professionally competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients?

It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And enormously higher than that of professors.

Robert A. Heinlein
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

...Valentine's is a stupid holiday - another sign of these emotionally incontinent times... like there is any attraction in 'let's all be romantic on cue, with pink and ribbons and roses'. Geez.

Adriana Cronin

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of a long lunch with Glenn Cripe and Dr. Chris Tame, at Harris Ranch in central California. Chris is an old and trusted friend from London, head of the U.K. Libertarian Alliance, who was in California on business. Glenn is a recently made friend of Chris, and now a new friend of mine. Glenn and Dmitry Kostygin were responsible for getting Ayn Rand's 4 novels (and one other book) translated, ironically, back into her native Russian, and published and distributed there.

Glenn has sent me a pointer to what he says is (and I agree) "an incredible event" in Russia: "A Liberal Agenda For the New Century: A Global Perspective". Note, if don't already know, that the word "Liberal" has a different meaning outside the U.S.: free markets and limited government. Speakers include Vladamir Putin and Andrei Illarionov, the latter of whom I have on good authority is a Randian free marketeer who's had some influence on Putin. Russia may still be a basket case, but it's in some ways an improving basketcase, as evidenced for example by the recent elimination of a progressive income tax in favor of a sweeping lower flat tax.

As an aside, I find it amusing to see that Dmitri's Ayn Rand website is supported by advertising from a Russian mail order bride service.

Anorakish mentions a review of Firefly by Micha Ghertner on Cattalarchy, "Whoa. Good Myth." (See my own review on this blog.)

Inflation is nothing more than an extension of tax rates through other means. Inflation then is a hidden tax. Deficits and taxes are really the twin pillars of the welfare state. It gives the appearance that government benefits are free, making government out to be a benevolent Santa Claus.

Jim Puplava

And that's one of the big reasons things keep getting worse, because we let the cops get away with enforcing obviously unconstitutional laws. Any time one of them arrests somebody for breaking an unconstitutional law, he should be tried under 18 USC 241 . The kidnapping clause would apply making the punishment life in prison or death.

Bill St. Clair

Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons. If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power.

Yoshimi Ishikawa, author of Strawberry Road

Any standing military force aside from the Navy is unconstitutional. The Constitution provides for funding of armies only two years at a time – even the typical four-year commitment for ROTC cadets and new enlistees is thus illegal, as presumably it could not be known four years in advance that there would still be a standing Army or Air Force. Many things the federal government does today are unconstitutional, but this is no reason not to continue to consider the Constitution an authoritative document.

Brad Edmonds

Morningstar's Explanation of Politics: Human progress is evolutionary. Evolution is a process of variation and selection. Right-wingers want to stop variation. Left-wingers want to stop selection. Both ends of the political spectrum are impediments to progress.

Chip Morningstar

After chemistry class yesterday, I had the pleasure of taking a friend and classmate pistol shooting for the first time in her life, at the excellent Reed's Indoor Range in Santa Clara, California. She did very, very well, and handled my Glock 23 (.40S&W/Liberty) competently. She confirmed my long-standing impression that women learn basic pistolcraft much more quickly then men, on average: they know that they don't know, so they absorb training with intensity and sincerity, no chips on their shoulders.

I always leave the range feeling very good about the world when I introduce a friend, especially a female friend (who's much more likely to need a pistol), to the art of the pistol. I urge you to do the same: take a woman to the range this weekend.

...it's not that Indian programmers are incapable of 'designing' software; its just that the Indian software industry has not yet reached that evolutionary stage. They will climb the value chain - if they have any sense - which is when the lower cost code-monkey work will move off to a cheaper destination; in fact, that process has already started. Ex-programmers in the UK/US in the meantime will climb further up the food chain, and concentrate on better-paid higher-level thinking work. At my job, we are currently outsourcing some stuff to contractors - in the UK and India - and I find I now have the bandwidth to work on that niggling design issue I have been thinking about for ages. My boss, in the meantime, is now designing the next generation network architecture, instead of working on an itty-bitty feature enhancement. Greater possibility for innovation is the whole point of globalisation.

...you could legislate to stop call-centre and code monkey jobs from going out - as some US states are doing. But in a capitalist economy, people will only pay what a job is worth. So the lower-value jobs are kept in, but wages are lowered and so are living standards. Worse, these workers are stuck in these labour-intensive jobs, so they have no time or incentive to upgrade their skills and move on to better-paying, higher-value jobs.

Suruj Datta, on the Samizdata.net thread "The fixed quantity of programming fallacy"

Grouchy jackasses have rights too, and I have some difficulties with the idea that running from the cops automatically means you deserve to get the crap beaten out of you... grouchy jackasses and religious wierdos are the warning system for a free society. They're the ones the machine goes for first, because they're easy prey. Because of who and what they are, comparatively few folks are gonna leap to their defence and complain about them being treated badly. But if nobody says anything, then the machine starts getting the idea that it can get away with more daring stuff. Far too often, it's correct about that.

Joe Crow

Melissa Skypod alerts us to the Assault Weapons Ban sunset reference website Awbansunset.com:

The goal of this organization is to nurture a grass roots movement of honest citizens who want to make certain that this Act does indeed sunset, as it should. The focus of our website is to educate gun owners and non-gun owners alike with information about the history and provisions of the Assault Weapons Ban, and gun control in general. We are not working to just end this ban, but also to prohibit any further Federal action in this regard.

If you think you can get away without them knowing who you are, then running from the cops is the right thing to do.

If you think the cops are likely to pound the crap out of you because they don't like who or what you are, then running from the cops is the right thing to do.

If you think there's a chance that the cops might shoot you, then running from the cops is the right thing to do.

If you don't like being treated like a slave, then running from the cops is the right thing to do.

On the other hand, if you're a narc or a stooge, then hey, stick around and say hey. Because, after all, the police are your friends.

Joe Crow

Yesterday I posted a note about Jeffrey Jordan's indictment for concealed weapons charges in Ohio. I placed a link to that note on Packing.org, which has generated some interesting response from High Power shooters who plan to boycott attendance at Camp Perry, Ohio in protest. An example from miller1952:

You should be aware that the felony indictment of Jeffery Jordan for the "crime" of traveling through Ashland County and failing to secure his legally owned handguns in his trunk is viewed with some level of alarm in the shooting co