Confessions of a Libertarian Polygamist; Who Won WWII?; Petaphilia; Voluntary Resistance; these articles have their titles and text in this color and are featured this week in -
 
Ender's Review of the Web
 

Web articles of likely interest to individualists found during the week of Mar. 21-27, 2004.

 
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Political Liberty
Articles showing a positive influence of political action on the cause of Liberty.
 
Cooperate -- Or Else!
        by Timothy Lynch from Cato Institute
"The Stumbos were still appalled by the overzealous reaction to that telephone complaint and they did not appreciate the government's bullying tactics -- so they retained a lawyer to defend their constitutional rights. They took their case all the way to the Supreme Court of North Carolina. ... It was an important legal victory, but one that received scant attention outside of North Carolina."
 
The NOT heard 'round the world
        by Aaron Russo from RationalReview.com
"The US government will buy what it needs for legitimate, Constitutional purposes, not what its invisible business partners think it should have. I'll veto any legislation that allows contracts to be awarded without competitive bidding, or that makes the taxpayer responsible for contractors' cost overruns. As chief executive, I'll void any contract that places your right to your money behind the bottom line of a government contractor. Your country belongs to you, not to the corporations. Your government should belong to you, too."
 
Taking Baby Steps Toward Freedom
        by Lady Liberty from The Price of Liberty
"Much of the political movement to restore liberty under the Constitution and Bill of Rights is very much in its infancy. But like my friends' little boy, there is great potential and hope for growth. On the occasion of his birth day, I wish for this sweet child love, happiness, and a swing of the pendulum once again toward liberty. Like all of our children, he deserves no less."
 
Life in Amerika
Articles depicting the negative impact of politics on Liberty.
 
Terror War's Legal Cost
        by Paul Craig Roberts from LewRockwell.com
"Coercion has replaced due process and legal rights. The public's fear of crime and terrorism is permitting police and prosecutors to escape their leashes. Their jobs are budget-driven and results-oriented. The more power they grab, the easier their jobs. The more high profile cases they prosecute, the greater the naļve public's confidence in 'law and order'."
 

Howard Stern's the Immoral One???

        by Marc Stevens from Strike The Root
"Which is 'immoral,' something meant to 'pander, titillate and shock' offered on a voluntary basis you can turn off, or something imposed violently meant to induce fear and terror you cannot turn off without the risk of being killed?"
 
The War on Doctors
        by Paul Krassner from New York Press
"Dr. L. had been convicted for what he sardonically describes in an essay on the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons' website as 'the heinous crime of prescribing Tylenol codeine for the treatment of migraine syndrome in a couple of ladies.' They turned out to be undercover operatives for the Medical Board of California."
 
Ordered Liberty without the State
Some people say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an interesting topic.
 
Confessions of a Libertarian Polygamist
        by Anonymous from Endervidualism
"We love each other, we respect each other, and we try, like all married people, to talk things through and keep small problems from snowballing into big ones. Mostly we make it work. Without any pieces of paper, our marriage probably works better than most of the marriages in this country - because we want it to work and we do what it takes to make it work."
 
Voluntary Resistance
        by Carl Watner from The Voluntaryist.com
"Voluntaryism is at once an end, a means, and an insight. It signifies the goal of an all voluntary society, one in which all interaction between individuals is based on voluntary exchange, and thus calls for the abolition of the State. Voluntaryism represents a way of achieving significant social change without resort to politics or violent revolution."
 
Is the 'United States' a Christian 'Nation'?
        by Marc Stevens from Strike The Root
"You're free to be in any profession you want? Nonsense; better go to those 'state' approved 'schools' first. Make sure you get permission to work by getting a so-called 'license.' Oh, your chosen profession isn't 'required' to have a 'license' just yet? Make sure you fill in your 'tax forms' before you start and don't forget to report every single penny. Forget ten little pennies and you are suddenly a felon and your home 'seized' to pay for your 'trial'."
 
Spreading Decentralism
Articles demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.
 
Decentralized, Non-State War
        by William S. Lind from LewRockwell.com
"So long as America continues on the strategic offensive, intervening all over the world, the list will grow. In each case, the root problem will be the same: the disintegration of the local state. And in each case, the attempt to recreate a state by sending in American armed forces will fail."
 
Safe, Effective and Illegal
        by Bob Wallace from Strike The Root
"Then it occurred to me ... before the State in its stupidity had made marijuana illegal, doctors prescribed it for all sorts of maladies. ... When it was banned, doctors opposed it. Hemp ... was used for too many disorders to be so cavalierly dismissed by the ignorant and incompetent in government. I remember doctors had prescribed it ... for pain."
 
How Do We Win The War On Terror?
        by Ron Beatty from The Libertarian Enterprise
"That solution is to count on the people of America to protect themselves! Don't just allow, but ENCOURAGE people to be armed, to get training, even offer training from counter-terror specialists. People would pay for this, or if the CT specialists were military, they get paid no matter what."
 
The New World Hegemon
Depictions of the coming Imperial power
 
Nowhere to Hide
        by Fred Reed from Fred On Everything
"Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather live in a world with less enforcement of laws and more freedom to choose. Years back, this worked. In a society in which reasonable responsibility was culturally mandated, people took laws as guidelines. There were far fewer laws in the first place."
 
At least we know what is not a hate crime
        by Henry Gallagher Fields from The Last Ditch
"In fact, the attack was ordered by Prime Minister Sharon, the wise and gentle statesman whom President Bush apotheosizes as a 'man of peace.' (You know, like Lincoln and Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt -- and, during World War II, our gallant ally 'Uncle Joe.')"
 
My heart aches for you
        by Mary Starrett from NewsWithViews.com
"Those words remind me of stories you hear of killers attending their victim's funerals, offering condolences to the bereaved, then silently slipping away; all the while the mourners had no idea the very cause of their grief had just been in their midst."
 
Politics by Other Means
War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.
 
"I Don't Remember"
        by Jacob G. Hornberger from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"...[I]f Bush and Rice stick with their 'I don't remember' story, the Justice Department should throw perjury charges at them, just as they threw charges of lying at Martha Stewart."
 
Voting For The Lesser of Two Police States
        by Anthony Gregory from LewRockwell.com
"Either way, America is going downhill. Just as many conservatives and libertarians supported Bush out of fear of Gore's socialism, no doubt many leftists and libertarians will vote for Kerry out of fear of Bush's warmongering. A few libertarians, aware of how terrible Kerry is, but for some reason not convinced of Bush's statism, might give their electoral approval to Bush and hope the country survives the next four years. It's impossible to know which of the two major candidates will bring about the lesser police state."
 
Bush/Kerry
        by Brian Doherty from Reason
"Now it will just be a question of who can most skillfully and intelligently bamboozle the right small number of people with the right interests in the right states. Predictions as to who will manage to pull this off best are absurdly premature. As of today, Bush and Kerry seem neck and neck."
 
Spontaneous Order
Articles showing decentralized successes.
 
Schoolhouse rocked
        by Michelle Bates Deakin from  Boston Globe
No longer just for the religious fundamentalists, home schooling has gone main stream, especially in Massachusetts. It's estimated that as many as 20,000 children here have abandoned test-crazy public schools and high-priced private schools for the comfort of the living room couch. But most surprising of all is that Harvard, BU, Brown, and other colleges are welcoming home-schoolers like all other students.
 
How far is too far in the search for organ donors?
        by Carol M. Ostrom from Seattle Times
"Others have proposed changing the current system, which assumes people don't want to donate unless they've indicated otherwise, to one in which everyone is presumed to be a donor. Perhaps most controversial is the notion of cash for organs."
 
Will Work for Less
        by Scott McPherson from The Future of Freedom Foundation
"As the supply of goods and services increases, the purchasing power of money relative to wealth grows. It's a case of more wealth chasing fewer dollars, or a rising demand for money."
 
Nonspontaneous Disorder
Articles showing centrally planned disasters.
 
How About a National 'Do Not Tax' List?
        by Doug Newman from Strike The Root
"Telemarketers are nuisances, but they can be dealt with very easily. All you have to do is hang up the phone. If you want to tell them to #*@% off, it is your prerogative and no one can punish you for doing so.  Governments are different. I write this with less than 30 days to go before April 15."
 
The Widening Safety Net
        by Christopher Mayer from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"Moral hazard is the term thrown about to denote the effect created when people are continually shielded from the consequences of their own errors. What happens is that this factors into their future decision making and they will tend to take greater risks in the future (and make more errors)."
 
New York Times Reporter A Government Informant
        by Robert R. Raymond from People for Truth in Taxation
"David Cay Johnston, a celebrated New York Times reporter, reveals in his recent book, Perfectly Legal, his history of acting as a government informant against political dissenters on behalf of his best government sources."
 
War Is The Health Of The State
War is the ultimate State intervention in society.
 
Counterterrorism (by Government) is Impossible
        by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"In other words, the only real way to prevent terrorism is to do less in the way of government policy and more in the way of private provision and trade, which would be far easier to do if the warfare state would stop fomenting trouble all around the world."
 
9/11: Blood on Bush's Hands?
        by Jonathan David Morris from Strike The Root
"We hear so much about foreign dictators. We know leaders cause problems to keep themselves employed. Why is it some questions about 9/11 are out-of-bounds? Americans ought to be asking all questions, even the seemingly silly ones. Assessing our own errors won't bring back the victims, but it won't trash their memory, either."
 
George Bush, Lying, & the Dogs of War
        by Harry Browne from HarryBrowne.org
"Top administration officials have already appeared on numerous national news shows. ... Providing their usual support for big government, TV and press reporters repeated and discussed statements Clarke made in 2001 and 2002 -- statements that seemed to back up the charge that Clarke was an opportunistic hypocrite."
 
Bits of History
The Past seen with a fresh look.
 
The Awful Truth about Republicans
        by Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., and Mark Thornton from Ludwig von Mises Institute
"How did the Republican Party gain the reputation as a free-market, limited-government party? Part of the reason is simply that the Democratic Party adopted even bigger government policies, particularly with the election of Franklin Roosevelt and the subsequent New Deal."
 
Native Coin
        by William Bryk from New York Press
"Handsome, well-struck silver coins from the Mexican and South American possessions of the Kings of Spain and of the Indies, they were denominated at eight reales in Spanish money, giving rise to the nickname 'pieces of eight.' Americans were so short of small coin that they adopted the South American custom of literally breaking Spanish dollars to make change by cutting them into halves, quarters or eighths. They called the tiny one-eighths bits, a term surviving in the jingle, 'Shave and a haircut, two bits'."
 
A Closing Argument
        by Kenneth Prazak from Strike The Root
"We have a great heritage in this regard. Our right to free speech, free assembly, and freedom of religion, and trial by jury dates back to 1670, in a case tried by jury in jolly ole England, the famous and historically pivotal case of William Penn--yes the same William Penn who eventually founded Pennsylvania."
 
War and Peace
Articles showing the nature of War.
 
Who Won World War II?
        by Ran HaCohen from Antiwar.com
"Luckily, Nazi Germany lost the War. But almost sixty years after its defeat in the battlefield, Hitler's concept of war -- part and parcel of his overall Weltanschauung -- celebrates a rising tide in the global ideological arena. Israel's assassination of Hamas' leader Sheik Ahmad Yassin is a milestone in this process of barbarisation of the human kind."
 
The War To End All Wars
        by Laurence M. Vance from LewRockwell.com
"The Crimean War is known for a number of 'firsts': deadly accurate rifles, significant use of the telegraph, tactical use of railways, life-saving medical innovations, trench combat, undersea mines, 'live' reporting to newspapers, and cigarettes."
 
A simple test
        by Bill Larsen from San Francisco Chronicle
"If 'the cause' isn't clearly serious enough to justify this ultimate sacrifice -- and is not absolutely the last alternative to our own destruction -- it fails this standard."
 
Great Individuals In History
Some people stand out from the crowd.
 
Writer - Louis L'Amour : Mar. 22, 1908
        by Beau L'Amour from  Louis L'Amour Enterprises Inc.
"But perhaps most importantly, during the years he was traveling around the country, young Louis met hundreds of men and women who, though unknown historically, were equally important as examples of what the people of the nineteenth century were like."
 
Comedian - Chico Marx : Mar. 22, 1887
        from Wikipedia
"Chico became manager of the Marx Brothers after their mother, Minnie, died. As manager he cut a deal to get the Marx Brothers a percentage of a film's gross receipts - the first of its kind in Hollywood. For a while in the 1930s and 1940s Chico led a big band; young Mel Torme began his professional career singing with the Chico Marx Orchestra."
 
Writer - Charlotte Bronte : Mar. 21, 1816
        by David Cody from The Victorian Web
"In 1826 Mr. Brontė brought home a box of wooden soldiers for Branwell to play with. Charlotte, Emily, Branwell, and Ann, playing with the soldiers, conceived of and began to write in great detail about an imaginary world which they called Angria."
 
Culcha'
Books, Movies, TV, Media, Music, poetry, etc.
 
Early Robert Heinlein novel foreshadows future
        by Mel Gussow from ContraCostaTimes.com
"Less a traditional commercial novel than philosophical fiction, it has value for its prophecies and for the light it sheds on Heinlein's other books. One reason he refused to publish the novel later in his career was that he used it as a source for ideas and events that appeared in his subsequent work...."
 
Python's 'Life of Brian' to be re-issued
        from CNN Entertainment
"Coming back soon to a theater near you -- a controversial film about a Jewish guy from Nazareth who is worshiped as the Messiah and crucified by the Romans. No, it's not Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ.' It's Monty Python's 'Life of Brian'."
 
9/11: 80 Minutes of Unilateral Disarmament
        by Morgan Reynolds from LewRockwell.com
"How could such a horrific crime against the homeland succeed? The answer has got to be: 'It takes a lot.' That's true whether you favor the 'grand incompetence' theory or the 'government complicity' theory. Whatever, it takes a lot of stuff working together."
 
The lighter side
Humor, satire, cartoons, parodies, food, popular music and other things to amuse.
 
Death, taxes, airline food
        by Dave Barry from The Miami Herald
"The new [IRS] commissioner is Mark W. Everson, whose name can be rearranged to spell 'Rev. Snakeworm.' According to his official biography, Commissioner Everson used to be a vice president at a major company in the field of -- I am not making this up -- airline catering."
 
Petaphilia
        by Richard Goldstein from The Village Voice
"No wonder many clerics feel compelled to speak out about the wages of gay marriage. Imagine what America would be like if their fears came to pass. Millions living in muttrimonial bliss. Consecrations performed by the Church of Labrador Saints. Why, the North American Man-Dog Love Association would be bigger than the AARP. Attention must be paid before 'The Lord Is My Shepherd' takes on a romantic ring."
 
Rampage Bolsters Defense Theory That Gun Acted Alone
        by Andy Borowitz from BorowitzReport
"A shotgun belonging to former NBA star Jayson Williams escaped from Mr. Williams's manslaughter trial in Somerville, N.J. today and went on what law-enforcement officials called 'a senseless three-state killing spree'."
 
Deep Thought
Scientific and scholarly studies, philosophical essays, in-depth and longer articles.
 
Good Cop, Bad Cop
        by Russell Madden from ATLAS
"'Who will decide when to obey a law and when to ignore it?' they cry. 'We'll have chaos.' The answer to their question is the same as it always is: individuals will decide. Only individuals exist. Only individuals can weigh the evidence and judge the nature of that evidence. Every person must decide for himself or herself what is proper and what is not."
 
Story of the Year
        by L. Neil Smith from The Libertarian Enterprise
"The story in question ... appeared in the May, 2003 issue of Discover and was called 'Anything into Oil'. It was about an industrial process called thermal depolymerization, which has recently been applied to convert every kind of garbage imaginable into petroleum and many other useful things."
 
Reading Between the Numbers
        by Wendy McElroy from ifeminists.net
"How can we trust research? The question is not trivial, since studies and statistics form the basis for many of the laws under which we live. If they are wrong, then the laws may be as well."
 
Miscellany
Articles not easily classified.
 
The Extortion of Principle and Sophie's Choice
        by Kenneth Prazak from Strike The Root
"Who is responsible for allowing Sophie to be put in such a position? Was it the Nazi guard in the concentration camp? Yes. ... Was it the German politicians who voted on policies that sanctioned wholesale murder? Yes. ... Nobody ever said it was easy to stand up for principle, and standing up for principle is what should differentiate a libertarian from the crowd."
 
Darkness at One?
        by Henry Sturman from Tech Central Station
"Soon people in many countries will set their clocks an hour forward (in most of Europe on Sunday, March 28; in most of the United States on Sunday, April 4). This collective delusion is called Daylight Saving Time (or Summer Time). Contrary to popular belief, nothing is gained by this agreement to lie about the time half of the year, while it does have various unpleasant effects."
 
Teaching Kids to Love Big Government
        by Ari Armstrong from The Colorado Freedom Report
"According to the mentality suggested by the superintendent, our two choices are collectivism or sociopathy. There is no room for the individual achiever, for the benevolent individualist who selectively cooperates with others while retaining a strong sense of a 'different' personality."
 
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